The Red Chord Win Over Gwar Fans On Tour

Boston metalcore engineers The Red Chord are rolling through Canada on a tour with alien-mutant rockers Gwar, and stop at Toronto's Opera House on Monday night.

After a highly successful time spent on this summer's Ozzfest, The Red Chord are taking part in this final massive tour before taking a break to write and record the follow-up to 2005's Clients. Vocalist Guy Kozowyk says the reaction on this tour from Gwar's mostly lunatic cult followers has been great.

"It's pretty amazing — I had no idea Gwar was as big as they are. It's kind of nuts. I mean, kids will come up to you and they're just blatant Gwar fans. That's why they're there, that's what they're into. They've got their shirt on from the last time Gwar was in town, all soaked in blood and stuff like that, or homemade 'Gwar Can Bang My Mom' shirts. It's really interesting."

Kozowyk says many tour dates have been sellouts (or close to it) thus far, and he expects Canadian nut-jobs to come out and represent.

"The fans in Canada seem to be a lot more appreciative, in general. I think that in the States, every tour comes to every city and people are getting saturated with shows right now. A lot of bands have a hard time crossing the border, and unfortunately some tours end up phasing [Canada] out because it's such a pain to get up there. So whenever we do make the trip, it's always worth it because the kids never disappoint you. It's always really crazy."

The lengthy tour (which includes a Nov. 9 show at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom) comes to an end on Dec. 17. After that, the band will work on their upcoming release, which will cross death metal with hardcore and grind, making it difficult for music journalists to pin down their style.

"I wouldn't say I'm sick of people labelling us," says Kozowyk. "But it's one of those things where we're attempting to do something original.

"If somebody absolutely has to put a category on it, I would say it's not really easy-listening, and it's certainly not for everybody. But to sum it up, I guess I could say that we're a metal band and kind of get away with it."