Diseased bats make good music

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Liam Cormier and bandmates have a love-love relationship with Canada. /image: Jess Baumung

Liam Cormier and bandmates have a love-love relationship with Canada. /image: Jess Baumung

Cancer Bats pays a visit to Regina

Article: Laura Billett – Contributor

Cancer Bats, Bat Sabbath, what is up with the bat names?

“I came up with [Cancer Bats] even before we started the band, just putting diseases and animals together while I was killing time at work”, says lead vocalist Liam Cormier.

The Cancer Bats, from Toronto, Ontario, are in the middle of their ‘Double Header Bat Madness Tour’ that started in the States and is now moving across Canada. Hard-rock band, the Dusty Tuckers, opens the show for them and their alter ego Bat Sabbath closes it with an hour of Black Sabbath covers.

Described as hardcore punk, Cormier explains that they have “drawn on more influences from metal and thrash and stoner… But I think it still goes back to us being a hard-core band at the end of the day, especially the way that we run things and operate our band”.

The Cancer Bats are out there to have fun and put on a good show, but they don’t take their job too lightly. Cormier explains how they admire “bands who kind of stick to what they have always done, and done it well. You know, bands like Hatebreed and Converge, and different genres like Clutch and The Sword. Bands like that, that have been touring hard and putting out records for years, but have never changed or tried to be anything that they aren’t. We usually use those as a good example on how to run our own business.”

[pullquote]“In Canada, it seems like it’s a lot friendlier … everyone just wants to help each other out and nobody’s too worried.”[/pullquote]

Coming from shows in B.C. and Alberta, the Cancer Bats are making their way back home to Ontario.

“I definitely love that the Canadian scene is so supportive,” says Cormier. “Not only fans when we tour, but also within bands. You know we wouldn’t have been where we were if we weren’t so close with Alexisonfire and Billy Talent and Comeback Kid and bands like that from the Canadian scene that helped us out a lot. There is still that vibe of trying to help each other out, [whereas] in a lot of places … it’s very competitive and they’re all trying to be the only band. In Canada, it seems like it’s a lot friendlier … everyone just wants to help each other out and nobody’s too worried.”

The Cancer Bats played in Regina on Oct. 8, and rocked The Exchange. The floor was full of fans moshing, stage jumping, and singing along to songs like “Sabotage”, a cover of the Beastie Boys original.

Cormier says that shows like this are the main reasons for the tour.

“Playing these shows will get us excited to write a new record. Especially playing amazing places that we know are going to be an awesome party. That is why we booked this tour, to make it be this awesome farewell party for the whole record, and then to go into the studio in a positive space. It boils down really to the people who come out to the shows … [It’s] the active people that we like, that we write records for.”

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