Music

Cancer Bats get dirty tonight on HARD

by Michael Joffe

Since 2004 Toronto Ontario’s Cancer Bats have gone from play small, dirty basement shows to rippin’ it in front of crowds of thousands. The growth of the band did not come easily though—with several very solid releases under their belt including the band’s latest album, the brutally raw Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, Cancer Bats attributes much of their success to their intense work ethic.

Coming from a punk rock background, singer Liam Cormier talks about how his upbringing in an underground scene shaped the band’s work ethic. “I think it’s the D.I.Y [ethics] coming from punk rock and hardcore and that being how we learned how to do things,” said Cormier a couple of hours before the Cancer Bats took the stage at this year’s Cool Tour. “Looking at an example like Black Flag being like ‘you can just make this work; you can do whatever you want as long as you work hard.’ They had so many obstacles like getting beaten up by cops and they didn’t have the internet [to take advantage of]. There’s no excuse not to work that hard.

“Because we’ve always done stuff ourselves we’re very much like at the end of the day if something doesn’t happen we’re not going to blame anyone else,” Liam continued. “If it doesn’t happen it is because we didn’t do it. You can’t just be like ‘our record label didn’t do this or our record label didn’t do that.’ If your band is only so big it is because you are not willing to work that hard.  Hard work is what got us here.”

You can see a full video interview with Liam Cormier of the Cancer Bats along with interviews with As I Lay Dying and Dancing with Paris tonight at 10pm on a new episode of HARD only on AUX.