Canadian hardcore metal punks — the Cancer Bats — are returning to Bo’s Bar and Grill as part of their 10-year anniversary tour for the album Hail Destroyer on May 17th.
The band also released a surprise album, The Spark that Moves, while on tour.
“Our thinking was that since we are doing the record ourselves, we were like, ‘We can do a fun surprise release around all of these shows’,” Liam Joseph Cormier, front man, said. “We knew there were going to be a lot of Cancer Bats fans in one spot, so we thought we might as well bring out the new record while everyone is hanging out and partying. Our thinking was that this was almost too obvious.”
The band is currently touring in Europe before returning for the western-Canadian leg of their tour starting at Dickens Pub in Calgary on the 16th.
“Luckily all the shows sold out and even in London, we sold more than we thought and we ended up doing four nights when we originally thought we would only do two. It has been super awesome,” Cormier said.
Cormier is excited to bring Hail Destroyer and their new album to Canada, especially considering The Spark that Moves is heavily influenced by the band’s hometown of Winnipeg.
“Our drummer moving back to Winnipeg meant we were hanging out in the city a lot. We wrote a lot of the record there and we recorded the whole thing there and we really stoked to get some of Winnipeg up-and-comers as well as some punk rock icons,” he said.
The band shares a producer with Winnipeg punk-rock icon Propagandhi and the song Winterpeg features vocals from Propagandhi frontman Chris Hannah.
“That is where Chris Hannah came to mind when we were working on Winterpeg, which is our ode to Winnipeg. Luckily JP who recorded our record has also recorded the last two Propaghandi albums so that worked out perfectly.”
Cormier said he is stoked to return to Red Deer, where they have been touring since 2006.
“When we reached out to our friend who does our shows, he was like, ‘We gotta’ do Red Deer’,” Cormier said. “We were also joking that we should just do Red Deer and leave off Calgary and Edmonton.
“It would be like were on a world tour where we are going to London, we are going to Paris and we are going to Red Deer.”
The Cancer Bats are indeed playing both YYC and YEG, but said being able to play at Bo’s again is due to the friends they have made over the years at the venue.
“We have been playing in Red Deer since one of our very first tours back in 2006 and we are lucky to meet so many rad people there that we always want to make it a stop whenever we can.”
He added, “Now that the record is out, we will be hitting up some more spots and doing some more touring all over. Our plans are ramping up at this point. I’m stoked to hit up some real rowdy shows. We want to do a full Canadian tour.”
Tickets are $20-$25 and can be purchased through Ticketfly.