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Today you could say I’m reasonably nervous. It would probably be an understatement. I’ve been looking forward to speaking to Cancer Bats for roughly two months, after some complications caused our original interview - which was set to be held when they were on tour with Rise Against in May - to be postponed, but I’ve gotten a little shaky beforehand.

However, when I realise that Liam Cormier, the front man of the band himself, is the one who is out front selling the band’s merchandise, I’m comforted more. Simply because, how many bands have their singers sell merch these days?

Tonight, Cancer Bats - an example of Canadian hardcore at it's freshest and best - are playing alongside new British punk heroes Gallows, as well as The Ghost Of A Thousand. There's such an air of camraderie on this tour, from all three of the bands and it has become a complete fusion of punk and hardcore that illustrates what talent both continents hold. As Liam Cormier later tells me "tonight is gonna go off", and it's unreal how much truth he speaks.

Still by the merchandise stand, we speak a little of old shows before the interview gets underway. Tonight happens to be the Newcastle show of the Gallows’ headlining tour, on which Cancer Bats are currently acting as support band, and it’s also the first time the Canadians have returned to Newcastle since their first ever UK show here, back in November on the Taste Of Chaos tour. Since then they have played alongside Rise Against and The Bronx as well as playing a slot at the ultimate Download Festival just a few days prior to this show.

I’m not even really sure where the casual talking stops and the interview begins, so we just begin with talk of any future touring plans the band have, after my own demand of ‘you have to headline a tour!’

Liam Cormier: We might be headlining a tour - well, not a tour, but a bunch of dates - in November, because we‘re coming back with Comeback Kid. They’re good friends of ours. Mike [Peters], our drummer, and Bailey, our bass player, were both in a band before with Andrew Nuefeld, who’s the singer of Comeback Kid. So those guys all grew up in Winnepeg together.

OS: Would you say that Canadian bands all tend to know each other, since most of your tours are like this?
Liam: Yeah, it’s because there’s not a ton of Canadian bands. So, everybody kinda ends up meeting each other, even on a bigger level. But I don’t know anyone in Nickelback.

OS: You’re not best friends with Avril Lavigne then?
Liam: No, but we know people that are in her band and that’s not a big deal. It wouldn’t even be a big deal with her. But like, with a band like Alexisonfire, who we’re friends with, then at a party they introduce to us to the guys in Billy Talent. You know what I mean? It’s all really close that way. Everybody’s just like bros… Well, I don’t know what Nickelback are like but for the most part everyone’s just really close. It’ll be like "Oh, you’re friends with Alexis? Cool" or the same way when we’re like "Yeah, we’re bros with these guys." Everything kinda goes like that.

OS: I’ve spoken to Alexis before about Canadian bands and they demanded we come see you guys, so the plan was to go to the Leeds Rise Against show, but something came up, so we couldn’t get there.
Liam: Really? That sucks. You know, I won’t rub it in and tell you that Leeds was probably the best show on that tour, but it was probably the best show on that tour.

OS: Was it at the Cockpit?
Liam: No. We played the Cockpit though on this tour which was cool, but it was at the Metro [politan University]? It was supposed to be at the Cockpit but then it got too full so it was moved to the Metro, which was fucking such a cool show.

OS: Okay, so, sixth months ago you played your first ever show in the UK on Taste of Chaos, in Newcastle.
Liam: Newcastleee.

OS: In that short space of time, you’ve gone on a lot of tours and played Download festival, so what’s it been like?
Liam: It’s pretty cool. It’s cool that we’ve gotten a really good response over here, but also as you said, so quickly. It’s really caught on a lot faster. In Canada, we had to work really hard and that’s where we started obviously. So, we were playing in front of maybe fifteen people, on tours like that and kinda built it up on our own. Then, the United States is really hard to break, so even though our record had come out beforehand and we’d toured there more, we’ve sold more records in the UK than in the United States. I think it’s that the UK is a little bit more open to outside acts. Even just the fact that we’re Canadian is a big part. Someone from the UK would be like "Oh cool, I’m into Canadian bands. I like Comeback Kid. I like Alexisonfire. I like Billy Talent." So, I find that there’s more interest from other countries, like Europe and the UK, where people are like "I like bands from this place" whereas the United States is much more like "I like bands from the US". You can look at other bands and see that they still have a hard time. Even huge bands like Lostprophets and Funeral For A Friend aren’t as big as they are. It’s the same with Alexisonfire.

OS: Whereas in Canada, Alexisonfire are even just in the normal charts?
Liam: Oh yeah. I wanna say that every band is like that. Billy Talent are huge over there and in Europe and I’m guessing pretty big in the UK. Then, we did a club tour with them in the US for a month and the biggest show was maybe 800 people.

OS: Aren’t you doing the Molson Ampitheatre [in Toronto] with them [July 13th]?
Liam: Yeah, we’re playing that with them. See, for us we’re excited about that show because it’s Billy Talent, Alexis, us, our friends Attack In Black, who are fucking amazing and some band called Die Mannequin that I don’t know. But, for those four bands it’s gonna be such a bonding bro-down [yes, he just said bro-down. He is that awesome]. When your friends are all in bands, you end up never seeing them because you’re always on tour. And you only stand a chance of crossing paths with people when you’re out, maybe here. Last time we saw all the Comeback Kid guys in one place, was in fucking Munich in Germany. When we were on the tour there and they were on tour, we had a day off and got to hang out. But other than that, you’re always all over the place. And then, people start dating people in different countries. I know that Mike and the singer of Comeback Kid are best friends, and Mike, our drummer's gonna be back in Winnepeg for four days, but it sucks because my best friend’s in Australia visiting his girlfriend. And when we’re done, I date a girl in London, so I’ll be in London hanging out. So, nobody’s ever in the same country.. Or continent! It’s funny.

OS: So, you just played Download Festival. How was that for you guys?
Liam: It was fucking awesome. Yeah, we had a really good time. It was kind of a bit of a blur at first, because we finished a tour in Canada, jumped on a plane the next afternoon., flew into London at like, 5am, so we had a big time change. Went and picked up the shit that we needed to tour and then drove to Download. And so we had that day off, technically. Then we had to play the next day. So, when we got to Download, I was just like "I don’t wanna fucking be here." It was cool because I got to see a lot of friends and people who I hadn’t seen in a while, but I didn’t wanna be standing up, let alone at some huge festival. Festivals are pretty busy, shitty, grimy. So, that day I didn’t see any bands. We missed Gallows, so I was like "fuck it, I don’t even care" and I watched part of Head Automatica’s set because my friend is doing sound for them on tour. So it was like, "guess I’ll go see this." And then, went to sleep and crashed in the van and the next day was like "alriiiight!" So, I had one shitty day and then the next day, that we played, was fucking awesome. We had a really good respone: a lot better than we thought. We had a lot of people in our tent and there was a big circle pit at one point, that Frank from the Gallows apparently started.

OS: I actually saw one of Gallows shows earlier this year and it was intense, to say the least, so I can only imagine what this tour's been like.
Liam: This show’s gonna go off. It’s definitely been really aggressive. I was like, moshing to them in Dublin and I elbowed some kid in the mouth and my whole arm has been sore, so bad. [He actually shows us some small teeth marks that have been left in his elbow] And I got socked in the eye, but if you’re at the front, you’ve got take it. But at the same time, I was like "fuck this! I’m twenty seven years old."

OS: You're also gonna be appearing at the Carling Weekends this year?
Liam: Yeah, we’re actually really excited about it. We’re on that Mike Davies Lock Up stage, but fuck yeah, it’s gonna rule. On our day Gallows are playing, Against Me!’s playing, fucking Turbonegro are playing. Umm, we’re playing after The Casualties, which is fucked. There’s tons of good bands that are playing so we’re really psyched.

OS: Will you be catching any bands in particular?
Liam: Yeah, I think we’re gonna set up our weekend so we can come and watch bands because The Bronx are playing the opposite day to us and we’re really good friends so we wanna hang out. And Interpol and Jimmy Eat World are playing, so we’re pretty psyched.

OS: It's an amazing line-up this year, so it's no wonder that it's already sold out.
Liam: It’s already sold out?!

OS: Yeah! It always sells really fast, but your day this year sold particularly quickly. It's a good day to be playing because it's definitely one of the more rock-orientated days.
Liam: That was the thing that was cool. Even our day of Download was more of a hardcore day, like Ghost Of A Thousand played and there was Cult Of Luna.

OS: Ahh yes, you're a big Cult Of Luna fan, aren't you?
Liam: I was so excited by them.

OS: Kerrang Magazine actually gave them five Ks for their performance.
Liam: Really? I dunno if I would’ve given them five Ks. Definitely really good, but they had some technical problems.

OS: I think you guys got given four, which is pretty good.
Liam: We got four? Four’s cool. But yeah, Cult Of Luna had a lot of technical problems. But, whatever. It was my first time seeing them so I was fucking stoked.

OS: So, did you expect to have gained all this success so quickly?
Liam: No not at all. We definitely just rolled with punches, in terms of what’s happening. We started the band without the intention of doing anything, other than maybe a demo and touring. We only started the band really, not even three years ago and we originally just started it for jokes. Not jokes, but it was a side project from Scott [Middleton]’s other band. Then his band stopped doing things, so I was like "okay, I’m having fun. This is what I wanna do." The band also kinda killed my relationship at the time so it was like "fuck this. I’ve got nothing." I didn’t have a job, didn’t have a girlfriend. I moved to Toronto to focus on the band and I was living in our bass player’s kitchen. It was fucking rock bottom, but I was gonna put everything I had into this band because it was the only thing I had. And then to have it actually pay off was cool. There was definitely a lot of grinding it out and being so broke for years. So, now that we’re actually doing moderately well, I don’t have to have a real job and I’m not eating garbage.

OS: And you’re travelling the world.
Liam: Yeah, the travelling the world part is awesome; it fucking rules, whereas we’ve definitely done a lot of tours where we’ve eaten shit and you’re not making any money. Which is fine, because you have to do that, or at least we had to. But it definitely helps to be able to have a bit of money in your pocket.

OS: Taste Of Chaos was your first appearance in the UK, but those shows were held in much bigger venues, such as arenas. So, what was it like playing in those for some of your first shows ever, when you were used to small club shows?
Liam: It kinda wasn’t too big of a deal. I remember when we played Brixton and everyone was freaking out saying "Oh, you guys are playing Brixton Academy" when really, we were just playing a quarter of the stage. I think none of us were too nervous and I think we only played for twenty minutes. But Taste Of Chaos was just like "hey, would you wanna do this?" so we did it for free.

OS: I actually met you that night and you were desperately trying to sell CDs, to get money to get the band to your next venue. Was there a story behind that?
Liam: We were pissed about that actually. We agreed to play those shows for free, which was totally cool and then we were like, "okay, we’ll sell some merch". And we get there and the girl who’s running the whole thing - who I’m actually friends with now - was like "yeah, you guys won’t be selling merch". And I was like "fuck you!" I had just gotten off a plane and I was so bummed and then she said we couldn’t sell merch. So, I was seriously swearing. I’m usually a really polite guy, in situations like that, but I was like "What the fuck do you mean? You’re fucking kidding me."

OS: The weather was awful that night too.
Liam: It rained every goddamn day of that fucking tour! It was cool though, because here some stuff, like gas prices, aren’t as bad, so we’d sell ten CDs a night and that would be enough to get us to the next show. But, yeah, that was brutal. But, then the rest of the tour was amazing. We did the rest of Europe with Alexisonfire and it was just fucking genius.

OS: One of your shows was actually broadcasted live, wasn't it?
Liam: Ah yeah, from Amsterdam? That was funny actually because I was swearing a lot while we played. And obviously, everyone’s family was watching the show. But Mike’s parents are very religious and yeah, not very impressed with me swearing so much. But, I thought that was really funny.

OS: Since Taste Of Chaos, you've been back to the UK a few times, with some really amazing support slots, for example, with Rise Against. How did those come about?
Liam: Well, for us, it’s just been really fortunate, in terms of being offered a tour and it would work out. A lot of the time, we’d be offered tours and we wouldn’t necessarily be able to take them because we have other things going on. But as far as the UK and Europe goes, it’s always been great. "Do you wanna do the Rise Against tour?" "Okay, cool!" "With The Bronx?" "Fuck yeah, that would rule!" Then, we got offered this [Gallows tour] and it was totally just good luck. We were supposed to do, after Download, we need to do a tour to be able to afford coming over. So, our booking agent looked around and there was maybe a Job For A Cowboy tour and maybe a Fall Of Troy tour, which were cool, but it’s not exactly what we wanna do. Then, I heard about this and we chased it down. We had met the guys before, but I think maybe there was some miscommunication between their management and our booking agent, but I was just like "yeah we’d love to play the Gallows tour. We’ll fucking do it for free." Then, they totally offered it to us and we were like "Yeeeahhhh!" Perfect match up. I wanna bring those guys to Canada if we can. They’re gonna blow up.

OS: You can really tell that Gallows are on the verge of huge success, so this tour will probably become such a rarity soon.
Liam: That’s why they did this tour right. They picked all the rooms pretty small, which was cool and they’re all sold out, at two hundred capacity so it’s a really rad way of doing it.

OS: So, how has this tour been for you guys?
Liam: What’s this tour been like? Good times. Rad dudes. Total bro-down.

And, just as we happen to be speaking of the main man himself, Frank Carter loiters past, grinning.
Frank Carter [of Gallows]: The raddest dudes!
Liam: The raddest dudes, says Frank….. of himself. No, fucking, we met them on that Taste Of Chaos tour. There was a day off and Saosin played at the Camden Barfly and all my friends that we were staying with said they were gonna go see Gallows that night, who I had never heard of. I like hardcore! So, all the rest of my band went to see Slayer, who I’m not a fan of. I was like "I’m gonna go to a fucking hardcore show. I don’t wanna go to a metal show." Then, saw them and thought it ruled. Then Frank was an ace dude and we got along with them really well. Every time we kept coming over, we’d always see and hang out with those guys. Then, the Ghost Of A Thousand guys are really sweet too.

OS: What have the crowd reactions been like?
Liam: Pretty good, it’s cool because there seems to be people who have the record, know the words. For the most part people are rocking out. I think we get that because we’re still fairly new and for a lot of people this is the first time they’ve seen us, so you have that element of people still standing around. Which isn’t bad - I get the impression that it’s a lot of people being like "oh, this is my first time seeing this band" and whereas you don’t go crazy to a band you don’t know. But, I have a feeling we may be winning people over, since this is our ideal crowd. We’re selling a lot of merch and stuff, which rules.

OS: Where did the ideas for the artwork of 'Birthing The Giant' come about??
Liam: Oh, the woman giving birth to the ship? It’s kinda like, a joke that we had. Just the idea of birthing a giant; the idea of pushing out a boat. It would be like, an incredibly serious thing to do. So, the whole idea of the record being called that was because we had a ton of set-backs during getting it out and a ton of shit that happened. I think it was about nine months from when we were supposed to put out the record to when it actually came out and so that was the whole joke.

OS: It's a really visually interesting piece. It's really original.
Liam: I love how it turned out. Like, the idea’s really grotesque, but I think the artwork’s really beautiful, so I think it’s a good idea. I dunno if that comes out right. Our friend Alex Snelgrove did the artwork for it and she’s fucking amazing.

OS: Have you got any other plans for the rest of the year, bar your tour with Comeback Kid?
Liam: Well, right after this tour, we actually take the first bit of time off we’ve had in the last six months, since Christmas, we’ll have our first break. It ruuuules. We’re all really excited about that. We had eight days off between a tour last February, but we had to spend the whole time in the studio recording a 7", which was a labour of love but still! We haven’t had an actual break break, so we’re really fucking excited for that. Then, this summer we’re just gonna do a new record. So, we’re writing a new album. We have nothing really planned for it; everyone’s kinda loosely done ideas and writing lyrics. Some people writing riffs. But that’s it!

OS: Didn't you just finish a tour with Bleeding Through?
Liam: Yeah, we just got off tour in Canada. It was rad! It was like, a really metal tour and then us, but it’s funny because we put it together. I dunno. I think we think we’re more metal than we are. But it was still tons of fun. It was on the West Coast of Canada, which we haven’t been to too often, so the shows were really fun. We need to tour more everywhere, so doing that tour, we realised we wished the shows were a little bit bigger. It was funny because Bleeding Through are such a huge band everywhere else, but they weren’t that big in Canada, so to them it was like a humbling experience. They were just like "So, we’re playing small shows again. We’re playing really punk shows. This is cool" whereas they’re touring with Slayer and Marilyn Manson. But, they were amazing people. It was really nice to hang out with them for the ten days that we did. And they’re really straightedge and I’m really straightedge so…

OS: Finally, if Cancer Bats were to pick a slogan, what would it be?
Liam: "Fuck Yeah?" I think that’d work!