LIFE LESSONS
LIAM CORMIER
The Cancer Bats frontman on Beastie Boys, sleeping on rocks and screaming Miley Cyrus songs
WORDS: STEPHEN HILL
FOR AROUND A decade and a half, Liam Cormier has been one of metal’s most reliable party-starters. The Cancer Bats frontman exudes righteous energy, boundless enthusiasm and an infectious lust for life. Whether it’s onstage barking out raucous hardcore anthems or excitedly fidgeting around on his sofa talking to us via Zoom about his love of nature, Beastie Boys or his karaoke skills, Liam is a muchneeded dose of positivity in a scene that often takes itself way too seriously. Here’s what he’s learnt from it all so far.
AC/DC WERE MY FIRST LOVE
“I remember buying an AC/DC live double cassette as one of my first ever albums. It was the sickest – it had this fold-out of the band playing onstage in front of, like, a million people. When I was really, really young, I thought they were the sickest band. My dad was into Rolling Stones and Allman Brothers, and that was the music that we listened to together, but I liked AC/DC! I’d go to hockey practice, at like six or seven in the morning and I’d get myself going shouting ‘TNT!’, which, looking back, was kinda intense!”
BEASTIE BOYS TAUGHT ME TO BE MUSICALLY OPEN-MINDED
“Beastie Boys have always been my guiding light in my life. Being really young in the 90s, you weren’t meant to listen to all these styles of music – you had to figure out whether you were into grunge or rap or whatever. Then here is this band who were into everything. They were into jazz, they were into punk, it was hip hop, they skated. I felt like those guys were the gateway into being more confident, like, ‘Oh, I can be into everything and it’s totally cool.’ Because they were the coolest guys on the planet. Beastie Boys were like a shield; if they liked it then I could do what I want.”