Interview: Jaye from Cancer Bats
Photo: Ella Stormark
Orange: To those who don’t know you, can you introduce yourself?
Jaye: I’m Jaye and I play bass in Cancer Bats. We’re a bunch of punks based out of Canada who like to play metal, thrash and stoner riffs and we’ve been ripping since about 2004. Our latest album “Psychic Jailbreak” was released in 2022, and we’ve just started to work on some new music. It’s in the early stages of riffing, so nothing is imminent as of yet. 2024 for us is mostly touring, and we’ll hit Europe as well as Australia, with recent performances at London’s Desertfest both as Cancer Bats as well as our other project Bat Sabbath.
Orange: On that note, let’s talk about Black Sabbath and our mutual love for the masters of the riff. On the scale of turning it up from 1 to 11, how much do you love them, and how did Bat Sabbath come about?
Jaye: ALL HAIL SABBATH!! My scale for Sabbath is at the absolute MAXIMUM! They’re my #1 favourite band of all time! My mum is a big Black Sabbath fan and she got me into their records as a young kid, while my uncles introduced me to anything from the blues, to The Cure and Black Flag. It was however Black Sabbath that got me interested in playing, and my parents signed me up for guitar lessons when I was about 7 years old and the rest is, as they say, history. Bat Sabbath was started at the first ever Sonisphere Festival where we were playing as Cancer Bats. The festival asked us if we would be interested in doing a cover set at an after-party following Slipknot’s headline set, and ended up learning 6 songs for the night which went down really well. We then started to get requests to do it again, and ended up just diving in, which then led to the birth of Bat Sabbath.
Photo: Nicola Hayes
Orange: As someone who’s regularly on the road, what’s your thoughts on all the artists going digital for convenience, can digital amps beat the real amplifier experience, where you can both feel and hear the sound?
Jaye: Listen, I totally get the convenience of travelling with a digital rig. It can save a lot of hassle, money, space and so on – but for me, nothing can beat a tube amp or even a good solid state amp and cab! From the standpoint of being on stage with your amp cranked and raging behind you!?!? That’s the only way I really want it to be! I still remember the first time I got to do that, I was probably 15yrs old and had just bought a Marshall Jubilee 25/50 head and cab off of my cousin. I played a show just after I had bought it and got to BLAST it -that fucking RULED!
Orange: That brings us to our final question of the day – why Orange?
Jaye: I honestly can’t remember the first time I saw an Orange amp, but I feel like it was something old and beat up that was played by some stoner band I saw when I was young. A band like Bongzilla or something when they would have rolled through my hometown in London, Canada. I just know that when I started to notice them and hear how heavy and gnarly they sounded that I wanted to play one. My current setup is an AD200 Bass Head into an Orange 8×10 cab, paired with my trusty Fuzzrocious pedals. I like the AD200 because it’s so powerful, but easy to control. It’s a very straightforward, no bullshit amp. Just the basics…. the brutally heavy basics!
