melodylane

MELODY LANE: Hi guys!Can you tell us where the name CADAVER CLUB comes from? Who's the founder of the band?
MR. CROWE: We tend to think in visual terms so while we were coming up with possible names for the band we had the idea in our minds that we wanted something that would look great on a badge and would make us and hopefully fans (when we earned them) feel like we were all part of a gang, a sort of monsters club for children of the night such as ourselves. Once we got the word Club in our heads we were sold. We just had to find another word that tripped off the tongue along with it. Cadaver Club was the winner. It had a nice mix of humour, B-movie style and set the scene perfectly for our deliciously diabolical soundtrack. I am an artist during the daylight hours and I was painting a portrait of Jerry Only from the Misfits and as I brushed away I started coming up with some lyrics about a guy who was “improving” his wife by rebuilding her using all the best body parts from her friends. That song became “I’m Making a Monster, Baby”. So there I was, sitting with a horror punk song and no band to play it. My own band at the time, Setting Off Sirens were noisy, distorted punk and the song just wouldn’t fit into that band, it was too melodic and horrifically comedic. I knew what I had to do. I immediately sent my crows out with messages (or to put it another way, I got on the phone) to my three friends who were always destined to play together and that very evening, as the moon rose in the sky, Cadaver Club was born.

MELODY LANE: Which (bands) are/have been your main musical inspirations?
MR. CROWE: Let’s get the obvious Misfits reference out of the way first. All horror punk bands are destined to be compared to the Misfits and that’s ok, they DID start the whole thing and I do love them but to be honest we don’t actually sound anything like them. They’re an inspiration insofar as they spearheaded the genre and how they wove classic horror imagery into their songs but I think our musical influences stretch farther than that and go back to early Alice Cooper, Ramones, 50’s rock n’roll bands, and the darker, storytelling styles of Nick Cave and Tom Waits. We decided we would write songs with only one constraint - it had to be horror related - the musical style could be whatever we felt like at the time. That freedom has allowed us to write punk songs, rock n’roll, sea shanties, doo wop, acoustic, murder ballads and whatever else we fancy. That’s why we decided to coin our own term for our music to encompass all our styles rather than be filed under “Horror Punk” all the time although people still call us that and that’s ok, it’s a familiar term but we call our music “Funeral Punk”. That allows us to be what we want to be at all times.

DRAGGLE: We've a broad range of influences between us, but it's our mutual taste in rock n' roll that makes up the sound of the band. We call our music Funeral Punk, but really it's as much influenced by Tom Waits and The Pogues as it is by the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.   

MELODY LANE: The line up of the band is the same from the beginning of the band or have you had changes. The members in tour will be the same that played in the studio?
MR. CROWE: The line up of the band has stayed the same since we started. Boom Chic Chic, Dirge, Draggle and myself started this and we’ll be there to read the obituary. I think there’s a very delicate chemistry within a four-piece band and if any one member changes, so does the entire sound and feel of the band. We’ve known each other most of our lives and ALL of our afterlives and we’ve all played music for an eternity so we didn’t come into this cold (pardon the pun), we know how to work together and we know how to be friends. Being in Cadaver Club is one of the most fun things I can think of and that is because of who we are and the history our interwoven lives have written together. That applies to all aspects of life in CC - writing, recording, touring, hanging out in graveyards…
DRAGGLE: One of the main reasons we formed Cadaver Club was that we wanted to be in a band together. We all play our parts in the studio and on the stage and always have. It wouldn't be the same without any one of us and if for some reason one of us couldn't do it anymore I think that would be the nail in the coffin for the Club.  

MELODY LANE:  What has been your biggest achievement to date and what do you want to achieve in the near future?
DRAGGLE: We've had some great experiences playing live, but I think our two albums are our biggest achievements so far. We've made records that we're really proud of and the fact that they were both funded by followers of the band is even better. The future? It's a long time when you're dead... Best not to think about it. 

MELODY LANE: List 3 songs,  from the CADAVER CLUB discography that can define the sound of the band … 3 songs that can help our readers to know  CADAVER CLUB at the best…
MR. CROWE: Oh, this is really difficult. Let me see… Vampires Ain’t What They Used To Be probably epitomises the punky horror sound of the band more perfectly than any other. It’s got good humorous lyrics and has a great melody and that guitar solo! To show another side to the band I’ll choose Sally’s Curse. This is a sea shanty about  how your sins will follow you to the ends of the earth and haunt you until you face them or die. Again, there are great humorous lyrics and a real story to this one. It’s a firm live favourite, I don’t think we’d get out alive (or whatever it is we are) if we didn’t play Sally’s Curse. There is an element of 50’s nostalgia running through our sound and Follow Me To Hell captures that best of all. It’s a song from the Devil’s point of view and how he can be really hard done by when people don’t hold up their side of the bargain. It’s full of tongue in cheek backing singing which really lift it to a whole other level. Another level of Hell, you could say.

MELODY LANE: Tell us something about the creative process of  CADAVER CLUB music. Is there a main composer or we can talk about a team work? The songs come from ideas of a single member and then the band works on these ideas in the studio jamming togheter, or your songs are written in the studio and all the members compose togheter?
MR. CROWE: All our songs come from an individual member, it could be any of us. Whoever comes up with the initial idea will usually bring it to a stage of near completion before bringing it in to the band to be worked on. Then the four of us work together to knock it into shape and take it to another level. It’s only when all four of us stamp our own personalities into a song that it really comes to life (in a Frankenstein’s Monster sort of way).

MELODY LANE:  What's the difference between your album "A fate worse than life" and the new album "It's always the quiet ones"? After time, are you totally satisfied with your choices about sound and the writing of your debut album?
DRAGGLE: Despite the approach being much the same, I think both albums really stand up on their own. We still love our first record and if anything, the new one is just the next chapter with a sharper edge and more twists in the tale.
MR. CROWE: We like to throw a few curveballs on each album, songs that stray away from that central punk core. On  A Fate Worse Than Life we had Lunatic in Love and Sally’s Curse and on It’s Always The Quiet Ones that was down to Follow Me To Hell and See You on the 31st. I think as long as we keep pushing ourselves like this we’ll expand what Funeral Punk can mean and all our albums will have their own personalities

MELODY LANE: Will you tour in Europe? When can we expect to see  CADAVER CLUB on tour here in Italy?
DRAGGLE: We'd love to. No idea when but who knows what could be on the cards?

MELODY LANE: Could you tell us two bands you’d like CADAVER CLUB to tour with in the next future…? And why these bands?
MR. CROWE: I think it would be a dream come true for all of us to play with Alice Cooper and for me, some gigs with the Misfits would let me die happy…again! We understand we have to work our way up to that level but they would be the dream gigs I think, until then, we’re happy to play with anyone who ROCKS, anyone who turns it up to 11 and bleeds their hearts out onstage. That’s the kind of band we like to play with.

MELODY LANE:  In the end…A message from you to all MELODY LANE readers.
MR. CROWE: Thank you all for reading this and taking an interest in Cadaver Club. We hope you will join us down our dark and crooked paths as we peddle our finger snapping, toe tapping, jaw dropping, heart stopping, thunder making, earth quaking, apple bobbing, grave robbing, coffin slamming, eternally damning cemetery sounds.

 

See you in the Clubhouse!