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Music

Cauldron

CAULDRON with BLIZARO, PYRES and MANACLE at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Saturday (April 12), 9 pm. $10 at the door. 416-532-1598.


Touring can be a risky business for musicians, but in the case of Cauldron, it can also be life-threatening. During the Toronto band’s recent venture to Europe, the traditional metal three-piece and American tourmates Volture got into an altercation with some drunken tourists in Barcelona. Then the next night they were chased by an armed street gang in Marseille.

“It was totally like that movie The Warriors,” says singer/bassist Jason Decay, freshly returned to Toronto, about the Marseille incident. “We were outnumbered, so we had to split up and run. Me and Ian [Chains, Cauldron’s guitarist] ran for five blocks and hid in some shrubbery for an hour and a half. We happened to have a bottle of wine on us, so we drank that, worked up some liquid courage and eventually found our way back.”

But there were highs to balance out the lows, including having Venom’s Mantas join them on guitar and backup vocals in Newcastle during their cover of Venom’s Die Hard. The timing couldn’t have been better: Cauldron, rounded out by drummer Myles Deck, have been working out a Venom-inspired stage show that will bring to a close the promotion cycle for their 2012 full-length album, Tomorrow’s Lost (Earache).

Back in the day, thrashy English metal legends Venom pulled out all the stops for their concerts: risers, fog machines, pyro, lighting rigs, hair-whipping. Cauldron won’t get away with pyro at Lee’s Palace, but they’ll have all the rest. “There won’t be a lot of theatrics,” Decay says. “Probably none. Just a stage show that looks totally fucking cool.”

They’ll film it for a potential VHS-only concert video, and also have on hand their brand new 7-inch, which features covers of Gowan’s Moonlight Desires, Bathory’s Sacrifice and Kratos’s Iron Beast. The Gowan cover is pretty left-field (“It’s a really good song, underrated outside of Canada, that lends itself to heavy metal,” Decay explains) since the band usually wears its NWOBHM influences loudly and proudly.

Does getting tagged “retro” or “throwback” ever bother them?

“I don’t really care about inventing shit,” says Decay. “I mean, most bands that are current are ripping off something another band did a month ago. I wouldn’t even say we’re ripping off what happened 30 years ago, but we’re definitely taking that influence and then putting it through our own filters to try to come up with something unique.”

carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis

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