Jeremy Milks
But Kill Cheerleader have a sensitive side… we think
When Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue says you’re the best new band in the world, you’d better make sure your first LP lives up to the billing. With All Hail getting a wide release this year, Kill Cheerleader has delivered the goods and picked up a few more admirers along the way. One such fan is the legendary Lemmy from Motorhead, who says they are “the greatest rock and roll band since Guns N’ Roses.”
“Yah, [Lemmy] wanted to play some shows with us in Europe but we couldn’t afford to fly the band over there,” says the Cheerleader’s vocalist and bassist Ethan Deth. “I think he first heard us by just dropping in to a bar we were playing at the time. He gave us a call a few months ago when he was in Montreal and he wanted to hang out so we drove down and he got us all completely drunk.”
All Hail, produced by Blinker The Star’s Jordan Zadorozny, shows the Toronto band, formerly known as Cheerleader 666, deep in the clutches of their influences, which is evident from all the black leather and studded belts. Pre-punk rockers The Stooges, glam stalwarts Motley Crue, and straight-up scumbags Guns N’ Roses have their fingerprints all over Kill Cheerleader’s sound. But let’s not leave out the album’s two country-tinged ballads, “Go Away” and “No Lullabies.”
“We have our punk and metal songs but we also have a strong Neil Young influence, which we don’t wanna ignore,” says Deth. “But we always forget to bring an acoustic guitar for our shows, so they haven’t been played live.”
There seems
to be some mystery involved in the membership of the band, as the CD and various websites list different names and numbers, something Deth was not intent on solving during the interview, but he did reminisce on the band’s early days when they briefly relocated to Los Angeles.
“We just went out there on a whim. Someone offered us 11 shows and a place to sleep so we just got on a Greyhound bus and stayed about five weeks and it was the greatest time in our lives.”
All Hail gets a proper CD release show March 24 at Mavericks, but don’t hold your breath for any appearance of that acoustic guitar.
KILL CHEERLEADER
W/ THE CREEPS, 8 MINUTE VEIL, CROWN
FRIDAY MARCH 24, 8 P.M., $8
MAVERICKS