“No frills, no bullshit.” These are the words with which The Mark Of Cain singer and guitarist John Scott finishes our conversation.
He’s referring to the band’s upcoming Australian tour, which comes off the back of no new releases, but simply their love of playing for their loyal fans – proving The Mark Of Cain are one of Australia’s most unassuming, realistic bands.
“In the old days we were playing all the time, and that’s what everyone did, but now it has kind of become more related to people touring in support of releases,” Scott begins. “We’re back from the day when you just toured because you toured, not really in support of anything. We just wanted to get out there and do it, and we don’t play all the time so I think that’s a good thing for us – to just get out there and let people know we’re around. The fans are very good, and they’ve always been a very loyal crowd, so this is our kind of payment back to them.”
Formed in 1980s Adelaide by Scott and his brother Kim, The Mark Of Cain churned through a number of drummers in the early days, before being joined by former Helmet and now Battles drummer John Stanier.
“The problem was we were going through drummers because Kim and I were getting better at playing and the drummers weren’t keeping up – when you’re getting better and better, you need the drummer to keep up,” says Scott. “Some of it was personal, but mainly we were just trying to find drummers that could play really hard and understand complexity and rhythm, so if anything, we were defining the requirements for the drummer, and the drummers had to meet that, and not all of the drummers could meet that.
“It’s a hard job, but when Stanier rocked into the roll in 2000, that was a breath of fresh air because he was this uber talented drummer, defined with a rich style from his Helmet days, and when he put his hand up and said he’d help us out whenever he could, that was just so much easier, because he’s such a great player.”
Scott’s respect for Stanier is evident in the way he speaks about not only his playing style, but also Stanier’s efforts to ensure he could play simultaneously in The Mark Of Cain and his experimental US rock group Battles. This has meant the Australians have had to work their own touring and recording schedule around Stanier, but occasionally other arrangements must be made. When it became apparent that Stanier wouldn’t be able to tour with the band in 2014, rehearsal drummer Eli Green stepped up.
“We started rehearsing with Eli, and we thought, ‘OK, this guy can do it.’ And he’s proven it, so that worry about John not being able to play with us became less and less troublesome,” says Scott. “And John’s been really supportive of Eli. Eli had really big shoes to fill, and we work Eli really hard.”
Hard work seems to be at the core of The Mark Of Cain ethos – both the Scott brothers are engineers by trade, but to them, juggling the nine-to-five and lives as musicians was never hard; it was simply just something that you did.
“We’ve always played and worked, and that’s just how it is,” John says. “We practise three times a week and work in weekend shows around work. We’ve always made it work, and there’s never been a time where we had to choose between work and music. It is possible to achieve that balance, because when you think about it, how many people actually manage to make a living out of music? That’s why you may as well have something to fall back on, as my own parents used to say, otherwise it means that you’ll end up unemployable.”
Scott goes on to lament how adult all of that sounds – but it’s true, and this maturity is part of the reason why the band has announced a number of shows in Adelaide in support of the Cancer Council.
“We’ve always got our hand in things like that; mainly things that are of interest to us, I suppose. I think that we are possibly at the stage where we feel like we can do that. It’s one thing to be a struggling band, and God knows we’re still a struggling band from that point of view, but we don’t rely on the band’s income to live or anything like that, so this is a nice way to be a bit altruistic about things.”
When it comes to the future of The Mark Of Cain, Scott offers an honest response that will keep their loyal fans happy.
“We always went for it, no matter what – if people didn’t like us, it didn’t matter to us. We’ve got to this point knowing we weren’t the favourites. But we’ll just keep doing what we do, and I guess we’ll see when we stop, but if the machine’s still there and the power’s still there, we’ll keep going. These are going to be solid, hard, brutal shows, a lot of old stuff. No frills, No bullshit.”
The Mark Of Cain, supported by Thorax and Making, play Manning Bar on Friday December 4.
