Given the recent wave of '80s Thrash resurgence with several old school bands reforming and many new bands bringing that sound back, it's nice to see that Thrash isn't the only '80s genre being used by newer bands. Enter Toronto, Ontario's CAULDRON - utilizing the classic '80s sound with a healthy dose of NWOBHM, these young Canadians are trying to remind everyone that Thrash wasn't the only thing on the Metal radar during the decade that saw a B-movie actor become president of the U.S.A. and brought us the end of the Cold War.

Let's talk a little bit about the album, "Chained To The Nite" - it's got a heavy New Wave of British Heavy Metal influence, something you don't see a lot these days, so tell us a little bit about that.

Jason - "I don't know if it has... I think it has just as much American influence, like SAVAGE GRACE and LIZZY BORDEN and American bands, even DOKKEN and MEGADETH, but yeah, we listen to all that stuff - we listen to a lot of U.S. Metal and Canadian Metal, as well, of the old, as well as NWOBHM and some old German Metal, too."

Ian - "I would say that NWOBHM is not the main influence, that's maybe a quarter of the influence or something."

Jason - "Those are more his influences, but I write more of the songs."

Well, I just meant a heavy influence comparatively speaking to most of the stuff that's floating around out there now.

Jason - "Oh, okay. Then, yeah." (laughter)

You don't hear much of that influence these days at all, so it's kind of nice and refreshing. Okay, what would be your favorite tracks from the album and why?

Jason - "'Chained Up In Chains' is a great song. We both wrote it - I don't know how we managed to come up with, in my opinion, such a good song, but my favorite song, in terms of what I like, is probably 'Fermenting Enchantress'."

Ian - "I like 'Witch Trail'. It's sort of not the song you get into first on the album, it's something that sort of you absorb later. I think there's a lot of depth to that song and, I don't know, things you can pick out new every time you hear it."

Jason - "I played drums on that song."

Ian - "Yeah, it's just me and him playing that song."

Jason - "You're the first person we've told. (laughter)"

Nice! Okay, tell us a bit about the artwork.

Ian - "Well, we had this concept to have a girl being..."

Jason - "We had the title first."

Ian - "Well, yes, the title came before."

Jason - "The title came from just sort of summing up the lyrics and our lifestyle and stuff and once we had that title, we just... I don't know... envisioned... I just wanted to have a nice, innocent looking girl... this is before it was done, this was my idea - have an innocent looking girl look like she's in a scary place that she shouldn't be, like in a dirty alley at night and she's sort of scared, timid and when we gave that concept to the record company, they gave us a bunch of photos and we picked the one we liked the most."

Ian - "Originally, we did our own shoot for the album cover, before Earache was involved."

Jason - "It had no art direction."

Ian - "Yeah, it was pretty misdirected or something, but Earache saw it and didn't like it, so they got their own model and did it themselves and I think it turned out really well. I like it."

You ever have problems with idiot hipsters who think the band is ironic, coming out to shows?

Ian / Jason - "No."

Ian - "We have more problems..."

Jason - "...with metalheads thinking we're ironic..."

Ian - "...with the German nerds fucking accusing us of being trendy. Fuck you! I've been living through this for a long time - I don't need that shit."

Well, at least the hipster problem isn't as prevalent in other parts of the world as it is here.

Jason - "Don't buy records for a few years and then they'll go away, so whatever."

Let's talk about some of the publicity the band gets - I've noticed that just about every story about CAULDRON I see in the press is almost always like, 'we did something stupid', like the story about public drunkenness or

Jason getting kicked out of his apartment.

Jason - "A lot of that shit is over exaggerated by the time it gets to print or whatever."

Do you ever worry about that giving the band a negative image or anything like that, especially given the exaggerations?

Ian - "Yeah."

Jason - "I don't care. (laughter) Doesn't change what I'm going to do or anything. I'd rather be in the news than not in the news - if that's what they want to talk about, fine. I mean, we still sound like we sound. That's my opinion on it."

Ian - "If it gets their attention, maybe that's good, I don't know. Earache wants press, so we'll just tell 'em anything that happens to us and they'll just pick through it. Anything that might be of interest... people like the dirt, though. They like to hear about the debauchery and stuff."

What's next for CAULDRON?

Ian - "A lot of touring."

Jason - "After this ENFORCER tour, in the first week of October, we're touring England for a week with WOLF from Sweden and then after that, there's a proposed six week U.S. tour with MUNICIPAL WASTE, so hopefully that works out; that'll be cool."

Ian - "And then we have to break our new drummer into the new material early in the new year."

Tell us a bit about the new material - what can we expect from it?

Jason - "More of the same. Hopefully I can sing a bit better on the new record (laughs) - that's about it."

Ian - "I think there's a bit more variation. I don't know."

Jason - "It's more of the same. What do you mean, variation?"

Ian - "I don't know; I think there's some really catchy songs that, I mean, like it sounds pretty heavy if we play it, but I think HALL & OATES maybe could have played it."

Jason - "Could I hear 'Chained Up In Chains'?"

Ian - "Yeah, I think so."

What do you think the worst plague upon Metal was - the Hair Metal of the '80s...

Ian - "No."

The Nu Metal of the '90s or the Metalcore of today?

Jason - "Wigger Metal from the '90s. Heavy Metal wiggers. Wigger Metal sucks a dick."

Ian - "Yeah, that was the shit that was my worst enemy. We just played with a wigger Metal band just the other night - I found it really funny. (laughter)"

Jason - "I can't believe they're still trying to make it with that fucking sound! I mean, I know our sound's dated, too, but..."

At least it's classic.

Jason - "But that's just our opinion."

Ian - "Maybe it really is good music - maybe we just have no taste or something. I don't know." [FIN]