“In the old days we were playing all the time, and that’s what everyone did, but now it has become more related to people touring in support of releases,” he says. “We’re 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 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 payment back to them.”
John Scott co-founded The Mark of Cain with his brother, bassist Kim Scott. The original lineup featured vocalist Rod Archer and drummer Gavin Atkinson, but within a few years John had taken over vocal duties. Meanwhile, the band churned through a stack of drummers before John Stanier (Battles/ex-Helmet) joined in 1999.
“The problem was we were going through drummers because Kim and I were getting better at playing, and the drummers weren’t keeping up,” John Scott says. “When you’re getting better and better, you need the drummer to keep up. 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. 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 obvious, and it stems not just from his playing style, but also his ongoing efforts to balance his multi-band commitments. Given the success of US-based experimental rock band Battles, The Mark of Cain have to be flexible with their touring and recording schedule. However, Stanier wasn’t able to tour with the band in 2014, and rehearsal drummer Eli Green stepped up to plate.
“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,” John Scott says. “And John’s been really supportive of Eli. Eli had really big shoes to fill, and we work Eli really hard.”
Hard work is at the core of The Mark of Cain ethos. Both John and Kim Scott are engineers by trade, but juggling nine-to-five jobs with their lives as musicians has never been too much to handle.
“We’ve always played and worked, and that’s just how it is. 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.”
For an unrelenting hard rock musician, Scott sounds exceedingly adult. However, it’s not something he’s bashful about. In fact, this maturity will see the band donate all proceeds from their upcoming doubleheader at Adelaide’s Enigma Bar to the Cancer Council.
“We’ve always got our hand in things like that, mainly things that are of interest to us I suppose. We are 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 asked about the future of The Mark of Cain, Scott’s response is likely to keep the band’s 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.”
BY TEGAN REEVES
