The Mark Of Cain return to active service this November / December with their 2015 ‘Tour Of Duty’. The tour follows the bands return to live performance in 2013 following a seven year sabbatical from touring and an eleven year hiatus from recording via the release of the fifth album (and their fifth classic) Songs Of The Third And Fifth.
Throwback Thursday this week sends us back to 2002 when Mary Boukouvalas interviewed one of the Scott brothers.
Mary Boukouvalas captures a sliver of the real John Scott.
The Mark of Cain are perfectionists. It might have taken them over 5 years to bring out another studio release, but there was good reason. Guitarist and vocalist John Scott feels that there really is no timeline and their music is an on-going musical experiment. “That’s where a lot of groups are pushed into getting out an album which has got about two good songs, and the rest fillers. Bmg have been real good. The band is important”. TMOC aren’t into expendable, throwaway music. To TMOC, music is too important.
As a result, TMOC’s latest offering, This is This is faultlessly precise. Scott says he has always had strong ideas on how he wanted the cd to sound, and this was achieved by working with Phil McKellar (The Cruel Sea, Regurgitator) and ex-Gang Of Four member, Andy Gill (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, BIS, Jesus Lizard). While McKellar was responsible for the technical, engineering side of things, the tracks recorded with Gill were extremely important to production as he pushed Scott to try new things. Scott says that “vocally, this is the best I’ve done”, as he adopted different personas to establish a mood and give depth to the emotions within the songs.
These emotions, however, are sometimes perceived as too chilling and sadistic for public listening and viewing. [R] Retaliate, for example, is inspired by, but not solely about, serial killer Howard Unrah and deals with the psychology of the loner, particularly the alienated war veteran, a common theme in many of The Mark Of Cain’s songs. Scott was actually not surprised when [R] Retaliate was banned by television stations in Australia, but he states that, within the video clip, there was “nothing more intense than X-Files or Seven; there was implied violence throughout, but ending with enough is enough”.
A nice note to end on, especially since Scott believes that music needs to be “more than entertainment”; it needs to be about the important questions of life; the ability to see that life is transient and everything leads to the final moment of truth. Scott writes about things that concern him in life. But, as existence is so fleeting, there are many reasons why TMOC’s lyrics and themes seem to delve into violence and the psychology of those who commit crimes. Scott states that “it’s about feeling like an outsider”. Through his love of books by Dostoevsky and Henry Miller, and also Colin Wilson’s Beyond The Outsider, Scott empathises with the struggling loner and relates this, with both aggression and sensitivity, through his music. Furthermore, he is partial to the “fantasy elements of violence -the times when we think of what we should have done” when there is a “loss of power and control”. As in Knockin’ about a stalker, it is expressing “this is what I should have done”. Maybe if we acknowledge things that are wrong around us, we can start of thinking of ways to fix them. Scott sees things from “a hardcore perspective, accepting life more as he gets older”. He sees violence as an interesting part of life, especially its extremity.
This view brought them their band name. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed a mark on the world’s first murderer before sending him into exile. The ‘Mark of Cain’ proclaimed its bearer as a criminal and social outcast. For centuries, prisoners and those who broke social codes were forcibly tattooed. However, Scott feels that “you can actually tell someone who has committed a crime just by looking into their eyes”, they don’t need to be “physically marked or tattooed” as in the biblical sense. He admits, “Some may say it’s morbid, but it is only a sliver of what I am about”.
John Scott is right. There is so much more to the man and the band. Though TMOC would love to be full-time musicians, during their band career, both John and Kim Scott have held full-time jobs, working as engineers. In fact, engineering is what awakened him to ex-helmet drummer John Stanier.
Back in 1990, when Scott was overseas doing some engineering work, he went into a music store in Tel Aviv and gave the guy some of their music and when we went back the next week, the guy played him Helmet’s Strap It On. Scott were surprised at the similarity of the two bands, especially with the weird timing of their music; then TMOC met Helmet in 1992 when they supported them on their Australian tour. Subsequently, in ’98, rumours on the Internet about John Stanier joining The Mark of Cain led to Stanier emailing Scott and basically saying “all you had to do was ask”, and so they said “let’s just do it”.
And they do it so well too. Scott says that audiences can expect the following from The Mark of Cain/Rollins gigs: “Tight as fuck; no bullshit; tightest we’ve ever been; enjoyment –though not visually deliberate entertainment … there won’t be anything that comes out of the ceiling and whisks me off the stage so that I can float above the audience”. Just pure unadulterated energy.
The Mark of Cain/Rollins Band play The Palace on Friday 5th October.
First published in Beat Magazine, October 2002.
Read Mary Boukouvalas’ interview with the other Scott brother, conducted last week, here.
The Mark of Cain Tour dates for 2015:
Wednesday 25 November: Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Supported by Subtract S Moshtix
Supported by Batpiss Oztix | Ticketscout
Friday 27 November: Barwon Club, Geelong
Supported by Batpiss Oztix
Wednesday 2 December: Enigma Bar, Adelaide
Supported by InWoods Moshtix
Supported by Thorax + Making Manning Bar | Feel Presents
Saturday 5 December: The Zoo, Brisbane
Supported by Greig & BARGE With An Antenna On It
Tixs: The Zoo
For more information, visit Feel Presents
