KAINE REFORGED – 3 YEARS ON – THOSE EARLY GIGS!

Our first gig was on May 26th 2018. It was one of our regular shows there as I had booked a reasonably busy schedule that year to help promote A Crisis of Faith. We arrived at the venue early and were chatting outside prior to load in when Dan Mailer and Josh Birch arrived together (from Osmium Guillotine) pulling up in the carpark, I had a half empty bottle of Coca-Cola which I was able to throw through the passenger window, past Josh’s head and straight into Dan’s face as he pulled up. Dan, looking for revenge, jumped out of his car and came charging up the B2 steps towards me, having forgot to put his handbrake on, turning to see Josh and his car going for unplanned trip into the Brickmakers beer garden!

From one of the early shows in Camden

The other amusing moment from that gig was the late great Wayne MacConnachie had arrived with Peter Keliris for the gig, he looked at me, looked at the guys and said “where’s ya band” obviously having not heard the news, I said to him that this was the band, he looked at me, looked at them “your fucking joking aren’t you?” I said the others had left the band and he was gobsmacked “they left you? They all left you? They all fucking left you?!”. Wayne simply couldn’t believe the last line up had left! That was sadly the last time I saw Wayne alive and were informed of his passing on the way to the Reforge The Steel Live recording gig in November 2019. We played a tribute to Wayne alongside Osmium Guillotine and Walk in Coma in January 2020 in Braintree.

Gent aka local legend Andy Martin opened the night, and Osmium Guillotine obviously also played. Dan Mailer jumped on on stage with us for the encore and all in all it was a successful first gig with very few mistakes. I think we genuinely shocked a few people. The band was formed in a fortnight and was already playing live, and to a good level, the transition seamless from the previous line-up.

An early B2 Show

Our next gig was a charity event in Long Melford, famous for being the place the legendary Hellfire Club was founded and much of the local folklore surrounds nefarious activities by the local nobles at Melford Hall. It is also famous for Beatrix Potter having stayed there. The gig itself was for our friend Bonnie Kelly’s fathers best friends memorial – Bonnie has her own band New Pages which can be checked out here. Toby and Isaac had to perform double duty as Cannon were also on the bill. Chris MacKinnon was also doing sound that night, obviously unable to stay away from us! After that we played the Unicorn in Camden for the first time. We would play a few gigs there in 2018 which were all really good, but weirdly after that we were never invited back! Kaine actually hadn’t played the gig since 2013 when we supported Canadian Metal legends Striker there! Again the gig went well and the band started to gel on stage.

After that we played with Alter the Sky at the Blue Moon, Cambridge. This is another venue we used to play a lot back in the day when it was the Man on the Moon, we even had a residency there for a bit in 2013. Again the show went incredibly well and people struggled to believe that this was a brand new band. We also started playing songs from Reforge The Steel around this time in the set as well. We were literally rehearsing, learning the Crisis material and adding new material into the set as well which really helped progress the Reforge The Steel album quickly.

Our one and only appearance at The Rock Den!

It was in this period that I wrote the 8 tracks for Reforge The Steel at home. I decided that to prove the band wasn’t dead and this band was as good as ever, I had to get a new album out as quickly as possible. I wrote Reforge The Steel, Black and Rebirth first, Wake was a song and I and Saxon Davids started working on some years previous that we even played live in instrumental form toward the back end of 2017, and songs like Master of Mankind and In Cold Light were written later with Loudwire being the last one I think I wrote for that album. It was important to show the world that we were still going and that is why Reforge The Steel came out so soon after A Crisis of Faith. We just learned the new songs between the Crisis material, and then played them live to iron out the cracks. It was a very busy period for the band. I had also started a new job around that time, which was less all over the place then the warehouse work but infinitely more stressful!

We had another gig at the B2 in July. Anthony Murch joined us for a few songs that night and a solo trade-off on stage, which I part inspired the ending of Master of Mankind! As Ant arrived the venue I was able to sneak around his car with a traffic cone, and block his door off so he couldn’t get out of his car! Is it any wonder people leave my band….Having looked back at the dates we had a very busy 2018! We were back at the Unicorn that month and also played our first and only gig at The Rock Den in Hatfield, another venue we’d previously been a resident band at.

Adam’s old band Cardinal

At the end of July we played Swanfest at the Swan, Ipswich in what was one of the hottest gigs I have ever played. Long term band friend Adam Prowse (who had played bass in Cardinal) joined us for the encore on vocals. The Swan is famous for having Ed Sheeran play there before he was famous. Ed recently having sponsored Ipswich Town Football Club, my football team and is famous for other things, but for me that’s the most important! Much like me he’s a regular at Town games, but at least he has a successful musical career to drown out the misery! It’s good to see him plough some money into the club under the new owners, but having said that if the club dropped any lower then I could have probably afforded to buy it, let alone sponsor it!

From The Smokehouse, Ipswich

So I thought I would give a little detail on our early gigs as a band. It’s weird to think this was all three years ago now. I will cover the back end of 2018 and the start of the recording of Reforge The Steel next week.

A Crisis of Faith Live Sells Out on CD – Becomes Members Only Release

A Crisis of Faith Live has finally sold out on CD. The band will not be reprinting any more of these and the digital version of the album will become a members only release on Bandcamp which can be accessed here. The album was recorded live at the Asylum Chelmsford by Short Stack studios and features the A Crisis of Faith album in full and includes two tracks from The Waystone that features founding members of the band Dan Mailer and Josh Moreton.

THE WAYSTONE SELLS OUT ON CD FOR FINAL TIME

The album, originally released in 2014 has sold out for the 4th and final time on CD with vinyl version having sold out a number of years ago. A full statement on how many copies were sold/streamed will be released at a later date. The Waystone is Kaine’s best selling album and best known for the lead single “Iron Lady”.

The 2020 version of Iron Lady

There will be no further print runs of this album, it has been removed from digital platforms and will become a Bandcamp Members only release which can be found here along with many other exclusives including the bands debut album Falling Through Freedom, which is also no longer available to buy. Some copies remain on re-sellers sites such as Discogs which can be found here.

The band re-recorded for of the songs from the album for a limited edition EP release which can still be bought on CD here. Less than a 100 copies remain to buy on CD. A handful of Waystone patches are also available to order here. Both of these were released to celebrate the 5 year anniversary of the original album.

The X Files – When former members have re-joined Kaine for one off appearances

The new live album available from our Bandcamp

December 29th, 2012 – Hole in the Wall, Colchester

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Dan Mailer: Bass/Vocals
Anthony Murch: Lead Guitars
Josh Moreton: Drums

Background: The band were offered a slot as a last-minute support for Coronach at the Hole in the Wall. Chris MacKinnon who had recently joined the band was unavailable for the gig so original drummer Josh Moreton filled in for the night where the band played its debut album Falling Through Freedom in its entirety for the first and only time.

May 16th, 2014 – The Barfly, Camden, London

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Dan Mailer: Bass/Vocals
Anthony Murch: Lead Guitars
James Balcombe: Drums

Background: James joined the band on the final show of the Renegades Tour with Monument when Chris had to perform for his university exams finals in Colchester on the same day. James joined the band for what was the most intense nights in the history of Kaine, as they dropped their association with MGR for management and as a record label that day due to incidents that occurred on that tour.

February 5th, 2016 – The Soundhouse, Colchester

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Chris MacKinnon: Drums/Vocals
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and backing vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass
Dan Mailer: Vocals

Background: Dan Mailer, who was at that time playing in Ipswich based Death Metal band Daemona joined the band onstage as guest vocalist for Solidarity during the bands set, a song which Rage broke a string and had to perform the final song of the night Quality of Madness as purely a vocalist. It was also the first gig the band played with the new four pieces line-up after Anthony Murch left making it the start of the Crisis of Faith era.

February 24th, 2017 – The Asylum, Chelmsford

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Chris MacKinnon: Drums/Vocals
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and backing vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass
Dan Mailer: Vocals
Josh Moreton: Drums

Background: This was the night A Crisis of Faith live was recorded the band played a large number of the new album songs before they were even recorded at this show and were joined by Dan Mailer on vocals for Iron Lady and Solidarity and Josh Moreton on drums for the Iron Lady, a song he had never played with the band before. Chris joined Dan Mailer in joint lead vocals for Iron Lady.

April 15th, 2017 – Hope & Anchor, Islington, London

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and backing vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass
James Balcombe: Drums

Background: Chris was unable to do the show, so long time band friend James Balcombe of Osmium Guillotine stepped in to perform on the night for the second time. The set was recorded and is available to bandcamp members here.

May 20th, 2017 – The Smokehouse, Ipswich

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Stephen Ellis: Bass
Ant Murch: Lead Guitars and Backing Vocals
Josh Moreton: Drums

Background: Kaine were originally due to play with AJ Kemp of Dismanibus fame on Lead Guitar alongside Josh Moreton and Dan Mailer on bass as a special one of show playing songs from the original album. However, Dan was diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome (he and Josh were playing with Elimination at that time and on the same night for the bands 10-year celebrations) so had to drop out. Stephen Ellis was then drafted in to play bass, alongside Anthony Murch to play a set comprising of material from the first three albums. It was the first time Josh had performed with the band since 2012 and Anthony, which was 2015.

May 4th, 2018 – Voodoo Lounge, Stamford

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and backing vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass
Liam Etheridge: Drums
Chris MacKinnon: Vocals

Background: Chris joined the band on stage for Frailty of the Blade on vocals, the second time he had performed solo as a vocalist for the band the first being when he joined Dan Mailer to sing Iron Lady at the Asylum for A Crisis of Faith live. This would also be the last show played with Saxon and Stephen as official members of the band.

May 26th, 2018 – B2, Norwich

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Liam Etheridge: Drums
Toby Woods: Lead Guitars
Isaac Healy: Bass
Dan Mailer: Vocals

Background: Dan Mailer joined the band on stage, coincidently for another new line-up debut at the B2 Norwich for Iron Lady during his tenure as the lead singer of lone time Kaine friends and collaborators Osmium Guillotine.

July 7th, 2018 – B2, Norwich

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Liam Etheridge: Drums
Toby Woods: Lead Guitars
Isaac Healy: Bass
Ant Murch: Lead Guitars and Backing Vocals

Background: Ant Murch joined Kaine on stage to play an encore of songs from The Waystone and A Crisis of Faith eras including a solo trade off with Toby Woods.

August 11th, 2018 – Scruffy Murphy’s, Birmingham

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Liam Etheridge: Drums
Toby Woods: Lead Guitars
Isaac Healy: Bass
Dan Mailer: Vocals

Background: Dan Mailer again joined the band on stage for a rendition of Iron Lady with the Reforge The Steel line-up.

September 14th, 2018 – The Cavern CM7, Braintree

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Chris MacKinnon: Drums/Vocals
Toby Woods: Lead Guitars
Isaac Healy: Bass
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and Backing Vocals
Dan Mailer: Vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass

Background: Liam Etheridge was unable to perform at this show (which was Osmium Guillotine’s album launch) so Chris MacKinnon covered on the drums, Saxon Davids joined as an additional guitarist for a set which was a mixture of Crisis of Faith and The Waystone material which also featured Dan Mailer again on guest vocals for the Iron Lady and Stephen Ellis joined the band for the encore which was The Mind is Willing, the penultimate time that song would be played and that line-up would play together.

December 22nd, 2018 – Scruffy Murphy’s, Birmingham

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Liam Etheridge: Drums
Toby Woods: Lead Guitars
Isaac Healy: Bass
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and Backing Vocals

Background: Saxon Davids joined Kaine on stage for several songs from the A Crisis of Faith album.

April 27th, 2019 – Arts Centre, Colchester

Rage Sadler: Vocals/Rhythm Guitars
Chris MacKinnon: Drums/Vocals
Saxon Davids: Lead Guitars and backing vocals
Stephen Ellis: Bass

Background: After the Reforge The Steel line-up performed, the A Crisis of Faith line up closed the night as that line-ups final gig to celebrate the first 10 years of the band. A double album was recorded and released featuring both sets.

KAINE’s DEBUT ALBUM SELLS OUT AGAIN ON CD

Falling Through Freedom

Kaine’s debut album Falling Through Freedom, originally recorded in 2011-12 and released in 2012 with a remastered version being released in 2017 has sold out again on CD. The album was recorded and produced by Ade Hare of Threecircles Recording Studio and is the bands only release to feature the line-up of Rage Sadler guitars/vocals, Dan Mailer bass/vocals, Josh Moreton drums and Anthony Murch on lead guitar. Ant Murch joined the band during the recording process of the album.

The albums most popular songs are Lost Sage’s Tower, Helpless Salvation, Waking Dead, Valnir and Quality of Madness which were a staple of the bands set for many years following the albums release. The album, although not critically acclaimed upon release helped launch of the band from relative obscurity to one that was regular booked on the British underground circuit and helped laid the foundations leading to 2014’s The Waystone.

Now the album has sold out on CD the album will officially go off sale and will not having further prints on CD, the digital version of the album will be members only in future.

Many thanks to everyone who has bought a copy of the album on CD since it’s original 2012 release. Kaine will celebrate 10 years of being a band on April 27th, 2019, and appearing will be Josh Moreton from Falling Through Freedom with his new band A Bribe for the Ferryman. Tickets for the show are available from the Arts Centre website.

DAN MAILER TO REJOIN KAINE AS GUEST FOR 10TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW IN 2019

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Dan Mailer, who helped found Kaine back in 2009 as the bands original bassist and co-vocalist will be rejoining the band on stage at it’s tenth anniversary show next April.

While in the band he released two studio albums, performed on a live album and featured on the band’s first two major tours, one of which being a Britain and Ireland tour alongside American Thrash Metal legends Mordred, and Wildfire Festival where Kaine played alongside Diamond Head, Lawnmower Death, Tygers of Pan Tang, Holocaust among many others. He also had the honour of replacing former Bruce Dickinson bass player Chris Dale, while stepping in to play bass with Monument on the 2014 Monument tour.

The Waystone, still the bands most critically and commercially successful album to date, was largely due to Dan’s contributions to the album and the overall songwriting process, which also saw the band briefly signed and professionally managed.

He has since played bass in bands such as Deep Machine, Daemona, Gabriel and Elimination as well as releasing his first solo EP, Introspectrum, and recently he has become the vocalist for long standing Heavy Metal revivalists and good friends of Kaine, Osmium Guillotine.

To buy tickets to the 10 year show please click here.

KAINE – 9 YEARS A BAND

It recently dawned on me that the band has now been in existence 9 years in one shape or form, so I thought I would cover some of our earlier days that are unknown now to the bulk of people who follow us.

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The earliest formation of Kaine occurred when I met Elliot Jackson. Ell, originally from Essex like myself, was living in Peterborough at the time and I had made contact with him online originally about playing bass in a band. I travelled up on the train and we had a jam, he was a good bass player but when he started playing guitar it was pretty obvious that he was light-years ahead of me as a player. I asked him he would be interested in doing lead guitar instead which he agreed and over the next few months we started putting some of the earliest Kaine songs together.

The first two we worked on were Lies of the Forsaken, the music was written by Elliot and Violent Metal which was mostly from an idea I originally had. Ell had a very good knowledge of song writing and music theory and that’s where the nucleolus of what became the early Kaine sound came from. The core being the rhythm guitar holding the riffs while there would be classic Metal inspired leads over the top. We also worked on two other songs in this period, one called Greed which was dropped and another called Lost Sage’s Tower.

Throughout this period we started audition bass players and drummers. We had a number of people try out over the coming months, and we quickly realised how much hard work this would be as many people were not committed, no showed or were outright problematic. We had one guy descale Elliot’s kettle at 5am for no reason, another showed up beaten up having not paid his drug dealer the morning before. It was getting pretty desperate.

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We did eventually find someone for the role of bass, from about 5 minutes away from Elliot’s house in Bretton, Peterborough. He was constantly online looking for members for his band, so I dropped him a line. He was a guitar player at the time but had started to play bass, he had similar influences to me and was keen to get going. This young lad was Dan Mailer, who joined the band after our first rehearsal together who was new to bass and music at the time but had the dedication to actually make a band work, and as many people knew he was with Kaine up until the middle of 2015 when he left to explore other opportunities.

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The next job was finding a drummer, and again this was a challenge. We rehearsed with a number of people but nothing worked out as we geared up to work on our debut E.P. In this time Helpless Salvation and Entropy were started to be written and rehearsed.

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It wouldn’t be until 2010 when we found a drummer that was good enough to player the material and whose ambitions aligned with our own to form and make a success of a band. Again, tirelessly searching the internet I was able to find a drummer from not far from me, in the village of Stebbing near Great Dunmow by the name of Josh Moreton. He was a very impressive drummer, and equally wanted a direct hand in the song writing of the band, something we were very keen on.

Now with a full line up, we worked on recording our first E.P. at home and finding our first gigs. It was around this time we moved from rehearsing in Elliot’s shed to South View Studios in Peterborough. We also decided on a name, Event Horizon. We started promoting ourselves under that name until some European label contacted us and asked us to change it as one of their acts were already using it. I then suggested Kaine, which was the only name that found mutual agreement and that’s what we have been called ever since.

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We had put together Lies of the Forsaken, Violent Metal, Entropy, Helpless Salvation and For Whom The Bell Tolls, a Metallica cover for our E.P. and had started working on Valnir and Champion around this time, which would eventually end up on our first album. Sadly we were very unwise to the business at this stage and didn’t realise that a DIY E.P would fall on deaf ears when it came to being signed, but we sent it to all possible labels regardless. We only received one response, from Nuclear Blast thanking us for our submission but they wouldn’t be interested in signing us to the label. The E.P. would eventually be signed to Halstead based label Specky Records and distributed online.

Once we released the E.P., the harsh reality of being an unknown band kicked in. We couldn’t give the things away, and promoters were similarly unimpressed with very few wanting to book us on the strength of that E.P. so finding shows was incredibly hard. I still have most of them stored away at home. We continued to rehearse and work on new material, some songs such as Jaws of the Demon and Light & Fantasy written around this time never saw the light of day.

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After me nagging Club Revolution in Peterborough for months on end, we finally managed to get a show booked as support in September. It was Elephant vs. Leopards final show in the City, which we agreed. Sadly the booking of this show would spell the end for the original line-up and Elliot at this time decided he didn’t want to continue and left the band, leaving us to play our debut show as a three piece. The show itself was interesting, the sound was absolutely awful and instead of mixing us the soundman was at the bar getting a drink, so we started our first set with no lead vocal microphone for most of the songs. He also put a ton of delay on my guitar for no reason, and the whole thing sounded a mess. The audience, which clinged to the back of the room in fear, watched on in horror as we stormed through our set of classic Metal style songs, drowned in delay with only Dan’s angry backing vocals audible, deep into the era of Metalcore. It as was far removed from a triumphant return to old school Heavy Metal you could get.

We left the stage, watched the other bands entertain the audience and excited the venue with our tails between our legs wondering what would be next for Kaine. Josh also had a stand stolen for his trouble…

Love, Rage

4 Years Ago – Kaine entered the studio to record The Waystone

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It’s worth noting that it was now over 4 years ago that The Waystone was being recorded. The album, which went on to sell our numerous times selling over 1000 copies on CD/Vinyl and being streamed over 50k times since release. It was the first full length album to feature drummer Chris MacKinnon and the final album to feature Dan Mailer on bass and vocals, and Anthony Murch on lead guitar.

You can now stream the album for free in full on YouTube (above) with a limited number of CD’s still available for sale here.

The vinyl is now out of print and we will not be getting another run of these made, however there are some still available on the internet from time to time, so keep your eyes peeled. These are all hand numbered.