“REFORGED” KAINE – 5 YEARS TOGETHER AS A BAND

Is it a surprise that you have now been together for five years?

Rage: The “Crisis” line-up collapsed immediately after Hard Rock Hell 2018 and before that album was properly released, it was a whirlwind few months but it seems that was the best thing to happen to this band. I would guess that two weeks to put a new line-up together and not miss a single gig has to be a world record of some sort!

Isaac: When I first joined the band, I was not too sure how long it would last, to be honest. But 5 years on and it is as good (albeit somehow more chaotic) than it was when I joined.

Toby: I think it is more of a surprise to everyone else than it is to us!  I was a little 18-year-old with short hair when I first joined.  My first promise to Rage and Liam was I would grow my hair out, which I did. Now I am desperately trying to grow the matching beard, but it seems my face wasn’t told that I’m now a fully grown man!  To be honest this lineup has felt solid since our first gig. Isaac and I had been playing together for a few years before Kaine, so we knew how each other worked.  We all get on well as well, which I think is why we have kept going.  We can joke with each other (most of the time at Liam’s expense) and at the end of it, we still love each other.

Liam: Yes and no. I am surprised that I became the drummer in the first place. I first came across Kaine in 2014, just as I was finishing senior school, and have been a fan since, and although I had been friends with all the guys since then, I was still surprised when Rage first got in touch with me when he had gotten the news that Chris would be leaving. I am also surprised we managed to get the lineup together 5 years ago so quickly, but I think as time has gone on, I’ve realised that this is most likely a lineup for the long haul. We all have a common goal, we are all mostly on the same page when it comes to songwriting, and we have all worked our arses off to get to where we are now.

How does it feel to be the most consistent line-up the band has had, and the only one to appear on back-to-back releases?

Isaac: I feel quite proud really, I know some people out there do not see us as the “real Kaine” but hey, they can think that. It is not my problem.

Toby: Ha-ha, we are the REAL Kaine now and there’s nothing you can do about it, Sean Connery!

Liam: I cannot honestly say I have thought about it too much. I guess it feels good. I think Rage will have stronger feelings because he is the one who had to deal with losing previous members and changing lineups before us. The consistency of this lineup has been rewarding, we have been allowed to make the band our own and I think what we have now is the definitive sound of Kaine. It is the culmination of the influences the previous lineups had drawn from (which I also love), and the influences that I and the other guys have been allowed to bring into the band.

Rage: Having stability in the line-up has helped me no end in trying to push things forward. Previous versions of the band seemed to fall apart right at the wrong time, meaning we had to start over every time. As far as I am concerned, this version of Kaine is its own band and the line-up. Of course, I am proud of past achievements and the work I did with past line-ups and members, but this has been the band solidly for five years now and has earned its right to be the band known as Kaine and is enjoying the rewards of not giving up on the project and sticking to the mission.

Did you expect to have recorded two full albums with the band?

Liam: Yes, I did. I began writing my stuff for the band pretty much from the get-go and knew that whatever happened, I wanted to record and write with the band for as long as I could.

Rage: I had written Reforge The Steel as we were putting this line-up together, so yeah, that was always my plan to do these albums, and more!

Isaac: When I first joined, I was not even very familiar with the band’s back catalogue, so wasn’t even sure how many albums they had under their belts already. So, I had no sure way of guessing how often we’d be in the studio.

Toby: I think Reforge The Steel was recorded and released within a year of the lineup coming together.  That’s silly when you think about it.  We could not have been together for a month when we started working on the first songs which was great.  It made us feel like we were the future of the band rather than playing the other guy’s songs.  I still loved playing the older stuff but there is something more special about playing songs we had put together.

What was the difference between writing and recording the new album After Extinction and Reforge the Steel?

Isaac: Except for the 4 or 5-hour drive? I feel that AE shows more of our individual influences than the previous releases we have done.

Rage: I wrote significantly less of this album, there is probably the least amount of my music, and solely my music, on this release than any previous, but then you could argue Reforge The Steel was as close to a solo album from me as you could possibly get anyway! I was more than happy for the guys to contribute to most of After Extinction!

Liam: I think the only thing I did not expect was how quickly Reforge the Steel came together. I knew that Rage already had a lot of the songs pretty much ready to go so that did give us a head start, but going from a demo to a full band composition still takes time, and a lot of work. We were doing a song a week at one point, while still doing gigs every other week and as a result keeping the setlist up to a high standard, while adding new songs as and when we were ready. I think that was probably the hardest we’ve worked when it comes to the writing process, pretty much just to hit home to the public that the band was not dead after the Crisis of Faith lineup dissolved earlier in the year. We got the lineup together in the spring of 2018, got the songs completed and ready to record by the time autumn was drawing to a close, and I recorded the drums for the album in the winter. I knew that we were going to be able to take our time with the writing for After Extinction, although admittedly I did not expect the process to be so drawn out. Thanks for that Covid!

Toby: A lot of the Reforge material was prepared by Rage already, so it was a very quick turnaround. After Extinction was a much more collaborative effort with the songs being written jamming at rehearsal which meant we could put much more of “our” sound into it.  Some of the songs were written very soon after the release of Reforge. “The Cycle” was even being performed as an instrumental before Reforge was released.

What were your main songwriting contributions to the new album, and how did you come up with the ideas for your songs?

Liam: My main songwriting contributions to the album were Bright and Left Behind, which I presented to the band as complete songs. I wrote the structure for Bright within the first couple of months of joining the band and had the lyrics mostly completed, aside from a couple of tweaks, by the time August 2018 rolled around. I wrote them on a plane, while I was flying to Canada for my father’s wedding. The inspiration for the lyrics was just the idea of rebirth, which was the theme across Reforge. That is probably the reason why it feels more light-hearted than the rest of After Extinction. I wrote the song structure for Left Behind around the autumn of 2019. I was not sure about it originally, as I thought it would be too tacky and cheesy compared to the other songs we had brought out and were writing at the time. I even gave it the working title “Cheesy as fuck”. Luckily Rage liked it a lot, so we went ahead with it. I wrote the lyrics at around the start of 2021, although a lot of the pandemic memories blur together for me. The subject for that was a lot more personal. Like a lot of others, I have lost multiple relatives to dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. My step-grandfather was the first to go, and then in 2019 and 2022 I lost my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, whom I was always close with throughout my life and witnessed their deterioration. The subject of the song itself is the horrible feeling that someone in the initial stages must be feeling as they feel their mind slipping away, the mixture of fear, acceptance, and desperation to hang onto yourself. My final contribution to the album was the lead break before the solo in Protesting for Profit, as well as the final 2 riffs of the song after the last chorus. They were parts of a different song I was working on during the first lockdown, but something just was not clicking fully with it. In rehearsal, we could not figure out how to progress PFP, so I just said that I have a couple of sections from another song, let’s give them a try. And luckily it clicked perfectly!

Toby: I supplied the bulk of the songs “A Slave to the Grind” and “The Storm is Coming”.  Slave is a fast-riffing thrashy song with some delicious harmonies and clean sections. It’s no secret that I’m a big Megadeth fan so this riff was inspired by their stuff.  It is fast, it’s intricate, ITS SPEED METAL!  Storm was written when I was listening to a lot of Galneryus and I wanted a song with massive lead guitar breaks so I could play and pretend to be a power metal guitar god.  I love classical-inspired repetitive guitar leads which is where the main melody came from. It is a fun song to play even if I’m not a power metal guitarist and the solo is too fast for me to play.

Liam: I am not going to pretend that I wrote anything truly musically original on either Bright or Left Behind, I have no issue with saying what influenced me. 2 songs/albums that had come out at the time really defined 2018 for me and the band, they were Firepower by Judas Priest, and Prequelle by Ghost, from which I was inspired by a couple of chord ideas from Rats. Left Behind, unbelievably, was inspired by Strangers by Dragonforce, off their most recent album.

Isaac: My main contribution was most of the title track, After Extinction. It was originally just a video of me in my bedroom at 1AM with a guitar played acoustically playing a couple of riffs. I did not know that it would end up being the title track of the album.

Rage: A lot of my riffs are songs such as Second Coming, Protesting for Profit, and New Age Martyr but these were very collaborative songs, the only song that was purely “mine” really was Green to Grey but even then, the guys contributed to that.

How did the Extinction After EP come about? How was that written?

Isaac: Whenever we are writing songs, we always seem to end up with a selection of riffs and songs that we always have in the books. We ended up having too many for the current album so decided to release what is almost a “disc 2” with the other songs that we wanted to use but didn’t get a chance to. Some of the others were songs that were not quite finished when we were recording AE.

Rage: We just jammed the songs and they just turned out as they did with no preconceived ideas, none of the songs were ideas we previously had or had even demoed, we just jammed them in the studio.

Liam: Extinction After was just a case of us bouncing ideas off each other in the rehearsal studio. The writing process kicked off around the start of 2021, before After Extinction had even been recorded, with Toby playing the intro riff from what became All Hail the Evil One while everyone else was setting up, and Rage’s ears pricked up. We then proceeded to put together most of the structure in that session. I pitched in another riff of mine, which I guess you could call the main chorus riff. Again, I had another song for the beginnings of a side project I want to do, but the song did not click so I pulled a riff from that for us instead. I did the same thing for the chorus lead-in Dragonlord as well, although I thought that up on the spot as we were looking for something to beef up the chord progression of that section. That was the case for all the EP, we wrote the whole thing together in the rehearsal studio and put all our ideas together. On Repeat was just a fuck-about song. Rage also worked in a way to rip the band Wet Leg to pieces, a band that we all cannot stand! We have played it live a couple of times, the funniest time was when we played a show at the Rep in Ipswich last year, and Toby and Isaac went through the crowd to play the song on the staircase up to the balcony. It is essentially just a jam, it never had any real structure, and it never will!

Toby: That was written entirely through jamming in rehearsal. I’d play a riff. Rage would say “Is that yours” and we’d jam that and see what came out of it.  I think our best stuff to date is on that EP. It’s a bit heavier than people are used to from us but that’s never a bad thing, is it really?  There are some hard sections to play, there’s a lot of down-picking, and it’s an all-round riff fest.  “On Repeat” also ended up being much better than it needed to be. It was supposed to be making fun of [insert god-awful indie band here] but it turned into a shreddy, silly musical joke.

Last year you had your first tour together as a band. What was the 2022 tour with Lillian Axe and Riot Act like?

Liam: Tiring… extremely tiring. I think the maximum amount of sleep I got on the whole tour was 4 hours. Most of the time we were surviving on half that while taking turns driving the van ridiculous distances to the next show! I remember Toby being passed out backstage after we came offstage at The Underworld in Camden, the last show of the tour, and he didn’t appear until the end when we packed up. We also really got on each other’s nerves, I found that me and Toby in particular butted heads more frequently as the tour went on. I think that’s more because Toby knows exactly how to wind me up and I fall for it every time! That’s about all the negatives though. The rest of the experience was incredible. Every band played killer sets every single night, the laughs, and memories we took from it were amazing, and it’s a time I will never forget. Also, all the guys in both Riot Act and Lillian Axe are incredible human beings and we all became good friends on the tour. I hope our paths cross again soon. You can guarantee that the next time either of those bands come back across the pond for a show I will be there.

Isaac: It was a new experience. Some tempers were tested a little, but what can you expect when you’ve only had about 4 hours of sleep for almost a week?

Rage: Touring with legends such as Lillian Axe and Riot Act was an honor and privilege. You can learn so much from acts like that, who are superb live and experienced. I love these bands so playing with them was a bit of a magical moment for me, I basically watched them live every night, taking it in and trying to learn from what they did. They were all absolute heroes to us as well! It was good to finally tour with the current line-up!

Toby: That was an amazing time.  We all got way too sleep deprived and it was the closest we’ve come to hating each other but and the end of it we still loved performing and making music together.  If there was ever going to be a test of how well, we worked together that was it.  I know I can be an extremely annoying person to be around for any extended period and I did my best to get on everyone’s nerves.  We had “everything-man” Alex and Charles “in charge” with us which was a lot of fun.  6 of us crammed into a Vauxhall Vivaro crew cab.  Trying not to die from lack of sleep and in Rage’s case whatever he’d eaten the night before.

Isaac: Also gave me the incentive to check if a sofa is a sofa bed before sleeping in a chair for two nights. Just for Toby to mention he has the same one at home just as we’re packing up and leaving.

Rage: I don’t understand what they are complaining about, I don’t remember being tired at all. I am like that normally.

Are you looking forward to touring together again this year with ex-WASP legend Chris Holmes?

Isaac: I was not expecting to hear about going on tour again so soon after the previous one. It was only a couple of months after we got back from the previous tour with Lillian Axe and Riot Act that we got the offer.

Rage: Again, much like with Lillian Axe and Riot Act, someone like Chris Holmes is a legend in American Rock/Metal and was a huge part of W.A.S.P and that band’s golden era, playing on all the big albums and tours. It’s an honour to support him, and again I will be watching, listening, and learning all I can.

Liam: I am looking forward to the tour with Chris Holmes. I’m hoping for a similar experience to the Lillian Axe tour, and there are also a few different towns that I’ve never been to before added to the tour. So, I’m excited about it.

Toby: Of course.  This one has some days off which will be very much needed.  I think we all know now how to take care of ourselves better on the road, so we don’t end up near death again.  We’re going to some new venues and new places so I am hoping we can pick up a few new friends in the week to further push us closer to being the rock stars we’ve dreamed of.

What are your favourite gigs and moments from the past five years?

Isaac: Of course, my favourite gig has got to be the Kaine X show at the Colchester Arts Centre. But another that I had fun at was the last show on the Lillian Axe tour at the Underworld in Camden. It’s been a venue that I’ve seen bands in over the last few years and have always wanted to play on that stage myself. And last year we had the chance to.

Rage: So many great gigs, headlining and packed-out Colchester Arts Centre was amazing, playing a sold-out Dome Tufnell Park supporting Blaze Bayley for Burr Fest was another amazing show, any of the tour gigs from last year!

Liam: Oh god there’s been so many amazing moments over the years. I think my favourite shows with this band have got to be headlining the Colchester Arts Centre for the Kaine X show in 2019, as well as Burr Fest at The Dome in London in 2020, our last show before the pandemic tore everything apart. My standouts from last year were also playing The Robin in Bilston and The Underworld in Camden, and also playing Club 85 in Hitchin and the Portland Arms in Cambridge earlier in the year with our good friends in Planet Fatale and Neverworld, with Death Valley Knights and Raze also on the lineup respectively. 

Toby: The 10-year show at Colchester Arts Centre was without a doubt a highlight.  Since seeing Dragonforce there as a teenager it had been a dream of mine to play there.  It lived up to every expectation I could have ever had.  It was packed, we played great, it was such a party.  Burrfest was also a highlight.  Isaac and I had previously seen Man With A Mission and Band-Maid at The Dome so that was also an exciting gig.  Getting to play on such a big stage on a lineup with some big names in the world of Iron Maiden was such a big moment for us as a band.  And of course, Liam falling off the back of the stage at The Smokehouse in Ipswich is a favourite moment of mine.  How can you fall off a stage that is two inches tall and pressed up against a wall?  YOU CAN’T, BUT OUR DRUMMER CAN!

Liam: Since being in this band, we have had so many experiences that should not be real. I don’t know what it is with Rage, but he seems to attract the weirdest bullshit everywhere he goes. I dare say he’ll tell the most bizarre account he can think of. I will tell you of a more recent one, and it happened on the first day of the Lillian Axe tour, at The Robin in Bilston. At the time, we had gotten to the venue on time, but the venue wouldn’t let us in for some reason. We went to the reception to see if they’d get someone to open the door for us. They didn’t immediately, in fact, we were stood outside for at least another half an hour before finally being allowed in. If I remember correctly, it was pissing down with rain at the time as well! Our guitar tech, Charles, was starting to get a bit more restless as time went on, becoming more and more desperate to go to the toilet. Eventually, he caved. He did what none of us would think of doing, he ran to the houses across the road, and knocked on a random stranger’s door, asking them if he could use their toilet. Amazingly, they let him in! He spent the next 15-20 minutes in the household of this good Samaritan, absolutely punishing their toilet, and finally emerged from their house much happier and probably about a stone lighter. I suspect the toilet needed counseling though…

Are you excited about the 5-year celebration gig coming up at Three Wise Monkeys?

Liam: Yeah of course I am. Not only are we playing with a lot of friends of ours, but I’m excited to celebrate our time in the band. Kaine X was the last event of that kind, but I think the main attraction, intentionally, was the one-off reunion of the Crisis of Faith lineup, and their setlist at the end of the night. It’s gonna be nice to celebrate solely our time in the band, and it will be a good chance to look back at what we’ve built together, and how far we’ve come as a live act. 

Isaac: Definitely, nice to have a local gig with other great local bands and friends that we’ve known for a long time.

Toby: Of course, there’s been some struggles on the way but it’s looking to be a great night.  We haven’t played in the newly refurbished Threewise Monkeys yet so I’m excited to see how the place looks.  We’ve got a great lineup together for the night with Osmium Guillotine and Heathen Kings who we’ve played with multiple times before.  Killerkorp this lineup of Kaine hasn’t played with before but I’ve seen them a couple of times and they’re an amazing live band.  The gig is exactly 5 years since my first appearance with the band and I’m hoping I don’t hit as many wrong notes as I did that night.

Rage: Killerkorp is an exciting, young, Ipswich band that I have been following for a few years now and will be great on the night. Heathen Kings is another “new” band with members I have known from various acts over the years, whose music fits perfectly with ourselves and Osmium Guillotine, and obviously, we have a relationship with Osmium Guillotine going back years and my favourite band! Ticket sales have gone amazingly well considering we’re up against Blur, and Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses just doors down on the same night! It’s going to be huge! Live album recording, video, the works!

What can people expect from the new live album?

Toby: Well, speaking of wrong notes…  I’m hoping there won’t be any.  There might be.  OK, there probably will be.  You’d think we’d know the songs by now, but we can always surprise ourselves with some atrocious renditions.

Isaac: A mix of older and newer songs from the current lineup, a bit of something for everyone.

Rage: Unlike previous live albums, I won’t be mixing it thankfully!

Liam: Hopefully a decent performance! 

What are your ambitions for Kaine going forward?

Isaac: Hopefully we can get more tour offers or even a decent record deal/management contract.

Toby: I’m still hoping Rackstardom comes for us.  It’d be wonderful to do the music thing full-time but until then just more albums.  I’d also love to play some international dates at some point.  That would be a lot of fun.  Some more tours would also be great.  I’m hoping we can start to work our way up as a regularly touring band.

Liam: My ambitions for the future are simply to continue building upon the foundation we have laid for ourselves since 2018. Slowly but surely, we will expand our fanbase and continue to build Kaine as a brand, and we have way more plans in the works to do so, and hopefully, they will bring much bigger and greater things for us. This takes a lot of time and work, but I know that all of us, Rage in particular, have the drive to get it done. I truly believe that this is just the beginning for us, and we can only become bigger. We have ideas for the next album too, I have 3 complete song structures already, along with a couple of lyrical concepts. After the tour is done later this year, we will probably start the writing process properly.

Rage: We are taking things one step at a time, but we’ve seen real growth over the last few years, our albums are doing better than ever sales/streams wise, our merch is doing good, our Patreon is strong, and only rare gigs are poorly attended and that’s usually due to poor promotion outside of our control. We are back touring, we are playing bigger venues, and we can go even further still.

What festivals would you like to play in the future?

Liam: I would love to play the biggest festivals, such as Download, Bloodstock, and Wacken, but I can’t say I think of it that much. Wacken would probably be the ultimate goal.

Toby: I think it’s every metal band’s dream to get to Waken, isn’t it?  How great would that be?  Playing in Germany with what would without a doubt be a stupendous line-up.  On the other hand, I’d love to play something where we’d be completely out of place and upset the crowd.  Glastonbury would be funny.  They always get upset when someone like Metallica headlines. So, to have us on a smaller stage mixed in with a bunch of acoustic acts and indie bands would hopefully start a hippie riot!

Isaac: I’d love to play a festival like Wacken or something similar, but smaller festivals are also on my radar.

Rage: I would like to do Wacken, but realistically both Damnation and Incineration festivals would be two I would love to do in the near future. Proper brutal, real, Metal festivals with no bullshit attached. They attract a good crossover of people too.

Any dream gigs or venues?

Rage: I would like to play some of the o2 venues again on a future tour or get the chance to play the Waterfront in Norwich in support of a bigger band, the Arts Centre in Colchester again, and a few places like that! I would love to play in North America, Germany, and Japan someday too!

Isaac: Dream gigs would probably be supporting a large household-name band like Megadeth etc. But a venue I’d like to play in would probably be the Underworld again.

Toby: Any arena or stadium would be amazing and anything with an enormous stage would be great too.  I’d love to play The Underworld again but without the weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation that we all had last time.   Colchester Arts Centre is always fun, so I’d love to play there again.  I’m also a massive Marty Friedman fan so to support him at some point would probably be a life-making moment.

Liam: A dream show would be to play in an arena. I’m not sure who with whom, but I would just love to play either an arena tour or a one-off arena show. The perfect scenario would be us headlining it, but realistically that probably won’t happen!

KAINE LINE-UP CELEBRATES 4TH ANNIVERSARY

We’re celebrating our fourth anniversary tonight at the Smokehouse, Ipswich. We officially came together as this version of Kaine on May 12th, 2018, in what was the most chaotic period in the band’s history.

Since then, we have released an album (Reforge The Steel, 2019), several live albums (Kaine X Live 2019, Reforge The Steel Live 2019, two EPs (The Waystone, 2020 and Kaine, 2021), and have a brand new album (After Extinction) and two new EP’s coming out soon.

Tonight will be our 58th gig together since our formation.

3 YEARS OF KAINE REFORGED – BUT HOW DID THE NEW VERSION OF THE BAND COME ABOUT?

The new version of Kaine was officially formed on May 12th 2018. But How did we arrive at this point?

The short lived 2015 line-up

The original band had been formed in 2009 and had had various line ups over the years, the people in the band would usually gradually change over time so things didn’t seem so radical to the wider audience. However in 2016, following the departure of founding member Dan Mailer (bass/vocals) and Ant Murch (lead guitar) in 2015 the line-up of myself, Chris MacKinnon (drums), Saxon Davids (lead guitar) and Stephen Ellis (bass) formed in 2016. Dan and Ant had been known to most people as they had both performed on our first two albums, Dan had left in August 2015 and Ant left at the close of play in 2015. Stevo had been with us a few months already when Anthony departed, and Saxon first joined the band in 2014 as a substitute for Anthony on a tour he couldn’t do and just remained in the band from that point alongside Anthony so the transition between Dan and Anthony departing didn’t seem that different or radical to those who had followed us for years.

The 2016-2018 version of Kaine
HARD ROCK HELL – 2018

The 2016 version of Kaine would go on to be a very popular line-up, from playing our regular shows at The Soundhouse in Colchester, the Asylum in Chelmsford, the B2 in Norwich and The Smokehouse in Ipswich among others. We built up a real following of regular gig goers and supporters during that period and began to write a new album, which would eventually end up being A Crisis of Faith, an album which we played most of the stuff live before we recorded it. There was a real emotional attachment between that group of guys and audience throughout that period and real desire to see us do well. We released A Crisis of Faith in early 2018, and although our fans loved it, it was largely ignored by the wider Metal audience and it didn’t really pick up much steam. Because it took a more modern, proggier direction from our previous release The Waystone it was met with a lot of criticism from the New Wave of Traditional Metal community and it generally didn’t go down well with that audience. We had a number of gigs booked and were also on the biggest festival billing we had ever been on, at Hard Rock Hell Metal 2018 playing the same stage as Grave Digger. We played the gig and we went down a storm at the sold out o2 Academy, Birmingham and it looked like to many on the outside that things were about to happen for the band.

Sadly, life doesn’t work out that way.

Liam joins in April 2018

Internally within the band there were a number of personal circumstances that would force change. Chris was the first to depart not long after that in April, but this was largely an expected departure due to Chris own circumstances and thus I had already sounded out Liam Etheridge as a potential replacement. Liam is someone I knew from way back as his old band Asylum had played with Kaine on a number of shows, someone who I knew was a good drummer and a decent guy and someone who I thought would work really well for the band. I did however offer Josh (or original drummer) the opportunity to come on board again if he would like to, but he was busy with A Bribe for the Ferryman and Dismanibus at that time as well as working with Elimination. Chris formally left the band and Liam came in the week later, rehearsed and we were back to gigging almost straight away with no downtime. Stevo however had said to me at this point that he didn’t enjoy playing in the band without Chris and said he would stick it out but was generally unhappy.

A few weeks go by and Saxon calls me to inform me that he was leaving the band to move to America to be with his then fiance. I accepted his resignation and then called Stevo to offer him his release from the band. Both agreed to stay as long as it would take to find replacements.

I called Liam and gave him the bad news, and we agreed that it was probably game over for Kaine but we would see what our options were and try and keep it going.

I offered Dan and Anthony their old spots back, but Dan had recently joined Osmium Guillotine as a vocalist and was suffering from carpel tunnel syndrome which was restricting what he could do on bass. Ant was playing in covers bands and couldn’t commit to Kaine at that stage. People may think its strange to invite former members back to the band but I feel its a matter of courtesy. Josh, Dan and Ant poured a lot of their own time and money into Kaine in the early years and the band simply would have never existed without them. The least I can do is offer them their position back if it comes up. I never want to be one of those musicians who never asks someone back or holds grudges about departures. Life happens. People have their own reasons for leaving bands, usually varied and you can’t take it personally and you have to respect what they did to help make that band happen to begin with. We wouldn’t exist without those guys, or anyone who has been in the band these past 12 years and they deserve the credit for what they contributed. I knew they couldn’t come back, it’s just a matter of respect, and I respect them enough to ask, even if it is a “no”.

So, the night of the departure announcement I put up an advert for both positions and go to bed thinking that it was probably game over. In fact I had written a retirement statement that night anyway as I had fully expected it was game over. At that point in my life things were a bit of a nightmare anyway, I had started shift work in a warehouse after being made redundant the year previous from a job I had been at for a long time. I was working hard and my hours were all over the place, so my brain was scrambled trying to adapt to that on top of the band imploding suddenly immediately after an album release. I also had a ton of unsold CD’s, shirts and vinyl’s from that release which probably cost me close to £10k to produce altogether that without a band, wouldn’t have been sold so I was in a bit of a desperate situation financially as a result. I am not a wealthy man, so spending that sort of cash (not all at once might I add) on making that recording and then printing the CD’s, Vinyl and shirts to not sell them would have been a huge issue as I wouldn’t have had money to survive on! I think it’s worth pointing out that there are no issues between myself and any of the members from the A Crisis of Faith line-up. That is not the reason the split occurred. As with anything, its more complicated than that and I respect their decision to leave the band.

Toby Woods joins in 2018

A few people have had digs at me for my decision to continue the band. They probably don’t understand that the A Crisis of Faith line-up wasn’t the original band and we had always had changing members over the years. They also were probably unaware of the financially implications to me personally if the band did end. I swallowed all of the bands costs (and still do) and don’t get that money back without sales so for me to put out a record without selling it would have been financial suicide for me at the time. This wasn’t about my ego.

The next morning I was messaged by a guitarist named Toby Woods about trying out. I asked if he could do Saturday, which he could, which was just a few days away and we booked in a try out. Toby went away and learned the stuff. That day I had a message from Dan suggesting I try out “this guy” and sends me a video. He had tried out for Elimination when Dan was working with them and didn’t get the gig. It turns out that guitarist was Toby. Dan’s pretty good at spotting good players so that’s a good endorsement to have going into your first try-out with Kaine!

On the Saturday session at Pioneer it was myself, Stevo, Liam and Saxon with Toby. We go to start playing Heavens Abandonment from A Crisis of Faith and Toby just didn’t join in. I am thinking in my head, this isn’t good and look over to Liam who looked back at me in silent agreement. We stopped playing and asked if he wanted to join in this time. So we start and Toby then plays the song through exceptionally well. Relief. It turns out he was just watching Saxon to just get an idea of how he played the song! The rest of audition went perfectly and we offered him the gig, well Stevo did actually, which was a bit cheeky as he was leaving the band as well! But that was fine as we were in a agreement. We causally asked him as we packed down if he knew any bassists and he said he had a mate who could play bass. We asked if he could ask him to try out, and by that evening his mate was booked in for a audition the following week. Toby was announced for the band and Saxon had officially departed as of that point. He never did find America though.

The week after Isaac Healy, who Toby had played with in Cannon, tried out for the band. Myself, Liam, Stevo and Toby were present. Again it went well and he was offered the position, which he accepted. He and the new line-up were announced that night. Toby would have his first gig with us on the 19th (the following weekend), which would be Stevo’s last show, at The Smokehouse, Ipswich and the new bands very first gig would be May 26th at the B2 in Norwich and we have been together ever since.

Isaac joins Kaine a week later!

During this period I started writing what would become Reforge The Steel. We would learn and work on the new songs between gigs and even began recording it in November 2018, just months after the line-up had changed and not even a year after A Crisis of Faith. We would continue to gig and work on the new album, Reforge The Steel until it was finally released in 2019. We’ve since played 40+ shows together (which would have been a lot more before Covid hit!) released The Waystone anniversary EP, two live albums, another EP and are just about to record a brand new album. This will also be the first time in the bands history that the same line-up has appeared on back to back albums.

I will cover more detail from the new line-up period in more posts throughout the week, I just thought this would be a good starting point to give more details on how this version of Kaine formed, and why.

ISAAC HEALY ON HIS 3 YEARS WITH KAINE AND THE FUTURE OF THE BAND: “It would be great to get to play some larger venues, even as a support act for some more well-known bands. Of course, a tour or two wouldn’t hurt either.

Colchester Arts Centre, 2019

What have been your favourite moments from your three years in Kaine so far?

For me, the highlights of my time in the band have probably got to be the 10-year anniversary show at Colchester Arts Centre and Burr Fest at The Dome in London with my favourite of the two being the 10-year show, which has been the gig with the best crowd so far.

I also got a dent in my new car trying to find somewhere to park at night in the rain for a crappy hotel that was possibly also a drug den so there’s that too.

How have you changed since joining Kaine?

I own more shirts without sleeves and more music equipment.

But seriously, I feel that I’ve become more confident and comfortable when performing on stage. Before joining Kaine, I pretty much stood still, not doing much. Obviously, I’ve still got room for improvement but I’m getting there. For the next album, I’ve adopted the use of a pick for most of the new songs as I feel the sound of it suits some of the material much better. It’s also given me the chance to get more familiar with a pick as I never really used one in the past, with the only song prior having me sometimes use a pick was “Loudwire” on Reforge. Also apparently a lot of venues have crap monitors for bass players, If I even get one that is. I recall one venue claiming that they can’t put the bass through the monitors, so that was fun.

What were your experiences recording Reforge The Steel?

Most of the main writing for Reforge had already been done prior to me joining the band. I mainly just worked on my own basslines. But I feel that a lot of the time everybody is subtly changing what they play over the course of weeks or months of playing the same songs. Even some of the songs that we have recorded already are played differently than what’s on the album versions.

Recording Reforge was fun as we hadn’t really been working together as a band for very long, although Rage and Liam had been working together for a little while before Toby and I joined. And Toby and I were previously in another band together for a couple of years.

All the rehearsals and gigs leading up to the recording of the album did not prepare me for the seemingly endless guitar harmonies that were added to the songs on Reforge, however.

How about The Waystone Anniversary EP? How did you find working on that?

The Waystone was pretty fun to record, as a lot of the album had subtle changes with everyone throwing their own takes and different influences on the original versions of the songs.

The title track was probably the most difficult to learn and remember each part, what with how many different sections the song has and the different time signatures for certain sections. We also came to a decision of changing the original bass focus intro and making the song more concise. I think it’s the only time in any of the songs we’ve recorded that feature bass tapping except for my version of the bass fill in “Fall of Jericho” when we play that live. Even so, the final recorded version was different from the original version I initially wrote. As I initially wrote it on the six-string bass, utilising the high C string but In the end, I recorded it on the five-string and decided to not go as high.

What have you contributed to the new Kaine album?

On the new album, I’ve got a song that I wrote most of but had some input from the rest of the guys, I also have another couple of ideas that I just haven’t put into music yet.

And obviously, I’ve been mainly writing and playing my own basslines for each song but have been simplifying them somewhat to suit the different nature of the new material. The new album has been a different experience to write, as most of it wasn’t written beforehand with us learning how to play it.

Are you looking forward to hitting the studio in the coming months to record it?

Well, I can’t really say I’m not at this point, can I? Anyone want to take bets as to how many extra harmonies Rage and Toby add to the songs?

In all seriousness, being in the studio can be frustrating when you keep messing up the same take, over and over but at the end of the day, it’s great fun.

Are you excited to play live again, now the band is clear to play again?

Since March 2020, we’ve had a total of 1 gig, which was a Livestream only gig a couple of months ago. I can’t wait to be back out playing especially with the 13 or so gigs we have booked for the next few months this year. It’ll also give me a chance to use my new Spector that has been in the past few rehearsal videos in a live setting for the first time.

What are your ambitions with Kaine moving forward?

Well hopefully, as well as all the gigs we currently have booked, it would be great to get to play some larger venues, even as a support act for some more well-known bands. Of course, a tour or two wouldn’t hurt either.

I’d also like to try and get an endorsement of some kind from one of the brands I use, even if it’s just cables.

What would be your dream gig?

For a dream gig or scenario, think it’d have to be headlining a sold-out tour, not even necessarily in massive stadiums or venues. Just decent-sized venues with great crowds, doesn’t even matter where in the world they are.

Isaac Healy 2nd Anniversary with Kaine

Isaac Healy now marks his second anniversary with the band having joined officially on May 12th 2018 replacing Stephen Ellis. He would play his first gig with the band on May 26th 2018 at the B2, Norwich.

Isaac has since performed bass on the Reforge The Steel, and Kaine X live albums/DVD as well as the forthcoming Waystone EP and Reforge The Steel Live albums.

You can read more about Isaac on our feature here – https://kaine-metal.com/2020/04/09/feature-on-isaac-healy-kaine-bass/

https://kaine-metal.com/2018/05/12/kaine-line-up-complete-as-isaac-healy-joins-the-band-on-bass-guitar/

Feature on Isaac Healy – [KAINE – BASS]

Today’s feature is Kaine bassist Isaac Healy, the last person to join the new line-up as the four members finally came together in May 2018. Isaac jumped in right away with the band gigging the A Crisis of Faith material while writing and rehearsing for the new album, Reforge The Steel.  

How long have you been playing bass? 

I’ve been playing for around 7 or 8 years 

You are a multi-instrumentalist, you play drums, what made you switch to bass as your main instrument and what other instruments can you play? 

I switched to bass as my main instrument mainly out of convenience of being able to practice easier and at any time. 

I actually started out learning classical guitar at primary school and started learning the drums shortly after. Over the years, I never really practiced the guitar as much as I should have but have recently been re-teaching myself.

At The Firehouse, Southampton

You have several basses in your collection, what do you own and what are your current set ups? 

Listing all 17 would take a while so my top 5 in no particular order are: 

  • Atelier Z M265+ custom (the white 5 string jazz bass that I play at most gigs) 
  • Atelier Z Beta 6/32 (Red 6 string jazz bass that I played at my first Kaine gig and sporadically since) 
  • ESP PPJ (’84 signature bass of Masayoshi Yamashita from Loudness) 
  • 1970s Ovation Magnum 1 
  • 2010 Fender Mexican Jazz (my first “real” bass. It was originally black but I had it re-finished in yellow. I promise it isn’t as nasty as it sounds) 
Live in Bury St Edmund’s

What amps and pedals are you currently using? 

I use 3 main amps depending on situation but will mostly have 2 with me. The first is the Trace Elliot ELF which lives in my gig bag as a backup amp or as the main amp if a normal amp is impractical logistics wise. Second is an Ashdown CTM 100 tube amp. My third and most recent amp is an ENGL Ironbass amp which is the most powerful amp I own by far at 800w. 

My pedal board is too large, and I plan on downsizing by getting rid of the multi effect that takes up 1/2 of my board. 

My pedals are actually mostly really boring. Line 6 G30 wireless, Boss TU-3 tuner, AMT bass wah, Electro Harmonix Bass Preacher compressor, Ashdown Nate Mendel NM2 dual overdrive. 

Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath, the man who helped invent music… everything before Sabbath was merely tuning up…

Who are your biggest influences as a bass player?  

Probably Billy Sheehan (Mr Big, etc.), Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Rocco Prestia (Tower of Power) and Bohte Daisuke (Kari Band). 

At the Bassment, Chelmsford

What were your musical endeavours before Kaine? 

I had only really been in one gigging band before Kaine which was called Cannon. I was in another band in secondary school, but we never did any real gigs. 

The now closed Asylum venue in Chelmsford

You played with Toby in a band called Cannon, how long have you known and played with Toby, what did you release and what venues did you play with that band? 

I’ve known Toby for about 5 years as we were on the same music course and we actually met in Cannon which somebody else on our course put together. In Cannon we played a few venues that you would maybe heard of if you’re from Essex such as Chinnery’s in Southend, the Asylum and Three Wise Monkeys.

Earlier this year at Colchester Arts Centre

Toby recommended you to Kaine to join the band, how was it to be in a new band and gigging so quickly? 

I hadn’t actually heard of Kaine until Toby asked if I wanted to join. At the time Cannon was winding down due to constant lineup changes so it was good to be in a band that already had gigs on the books. 

Rocking out at The Dome, London

How did you find adapting the A Crisis of Faith songs to your style?  

As I had learnt most of the songs by ear, something that I am definitely not the best at, and the fact that I didn’t already know the songs meant that I was sort of just winging it for most of the parts that were very Stevo. Most of which I just omitted or changed. (nothing against Stevo, I think he’s a much more melodic player than I and we have pretty different styles). 

From the Reforge The Steel photoshoot

You put together the Reforge The Steel album very quickly, how was the process of rehearsing and recording that album for you?  

The recording of that album was pretty easy for me, I managed to do all of my tracking in about half a day. 

Tracking the EP earlier this year

You also recently tracked your parts for The Waystone EP, how did you find that? 

I found that The Waystone songs were quite a bit different to the Reforge tracks, especially the title track The Waystone. That track was much unlike the other tracks we had done, mainly due to how it was almost prog like in structure when compared to the rest of the material.

At Burr Fest 2020

You played both the 10-year show with Kaine at Colchester Arts Centre, and Burr Fest at The Dome recently, what was it like doing those big gigs with the band? 

Doing these two gigs was a great experience and not just because they were in the minority of gigs where I could hear what I was playing. These two gigs were two of the biggest crowds I have played for and two of the most engaged crowds to boot. That just made it even more fun to play in front of them. 

Isaac at Kaine X

Your currently writing material for a new Kaine album, how would you describe the new material so far and the process? 

So far, this album seems to be shaping up to be quite a bit different to the previous albums sound wise. The process so far has mainly been just jamming a riff or two and seeing how it evolves. 

From Kaine X Live

How are you managing your time during the lock down?  

Either practicing bass or just playing video games. 

Isaac ranks the A27M “Cromwell” as the best tank fielded in the Second World War

Favourite World War 2 Tank? 

Fielded: A27M “Cromwell” Prototype: A39 “Tortoise” 

You are also releasing a new live album coming up, which was recorded at the B2 Norwich, are you looking forward to putting out a live version of the Reforge The Steel album?  

Yes.  

Reforge The Steel!

Finally, what is your thought of the day? 

Can animals have the equivalent of an accent? 

You can hear Isaac’s contributions to Kaine on Reforge The Steel by clicking here – there are still a number of CD’s available to order through Bandcamp. Isaac also performed at Kaine X which can be ordered both on CD and DVD by clicking here as well as the forthcoming Waystone EP which can be preordered here.