Not every dad has enough ‘cool factor’ to have his musician son start a band with him.
Maybe it helps that it’s a metal band, suggests Adrian Pain, who performs with his group in Red Deer Oct. 28, as part of the Days of the Dead metal fest.
It runs Oct. 26-28 at the Vat, and Oct. 29 at the International Beer Haus, and includes Red Deer bands Leave the Living, Dusty Tucker, Ninjaspy and 35 others from across Canada.
Pain is frontman for Adrian Pain & The Dead Sexy, a rapidly rising, genre-bending “all-core” group from the Toronto area that includes his drummer son, Ethan Clark, 21.
Pain believes that mutual respect, a democratic approach, and an ability not to crowd each other have laid the foundation for his working partnership with Ethan.
But then relations between them have generally been solid: “I even used to coach his hockey team – the Oshawa Minor Generals.”
Pain (whose other son gravitates towards jazz music) had been performing as a solo rock artist “for quite some time” before forming a metal band with Clark and their friends in 2011.
From the outset, the musicians – including second vocalist Kyle Clyma, guitarist Matt Jenkins and bassist Alex O’Callahan – didn’t want to be slotted into hard-core, death core, metal-core or any other ‘core.’
They wanted to be able to borrow from all musical genres and incorporate these influences into the band’s heavy sound.
Anyone who listens to the group’s third EP, Mixed Messages, might hear tinges of rock, even R & B, amid the metal riffs.
The song Say It Like You Mean It actually has a waltz-like rhythm, says Pain, while Somewhere Out There contains country influences.
The title track is pure horror-core, though. “It’s like a horror movie.”
The band, whose music is played on satellite and college radio and the occasional rock station, will be recording a feature album next year.
Meanwhile, the musicians look forward to taking the stage in Red Deer for the first time ever at the costume-party, four-day metal fest.
Pain says he looks forward to seeing the other bands perform – particularly Three Days Dead.
He also looks forward to driving through the Alberta badlands, where his granddad hails from.
“It’s funny that my grandfather was born in Drumheller, and here Ethan turns out to be one hell of a drummer!”
For more information about Days of the Dead, please contact the venues.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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