Interview: Anthony (Aciidz/Kill Cheerleader/ex-Die Mannequin)
Shadowtalkers: Why are you into punk?
Anthony: I guess it started with being exposed by my older brothers to Maiden and GnR when I was little, and immediately loving them..elements of those bands sounds led me to punk rock..one of my high school buddies had cool older sisters, so that was my intro to Minor Threat, Descendents and NOFX..and leftist ideas, which was much needed for a small town dirtbag kid like me haha
S: How did Kill Cheerleader/Cheerleader666 form?
A: So me and our guitar player Chad met in ‘99 when I was in college in Peterborough, an hour out of Toronto..my roommate was from like 6 hours up north, where they have accents and shit, he was like (imagine the Fargo accent) “hey bud, fuck, my buddy back home eh, he fuckin slays on the guitar, I think you guys should jam eh?”..and his buddy was Chad..Chad visited once, we jammed, hit it off, and then he moved down soon after, bam!
Then a friend of ours was in Toronto one day and came back with this flyer in her hand with phone number pull tabs, and it’s got flames and stars drawn on it and says “wanna start a rocknroll band?”, with a buncha cool bands as influences..we called the dude, and so did Claudio (Ethan)..the 3 of us showed up and met for the first time, and it was this drummer dude that put the flyers up..he was super nice, suuuch a sweet guy..but we all kinda agreed he sorta sucked, I still feel terrible about it hahaha..but ya we went looking around and found a better fit with Chris Mateer, our first drummer. Then we were off to the races.
S: What was the writing process like for Go and Gutter Days like?
A: Chad and I moved to Toronto right away at the end of ‘99, and lived together the whole time during the bands life..and we got a house with Chris as well (the Gutter Days house)..we all worked night jobs so it was guitars out, like every day just dicking around..I’d come up with riffs or full songs and Chad would be there right away to throw sick leads on them..Claudio lived with his folks in the burbs but would come around with ideas as well, and Chad and I would throw our ideas onto them, it was always a pretty smooth running thing we had.
S: What are some good tour stories from the Gutter Days/Go era’s?
A: Shit there’s funny stories from just being at home in Toronto, most of us living together, in that Gutter Days house, a run down piece of shit townhouse in Chinatown..at one point, we had this infamous Toronto booker, Dan Burke, living with us, there’s YouTube videos of him fighting onstage with bands he booked, Jay Reatard once, as well as The Hospitals, that’s a good one...anyways he was in a bad way for many years and we let him rent an extra room in the basement..so we come home from a weekender in NYC and Chad goes to his room and finds a used condom on his bed, the bed still neatly made! And right out of a sitcom, we’re like “Dannnn??”, and he’s all “ah fuck, sorry man, she was just some chick, I couldn’t make it to my room”, his room was across the hall hahahha..so Chad and I decided he needed to pay and I grabbed a goat’s skull at the butcher down the street, still bits of flesh all over it..he had no light switch, he had to walk into his dark bedroom to turn on a bedside lamp, and we hung it with string at face level just inside his bedroom door, so he walked into a face full of goat head hahaha…I found that skull the next day in my sock drawer haha..
There’s the time our fav bar, the Bovine Sex Club, banned us because we were 30 mins late for our own show (we had reasons!), and unceremoniously kicked me out the next night when I snuck in to watch my friends band..we were bitter that night and drunk, walking around the alleyways at 3 or 4am, and we just lived up the street from the bar..and I go “man if I see a cinderblock back here, it’s going through the Bovine’s glass front door..and poof! There was a cinder block sitting around the next corner hahaha..so everyone hung back a bit and I lugged that thing over and just fuckin hucked it, hard! Man that door was thiiiiick glass, the sound was insanely loud echoing down empty Queen Street, and we’re all hauling ass down the alleyway..my pup Milo (who came everywhere with us and has a cameo the “Go” video) is lagging behind, and we’re like “Cmon Miloooo!!” hahahaha…welp, Milo got seen, the staff were still inside and came out to just see Milo running down the alley hahaha..we woke up the next morning to find the brick sitting eerily inside our unlocked front door..and were banned for many many years hahaha..
Needless to say, we weren’t so beloved in our home city..we could pull a good crowd but the scene mostly never really liked us, even before that incident…so it was rad when this San Diego punk rocker Chris Squire saw us play and said fuck, you guys need to come to California!
Man we had great times in San Diego and LA during the Gutter Days era, we’d go for 3, 4 weeks at a time..like we had some appreciation up here in Canada, but down there they were so into it, and so cool to us..just appreciation, like the crowd up front would form in front of Chad, and they’d just watch his hands and lose their shit...Kris Markovich (the legendary skateboarder) let us crash in his pool bunkie for a couple weeks once, and his Hellrose crew (Don “Nuge” Nguyen et al) were always over and we all hit it off..the following summer they had a party at the Hellrose house and we played in their garage, it was rad..always fun times with those dudes..
We played the Double Down in Vegas on one of those trips, and went to a sick buffet in a nice hotel the next day that our manager dude Mike hooked us up with..all hung over we walk in, and for some reason at the entrance are fuckin Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) and a dude from Magnum PI (not Magnum) hahaha..Just at a table doing a meet and greet, except barely anyone gave a shit..but we did haha, and Mr Miyagi was fuckin cool as shit, and he really liked us, so we chilled with Mr Miyagi for a while..Magnum PI dude hated being there, no one wanted his signed 8x10s..his finger nails were manicured and insanely shiny, I couldn’t stop starting at his weirdass nails..oh and when we played Viper Room in LA, Keanu Reeves co-owned it..and as we pull up to load in, who pulls up on his motorcycle?? Yep…once inside, he’s like “you guys are from Toronto right?” and we chatted about music and stuff, he was super cool..he grew up in Toronto, so I think he felt some affinity with us, rad dude!
S: Why did Cheerleader 666 change the name to Kill Cheerleader?
A: Haha it was actually just plain Cheerleader on the Go EP, so 3 names in total..fuck, I dunno, we were always just trying to one-up the name I guess..Claudio was always the source of the changes, he was just an overthinker..he’d get insecure about stuff for whatever reason, but we’d all just be like okay sure! And we’d come up with a new twist on the name..it didn’t matter so much then with no social media or Spotify, there was no concern with maintaining your brand or keeping followers or whatever
S: What are differences in writing from the Cheerleader666 era material to the later Kill Cheerleader material?
A: Well our second drummer Chris Chartrand joined for All Hail, and he brought some new energy to the band I guess..the first Chris had a really Keith Moon kinda style, and Chartrand was more technical I guess, more punk rock and metal influenced, so maybe it made us a bit tighter altogether..he moved in with me and Chad moved out, so it was different in that we weren’t playing every day at home, but I got a Zoom digital 4-track which made it easy to record full songs and show them to the dudes, we’d just hash songs out in the jam room..and then we recorded All Hail at a better studio, with Jordon Zadorozny, a friend of Chris’, in their hometown, Pembroke, in the sticks 5 hours from Toronto..we all stayed for a week, twice, in bedrooms he had off the studio room, it was great, it was like Camp All Hail haha
S: How did the connection with Lemmy come about?
A: A friend of mine named Doreen, who incidentally booked at El Mocambo with Dan Burke (goat head dude!) was really good friends with Lemmy, and introduced him to our stuff during the Gutter Days era…her and her family had a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown near the house, and she had a short-lived bar upstairs called Opium Den where she gave me a job and we’d play/DJ occasionally..she did an after party following a Motörhead gig one night where we played and got to hang with them afterward..Mickey Dee climbed on the stage at one point, completely wasted, saying “Let’s play a cover, what do you know??”…I just said my fav song ever, “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, which we had never tried before, and before we could finish the first chorus, he lost his balance on his stool and tumbled into the drums laughing, taking a couple of them down with him hahaha..Lemmy was seated the whole night at the video poker machine Doreen brought in for him but he seemed amused haha..
He wanted us to come on tour with them in Europe..and wanted to have a meeting about it, but in fuckin Montreal..so me and Claudio drive our asses 6 hours to Montreal, and Doreen instructs us to go to some strip joint after their show..we walk in thinking it’ll be him and an entourage partying or something, but the place is pretty dead..we’re looking for him, and find him, alone, down the end of a hallway full of video poker games playing poker haha..we hung out for a while talking about music, collecting, touring, lotsa stuff..the coolest was at one point, Claudio uses the term “groupies”, in passing, and Lemmy right away goes “they are not groupies..they’re your friends..girls on the road are sometimes the only normal person you have to talk to mate, those girls are your friends”, and I thought that was the coolest shit ever..fuck the cliches, there IS honor amongst rocknrollers haha
S: How did Die Mannequin form?
A: I had met DM’s singer, Care, in 2004, in the earlier All Hail days..we were dating while she was getting her band off the ground, and once she started getting signed to deals, the labels wanted her to tighten up her band, so for a minute in 2006 both myself and Claudio were in her band..by that time he was starting to get Crystal Castles going, and it was taking off and it was seeming like Claudio didn’t have as much time for the band, so we were getting pulled in new directions a bit..plus I was with this simultaneously crazy and crazy talented girl, and we both had a love of heroin, which was an awful thing to have in common hahaha, it was a bit of a mess at that time…and that’s when shit started getting fractured for KC..I kinda had some revelations about who I was surrounding myself with, and tried to let everyone know, but they didn’t see it till years later..so I just said this shits not fun or chill anymore, I gotta go…I left the bands, left her, left the city altogether for a while..he got booted from her band a couple months later cuz she was super creeped out by him and some stuff he was pulling, and shortly after her and I got back together and I rejoined Die Mannequin…KC never recorded again but played shows for another year or so, with Jason Decay of our brother band Goathorn replacing me (and lip synching my vocals in a Deathboy video which always cracked me up)..I always loved those dudes and couldn’t have asked for a better replacement.
S: What are some differences in writing between Die Mannequin and Kill Cheerleader?
A: Well they were completely different basically, Care was the driving creative force behind DM, I was just there as bass dude and an opinion, maybe this riff or part should do that or go there or whatever..but ya, that band was her beast, she was a super independent and competent writer, I was fine riding shotgun for it.
S: What’s your favorite tour story from Die Mannequin?
A: That band had label support and a booking agent so we did a lot more touring than any band I’d been in before..I got to tour and play with some of my heroes, which I feel pretty lucky for. We did a cross-Canada 3 week long tour in 2007 with Deftones, easily the coolest tour I ever got to do. Amazing dudes, and one of my oldest fav bands, a class act. And Chi’s final tour, rest his soul. He was a gem, offering me to use any of his basses anytime, showing up from his daily journeys with Chinese tinctures cuz he’d overheard me complaining about my achy knees haha..just the coolest. The band, the crew, everyone was so kind and so welcoming. Unlike, say, Buckcherry, who were just assholes, both band and crew, from the first day…the crew just screamed at us the whole time and the band refused to even make eye contact, ever, over like a week of dates…and they fuckin suck, so dunno where the primadonna shit comes from hahaha
We hit Europe a bunch of times too, playing big fests sometimes..which led to a whole night hanging out with Foo Fighters, and Dave Grohl telling stories that started with “so this one time with my old band Nirvana..” where you’re just like what the fuuuck haha..another fun adventure was after playing with NOFX and Bad Religion, hanging with Fat Mike and Brian Baker (also of Minor Threat), both hilarious guys..and after I couldn’t procure any pills for Mike, he decides that we’d have to have fun by melting wax on each others nipples hahahha..Baker and I hated it, but Fat Mike fuckin loved it.
One of our first tours was opening a week of shows for GnR, in 2007 I think, so it was cornrows Axl, with the band he had at the time. He was usually surrounded by 6 gorilla-looking security dudes, but he was coming offstage down the stairs one night and the gorillas weren’t there..and I was drunkenly walking by right then, so I just walked up and said “good show man!” and patted him on the shoulder. Baaaaad move! Within 20 minutes or so, as I’m hanging out in the Trailer Park Boys/Sebastian Bach room (who were also on the tour), the fuckin lead gorilla dude bursts in and puts me against the wall by the neck, feet in the air! Saying “you DON’T. TOUCH. AXL!!”, which was hilarious, so I’m laughing as he’s choking me, while a few people in the room’s tiny hands are trying to pull his massive arm down, it was just surreal..he let me down though, and almost in a daze kept saying “you don’t touch Axl man, you just don’t touch Axl” hahaha, like some kinda programmed security robot..there was a big meeting the next day in the production office..our manager had to fly in!…we had the alcohol on our rider taken away…and we were told, in no uncertain terms..that you Don’t. Touch. Axl.
S: How did Aciidz form?
A: So after my and Cares relationship ended, I left Die Mannequin in 2015. Our issues with heroin persisted for all those years, and I had to finally be on my own and kick that shit (and I did, 10 years now, woohoo). I went to LA for a bit and crashed with my friend/KC’s old manager Mike, and started writing and demoing shit again for the first time since KC, and once you’re clean, man the stuff comes pouring out, it was rad. Came back to Toronto and found some dudes, including Chartrand on drums again, which was sick..and I found a gem in Danni, my awesome guitar player..Chartrand has now moved back to his hometown 5 hours away in Pembroke, but I have a rad rhythm section now that I stole from a band I love called Black Cat Attack, a sick death punk band from near Toronto.
S: How does writing for Aciidz writing process differ from that of Kill Cheerleader and Die Mannequin’s writing process?
A: It’s pretty similar to KC’s I guess..well for the first Aciidz record, I had demoed all the songs before I had a band, so the guys just learned the songs as they were, but after that, it became a more collaborative process..Danni and I have what Chad and I had, where one of us will be dicking around with something, and the other will be able to jump in and throw something on top of it, and then we just run with it from there..occasionally I’ll still come up with full songs or a verse/chorus, but I like leaving it open and not filling in too many of the blanks to see where it might go with the other guys’ input. Danni will send me riff ideas as well, and then I fuck with it, it’s a fun way to write, very give and take.
S: What went into the decision to revive Kill Cheerleader for the split with Aciidz?
A: That just came from flipping through my music files when we were getting ready to release a couple Aciidz tracks and seeing those 2 KC songs that were never released and going like “oh fuck, right, those songs!”…they had been recorded for All Hail, but when I left right before it was about to released, Claudio pulled a couple of my songs, to minimize my input a little I guess…and he changed most of my song titles which was weird too haha..I’m all over the record, so it was all a little pointless, but whatever..Tony Lima, the guy at Yeah Right Records that had rereleased All Hail on vinyl a few years earlier was doing the Aciidz 7”, so it just made sense to us all, like why not put those on the flip side, my old band and my new band. Those songs just needed to finally be heard instead of collecting dust any longer.
S: Any underrated Canadian bands you’d want to shout out?
A: Sure ya, our pals in The Anti-Queens are doing some great shit. Dual female-fronted punk rock, great riffs, great vocals..Emily has a nice Brody Dalle style voice, and Val provides sick harmonies and axemanship..Mikey on bass did Aciidz’ Fadeaway video for us and made it look beautiful and dark.
And then there’s the aforementioned Black Cat Attack, which has Val on lead vocals and my bass player Bryan on screaming duties, along with my drummer Ari, as well as Dave Baksh from Sum41 on lead guitar, such a sick band.
Oh and there’s this band from Toronto that are really hot right now, they’re called Rush..they’ve got this track called Tom Sawyer, it’ll blow your fuckin mind dude!
S: How can the average person with a baseline interest in punk make a difference in their local scene?
A: I think just getting out there and supporting, and not being a dick! Easy! Go to shows, buy the merch, spread the word about bands and shows you’re passionate about, and fuck, if there’s a lineup you wanna see happen but haven’t, book a show..contact the bands and a bar’s booker and make it happen, suddenly you’re a big fancy promoter haha
S: Plans for 2026?
A: Aciidz has a pile of songs recorded now, so we’re releasing one every couple months, spreading em out..and then we’ll likely release it as a full record on vinyl once they’re all out there..we’re always writing, songs just happen at practice..after jamming the Kill Cheerleader stuff for the past little while, preparing for this Toronto show, my and Danni’s ideas have sorta naturally been swaying a little back towards my older writing style from KC, some of the new ideas have this KC tint on them, so that’s fun, we’ll see where it takes us moving forward.
We might play a couple more “Aciidz plays Kill Cheerleader” shows too, people have been stoked on it, and it’s been so fun playing and hearing these songs fuckin LOUD again, so we’ll see!
S: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: Sure ya man, just wanna say cheers to all of y’all that have kept waving the Kill Cheer flag for all these years..it makes me proud to know these songs we wrote 20 plus years ago in our shit apartments while we scraped by to play dirty RnR still mean something to anyone. And thx for checking out and supporting Aciidz too, we have no goals of “making it”, just doing it for the same old reason…dirty noise and cheap thrillzzz, they make the world go round!
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Aciidz are doing a Kill Cheerleader set on December 6th. Get tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/kill-cheerleaderaciidztumbleequator-tickets-1867369485399
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