By Carleton Atwater
In the basement of a tiny house on Huntington Avenue, the space is scarce and there’s no heat. Lighting is provided by a simple string of Christmas lights on the wall and, on top of all this, the floor is covered in water four inches deep.
Despite these conditions, Cancer To The Stars practiced on a Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of their upcoming CD release party at Bill’s Bar on Friday, April 11.
Cancer to the Stars is a three-piece rock band from Northeastern, and the last time The News checked in on the band who met in a math class their first year, they were just looking to put out a CD – last March they were in the studio recording a four-song demo.
Ryan Teff, a senior English literature major, plays guitar and sings. Jeremy Reger, a junior music industry major plays bass, and recent NU music industry grad, Jon Briks plays the drums. Since forming a little over two years ago, Cancer to the Stars has worked hard in and around the New England area.
“Cancer to the Stars means something different to me every day. What it sort of means, fundamentally, is the idea of taking whatever makes you ill and projecting it as far from you as possible,” Teff said. “Depending upon my mood this can have very dark or very bright feelings to it. There is a definite element of escapism in our music, a sort of frantic desire to get out, or to get away. But despite this need to escape or run away from the various infections we are dealing with, I like to think there is some empowering energy to what we are. If we ever were to become famous, for example, I would hope that we could be considered to be just like a little box of cancer to send to celebrities, and that whatever purity we have retained would be something that would send them running in sickness and fear.”
These guys are no slackers and this is evident on their debut CD “Every Day Escape,” released this month. The band is proud of their album and hope that students will support them by picking it up at CD Spins. It was recorded over three months last fall.
Reger said they really enjoy their time in the studio, but he considered them more of a live band, simply because they don’t have the money to spend much time in the studio. The album is brief, but makes use of every second of its 26 minutes. Filled with feeling and power, standout tracks include “Dustbin” and “Days Become Us.”
The drumming is particularly exciting. Briks listens to a fair amount of hip-hop artists and it’s evident with his surprisingly danceable beats. He even lists DJ Shadow’s “Endtroducing …” as his all time favorite album, “for just the drumming alone.”
Groups like Joy Division and Fugazi clearly have had an influence over this band, but the guys make it a point not to wear their inspirations on their sleeve.
“It’s good to hear a band where you recognize where they’re coming from, but at the same time it’s a real turn off when a band sounds too much like their influences,” Teff said.
Some have even compared the group to underground favorite Interpol. The comparison is understandable, but judging from their practice last week, Cancer to the Stars has 100 times the energy of those NYU pretty boys.
Ryan admits he’s a fan of Interpol, but said, “I used to listen to the Interpol record a lot. They made a real good record, but 10 years from now, do you think anyone will remember them?”
The list they give of influences is long and diverse: Leonard Cohen, At-the-Drive-In, Bad Brains, DJ Shadow, The Ramones and Elliot Smith.
Sometimes Cancer to the Stars has been lumped into the “emo” category; this is something the guys are none too pleased about.
“I think we’re really emotionally charged but I don’t think we’re emo. I really like the idea of a kind of rock that’s really geared towards being emotional, but I think that all music that’s really good is emotional,” Teff said. “At the same time anything that is really obvious is just bad. I mean we’re all emotional people. It’s just, like, there’s a lot of anger in what we play, but we’re not an angry hard rock band either.”
Briks notes his problems with most emo bands as well.
“You listen to Fugazi or old DC bands you have the blueprint for that type of the music,” Briks said. “Now you have all these Jade Tree or Vagrant Bands and they’ve taken all the little signifiers and, like, raped it and made it suck.”
Being that they all meet at NU, Cancer to the Stars is a Boston based band, a feat they say is no easy task. For one thing, there are virtually no all-ages venues they point out, something they find frustrating for a number of reasons.
“Most of these venues here are 21 plus, and, by that age, the majority of people don’t seem to care about music so much anymore. Maybe it’s because alcohol is more attractive than music to some, but I think that many people, by that time, they have already decided what they do and do not like, and it can be difficult to turn people on,” Briks said. “The best shows we have had have always been 18 plus, and I do not think that is a coincidence. We are starting to book some all ages shows, but unfortunately, all ages almost does not exist in Boston. I think that this is a tough city to play in.”
