The Mark Of Cain
John Scott from alt-metal band The Mark Of Cain speaks on re-releasing their Ill At Ease album, its Henry Rollins connection and what Adelaide was like in the ’90s.
It’s been 28 years since you released Ill At Ease and now you’re releasing it on vinyl. Congratulations!
Thank you! We did a little bit of remastering [on it]. We always wanted to fiddle with the snare sound on the album and I think we’ve got it in place. I played it on my record player the other day and it sounded really, really good.
Tell us more about how Ill At Ease came to life.
I started writing it when I was overseas. Both Kim [Scott] and I took two years off [from music]. His job took him to Alabama and mine took me to Israel. When Kim and I got back, we started playing with Aaron Hewsen [drums] and spent a lot of time in rehearsal spaces around Adelaide working on these songs. I think ‘Tell Me’ was one of the first ones. Ill At Ease also coincided with a breakup with my wife, so there were a lot of relational things. Some people call it a breakup album, [but] it’s not necessarily that. Ill At Ease is about not quite feeling at home, whether that’s a position you’re in or in society. I could argue that if we didn’t play anything after that, [Ill At Ease] would’ve been a great record to finish on.
The record itself was produced by Henry Rollins. How did that collaboration come about?
That was so happenstance. I remember seeing the Rollins Band in about ’88 and thinking, ‘Oh my god, what a fucking great band’. We got to play with them in 1992 at the Old Lion. We were one of the supporting bands. At the end of our set, as we were walking off, all the guys in the Rollins Band were going ‘Great set’ and patting us on the back. By the end, [Henry] Rollins came to us and said, ‘We really like what you guys do, do you have an album?’ We gave him a copy of Battlesick. Six months later, he got back to his crib and got in contact. [He said] he’d love to produce if we ever did something. When Ill At Ease came up, he was keen to do it. He came over and spent two or three weeks in Adelaide mixing [the album]. We used to pick him up and drop him off at the hotel. It was really cool. I’d be in my shitty Holden HK with Henry Rollins thinking, ‘I better drive carefully’.
What did you learn from recording, producing and touring Ill At Ease that you still carry today as a musician?
It was good to get recognition from someone like Henry Rollins, this larger-than-life guy who’s been in seminal punk rock and hardcore bands. You’re always your worst critic. It was nice to have him say, ‘You guys have got fucking great songs’. I always joke that I don’t sing, I just sort of bark and he said, ‘No, you’ve got a good voice’. He made me feel so much more confident.
You cut your teeth in the Adelaide scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s. What was it like being in a band back then?
It was really good. We all knew each other, and there was a core scene with the Filthy Scumbags, Exploding White Mice and Lizard Train. And there were a lot of places to play! Harry Butler, who wrote DNA Magazine, would find these obscure pubs and ask if bands could play music there. A lot of bands supported one another, too. The first time we went to Melbourne, Exploding White Mice took us. We didn’t even know them!
Do you think, being from a smaller city like Adelaide, that South Australians’ appreciation for live music might be a little stronger?
I often thought that Adelaide marched to the beat of its own drum. There was always what was cool coming out of Sydney and Melbourne – you know, that East Coast thing – and I always felt, in my opinion, that Adelaide people went, ‘Fuck that, we don’t have to do that to be good. We can do our own thing.’ People would say, you’ve got to move to Melbourne or Sydney to make it. I saw so many bands do that and disintegrate. It was like, ‘We’ll stay here, and if we do well, we’ll do well. And if we don’t, whatever’. It was about the music.
You’re kicking your Ill At Ease tour off in Adelaide. What can we expect from the live show?
The usual heavy-handed, get-out-there stuff. Kim grimacing, me barking and Eli [Green] working hard behind the drums. I love playing Ill At Ease. They’re our favourite songs. It’ll be the usual no bullshit and, hopefully, we won’t damage too many people’s ears. Even I think it’s too loud!
Sounds like a good time! And lastly, how does it feel to still rock out with your brother on stage after three decades?
It’s great. I love it. Sometimes I think how lucky I am that all those years ago I said, ‘Here, you need to play bass’. He’s so solid.
See The Mark of Cain on November 25 at Hindley Street Music Hall. Buy tickets here.
