We caught up with Chibi of The Birthday Massacre back stage at the Corporation in Sheffield to talk about how the band have to got to where they are now, their current tour, plans for the future and how Chibi loves Horses.

How did you form as a band and how did you come up with the name The Birthday Massacre?
I was in London Ontario and I was going to college to study fine arts and that is where I met Rainbow, we were both on the same art program. We were all at that college at one point or another, we all sort of met in school. Rainbow and Mike had actually been friends since they were young and they had been in bands before. We all got together and formed a band and started playing music for fun on the weekends, doing cover songs and stuff. Then we moved on to doing original songs stuff and started playing shows. Originally we had a different name, we used to be called Imagica but a lot of other bands had it. We had a song the song “Happy Birthday” actually used to be called The Birthday Massacre so we decided to change it to that as it was a really popular song.

You have a very original sound and style, where have you taken your influences from?
Probably just from all the stuff we listened to growing up, we listened to a wide range of stuff like Cindy Lauper, Madonna, Pantera and Metallica as we were always into metal bands too. We just took all of our common interests in music and tried to put them together and made them sound like they belong together.

What would you say your main achievements have been since you first formed in 2000 and how would you describe your journey so far?
Personally I would say that one of my biggest achievements is, when I was in school I was a really shy and awkward person. When I was in school I hated doing presentations or anything like that, so being in a band was really challenging for me and to stand there in front of people and not feel like a complete idiot. So for me that is a big achievement, now I'm not stumbling and awkward. Even being able to tour has been a really big achievement for us, we have come to the UK and Europe for a few years in a row now which is amazing we also went to Australia which was pretty cool.

You have not long since released Show and Tell, what inspired you release a live CD and DVD?
When the footage was recorded we didn't even know what it was going to be used for. It just felt like we were on a low right now between Walking With Strangers and our new album, so we were like lets release something. We had the footage from the last time we played Germany a year and a half ago and we thought that will work. It just seemed like a good time to release it and we had wanted to do it for a while.

Your last full length studio album was released in 2007, when can we expect your fourth album to be out?
We are hoping at the beginning of next year as we are working on it right now, but we have a lot of touring left this year and its really hard to tour and write at the same time. When we get home we are going to work really hard on it and then tour again and then finish it.

You are nearly at the end of your UK tour, how have the shows been going and what do you like most about the UK?
The thing I like most about the UK is that everyone speaks English and because we are Canadian we have a lot in common with the UK, we have the Queen on our money right. The shows have been really really good

How would you describe your live show and what are your favourite songs to play live?
They always change, tonight will be our seventh show I think so I'm just dead tired I want to have a day off so I hate all the songs right now. I really like playing Falling Down, Lovers End and Happy Birthday because I can make stupid faces and just have fun.

The majority of your artwork is heavily purple based, how did this theme come about and who designs your artwork?
We design all the stuff ourselves, we are selling a t-shirt right now that I drew the picture on, its a little girl holding balloons. The whole concept of the band is contrasts which is birthday and massacre, so purple is like red and blue which are warm and cold. Its good because a lot of people come to the shows wearing purple and its really cute.

Do you have any funny tour stories you would like to share?
Oh man! There are always a lot of terrible funny tour stories. I will pick something from this tour, we have this big double Decker bus right now that we are sharing with the other bands so there are fifteen people on the bus all the time. I get really really motion sick so on the second night of the tour I got sick and started throwing up and I was like “I want to go home” that's a terrible way to start a tour.

You are from Toronto, do you think there are any good upcoming bands from that surrounding area we should check out?
Yeah definitely, its sad the way the industry work now is that there are so many bands that nobody will ever hear about that are really good. Even Raggedy Angry that we have brought with us they are really cool, we are just getting to know them right now and they are from the Toronto area. O-en our keyboard player has his own band called Electric Knife Fight and they are really good. The same with O.E our bass player he is in a band called il attire. On our Myspace we have a lot of links to local bands we like, its a good place to start.

For a band that has been together for just over nine years, what is your current opinion on the music scene and how it has changed over those years?
I have a really bad opinion about it. I think everyone can tell, people talk about file sharing, MP3s and people not buying albums any more. We are not even a massively successful band and we are definitely feeling that burn of people not buying albums its very noticeable. A lot of bands these days offer weird bonuses, like if you buy the album the band will email you this. They all have these little tricks that they are doing to try and make money, right now we are just like come to live shows and buy shirts because bands are not making money and if they don't make money then they cannot tour and then there is no more music ever.

If you could cover any song you wanted, what song would it be any why?
The rest of the band will hate me for this but I always thought it would be cool to do a metal song like a Metallica song or a Def Leppard song, but they always pushed for David Bowie. So none of us could ever agree on anything, we did do a Tiffany cover “I Think We're Alone Now” that is something we all agreed on.

Where do you hope to see The Birthday Massacre in five years time?
Oh man, I don't know. Still just able to tour hopefully because touring is really fun. I hope the whole industry refreshes, right now the music scene in Toronto is pretty off and I would like to see that better. Also people paying more attention to independent bands and supporting them.

Okay, one final random question; if you had a choice, what animal would you be out of a Zebra and a Giraffe?
A zebra probably, I really like horses and a zebra is kinda like a horse right. A giraffe I don't know, I guess they are kinda a horse too but that long neck no! I'm not into the neck.

Thanks for your time, is there a message you would like to give to your fans reading this?
Just a huge thank you and we absolutely love playing in the UK and we want to come back all the time.

Interview By Ellie