Exclusive: Ex-Cursed Front-Man Gets Back on the Horse with Burning Love

BY Josiah HughesPublished Oct 20, 2009

Ending abruptly after being robbed in Europe, Cursed left a gaping hole in the landscape of Canadian aggressive music. Fortunately, just over a year after their demise, front-man Chris Colohan has formed a new band.

Called Burning Love, the group have already released a demo and a seven-inch, and are currently on tour in the UK. When they get home, they plan to begin work on their debut LP, Songs for Burning Lovers, which is expected out in early 2010 via Deranged Records.

In an interview with Exclaim!, Colohan explained how the project came about, saying, "The Cursed thing was quite a blow, it hit me more after the fact than at the time that it was the end of a really huge chapter of my life. I came home and didn't hardly deal with life or people at all for months after that. And as always, I came back to the realization that I need to be playing music too much to not do it, in spite of any risks or calamities. So, you just get back on the horse [and] figure it out."

Despite Burning Love only recently getting their ball rolling in earnest, the band were already formed before Cursed's break-up. "We'd already started BL the winter prior to all that," Colohan explains. "But even at that time, I was just wanting to play with some different and younger people, of a different mentality and frame of reference. I knew all the guys from their band, Our Father, and we just went with it, threw our styles together and made a monster."

As far as the group's debut album is concerned, Colohan says the band are planning to record and mix Songs for Burning Lovers in analog at Montreal's legendary Hotel2Tango studio. And as Colohan reveals, Burning Love's sound is quite a departure from Cursed's metal influence.

"Every different group of people make their own collective music, and this is 4/5ths not ex-Cursed," he explains. "It's similarly loud and low, guitar-wise, but it's a different vibe. Those guys grew up on things like Hot Snakes, so it makes for some more variety."

Colohan also keeps busy as the drummer and vocalist for Mature Situations, a "geriatric punk band." "We dress up like old people, throw walkers and adult diapers at people and sing songs about bus trips, colostomy bags and forgetting where you put stuff. It's ridiculously fun," he says.

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