Bet Your Life

How long have you been together?
We just celebrated our third birthday on March 26th, but the three of us were in another band for a few years before that.

How do you know each other?
Two of us (Shawn and Scott) were practically best friends since childhood. In high school we started a band with another good friend of ours, and that’s where we recruited Sebastian to drum with us. That band unfortunately broke up and a while later the three of us got back together and started making music again.

Where are you from?
We’re from London, Ontario, Canada, which is just 200km southwest of Toronto.

What style of music would you say you were?
To put it verbosely, we’re a gritty and modern kind of melodic punk rock.

Are you with a record label if not who would you like to be with ?
We’re independent, though we did put our last EP (Give No Quarter) out with the help of our good friends at Synicalist Records. Working with Fat Wreck would be a dream come true for all of us, but we also love the music coming out of New Damage and Union.

How has your style developed over the years?
The funny/probably embarrassing thing is that Bet Your Life first started jamming as a pop rock band. We still weren’t over the last punk band the three of us were in and we wanted to try something completely different to see how it would go. We wrote two songs before the three of us simultaneously agreed that it wasn’t working, and we started jamming back where we were comfortable. At that time we started writing fast hardcore songs and did a lot of gnarly half time screamy breakdowns. Over time we evolved into the more gritty melodic sound we’re at today.

Is their a theme to your songs?
Yes and no. We sort of accidentally ‘caught’ a pirate theme, though we and our songs have nothing to do with pirates lyrically, musically, or fashionably. We played a Hallowe’en show one night where we all dressed up as matching pirates, and ever since then we’ve been billed as pirate punk rock. We didn’t particularly help matters by running with that theme in the album artwork for our Give No Quarter EP and appending ‘pirate’ to the genre fields in our internet profiles, but what are you gonna do.

What bands have influenced you?
How about a top 5: The Flatliners, Hot Water Music, Against Me!, Bad Religion, and Hostage Life (may they rest in peace). Another band, Nothington, was the one band that everybody who had ever heard us would compare us to. None of us really ever heard their stuff, but the comparison was happening so often that we finally decided to check them out and said, “holy shit, these guys are good!” So they could be a close 6, kind of.

How do you think the punk scene has changed since you started listening to it?
Right now it’s looking like it’s back on the upswing. We grew up listening to all the great Fat Wreck and Epitaph bands of the 90s, and by the time we got around to starting a band of our own we were left saying “well, shit, where did everyone go?” Nowadays, though, there is a constant stream of good music coming from new and old bands alike, and, especially in our city, a real community has started growing. Things are starting to look very good for the genre and it’s really exciting.

Which bands old or new would you like to play with on the same stage as?
The Flatliners, Hot Water Music, Against Me!, Bad Religion, NOFX, Nothington, A Wilhelm Scream, Comeback Kid, Kid Dynamite, and None More Black.

Any funny or interesting tour / gig stories ?
We’ve got several that don’t require much explanation or story telling. They range from broken walls and ceilings, broken pinkies, the sound guy almost getting knocked out by a member of another band, and intoxicated school bus urination. We did have some girl rock out harder than anyone ever has to our set and then tell us afterwards that we were brutal and she could play better guitar in her sleep. Thanks for the mixed messages lady! She later got kicked out for violating the venue’s posted ‘zero drug tolerance’ sign. I’m sure there’s more but that’s all we can come up with right now.

Any tour / gig dates coming up?
We’re playing London on April 26th with Voice of Addiction (from Chicago), then we’re hitting Waterdown, London, and Windsor with The Penske File (from Burlington, ON) on May 22-24. Afterward we’re working on hitting as many towns in Ontario as possible for the summer and possibly making our way into Quebec.

Anything else you would like to add ?
Check us out at music.betyourlife.ca and if you dig us, pick up our latest physical record there or digitally from any online music store (iTunes, Rdio, Amazon, etc) you can think of! - Allpunk

I first became of aware of Bet Your Life a couple of weeks back when they submitted the track Tom Bombadil to PoDunk Radio for airplay and was quite impressed with the sound of this band and featured them on that week's PoDunk Punk Show.

This band has a sound that is grittier than a mechanics fingernails. One can quickly pick out a Flatliners influence and is that a bit of Against Me! sound in there as well? I think so. Fuck me if I'm off on that. The cover art that Dave Schultz drew is pretty fucking amazing, I can almost smell the spiced rum.

This is a HUGE sound out of a little band, everything is so tight in this EP that runs 5 tracks out over 14 minutes. My favorite tracks are Hold Them Under and Brittle Bones but that's not to say that the other 3 aren't good as well. This one will surely have you tapping your toes and bobbin your heads. I really dig this EP and feel that you will too. You can pre-order it today just 2 bucks in Maple Dollars (CAD) for the digital copy and 5 Maple Dollars (CAD) for the CD which comes in a sweet full-color, recycled cardboard pocket with artwork by Dave Schultz.
Each member of the band will kiss the disc so that when you're kissing the disc it's like you're kissing them and you're in love.

Pre-order includes immediate download of 2 tracks in the high-quality format of your choice (MP3, FLAC, and more), plus unlimited mobile access using the free Bandcamp listening app. You'll also get the complete album the moment it’s released.Shipping out on or around 25 March 2014.

Preview Tom Bombadil and S Club here and click that link to purchase. It may well be one of the best decisions you've made today. - PoDunk Radio Blog

This is my first day off party life since I got back from Cobourg last weekend, and I still haven't unpacked the suitcase full of laundry I brought home with me.. my room is kinda in ruins and I really should stop procrastinating and prepare for real life tomorrow.

But that sounds boring so I'm going to review Bet Your Life's new EP Give No Quarter instead.
It feels less like work to write about a wicked band than it does to put way my underwear, especially when they're my favourite breed of band.. pirate punk.

A cross between The Briggs and the Gallows with their rum soaked vocals and the hearty crew singalongs, each song packed to the hook with gusto.

It's the soundtrack to mutiny.

I can't help but picture all the pirates in Hook (the movie) just breaking into a musical number along with this EP. Imagine Mr. Smee is the singer?! Wouldn't that be a hoot. Rufio would be on drums, and I guess Peter would have to be a part of it, but after he grew some balls, this ain't no band for wimps.

They're getting me so pumped up that I might actually tackle the shit out of my room tonight with this on repeat. I'll ignore the urge to then throw shit off my balcony pretending I'm making it walk a 17 story high plank above a concrete ocean.

Check out their brand new video done by my fav friends at 331arts! - Music She Blogged

I really have to thank and give props to the London, Ontario scene for their interest in this blog so far. I've previously done reviews for "Forest City" punk bands Redambergreen and The Offensive Senses, and now we keep the London punk vibe going with the sophomore EP from Bet Your Life, Give No Quarter. I've been reading about these guys on Dying Scene quite a bit lately, and now the scene turns perfect (see what I did?) as I've had the chance to exchange e-mails with guitarist/vocalist Scott Blinch, who got in touch a couple of weeks ago.

The follow-up to their 2012 debut EP Landshark, Give No Quarter continues the melodic punk rock this pirate loving three-piece has become known for. They list The Flatliners, Hot Water Music and Against Me! among their influences, and you can definitely hear them in the gravelly vocals and open guitar chords. The EP's five songs touch on a few different themes, but they're all real and heavy - there's no fluff here. Opener "Deadlights" appears to deal with mental illness - be it depression, bi-polar disorder or whatever - and contains my favourite lyric on the EP: "It's completely pointless/like shouting insight at the television". "Hold Them Under" touches on oppression and falling in line, "Tom Bombadil" speaks ill of a figurehead, I believe in reference to God. Lyrics like "What else goes on inside that head/is there much room for more than self-centered embellishments?" really speak to the leader of a group, building an army of his or her own followers. "Brittle Bones" is totally about skeletons in the closet, and is my favourite song on the EP. Closer "S Club" - which sadly is not an S Club 7 cover - talks about how there ain't no party like a Bet Your Life party trying, then failing, gives way to doubt and loss of faith in what you believe.

Clocking in around thirteen minutes, Give No Quarter is a quick, raucous blast of heavier subject matter meshing with catchy choruses. Beyond the aforementioned artists - both their listed influences and fellow London bands - if you're into The Stanfields, The Living End, and Rancid you'll enjoy Bet Your Life. You can...wait for it..."bet your life" on that!

Oh shut up, it was right there! - The Perfect Scene