Love and a Motorcycle: 04.11

Just want to say I love these guys and I am excited for the show on the 21st! ya hopefully my bike will be running..... but i could just push it there and it would still be cool as fuck.

BEATROUTE

THE VICIOUS CYCLES

all revved up and ready to go

By Tim Horner

They wanna be free. They wanna be free to do what they wanna do. They wanna be free to ride their machines and not be hassled by The Man. I imagine this permutation of the oft-cited dialogue from The Wild Angels was running through the mind of one Billy Bones, leader of the pack and singer of Vancouver’s Vicious Cycles, as he approached the Peace Arch border crossing on his ’71 Honda Rat, en route to a recent Mummies gig in Portland, Oregon, dressed head to toe as a mummy.

“I pictured a dozen or more of us riding down together all dressed as Mummies. I figured as we passed Seattle, we'd run into other guys on bikes dressed as Mummies and there'd be station wagons filled with Mummies, and it would be a six hour party to get to the show,” Bones laughs. “The truth is no one wants to ride with me because I break down every 15 miles.”  

Hopefully the tour van fares better this month, as The Vicious Cycle glory stomp through Alberta in celebration of their first full-length release, recorded by Bobby Froese (Three Inches of Blood, Pride Tiger).  

The tour will be a homecoming of sorts, with a pair of gigs in Edmonton, home to bassist Rob Wright. “My older brother Ted was in a band called The Brewtals, and they played Billy and Krista’s wedding, like 15 years ago,” remembers Wright, a former Tabernacle and current James T. Kirk. “I knew them from Les Tab. We played some shows with Tim and Billy in Raised By Wolves, and we all got along.” Conversely, Bones notes “Rob used to book my old bands when we'd go through Edmonton.”  

The line-up was rounded out by the inclusion of “Motorcyco” Norman Anderson on theremin and Jared Anderson on drums. “One of my old bands (Thee Pirates) played Jared's 12th birthday party, and 12 year-old Jared did some of the artwork for our cassette,” Bones recalls. “Norman is Jared's dad, which by rights should make things weird, but it doesn't. Norman and Jared and I went in for tattoos together a couple months ago. We got winged 15mm Honda wrenches.”   

Wrights adds: “It’s a pretty neat dynamic because Norman is Vancouver’s oldest teenager, and Jared is Vancouver’s youngest retiree. Jared is like the crabby old man and Norman is up for whatever.”  

The time is ripe for a cycle-centric punk rock group right now. “The Vancouver scene is real cool right now,” notes Bones. “All the bike clubs get along like brothers. You got your Night Fighters, your Scorpions, your Heathens, your Filth Mode, your Rats, your Majestic Unicorns, your Big Knobbies, your Man Wolfs, and there's probably another 10 crews. Everybody's got their own bag, but we ride together and have a good time together. Man, we all eat the same bugs, and we all get our balls busted by the same fuzz.”  

Whether it’s the bikes or the familial camaraderie, this band of brothers “are a strange bunch,” says Bones. “When we're coming home from a trip and the van pulls up out front of the first guy's house to let him out, we all just sit there. Nobody wants to go home.” And when it comes to a Cycles gig, you won’t want to go home, either. You’ll wanna get loaded. And you’ll wanna have a good time. And that’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna have a good time. You’re gonna have a party.   Peter Fonda, eat your heart out.