Illinois Entertainer October 2017 | Page 49

Continued from page 46 handful of bands, some were in Europe and a handful of times with Jello Biafra. We’ve never been able to open up for any- one because we were kind of doing our own thing. A lot of the venues were 21 and over, especially in the US. But we had a strong fan base of young people on social media who could never come to the shows. When the owner of Warped Tour asked us we knew it’d be great. There was a lot of rocky things at the beginning; our bus breaking down and having to do 12 hours of driving in a rented SUV; 8 people squished in it for the first half of the tour. But we made it through. And in return, we got all these new fans who just dive right into what you’re doing. The fans have become more than just fans. It seems like our fans, they become part of the music and it becomes a part of their lives. Mosh: On this upcoming tour you’ll be playing the Cobra Lounge. What do you like most about playing in Chicago? Isis Queen: It’s a great music city and I always get excited when we get to play Chicago. Usually in the past we’ve always played Reggies, which is a great venue. Chicago is a very important city for us because our bass player Iriel (Blaque) is from Chicago. So that’s her home town. So there’s definitely an energy to be able to play in her home town. Mosh: What’s next for Barb Wire Dolls, including the upcoming tour? Isis Queen: It’s the biggest tour we’ve ever booked because we’re playing 41 dates across the U.S. So it’s going to be a two- month tour. We’ve also invited two bands to do the tour with us. One of them is Svetlanas, who are a female hardcore band from Russia that have been praised by all sorts of punk rockers around the world as the best hardcore band around in this day and age. We’ve also got another support traveling with us for all of the dates called 57. They’re a Korean band who we’ve met in the UK when we were touring there. It’s going to be an international extravaganza of punk rock and loud rock ‘n’ roll. MOSH-WORTHY RELEASES: Enslaved E (Nuclear Blast Records), Belphegor Totenritual (Nuclear Blast Records), 36 Crazyfists Lanterns (Spinefarm Records). MOSH-WORTHY…LIVE: Superjoint, DevilDriver, King Parrot, Cane Hill, Child Bite (The Forge, 10/09), Green Death, Reign, Vicious Attack, Apothesary, Opacia (Reggies, 10/12), Soulfly, Cannabis Corpse, Noisem, Lody Kong (The Forge, 10/16). MENTION-WORTHY: Fozzy, featuring WWE Superstar frontman Chris Jericho and Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward, has an Oct. 13 release date for its seventh full- length album, Judas. Wizard Bloody Wizard, the long-anticipated new album from UK cult legends Electric Wizard, will be released on Nov. 10 through Spinefarm Records. september 2017 illinoisentertainer.com 49