Anyone who was at the Cart & Horses on Wednesday would find out that Tank are back. MetalTalk will have more about the show soon, which also featured the superb Leader Of Down. The Tank boys have a busy few days ahead, but as Mick van Tuckerberg and Cliff Evans told us after the gig, the future is exciting, if tinged by recent loss.
Tank have visas secured, and the show was a warmup for their appearance at Hell’s Heroes VI Festival at White Oak Music Hall in Houston.
Cliff and Mick had big smiles when asked how they felt after the Cart & Horses gig. “That was great,” Cliff told MetalTalk’s Monty Sewell. “We haven’t gigged for so long. We’re a new lineup now, too. We had only just met two days ago. Mick found Marcus [Von Boisman]. He has never really been in a band before. We never played with him before. I only met him two days ago.”
Mick came across Marcus while working on a White Spirit album. “I heard his voice, and it was like, what the fuck? I said, do you reckon he would do something with Tank?”
Mick sent over some demos from the new album. “They come back, and it was like, wow, nice. And that was it. He’s in.”
Marcus was impressive on the evening. “He is a natural,” Cliff said. “The kids down the front love him. We’ve never had that before with previous singers.”
Mick says the lineup has never been right. “It’s got more of an edge to it,” Cliff says. “The previous singers have been fantastic vocalists.”
“That is the thing that ties in,” Mick says. “You have so many fantastic vocalists, but the thing that makes a difference is the vocalist who can take a good performance to an amazing performance.”
“It feels like a band now,” Cliff says. “That’s the first time in a long time. Great rhythm section, obviously, with the drummer from Diamond Head [Karl Wilcox]. He’s got pedigree.”
“‘He has got not only the look,” Mick smiles, “but a damn good drum technique there.”
“He is loud,” Cliff says. “My right ear is ringing now with how he hits that snare. So he’s cool. And Gav [Gray] on bass there. He’s played with Tygers Of Pan Tang and The Almighty. As a rhythm section, it worked really, really well. They are just nice guys. It’s been great fun the past two days, just rehearsing. The first time we’d ever played the songs together. We rehearsed all day and Wetherspoons all night.”
With the visas in, the band fly to Texas to play Hell’s Heroes Festival tomorrow. The process for visas took time, and the process also involved heartache.
“Marcus, the singer, his father dropped him off at the American embassy in Stockholm,” Mick says. “Unfortunately, he collapsed and died outside the embassy. That was last week. But Marcus has come and done this show.”
“He said his dad would have wanted him to do this,” Cliff says. “He was excited.”
I suggest that it must mean a lot for Marcus to know that he has the support of the Tank family. “We will look after him,” Cliff says. “The fact that he has come and done this, it’s nice to have a singer who is really committed.”
“The American embassy were brilliant,” Mick says. “They fast-tracked him through.”
“It could have all fallen apart,” Cliff says. “We fly out tomorrow afternoon. It’s one show in America, but we will go back there later in the year. We will tour the States and then do the UK as well. It’s been so long since we toured.”
A UK tour is something to look forward to, with hopefully another show at the Cart & Horses. “This is now the cool place to play,” Cliff says. “There’s a vibe about it. It’s small, cosy, hot and sweaty. It’s great. I really enjoyed tonight. I’m sure if it’s good enough for Steve Harris to do…”
The future now looks bright, and there is plenty from Tank to look forward to. “We’ve got a fantastic new album,” Mick says, “and Marcus sounds amazing on it.”
“We’re back,” Cliff beams.
“We’re back with a vengeance,” Mick says. “This time, we’re gonna do it properly.”
With tours and other things on the horizon, there is no news on the release date yet. “The past few days, it’s just getting this back together,” Cliff says. “Doing that first show, see how it goes.
“We’ve been going for so long. We get to a certain level, and then we get shot down again. We never had proper management. We’ve never had a proper label behind us. So this has always been us trying to do it ourselves. Having Karl on board, he is good at organizing stuff. So now it just runs a bit more smoothly. But we will see. One step at a time.”
But from tonight, with the resounding success, the audience and the resounding love of everything that is Tank, there is nothing quite like it.
RIP Björn von Boisman.
