Brain In A Cage

If you make a habit of attending local metal shows, chances are that you’ve already heard of Brain In A Cage. They’ve been making a name for themselves recently, sharing shows with local hardcore veterans, Oddman, and headlining their own shows at Riff Raff — but the one thing that really sets them apart from other bands, aside from the quality of their music, is their age. All of the members are under 16, yet they somehow manage to compete on a musical plane with bands twice as old and three times as experienced. This is both a blessing and a curse for the band. On the one hand, they’ve got a huge head start on dealing with the world of music; on the other, they’ve got the problem of having everyone focus on their youth as opposed to their talent.
I met with Nik Burman (drums), Kirk Williams (guitar, vocals) and Cor Vaspra (bass, backing vocals) of Brain In A Cage recently at the Naked Lounge, and they wasted no time getting into the idea behind their band.
"I guess the whole concept behind Brain In A Cage is...well, a lot of the songs are about different things, but most of them deal with the same ‘be yourself’ sort of thing," offered Kirk, the primary songwriter. "The Brain In A Cage thing is to sort of break out of the stereotypes and things that people have set for you and be yourself."
He then pointed out that though such themes often show up in the songwriting, they aren’t the only focus. "We have an actual song called ‘Brain In A Cage,’" he added. "It’s sort of about censorship. We also have a song about how when you turn on the TV, all you see these days is violence, violence, violence."
"This all actually started in seventh grade," said Cor of the beginnings of the band. "[Kirk] came later. He was the first person who actually knew how to play an instrument. Before that, we all just sat around — we didn’t know how to play jack shit. When he joined the band and we had our first rehearsal, well, it was interesting to say the least. Our drummer had ADD and the music was more punk rock. We would just sit around and play these really insane jams that didn’t have any point to them at all. Then we had another drummer who got in trouble a lot and ended up getting sent to Willows and getting his head shaved."
"What happened with the head shaving?" I asked.
"He wound up stealing a car and getting busted by the cops," Cor replied casually. "They found a lot of illegal substances on him. Then his dad shaved his head thinking, ‘Maybe if I cut off your hair, boy, you won’t be doing any more rebellious things!’"
"We also had lots of problems with him getting grounded from the band before that happened," added Kirk. "I think we only ended up playing two gigs with him — that was it."
From there, the topic of conversation turned to one of the worst gigs they had ever played. "There was one that was pretty bad for us," said Cor, "but we still set a record at Tower that night — we packed the place. That was when [Kirk] broke a string and didn’t bring the backup guitar."
"Yeah, that was pretty bad," agreed Kirk. He added that the crowd still ended up enjoying the show, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. The broken string was really more of an inconvenience — something Brain In A Cage was used to dealing with because of their age.
"We don’t have any transportation," Kirk said on the subject. "Also, I’m playing through a little Line 6 Spider as opposed to a half stack."
"Yeah, and as far as income goes, we don’t have any," added Nik. "We have to practice in my bedroom. We don’t have a very big practice space. We don’t have as many responsibilities, though. If I didn’t go to school, I’d probably just play music."
The entire band also agreed that it was getting annoying hearing people say, "They’re good for their age," though they were careful to point out that they really enjoy being a band in Chico.
"I think Chico is a great place for music," said Kirk. "It seems like the metal stuff is coming back. Oddman has helped us out a lot."
"Yeah," agreed Cor. "A while ago, the only thing we had were death metal shows at the Epicenter where five people would show up. It was just like band practice in a big place. Now Riff Raff is really helping. They gave us our first gig before they even had a stage. They also gave us our first headlining gig. We end up playing a lot of 21-and-over shows. We always have friends saying, ‘When are you going to play an all-ages show?’ but then when we do, no one shows up."
Though the band has accomplished a lot in a short period of time, it was refreshing to see that they had a very down-to-earth perspective on the future.
"I’m not really too stuck on the fame thing," said Nik, "but I love playing music, and it would be nice to get some kind of pay for doing something I love that much. I pretty much do it to have fun and hopefully people get something out of it. I’m also into art, so I have that to fall back on. If that doesn’t work, I could be a janitor."
As the interview came to a close, Nik reflected on the amount of work it was going to take in the years to come to reach the band’s goals. "We don’t really have the money to lay down tracks for a CD," he said. "If we don’t keep playing shows, some of the fans will just fall away. We don’t want to just fall out of the scene as soon as we came into it."

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