Interview by Ali Williams
THE MARK OF CAIN aren’t a band prone to excessive activity for the sake of it. They play when there is a reason to play, record when there is something worth recording and, still prefer enough amplifiers and cables on stage to keep several roadies gainfully employed. In 2026, there happens to be a very good reason to get busy.
The Adelaide trio Josie Scott, Kim Scott and drummer Eli Green are preparing to return to the stage, beginning with Brisbane’s Zed 51 Festival at Roma Street Parkland on October 24 before heading to Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide through November. Behind those shows sits the more significant development: THE MARK OF CAIN are well into work on their sixth studio album, with eight songs already completed and demoed, more in development and plans to finish the record early next year.
When HEAVY’s Ali Williams caught up with bassist Kim Scott, it became clear that the current burst of activity wasn’t born from some grand strategy. Zed 51 simply gave the band a reason to interrupt the writing process and get back in front of people.
“That kind of became a bit of a catalyst for us to come out live again,” Scott explains.
The band last toured in 2023 after Scott recovered from a cycling accident severe enough to leave him unable to walk for a period and force dates to be postponed. Once they were finally back on the road, something changed in the usual post-tour routine. Instead of packing everything away and returning completely to normal life, THE MARK OF CAIN kept rehearsing.
That decision is now paying dividends. “This time, we said, let’s continue rehearsing maybe once a week, or once every two weeks, and start writing,” he says.
Drummer Eli has been with THE MARK OF CAIN for more than a decade, originally stepping in when longtime drummer John Stanier’s commitments in the United States made touring difficult. Green is now considered a permanent member, and this is the first record being written with him fully involved in the process. The band also have taken the opportunity that comes with Green now being a full time member and with his own studio, where they’ve been developing and recording high-quality demos. Scott says Green has been arriving with substantial pieces of music already formed, changing a writing process that historically revolved heavily around Josie Scott bringing his ideas into the rehearsal room. The result so far is eight finished songs, another handful being worked into shape and a slightly different internal dynamic without any suggestion that THE MARK OF CAIN are about to stop any time soon.
The band’s sound has always relied heavily on precision. Even the matching work shirts that became part of their visual identity came from Scott looking at what the music demanded rather than trying to manufacture an image. Where many bands happily look like several unrelated people who happened to arrive at the same rehearsal room, THE MARK OF CAIN’s tightly controlled music suggested something more unified.
Scott says “Because of the precision of our music, because everything has to be locked down and really tight, I kind of went, ‘Hey, we should kind of wear a uniform.’”
It is a very THE MARK OF CAIN explanation. Even the wardrobe had an engineering brief. That sense of construction also runs directly through their songwriting. Scott describes the music as “engineering and mathematical”, with arrangements built deliberately rather than generated through loose jams. John has remained the principal songwriter, both musically and lyrically, throughout the band’s history, although the way he has worked with different drummers has naturally changed.
Scott recalls that during Ill At Ease, Josie was so specific about what she wanted that he effectively wrote much of the drumming himself, with Aaron Hewson capable of translating those instructions into performance. Stanier presented another situation entirely. When a drummer with that level of individual voice joined the band, there was considerably less need to tell him where every part belonged.
Now Green introduces another variation, bringing his own completed musical ideas into a band with a very established language. That evolution could easily become awkward after more than four decades, but THE MARK OF CAIN have never survived by treating their own history as a museum exhibit. Their consistency has come from knowing the principles behind the music rather than repeatedly manufacturing the same record.
Scott traces part of the band’s early development from the melodic influence of Joy Division through to the impact of seeing Big Black and Steve Albini’s brutally precise approach to rhythm and sound. Those encounters helped push a band already interested in complex rhythmic structures further toward the discipline that became central to its identity.
Their relationship with Albini continued beyond those early shows. THE MARK OF CAIN later recorded with him in Chicago and shared stages with Shellac, and Scott says Albini remains the producer they would have loved to make an entire album with. Scott has long felt that THE MARK OF CAIN’s physical impact in a room was difficult to reproduce completely on record. Their preferred studio method reflects that concern. Rather than recording isolated parts independently and assembling them later, they want to play together. Instruments may be separated to control spill, but the musicians retain sightlines and perform collectively.
“We’d all be watching each other, and because of the tightness and the accuracy, we all kind of have visual eyeline and play,” he says.
During the Stanier years, geographical restrictions sometimes meant songs had to be finished in the studio before the band had ever performed them together on stage. That could create a fairly obvious problem later: somebody eventually had to work out how the hell to play them live.
Fans at Zed 51 will be among the first people to hear the results, with Scott expecting roughly two new songs in the festival set. The subsequent Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide shows will allow the band to stretch that out to three or four new tracks, giving them the opportunity to road-test the material and see what survives contact with an audience. There is also another album receiving attention in the set.
This Is This turns 25 this year, and several songs from the record will be included alongside material from Ill At Ease, established favourites and the new tracks. Scott laughs that with enough records behind you, somebody is always informing you that another anniversary has arrived. “Vintage bands now, not old,” he smiled.
The anniversary is also finally bringing This Is This to vinyl. Originally released only on CD, the record is being prepared for a vinyl release expected to accompany the upcoming shows. Scott says it will probably become a double LP to preserve sound quality, with the possibility of rare and live material being added.
For a man who still prefers amplifiers, pedalboards and actual cables on stage, his enthusiasm for physical records is hardly shocking. “We’re still very much pedalboards, amplifiers, cables. We don’t even have a wireless.”
Scott does acknowledge one health benefit to the traditional arrangement. Years spent carrying amplifiers and speaker cabinets meant the music industry at least provided some compulsory weightlifting. These days the band has crew for that. Forty-two years into a career is an entirely reasonable point to stop personally dragging heavy equipment around venues, particularly when the alternative is explaining to a physiotherapist that artistic integrity required carrying a speaker cabinet up a staircase.
That longevity becomes even more unusual once Scott explains why THE MARK OF CAIN has lasted. It was never required to pay the bills. He and Josie maintained careers outside music, family life intervened, members lived overseas and Stanier’s other commitments frequently complicated schedules. Rather than damaging the band, those interruptions removed the obligation to constantly feed it.
“THE MARK OF CAIN was never a particular money-making venture for us,” Scott says. “It was a creative outlet for us.”
That distinction gave them the freedom to stop when they wanted, return when they wanted and make decisions without having to turn every creative impulse into income. There have been long gaps, overseas moves and, by Scott’s admission, some fairly substantial arguments between the brothers along the way. Blood relation does not magically make being in a band easier. Occasionally it simply means you know exactly which button to press when you feel like making things difficult. Yet the central partnership has remained intact since the band formed in 1984.
The old method of writing in a room together is back. A drummer who spent years as the live replacement has become part of the creative core. New songs are being tested on stage before being recorded. A 25-year-old album gets its overdue vinyl release while an entirely new one is being completed beside it. Scott expects the sixth album to move into final recording and mixing after the upcoming shows, with the first quarter of 2027 the current target. Once it is released, THE MARK OF CAIN intend to tour it properly. Before then, Brisbane gets first crack at the band when they join Zed 51 on October 24, followed by Max Watts in Melbourne on November 13, Manning Bar in Sydney on November 14 and a hometown show at Hindley Street Music Hall in Adelaide on November 21.
For anyone wondering what four decades does to THE MARK OF CAIN, the answer appears refreshingly uncomplicated. It gives them more songs, better road crew and enough experience to know there is no prize for rushing the next record. The amplifiers, thankfully, are staying.
For tickets and more info head to www.tmoc.com.au
