Andy Nichols

Bad as he wants to be — Pure Bad's Aurel Black

“Our biggest deal is that we come in there, just humble guys, take the stage, count in ‘1-2-3-4,’ and then just rip [the audience's] face off,” explains Aurel Black, frontman for Calgary's Pure Bad. “I come at them right away, I rip their head off and then I drop them in the dirt. And I get real moody about it and then I scream: ‘CALL YOUR DEVIL HOME! REPAIR THESE VAMPIRE WINGS! AND LOVE HIM LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD! AND MAKE HIM AN ANGEL AGAIN!’”

Truly, it is an absurdly compelling pitch from an exceedingly enthusiastic individual. And while it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the boisterous salesman routine, it is refreshing to encounter a Calgary musician who believes his act is the best in the world from word one. Having only played a handful of shows, it remains to be seen whether he has the chops to back up his ample bluster — potential fans will have ample chance to find out at one (or more) of three upcoming Calgary gigs — but Black is adamant that he's tapped into a special kind of appeal that will bring any audience to its knees.

“People don’t scream for how tight we are, they scream for how lost we are and that’s the key,” he says. “As far as you know, I’m playing my last show. You don’t know if I’m gonna keep my guitar. You don’t know if I have a place to live. You don’t know how sober I’ve been or how drunk I was or who I was fucking last night. You don’t know where I’ve been or how much pain and anger and different things I've suffered throughout my life, how cold I’ve been. Every show we play is that last show.”

As far as heavy metal mythology is concerned, it may seem like a contrived story, but Black hints that his wounded image is rooted in reality. Hesitant to draw attention away from his relentless pursuit of success with Pure Bad, he carefully guards the details of his past, focusing instead on how much he's changed since those dark early days.

“I have a persona about me that I never knew I had when I was in Edmonton in -20 C [weather], drinking a litre of chocolate milk before going to sleep in a garage with a blow-dryer in my face,” he says. “How I lived, I don’t even know to this day, but I did. I was under a lot of pressure at the time from the people I was playing music with until I saw a video of us playing at a show and I realized there was only one rock star on that stage. So I went solo and the difference was night and day. I just did it my way for once and it went crazy.”

Now that he calls the shots, Black sees no possibility for failure. Having filled the ranks of his power trio with drummer Dannie King and bassist Rebel Blae, he has spent the past three years prepping material from his home studio, which also serves as nerve centre for his international music business interests. Starting with No Heart, No Love, which he plans to drop this September, his goal is to unleash a barrage of self-released music that will see four Pure Bad records in heavy rotation by fall of 2010, even if he has to do it all on his own.

“The music business isn’t rocket science,” he explains. “It’s like taking the bus. You get your clothes on, go to the bus stop, and get on. If push comes to shove and I can’t get my stuff on the radio, I’ll open a radio station. If I can’t get my merch in Joe Blow’s store, I’ll open a fucking store. If I can’t get a record deal, which I never even asked for, I’ll form a record label. If I can’t get distribution, I’ll be a major record label. Do you get it? Maybe I’ll buy a bar one day, only because I need to eat. That’s how I do business.”

Pure Bad is right — could you call this band anything else?