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Fucked Up Interview (Pink Eyes)
Interview With Fucked Up
Damian ‘Pink Eyes’ Abraham talks with BBtBB about the future of Fucked Up
Interview by Diego Silva
Transcribed and Edited by Tanya Tonon
I met with Damian ‘Pink Eyes’ Abraham at Hit or Miss, one of Toronto’s best sources for punk/hardcore vinyls and a second home to Fucked Up’s frontman, to discuss the band’s future. Father Damian has been working on an EP, which is to be released this Winter as a Christmas special, to bring awareness of the struggle for Aboriginal women’s rights. If you are familiar with their history, Fucked Up have always referenced human rights and politics in their music. Damian is also a Women’s Rights graduate.
This year has been one of the biggest in Fucked Up’s history, bringing them the well-deserved attention from media and industry. Recently, the band won the Polaris Music Prize and a generous $20,000, showing that the underdogs sometimes do have a chance and punk is far from dead. In this interview, Damian goes into more detail on where the band is going and how the new attention has affected their lives.
BBtBB: What’s new with Fucked Up? What have you guys been doing?
Damian Abraham: Right now I’ve been working on that benefit record like crazy. We did that with the Polaris money, well, we were going to the benefit record anyway aside from the Polaris Award. When we won the Polaris Award it kicked it
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BBtBB: Plus you’ve got $20,000!
DA: Yeah! I’m really happy we won that. It’s weird because the band has been a full-time job for the last year but it hasn’t been a lot of work. (laughs)
BBtBB: If you’re passionate about it I guess it doesn’t feel like work, right?
DA: (laughs) Yeah, if you’re passionate about it! My passion for Fucked Up comes and goes. At its heights I love this band more than anything, but at its lows I would kill every single member in this band for a twinkie.
BBtBB: (laughs) Winning the $20,000 will definitely help with the benefit record. Is it going to be a Christmas album?
DA: The problem is, all the record pressing plants are all backed up because vinyl has made a resurgence so the only reason we’re doing it this way is because of the higher profile we’ve achieved from the Polaris and the ridiculous amount of guests on this record. We’re going to release it as an mp3 in time for Christmas. It will go on sale on iTunes or whatever, just to raise money. The record itself has been delayed because pressing plants are backed up until February.
BBtBB: How many songs are on this?
DA: Two. We’re doing a cover of ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas (feed the world)’ and so far we’ve recorded David Cross, Bob Mould, Ezra from Vampire Weekend and tons more coming through. We want it to be as big as possible, we want this to be an opportunity to generate some real money for these organizations. It’s not like the Canadian Cancer Foundation, which is a good cause but they have a lot more money from fundraising. The groups we’re working with are really living hand-to-mouth and us giving them a few thousand dollars will help them survive for another year.
BBtBB: That’s cool. You’ve always been involved in different organizations and you took up women studies, right?
DA: Yeah I’ve done women studies and… it’s weird because I never wanted it to become a marketing thing. I never want it to be something like, “Oh it’s Fucked Up, they’re political! They do benefits!” I think that sours what it is but at the same time the band provides us with an opportunity to support organizations that we agree with. It’s so easy for us to write a song or play a show so if we can somehow direct that to an organization that does a lot of work but doesn’t have enough money, we help out where we can.
BBtBB: What is the organization that you work with?
DA: It’s actually a bunch of different organizations that all center around the Missing 500, which is 500 Aboriginal women that have gone missing or were murdered in Canada. The 500 number is a little misleading though because it’s more like 3,000, they got 500 from government statistics. It’s really upsetting to think about because you don’t want it to become just about the victims since there are a lot of women out there that are really trying to bring about change and change the way crimes are treated in Canada involving Aboriginal women. An Aboriginal woman is five times more likely to die a violent death than any other group in Canada. We’re working with Sisters of Spirit and Justice for the Missing Aboriginal Women so we’re going to give them money and just let them do what they do with it. These groups know far more than we in Fucked Up would ever know.
BBtBB: Awareness is a huge thing.
DA: Especially for this. Silence has been the ultimate obstacle in these women’s path.
BBtBB: Is it a rights issue or is it a macho man thing that’s causing this?
DA: No, it’s not Aboriginal men. White men create 60 per cent of violence towards aboriginal women but it’s under reported within the community, police don’t necessarily take it seriously in some parts of the country. We’re just happy that we were able to get the platform to do this.
BBtBB: Did you meet these people while you were touring across Canada? How did you make this connection?
DA: No, just reading about it. It’s one of those horrible coincidences where recently they just connected 15 of these murders to one person just outside Prince George. It happened at this place called Highway of Tears, which is this highway where a lot of aboriginal women have gone missing. I was watching it on the news and it was horrible so I thought why don’t we do the benefit record for this cause? We still didn’t know much about it and we were still discussing it as a band when we won the Polaris Award, which was the last thing we expected to happen. So here we are, we just won the Polaris Award and we’re at the press conference and the first question was, “What do you plan on doing with the money?” I said the first thing we were talking about was doing this benefit record and because of the insane reach of the Polaris Award people saw it all over the country, a lot of people at different Aboriginal organizations saw it and got in touch with us offering to help. That was the best thing about it. Josh has done some work with Native groups before but, other than that, we really didn’t know where to get started so the Polaris gave us the way to get in touch with the right people.
BBtBB: That’s amazing. Have you always been the one to get involved in these organizations or is the whole band interested in helping out?
DA: The whole band. I was never actually that political. I was definitely political when I was younger but then I got what you would call ‘activist burnout’, although I was never really involved enough to get ‘activist burnout’. (laughs) Josh and Mike were really involved in anti-poverty campaigns and stuff like that. Its just more about seeing what’s going on and having a little bit of power to draw attention to what’s going on.
BBtBB: Have you worked with any other organizations before?
DA: Yeah, we did a show with Sex Professional of Canada (SPOC). When we played our last record Hidden World from start to finish we donated all the money to them. They’re an organization that helps women who are sex workers. They help them with support, provide a ‘bad date’ list to let them know who to avoid and things like that. We also worked with George Herman House, which is a mental health centre for women that have mental health issues but it’s a holistic centre and provides an all around service for these women and allows them to focus on their health in a holistic way. We’ve always done organization stuff but I think this is the most involved we’ve ever been.
BBtBB: How did things come together with all the guests on this record?
DA: We met a lot of these people over the years from touring, some of them turned out to be fans which is really bizarre…
BBtBB: Vampire Weekend was just in town.
DA: That’s when we recorded them. They toured and performed with us when we did our twelve-hour show in New York last year. We’ve just met these people before and I got in touch with them and I got to say they’ve all been really receptive to it. More than willing to help. We had David Cross coming to town and he’s doing book signings, press for his book, two live shows a night and he still found time to come in. Everyone’s made time to do this. We’ve also reached out to some big name celebrities so hopefully they come out too.
BBtBB: Where’s the band at? What are they doing?
DA: Mike’s with his girlfriend in Chicago. Jona is with his girlfriend in England. Josh is in university right now doing computer science stuff so he’s back at school. Sandy is in New York visiting with friends and Ben’s working on the Jonas Brothers movie. He’s an extra. (laughs) He’s working super long days in a secret location, he can’t even tell us where it is. Doing stuff with the Jonas Brothers!
BBtBB: Meanwhile, here you are working and recording.
DA: Yeah, I know! I’m the one that is the least responsible holding down the fort. I got to figure out how to record people, I don’t know how to record. Push the red button? It’s going well though, knock on wood. (knocks on wood)
BBtBB: How are things looking tour wise? Anything coming up?
DA: We’re doing Europe, two more shows in America and that’s about it this year. In January and February we’re going back out and taking Kurt Vile on tour. I think his new record is amazing. We’ve toured this record [Chemistry of Common Life] so much, I’m sick of hearing the songs. I can’t wait to start writing new stuff.
BBtBB: How does that work for you guys? What is your writing process?
DA: Normally Jona, Mike and Josh will sit down and write a basic song. Sandy will come in and work on her bass part, figure out what she wants to do with that and I’ll come in last minute and write in lyrics.
In November we’re going to be recording a split with NOFX and a split with King Khan and BBQ. And a song with the GZA!
BBtBB: Are you fuckin serious?!
DA: Yeah, we’re going to be doing those. They’ll be weird fun little things to record.
BBtBB: Did that stuff come together during North by North East when they were all in town?
DA: No! We met GZA at Coachella. We were just hanging out and his manager came up to us and said, “Do you want to meet GZA?” Liquid Swords is one of my favourite records, hell yeah I want to meet GZA! We met NOFX in Texas two years ago and we’ve been hanging out off and on. We’ve known BBQ forever.
BBtBB: Last question, if you weren’t a musician, what would you be in jail for?
DA: (laughs) I’m terrified about going to jail for this but I have a lot of things that are considered contraband. Be it records or books, I’d probably be in jail for possession of illegal material. That’s my big fear, but I’m not even that afraid of it.
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