“…being in a band fucked up our education totally…”

Upon entering the back-room of the Kasbah, I was immediately confronted with a whole bunch of crisps, biscuits and plentiful alcohol. Damian Abraham (Pink Eyes) offers us a drink and though he seems aggressive and cold to look at he is really very polite. Feeling pretty stoked to be drinking Jagermeister with the lead singer from Fucked Up, I’m made to look a fool as he explains in passing “I don’t drink alcohol, I mean the rest of the band do, but I haven’t drunk that much in years.” I slowly take another sip, looking like such a douche bag in front of one of the most obviously straight-edge front singers of the moment.

_M: So what do you think of Coventry as a city?_

DA: Yeah, it’s pretty nice, I mean cold…

_M: I read somewhere that you guys preferred London; Coventry is pretty grim, and really doesn’t compare?_

DA: Well yeah I like London a lot; it’s really cosmopolitan you know. You can go out and get any sort of food you want. Plus a couple of the guys have girlfriends in London, so we try and get back as much as possible. But Coventry is quite pretty, that’s some really nice parks and a lake around.

_M: What is the hardest part about balancing your music career and your daily life?_

DA: I think that in general people give credence to the fact that bands playing subversive music have an uphill journey in many ways… but do you think it’s easier to play ‘gruff punk’ and get records distributed over the Atlantic than it is here in Britain?

_M: What influences did you guys start with and have they changed along the way?_

DA: I still generally listen to what I did when I was younger. I even dress the same as I did when I was younger. Bands that influenced us were The Melvins, Black Flag obviously, all the normal stuff. The other guys may have progressed, or regressed, somewhere along the way… Mike is listening to a lot of techno music and the rest of the band have embraced or got into a bunch of other new music they hear on our travels. As they write the music for the songs I think you can definitely hear some kind of progression in our sound.

_M: What’s the truth behind you releasing an unnamed techno 7” under a different alias?_

DA: I’m the wrong man to be asking about techno! Though we didn’t release that 7”, it was some guy who just bootlegged Fucked Up songs in some shitty techno song, we had nothing to do with it. Seriously I’m a Luddite when it comes to technology in music; I’m not such a fan of synths and stuff, though I do like them in early rock stuff…

(At which point Jonah and John come into the room swinging a piece of paper)

JZ: Man I just went to the bathroom and I got some Chlamydia test done, what the fuck is this place. Like they told me to piss in a tube and then they’d go test it for Chlamydia. Weird shit.

(They both start pouring themselves different drinks)

JF: (holding a bottle of Jagermeister) Man this stuff is awesome, do you guys want any? Take as much as you want, we have a massive rider.

(They both leave, laughing about the STD test)

_M: How complicated financially is it to maintain a band liked Fucked Up, have you guys been able to become full-time musicians, or do you take jobs on the side to fund it all?_

DA: Sure, we’ve only just managed it really. It’s weird to think we’re playing music full-time. There’s nothing more humbling than finishing a tour y’know, getting on a plane and having to get up the next day to go to work. Sandy had it worst, she is the only one with a full-time ‘career’ type job: she was a scheduler for a TV station. I wrote a TV show and a couple of the other guys were still at school. Like, being in a band fucked up our education totally, if we ever finish this thing I think I might go back to school or college or something.

_M: Gallows were recently quoted as saying they hated signing to a major label and wished they never had done it. Does this is in any way mirror your experience of working with Matador? Both artistically and in production?_

DA: I read about that, I think the step to Matador was a natural one for us. We like to play shows and Matador let us do that. It’s not what you’d expect from signing to a label, we have pretty much autonomy over what we do as a band. We can go to Matador and say we want to play a 24-hour show, and they will try and make it happen for us. It’s quite weird to be like, okay in the next 2 weeks we are going to record this record, before we just did it along the way, in-between playing shows. Matador schedule our time for us like that, but it works with us easily.

_M: What do you guys like to eat when you’re on tour?_

DA: I took a year’s schooling here and every time I come back I love eating those beef Pot Noodle things, seriously I can’t get enough of them. I guess when I was here you had to eat like student type stuff and now I eat so many. But I guess all the usual stuff (man shakes Sensations packet); certain amounts of junk foods and pizza and stuff. Some of us try and eat healthy; I’m the only one who likes fast food really… I’m all like that has cheese sauce and extra cheese, wow. Pretty much the only thing we agree on in this band is sushi; if we ever wanted to go out collectively it would be for that… though we do all like different sushi!