Mirrors within Mirrors

Hi, in a few weeks we're playing this show in Montreal, as part of the Osheaga thing. Its $80 to get in that day, but there will be free corn! Which is usually quite expensive. If you don't like eating it, you can shove it in your car and drive back to Toronto. Corn is also used to make plastic. If you are a farmer, chances you are growing corn. Hey, maybe you are Robert Pickton?

Hey, speaking of Vice Records, we've just learned that VICE UK will be doing a UK pressing of the Year of the Pig 12", in the UK! Check out how happy thats making Andy, he loves us! He's also a millionaire (in lbs.). Ben took the picture - he's famous!
In other exciting news, if you live in New York City, we're coming back to play a special show there in the fall, most likely November 10th. More details on that later.

Here is an interview from a zine in France I think:

What keeps you busy in daily life?

Well, I work in a small room at the bottom of a lightbulb factory. Its my job to make sure the
filaments, which are actually tiny coils, stay coiled up during the heating process. When you are affixing the coiled filaments to the base of the bulb, you're using a lot of heat because you're basically soldering them on there. I've got to take random checks to make sure the filaments are still coiled. I have to basically sit infront of this massive microscope all day watching these tiny coils go by on a converbelt, because we're making so many bulbs each day, our plant alone is putting out more than 8000 a day. It's really boring, and i've got to be in the sub-basement because at that point in the manufacturing process the filaments can't be exposed to any light, so instead of installing fixtures to keep too muchlight out on the ground floor, the filament-checking room is way in this creepy bottom corner, because the plant was built in 1889, just a few years after lightbulbs were invented. So basically i do that during the day and try my best to stay out of any light during the rest of the day. Its like if you watch movies at your job at the video store all day, you don't want to watch movies in your spare time, well its the same with light, honestly I just get bored of it.

How did you get involved in hardcore punk? What was your social background back then?

I come from a really small town in Northern Canada. When i was born it was such a barren and secluded area that you had to use a raft to get into the nearest town, which was small enough as it is, believe me. There was one guy in the town you'd spend your whole childhood trying to avoid, because your parents told you to. He was this wierd scientist from the south, basically someone from one of the bigger cities that had been sent up to study our community for some reason we never found out. Anyhow when he quit his job, he stayed in the town and basically just creeped everyone out full time, because no one really new what his deal was. Eventually the older you got you started to wonder more and since there was nothing to do anyhow other than huff glue and walk through miles of ice and snow and catch otters, we would visit him. He had a government ham radio, and it was the only radio in town, basically the only place to get information from the outside. He would get these random wierd shows and connnections all the time. So anyhow, when I moved to the big city to study urban planning at the university, i met all these cool skateboarders who were into punk and they started taking me to shows and i guess you could say the rest is history.

What's up in the Canadian hardcore scene lately?

Good question.

What was the biggest motivation for starting the band? Which bands were the most influential?

Early on we were really influenced by the typical bands - Kull, Degfeist, Forfrathess, Morinacy and Aserblayad. We sort of made out the band to emulate that style. We've started to listen to a lot of other bands since then obviously, and are now more influeced by them.
Fucked up is probably the hardcore punk band with the most releases.. Can you explain me why Fucked Up chooses to do so many releases?

In Canada bands get government grants according to how many records you release - its like when journalists sometimes get paid by the word. Its the same idea, the more records we release, the more money we get, plus we're trying to get into the world record books.

How do you manage to write such long songs without them getting boring?

We tried very hard to make them boring, but I guess we will try harder on the new record.

What's the average length of a Fucked Up show? Since all the song are about 5 minutes ong, how many tracks can you play in one set?

The last show we played, which was in London England, the UK, was 11 minutes long. We flew 8 hours in each direction to play a festival and the council estate shut the show down because of a noise complaint. The average set length for us after the LP is about 2 hours, with a bit of an intermission to watch sports for a bit in the dressing room and to take a bit of ecstacy. If we tried to play all our songs completely in one set, we would still be there playing.

What's the role of David Eliade in Fucked Up?

David is the coiled filament himself. Our job is to sit infront of giant microscopes to make sure
he doesn't come unraveled. He is the electric DNA at the bottom corner of our music factory.

Is there a connection between David Eliade and the song "David Comes to Life"?

David told us that he was born with 3 strands of DNA instead of just 2. He said the third one
was covered with an osmium coating, and made him the first living cyborg. When he came to life it was like he was born backwards, so we had to write the song in reverse order and upside down by having some people hold mirrors to mirrors in our practice space. Decoding the upsidedown backwards lyrics was a huge pain in the ass. David claims to be able to do all these crazy things like see gas and oxygen molecules. We sometimes think he's kind of retarded, but then also like a wierd genius. No one has ever met his father, if you know what i'm saying. Anyhow, the connection is that "David Comes to Life" is about jesus christ.

Can you tell me something more about the attack on stage in Toronto 2004?

Legally we still can't talk about it! We are waiting for the statute of limitations and then everything will be thrown out of court.

What kind of experience was it to appear on MTV Live in Canada? Isn't it a bit controversial with the whole punk rock / hardcore scene?

I think it might be. They offered us $2000 to do it though, which was able to pay for all our
rents for 6 months, plus we got to meet Django from Black Flag and got an MTV sponsorship for a year

If you look back at the European tour, is there a difference between European hardcore punk kids and those in Canada and the USA?

Well european kids are a lot more organized, a lot more determined. We invented the music, you invented the lifestyle.

What was your global impression of touring Europe?

Globally, I'd say europe is just one continent.

What can we expect from Fucked Up in the near future?

Lots more records! And robotic shoes.
Any last whispers?

(no).