“Our first Halloween gig was at Wavelength six years ago,” explains Jonah Falco, the drummer for the bloody, hardcore, emotionally-charged, and Polaris Prize–winning band Fucked Up. “We didn’t think that we’d go over very well and just decided to be as ridiculous as possible. So we spent some time on my parents’ porch, carving pumpkins to put on our heads—we all had this kind of Ichabod Crane thing going on. And instead of indie-rockers just staring back dumbfounded at these five morons with pumpkins on their heads, this brigade of our friends stormed in. The pumpkins got smashed, and we had one of the best shows to date.”
The band started Fucked Up Weekend as a tribute to this performance, and as a way to keep performing and make live shows more energetic, involved, and ridiculous. This year, the live act notorious for performances riddled with blood, temper tantrums, and gratuitous male nudity—and for smashing up MTV Live two years in a row—will perform at Kathedral and Sneaky Dee’s over Halloween weekend. The year has already included some major successes for the band: they’re coming straight off a Polaris win, which made the band’s heads “fat, but not too fat,” and a world tour that had the band in a castle, opening for Korn in front of a screaming crowd of 10,000 and in a tiny bar smeared with filth in China. Fucked Up truly seems to be on a rampage of the hardcore scene.
“It’s a way to focus on ourselves that doesn’t seem so egotistical. It’s just a great excuse to push the limit and make our own shows bigger and better,” Falco explains. When asked what the audience has to look forward to, he responds with a string of cryptic phrases: “Unity of imagery, bit of a mess, airborne, war zone hat, slam skank, omega excessive enforcers, burning spirits, and a happy Halloween.”
“When the unveiling happens, I’m sure you’ll be slapping your knees and falling over,” he adds with a smirk.
Clean-cut and smelling of after-shave, with a black scarf and a latte in front of him, Falco doesn’t look like he could be a member of the controversial band that once had to rush lead singer Damian Abraham to a hospital after smashing a pint glass into his head. This is the same Fucked Up whose guitarist once stormed offstage because Abraham crushed a fluorescent light bulb into him. Surprisingly articulate and down-to-earth, Falco seems to approach his work with the band with equal degrees of self-deprecating irony and fierce pride.
“There’s kind of this folklore about Fucked Up, that everybody is a huge prick, emotionally unstable, and genuinely just a terribly mean person who hates puppies and all small animals. And that on weekends we go to the park and shoot pellets at ducks. But, I mean, I love puppies,” he says.
At the same time, Falco mocks the idea of a perfect band, imitating a loving song-writing process in a high register like a dreamy-eyed schoolgirl recounting her summer love. He stops.
“No, it’s not like that at all. […] Beers and tears go into our hit singles. Straight up, there are a lot of tears at our rehearsals.”
“Almost all of the most ridiculous things to happen onstage revolve around one person,” he continues. “All the crazy stuff revolves around the singer.”
Falco continues to recount Abraham’s legendary exploits: performing a grotesque and over-the-top striptease to the audience, tucking himself between the legs, and turning around to reveal himself to the audience sans genitalia.
“And see, I always [see] this [from] behind,” Falco says with a sort of bemused bafflement. “So I’m getting the full, reverse, nudity, and I just kind of try to look away. It’s difficult to concentrate. The most ridiculous times are, of course, when it falls apart. It’ll all be going according to plan until Damian whips around to the audience, and I just have this naked, vulnerable guy staring at me.”
“A live show is all about confrontation,” he explains. “We’re a band that’s had a lot of tense moments, and we thrive on conflict, so there’s a lot of tension on stage.”
As for this year’s Fucked Up Weekend, what does Falco recommend seeing?
“Check out The Bitters and Little Girls on Thursday, go see the Cro-Mags, or if you want something a little bit less aggressive, check out Red Bass. And my God, do not miss D.S.B., even if you don’t go, just say you were there. First Japanese hardcore band to play in North America. Go to the after-parties, leave your inhibitions at the door. Oh, and you should probably go see Fucked Up, too.”
Fucked Up Weekend runs today through Oct. 31. For more information, visit matadorrecords.com/fucked_up.
