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Imagine, if you will, 10,000 Marbles coming at you all at once. What would you do? Run away? It'd almost certainly be futile. Imagine the coverage! The Fucked Up live experience is similarly inescapable, and the band are over here again at the end of the month for Shred Yr Face 2, also featuring Rolo Tomassi and The Bronx.
Here, the aforementioned Mr Marbles (guitarist in the band, Mike Haliechuck to his mum) tells us why he loves the Brits so much...
"Shred Yr Face will be our eighth time crossing the Atlantic to play shows in the UK (I think?), which is five-and-a-half more times than we've done a tour in the United States and seven and-a-half times more than we've done a tour in Canada, where we're (sort of) from. Most people (including some band members!) ask why we go there so often, which is a good question. So here's why:"
People in the UK like us
Before any magazines or shitty trade papers - even in Toronto - gave a shit about our band, we were in the NME for, like, seven weeks in a row or something. Even though we still play small shows there and don't sell that many records, it's a different trip when we're in the UK. The music press is a joke until you're in it...
British confidence
I get the same feeling when I'm in the UK as when I'm speaking to a really rich but chilled person - the sense that they've been through it all and have wound up on the other side with an easy vibe and no chip on their shoulder. England has had the colonial and cultural history to afford it this same kind of confidence and grace where you feel the entire zeitgest of the entire country is just one big "no big deal".
Football (soccer)
Some people in the band really like football. There _is_ soccer in North America, but it's a joke. We've been fortunate enough in the last several trips to see a bunch of games. For example, I saw Liverpool dismantle West Ham last season.
The Full English
It's not just that you get, like, eight things just for breakfast, it's also how people eat it, carefully mixing a few things together on the back of a fork, or whatever it is, how only british people can do.
London
The best city in the world. Truth be told, we don't hang out much in the other parts but end up spending more time in London than in Toronto. It is the most confusing city in the developed world: no street signs, ridiculous lineups for the tube, streets that change names seven times within five miles, but you could walk for ten and not get bored or wind up in the suburbs.
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Video: Fucked Up 'Crooked Head'
---Little differences
You drive on the wrong side of the road. You talk a bit funny. Even your cable TV systems are kind of weird - no one really flips channels. There is, like, six types of tax on your rent, plus your money weighs what we would call ten pounds in your pocket - which is what you call your money? - but you would probably just say 'one stone' for some reason instead... plus you also say quid, for some other crazy reason?!
People in the UK seem to really like music
Even though lots of ridiculous bands are mega popular in the UK (The Wombats? The Enemy?) we get the sense more there than here that the music press is sensationalist because British people actually are crazy about music. In North America it's more about the post-modern vibe of liking things because they suck, or dropping on trends... or straight up just liking bands that are popular in the UK.
It doesn't snow
Although it sometimes does, like the time I went to see a Crystal Palace game. But even though it mostly always rains, it almost never snows, and this is particularly important because I'm writing this from a hotel in California where we are stranded because of a snowstorm. [We're guessing he hasn't checked the UK news lately - Ed]
Marks & Spencer
On the highway in America on tour, when you stop for food it's something called Fuddruckers, or if you are lucky In N Out Burger, and you get fries or a burger or worse. In the UK, we stop at Marks & Spencer and get half price smoothies and wholegrain sandwiches and porky pigs and feel healthy for the rest of the day. Plus, even the ghetto-cheap sandwiches have cress in them.
We keep getting invited back
See you soon!
Indeed you will. His band (plus The Bronx and Rolo Tomassi) will be shredding yr face at the following venues:
February
26 Leeds Cockpit
27 Glasgow Garage
28 Manchester Club Academy
March
2 Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
3 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
4 London Electric Ballroom
5 Brighton Concorde 2
6 Birmingham Academy
