With a moniker as abrasive as Fucked Up, it would be easy to prejudge the Toronto indie-hardcore punk outfit as either ridiculous or talentless. But its measure of success (winning the Canadian version of the Grammy, the Polaris Music Prize, in 2009 for The Chemistry of Common Life and rave reviews from the New York Times) obviously derails those conclusions.
Still, if you ask frontman Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham what he thinks, he'd be squarely in the camp of the prejudgers. "I am living proof that it does not take any talent or even hard work to have a sustainable career in music," he says. "Except for being away from home on tour, this is the most ridiculously easy way to make a living."
Depending on what one considers to be a "sustainable career," that answer is pretty subjective. But if it means that the almost-300-pound vocalist has a roof over his head and plenty of greasy food — his admitted fare of choice — to shove down his gullet, then Fucked Up has pretty much made it. Remember: Beneath the laissez-faire exterior and — for lack of a better term — fucked-up intraband dynamics, Fucked Up cares about you.
