Punk band's Polaris win a shocker
TORONTO (CUP) — Damian Abraham is facing a chicken and the egg scenario.
Abraham fronts the Toronto hardcore band Fucked Up, which, on Monday night, won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize — an award given each year to the best full-length Canadian album, based solely on artistic merit.
“I really have a hard time looking at Fucked Up and thinking of it as artistic,” he said in an interview after winning the award on Sept. 21. “I look at it as just what we did. It's hard to look at it and think, ‘Hey this is such a great artistic achievement.'
“I suppose if anything, the reason it's an artistic achievement is because it won the Polaris.”
Fucked Up beat out nine other shortlisted contestants at Monday Night's Polaris Prize Gala at Toronto's historic Masonic Hall, including new wave heavyweight Metric, genre-defying K'NAAN and 2007 winner Patrick Watson.
Abraham said he was shocked over his band's win.
“I was like, did they say Joel Plaskett? The whole night, I was like, [it'll be] K'NAAN, Joel Plaskett, K'NAAN, Joel Plaskett. And then I was like, oh man, I can't believe we won.”
Fucked Up is the first punk band to make it to the 10-album shortlist for the $20,000 Polaris Music Prize in its four-year history, making the win a significant step for hardcore music in Canada.
While Abraham said in the post-gala press conference that Fucked Up's win means the hardcore genre could become more accepted in the country, “it never should be totally accepted.”
“But at the same time I hope it means there'll be a greater understanding of it in Canada, because there are so many amazing bands that have come from Canada in more extreme genres.”
Being considered on par with previous winners Caribou, Patrick Watson and Final Fantasy — whom Abraham said he worships — “means the world” to the frontman.
CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence, who co-hosted the gala with MuchMusic VJ Sarah Taylor, said he was “shocked” by the winner.
“Everyone that said it's an indie rock prize has to look again, because a hardcore band just won,” said Lawrence after the gala. “That shakes it up, and I'm happy for [Fucked Up].”
The radio host called the gala the best he'd seen in its four years, and only had kind words to say for the nominees.
“The quality of the bands that we see here are incredible. One won, but I think all of the artists are winners in many ways. It really felt like we were seeing the cream of the crop of 2009. This moment, tonight, is the only place to be in Canadian music anywhere.”
For the first time in the prize's history, each nominated act was invited to play a short set at the gala. While some performances were intimate — Joel Plaskett and Metric each played acoustic sets — other acts opted to have fun with the occasion.
Patrick Watson played while winding through the crowd, wearing suits designed to look like trees made out of lamps. Elliott BROOD handed the audience cooking sheets and wooden spoons to play along with the band, and Hey Rosetta! brought numerous percussionists and violinists on stage with them, totaling to 14 people playing their song “Tired Eyes.”
Fucked Up had their own guests, too, including Lullabye Arkestra and 2006 Polaris Music Prize winner Final Fantasy, whose pedal-looped violin riffs began the performance. The live broadcast of the show on MuchMusic didn't hold frontman Abraham back from performing how he wanted, as he slowly stripped off his clothes until he wandered the stage in hiked-up boxer briefs. Compared to some of the band's past performances, though, this was tame — or at least less bloody.
In spite of Fucked Up's let-loose on-stage antics, Abraham said that the band plans on using the $20,000 for a legitimately serious project — a benefit record to draw attention to the over 500 missing aboriginal women in Canada.
“We're going to . . . raise some money for these people. It's a marginalized group, it's a [racial] crime and it's ignored. We're putting out a benefit record with some really fun guests, and we can pay for it.”
The 2009 Polaris Music Prize long list, comprised of 40 albums selected by a 181-member jury comprised of Canadian journalists, broadcasters and bloggers, was announced last June. The 10-album shortlist was announced in June, and also included Chad VanGaalen and Malajube.
Abraham fronts the Toronto hardcore band Fucked Up, which, on Monday night, won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize — an award given each year to the best full-length Canadian album, based solely on artistic merit.
“I really have a hard time looking at Fucked Up and thinking of it as artistic,” he said in an interview after winning the award on Sept. 21. “I look at it as just what we did. It's hard to look at it and think, ‘Hey this is such a great artistic achievement.'
“I suppose if anything, the reason it's an artistic achievement is because it won the Polaris.”
Fucked Up beat out nine other shortlisted contestants at Monday Night's Polaris Prize Gala at Toronto's historic Masonic Hall, including new wave heavyweight Metric, genre-defying K'NAAN and 2007 winner Patrick Watson.
Abraham said he was shocked over his band's win.
“I was like, did they say Joel Plaskett? The whole night, I was like, [it'll be] K'NAAN, Joel Plaskett, K'NAAN, Joel Plaskett. And then I was like, oh man, I can't believe we won.”
Fucked Up is the first punk band to make it to the 10-album shortlist for the $20,000 Polaris Music Prize in its four-year history, making the win a significant step for hardcore music in Canada.
While Abraham said in the post-gala press conference that Fucked Up's win means the hardcore genre could become more accepted in the country, “it never should be totally accepted.”
“But at the same time I hope it means there'll be a greater understanding of it in Canada, because there are so many amazing bands that have come from Canada in more extreme genres.”
Being considered on par with previous winners Caribou, Patrick Watson and Final Fantasy — whom Abraham said he worships — “means the world” to the frontman.
CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence, who co-hosted the gala with MuchMusic VJ Sarah Taylor, said he was “shocked” by the winner.
“Everyone that said it's an indie rock prize has to look again, because a hardcore band just won,” said Lawrence after the gala. “That shakes it up, and I'm happy for [Fucked Up].”
The radio host called the gala the best he'd seen in its four years, and only had kind words to say for the nominees.
“The quality of the bands that we see here are incredible. One won, but I think all of the artists are winners in many ways. It really felt like we were seeing the cream of the crop of 2009. This moment, tonight, is the only place to be in Canadian music anywhere.”
For the first time in the prize's history, each nominated act was invited to play a short set at the gala. While some performances were intimate — Joel Plaskett and Metric each played acoustic sets — other acts opted to have fun with the occasion.
Patrick Watson played while winding through the crowd, wearing suits designed to look like trees made out of lamps. Elliott BROOD handed the audience cooking sheets and wooden spoons to play along with the band, and Hey Rosetta! brought numerous percussionists and violinists on stage with them, totaling to 14 people playing their song “Tired Eyes.”
Fucked Up had their own guests, too, including Lullabye Arkestra and 2006 Polaris Music Prize winner Final Fantasy, whose pedal-looped violin riffs began the performance. The live broadcast of the show on MuchMusic didn't hold frontman Abraham back from performing how he wanted, as he slowly stripped off his clothes until he wandered the stage in hiked-up boxer briefs. Compared to some of the band's past performances, though, this was tame — or at least less bloody.
In spite of Fucked Up's let-loose on-stage antics, Abraham said that the band plans on using the $20,000 for a legitimately serious project — a benefit record to draw attention to the over 500 missing aboriginal women in Canada.
“We're going to . . . raise some money for these people. It's a marginalized group, it's a [racial] crime and it's ignored. We're putting out a benefit record with some really fun guests, and we can pay for it.”
The 2009 Polaris Music Prize long list, comprised of 40 albums selected by a 181-member jury comprised of Canadian journalists, broadcasters and bloggers, was announced last June. The 10-album shortlist was announced in June, and also included Chad VanGaalen and Malajube.
