LONDON - ON THE ROAD WITH FUCKED UP

Fucked Up once broke UK editor Andy Capper's heart by signing to Matador Records instead of Vice. Since then though, Capper has rekindled his love for the guys, and they let him go on tour with them sometimes, like a mascot, a groupie, or a really lucky fan who won a competition on the internet. He's going to be the one writing from here on out so we're going to let him spell his words funny, the way Brits like to do.

My name is Little Andy and this year I won an internet MySpace competition to rock out with my favourite pop punk band in the world, Fucked Up! I was whisked away to a secret location near an airport where I met the singer, Mike Haliechuk, at his awesome tour bus.

The guys in Fucked Up are like totally chilled out guys. They have a crazy onstage presence and all that and their lyrics are about riots and shit, but guitarist Sandy Miranda and bass player Ben Cook like nothing better than hanging out in the tour bus listening to romantic folk music while Mike thinks up awesome new riffs.

Being backstage with the guys is also totally awesome. They play Dead Kennedys on Guitar Hero while waiting to go on stage after the band Rolo Tomassi – who make absolutely CRAZY music that sounds like nothing I have ever heard before.

Wanna put the word "CRAZY" into a canon and fire it into space? Here goes... Rolo Tomassi's singer is a girl!!!

And she has her own fashion label called – wait for it! – "DOUCHE BAG!" Man, I laughed so hard with all the guys backstage while drinking free whiskey and getting really drunk while everybody else was sober. Below is a quick snap of the Rolo Tomassi girl's stuff. It's like hair bands for girls. Totally weird. Totally wild!

Damian is the guitarist and leader of the band and right now he's about to get totally wasted on a drink named after a racist Oi! band from Boston! Only joking!! Dame "The Abraham Man" is TOTALLY STRAIGHT-EDGE and would never drink booze. (I drank that whole bottle and was secretly doing cocaine the whole night.)

I only watched a little bit of Fucked Up's set because I was outside talking to some awesome babes who also hang out backstage at punk shows, but this was the end bit when Damian does a guitar solo and hugs all the little boys. Kinda weird. I was wasted by this point.

And then we drove 16 fucking hours to Glastonbury in this bus. There is an awesome creative tension between Mike and Damian and they are always fooling around about how much they hate each other when they actually love each other. This is what happened when I asked them to pose for a photo together! Great joke, guys!

Then all the guys in the band played a joke on the bassist, Ben Cook (he used to be in a "NYHC"-style band called Linkin Park), by buying him wellies that are totally made for chicks. The joke's on you, "Cookster!" (That's his nickname.)

Hey Sandy, what's wrong?? You better turn that frown upside down 'cos today's the first day of summer and you're due onstage any minute.

I totally watched the guys from the side of the stage and it rocked my ass off. It was then that I realised I had totally mixed up all their different roles in the band and that Jonah was in fact the singer and not Mike.

I didn't see all of the set because I was doing drugs in the toilets but this is the singer, Jonah (sorry Jonah), warming up his vocal chords at the side of the stage. That t-shirt is a reference to how awesomely pumped he is about singing punk songs. 

 

After the set, we smoked Montecristo cigars and doused ourselves in Acqua di Parma like yuppies. Then we walked around and sneered at all the people who weren't in punk bands.

Get the joke much? Because there's only one girl in Fucked Up (keyboardist Sandy Miranda), it tends to be a bit of a "sausage fest" (not that I'm complaining). Just after this photo, I said to the Jewish percussionist, Josh Zucker, that Glastonbury "reminded me of a concentration camp."

He gave me back an icy glare and told me that my comment belittled the eight million victims of Nazi torture in World War II. Everything went rapidly downhill from there. 

ANDY CAPPER

Comments

[Bun]

you must have been to some great concentration camps sir.

[olga]

ha! douche bag! i want one.

[apt]

" They have a crazy onstage presence, " this article is hilarious

[Tucker]

Sorry, but I'd sign with Matador too. Best big-little label around. Vice it great, but it's no Matador.

[Jono]

This article reminded me of that movie Almost Famous. But instead of some twerp, this journalist knew what the fuck he was doing.

[Wenz]

I didn't get to see enough silly British spellings of words :(

[sniffin]

how do you secretly do cocaine? or do you always talk shit so no one notices?

[just asking]

were you drunk when you wrote this article?

[retard]

that was really good

[john]

Oh, wait, I get it. Awesome!!!

[Anonymous]

Wow, you're like, so crazy man!
'Drugs'!?
'Babes'!?
Like, getting totally wasted. No way.

ha.

[asif]

a vapid wasteland of fan degeneracy