Canadian band F**ed Up is just messing with you

For a band with such an abrasive name and a frontman who looks as if he'd sooner punch you than sing to you, F***ed Up can be ever so polite.

"Hey sorry," begins an apology-strewn message from founder Mike Haliechuk after receiving a gentle reminder that this interview is due. It's a missive so meek as to suggest the legends of violence and debauchery that swirl around the Canadian hardcore punk band are exaggerated.

Those legends are many - from bloody carnage onstage and smashed MTV studio sets to potty-mouthed rants at fans of pop star Katy Perry, F***ed Up's press clippings suggest a band as aggressive as their name. But none of it was intended to offend - even the band's name, says the guitarist.

"It was the name of a song by a band we like called N.O.T.A.," Haliechuk says during time-out from a tour of Australia, referring to American hardcore band None of The Above.

Surprisingly, the band members have encountered little trouble over their radical choice of name. "The only place where it's been an issue is at the border sometimes in the US where if we get a guy working in a bad mood they'll say something about it," Haliechuk says. "But sometimes we've been pulled over by cops and they know the band, so it's not an issue. Most places we've been have been pretty chill."

That may change when the band visit Hong Kong for the first time for a double-bill show with British speed-rock purveyors Gallows.

The gig could potentially be the most explosive thing to reach the city's shores. Both bands have fearsomely aggressive sounds and back stories to match.

In the case of the Toronto-based F***ed Up, their reputation is embodied in the juggernaut that is singer Damian Abraham, known to fans as Pink Eyes. Bald, bearded and huge - he describes himself as "big-boned" despite what less charitable critics on Twitter have to say - he is rarely pictured without blood streaming from an onstage injury.

Abrahams is also notable for his habit of getting undressed onstage, and baring more than just his hulking chest. One of Abraham's more memorable antics came in 2008 when he and the rest of the band - which also includes bassist Sandy Miranda, guitarist Josh Zucker and drummer Jonah Falco - staged a riot in the bathrooms of the MTV Live studio in Toronto, where the band had played an impromptu micro-gig before being filmed for a scheduled show.

The bathroom was trashed. They might have been forgiven if, a year earlier, their fans hadn't ripped up the same studio's stage, prompting MTV bosses to ban moshing from future live performances on the channel's showcase programme.

"It was fun doing that show," Haliechuk says, laughing. "I think they made a bigger deal out of it than it really was, though."

More recently, Abraham hit the headlines when a Tweet calling for a new war so that Katy Perry might be conscripted into the army and killed sparked a firestorm of anger from the pop star's fans. "Seeing Katy Perry as a soldier in [her video for] Part of Me really makes me think that we need to start a war so she can go die," he wrote.

He later apologised - sort of. "Yes I'm aware my last Tweet was kinda dumb but so is glamorising war to sell records to idiots. Katy Perry still sucks," he Tweeted. His fans countered the complaints of Perry's fans, saying the California Gurls singer's choice of costume was crass at a time when American soldiers were dying in Afghanistan.

Abraham caused slightly less anxiety, though no less of an uproar, among the alternative cognoscenti when he described million-selling middle-of-the-road indie act Black Keys as "Nickelback for hipsters" - a reference to the often-maligned neo-grunge group.

"It's just part of the show, Pink Eyes has toned most of that down in the last few years," Haliechuk says. before adding, then adds, "I'm not sure what he said about Black Keys and Katy Perry."

Hong Kong needn't worry - the band have been on their best behaviour during the current tour Down Under. "There have been no incidents - we're all too old for that now," Haliechuk says of the time away from his frost-bitten homeland. "It's been very relaxing. We love coming here because it's always winter in Canada when we leave and then summer here."

Like punk pioneers The Ramones before them, F***ed Up's members have reinforced their gang mentality by assuming nicknames based on in-jokes and band mythology. While the origins of Abraham's nom de guerre is unknown, Haliechuk's nickname, "10,000 Marbles", is lifted from 1978's cult gross-out comedy Animal House. While others sport such provocative names as Mustard Gas (Miranda) and Concentration Camp (Zucker), the most intriguing is, on the face of it, the least controversial: "David Eliade" is the band's early go-to man often described as the outfit's "fifth Beatle", manager and confidante.

In fact, Eliade doesn't exist. He appears to be a cipher for the band's determination to go it alone in the music world. Although the truth about Eliade was let out long ago, questions around him are among the few Haliechuk refuses to answer.

However, Haliechuk is only too keen to speak of their co-headliners on their visit to Hong Kong. Gallows, formed just five years ago in Watford, a commuter town north of London, by the heavily tattooed Carter brothers Frank and Steph, quickly came to the attention of US hardcore band Bad Brains, widening their fast-growing audience.

Frank's ferocious live performances in which he, like Pink Eyes, has suffered multiple injuries, won them a dedicated following. The band's future was looking bright after the release of two critically acclaimed albums when Frank left to form the more melodic hard-rock group Pure Love last year.

Gallows recruited new frontman Wade MacNeil, formerly of punk also-rans Alexisonfire.

"We did a tour with Gallows in England when they blew up in, like, 2007 or 2008," Haliechuk says. "That was great. It was the first time we'd ever done really big venues. It will be fun to play with them again and we've done a lot with Wade as well."

Politics is the vital ingredient that separates punk from other forms of hard rock and the two bands share a seething social anger that is likely to add a keener edge to their gig. Gallows' last album before Frank Carter's departure, Grey Britain, was a savage attack on the ruling elite of their homeland.

Intriguingly, F***ed Up also chose British politics as the theme for their most recent album, David Comes to Life, which looked at England under the rule of right-wing prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

Of the theme, Haliechuk says: "It just seemed like a neutral place politically where there wasn't going to be many external issues that were gonna get in the way of the story."

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F***ed Up and Gallows, Thu, 8.30pm, Hidden Agenda, 2A Wing Fu Industrial Bldg, 15-17 Tai Yip St, Kwun Tong, HK$280 (advance), HK$320 door). Inquiries: 9170 6073