Holy Fuck: Too Loud For Glastonbury

11/23/07 12:30pm

by Phil Villeneuve (CHARTattack)

Recently catapulted into new realms of popularity thanks to an impression-making show at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival, Holy Fuck are ready to dance again with a new full-length studio album titled LP and a great big "fuck off" to reviewers who think they're too cool.

ChartAttack: What was your reaction to being hailed as a top three act at Glastonbury this year?
Brian Borcherdt: It was pretty cool. We played there on Thursday night and got shut down two songs in because we were too loud and that was really upsetting. I guess they thought we were a DJ act or something. It felt like we got short-changed and it was just one bad event in a string of bullshit we had to put up with. It kind of hit really deep for me and I was pretty upset about it.

But the good thing is we had our "proper" main stage show two days later at the festival. I basically sat stewing in the tent in the mud for 48 hours before I could have a second crack at it and at that point we were really quite driven to knock the shit of it. Not to mention we saw so many shitty bands. In the end, it wasn't something to be overly negative about. We got to see it for what it was. It was fun. We met cool people. Then to get the reviews afterwards, if it wasn't a shock it certainly was a surprise. It felt like it made it all worthwhile. All that pent-up energy and frustration that we poured into that performance was all worth it.

So now that you've been touring forever and people know your songs, do you find it harder to create such a spontaneous show?
It actually makes the album harder. We did things backwards. We recorded our first record when we were just starting. We thought, "Wow this is fun, let's not waste a single moment." So the album came first, then touring came second and only through that did we hone in on our craft and learn to sculpt things into songs.

It just seems like the show is so much fun that I don't know what people are going to expect when buying the record. Studio is hard because it's difficult to have as much fun when you have headphones on. It's no longer exploding in front of you with an audience all around.

What were the main differences between working on your debut and LP?
The first record was basically a record of the genesis of the band coming together and having fun. And then we spent two years straight non-stop touring in a mini-van dealing with all that. The new album is much more melodic and during the live show, if something worked out well, we kept that one weird thing that worked. There are still random elements on the record made up on the spot. In fact, a lot of it is still, but at the same time there are a lot of things that were already tested on for years with our audience. So it's less of a self-indulgent endeavour and it's more fun.

OK, we have to ask. With the band's rising popularity, does Holy Fuck ever feel the need to change the name?
The pressure often-times comes from ourselves because you have to ask yourselves, "Why are we working so hard at something that people won't take seriously?" We're the most upset when people who we would assume are very much like us think that there's attitude in the band name — that we think we're too cool.

It's certainly not meant that way. It was just meant as a big stupid joke. I don't want people to misinterpret who we are or that we're tying to tackle some critical issue. If someone's offended by the name and doesn't want to give us a free pair of shoes or put us on their stupid community event bulletin, I don't really care. But if the first word a reviewer says is, "These guys think they're so cool," then fuck that guy. And in the end that's all you can say: "Fuck that guy."