What kind of a band name is Holy Fuck? The kind that can conveniently get mentioned by the Conservative Party of Canada in the process of explaining the reason for cutting federal grants to artists promoting culture to different countries. Four letters attached to $3,000 dispensed to help underwrite a seven-gig excursion to the UK in 2007 was apparently enough for the Toronto-based outfit to top the charts in a Tory talking points memo about the decision, a leak that dragged them into a shock-value spotlight that frontman Brian Borcherdt can live without.
“The attention has gotten a little bit discouraging,” Borcherdt tells Scrolling Eye before taking the stage tonight in Stuttgard, Germany. “We’ll come back to our family and friends and, even after getting endorsed in the media in other countries by Lou Reed or Michael Stipe, all the people at home seem to be focused on is why they didn’t mention our full name during the announcement for the Polaris Music Prize, or whether or not somebody printed it in a newspaper.”
Borcherdt explains that the choice of moniker was a declaration of liberty from a system that made any artist beholden to such language standards. Their momentum owes almost everything to online media, where trifling profanity designations need not apply.
“We chose it for three basic reasons. First of all, it wasn’t a band name that was already used before. Secondly, it’s a wonderful expression when used in the happiest moments — it’s not like saying ‘Fuck You’ — it’s something that’s said when you’re excited or astonished. Thirdly, why not?”
But the F-word no doubt resonates enough to make potential Tory voters, especially in the West, conclude that tax dollars are funding the present-day belated Canadian equivalent of the American anti-“porn rock” crusade of the mid-‘80s, which drew otherwise inconceivable press attention to a song like “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” by W.A.S.P., whose inspiration allegedly came from a National Geographic photo of lions mating.
Holy Fuck would rather not revel in such notoriety, instead having to explain that the $3,000 PromArt grant — which their manager sought from a $4.7 million fund — helped them to build their initial British buzz. But unlike similarly pilloried singer-songwriter Tal Bachman — who further clarified his initial response to criticism for accepting a subsidized trip to Africa with a statement on his own blog — 31-year-old Borcherdt has deliberately pursued such support, ever since first hearing about different Canadian grant programs from fellow musicians while growing up in Yarmouth, NS.
“I wrote the application for my first grant when I was 18 with a pen on loose-leaf paper and attaching pictures with Scotch Tape,” he says. “I haven’t gotten a whole lot of grants since, but all the money I was fortunate to receive certainly helped along the way.
“If there’s someone who thinks they have a unique voice that deserves to be heard, how are you going to know unless you have motivation to try? It’s the same as getting a small business loan. There’s know way to know ahead of time whether it will pay off. And it’s usually just small change in the grand scheme of things.
“We’ve gotten to this point now through hard work, and we were going to do it one way or another, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate added support.
“When someone from another country hears about these grants in Canada, they think it’s wonderful, no matter how successful they managed to be without them.”
And so, in the midst of a European tour following a high-profile appearance at Lollapalooza in Chicago, Holy Fuck is getting a surreal taste of household notoriety at home.
“What frustrates me most is that they were going to cut this program regardless,” says Borcherdt. “You know the name of the band had nothing to do with it, and we’re just being held up as a scapegoat. It doesn’t really achieve a whole lot, although I suppose it distracts certain people from questioning the real motives. We wouldn’t even be having this discussion if they blamed all of this on a ballet.”
Rather, left-wing columnist Gwynne Dyer has joined Bachman in explaining that he didn’t even fill out applications that later found PromArt stipends listed next to his name. These are just two of the responses resulting from the Kafkaesque cancellation announcement memo, even though the concurrent slashing of the $9 million Trade Routes program is likely to have a more deleterious effect on the future of cultural events.
Holy Fuck, meanwhile, are depicted as insincere recipients of a handout. Does this mean the manic musical outfit will return home infused with a political mission?
“I don’t even feel confident enough to go down the road of taking a specific stance,” says Borcherdt. “I’ll leave it to other people to spend their time, and mental health, fighting for what they believe in this debate.
“We’re not even the right voice to defend arts funding, because it’s not something we relied on to achieve our goals. But we also don’t feel we have the expertise, nor have we conducted the appropriate amount of research, to grapple with political issues like these.
“We’d rather not play into the hands of people making this into something it’s not.”
scroll@eyeweekly.com