The Fuck The Facts guitarist and founder speaks to Zombitrol ahead of their show at Rivoli this Friday.
After 8 years, the Juno-nominated grindcore icons Fuck The Facts will be returning to Toronto on Friday, May 10th at Rivoli. It will be the first chance for many to hear songs from their 2020 comeback/reunion album Pleine Noirceur. It was their first output since the unannounced hiatus that began after extensively touring for their previous aptly-named album, 2015’s Desire Will Rot. After a year with no band activity they casually got back together to jam, and the music that would form a new album developed slowly. The last thing on their minds was getting back to playing live.
“When we started jamming again, it was just working on new music,” explains guitarist and band founder Topon Das.
“We didn’t even talk about playing shows, because even after a year of not doing it, everyone was still burnt out. Now after we put out the album, after the pandemic, we’re just like ‘Let’s do it before we’re really too fuckin’ old!’ (laughs) We basically looked at a number. 6 shows a year, we think, is a comfortable amount of shows for us. I still love doing this. Like just the band, being with my friends. Getting to play some shows once in a while, getting to be creative. I still love this stuff. Which is why I can’t totally escape it, even though it might be smart for me to. I still have the drive to do it for whatever reason.”
Fuck The Facts 2024
The Toronto concert will be Fuck The Facts’ 4th show since resuming playing live. The legacy lineup of Das on guitar, vocalist Melanie Mongeon, and drummer Mathieu “Vil” Vilandre, are joined by new guitarist Adam Pell and bassist Seb Choquette. The band did have shows lined up before the pandemic hit. But once shows came back, the circumstances had changed, including Vilandre having opened up a microbrewery pub just south of Sherbrooke, Québec.
“This is something that’s kind of been his dream for countless years, even when we were touring machines,” says Das.
“He basically opened it with his uncle. They bought the place, they founded the place. Mel has a full-time job, we have kids, I have my studio business. It’s really hard for us to manage the few shows a year that we do. It is a bummer. We put out Pleine Noirceur in 2020, but now is like the first time that we’re getting to play these songs live. But we’ve been a band together for so long. Mel and I since 2002, and Vil since 2005. There’s not a point where it’s like ‘Too bad for you, we’re going to find another drummer.’”
The band hopes to play as many tracks as possible from Pleine Noirceur at their shows this year, and so the Toronto set will feature songs not performed anywhere else. This naturally leads to thoughts of even more new music from Fuck The Facts someday. The good news is that according to Das, new music is probably in the band’s future, but some questions remain.
“That’s tricky because it’s my day job, and I spend so much time working on other people’s music,” he says.
“It’s tricky for to kind of flip the switch and start working on my own. We’ve put a lot of work into making sure we’ve prepared for these shows. But we have been working on a bunch of new music and we have a bunch of new songs written, and at least some of it partially recorded. Definitely something I’d like to get out sooner than later. But there’s no real plan at the moment. We’ll see.”
Topon Das - October 2023 (Photo by Nick Shaw)
Early in their career Fuck The Facts began to catch fire in Ontario in places like Peterborough and Oshawa. In Toronto they played shows at venues like the Kathedral and other more random locations. Word of their frantic and energetic sets grew each time they came through town, as did appreciation for their unique doom-influenced style of grindcore. In the years that followed, Toronto served as the location of some of the band’s most memorable performances.
“I’m really stoked to play the show in Toronto because it has been so long, and I feel like the last couple of times that we went there were definitely highlights for us,” says Das excitedly.
“When we started out I would just write to anyone and everyone, like ‘Hey man can you book a show for us?’ We’d trade shows with bands, even if it wasn’t very related to us sound-wise. Especially in the early 2000’s, we did shows with indie rock bands. Whatever would work, that was totally our thing. We wanted to be on the road. Basically the complete opposite of what we’re doing now. The shows we’ve done so far were very good shows, and they were fun, and we were there. We get to put on the best show possible. This is kind of what we always wanted to do. I don’t think we’ll ever tour again.”
Fuck The Facts play Toronto on Friday, May 10th at Rivoli, along with special guests Holy Grinder and Ischemic. Advance tickets are available. You can read my previous interview with Fuck The Facts from 2020 here. Watch some recent rehearsal room footage of the track “Aube” below.