Encounters: Tanya Tagaq & Damian Abraham

In a country as vast and varied as Canada, myriad musical talents have appeared on one land mass that can feel worlds apart – but when you bring them together, you’d be surprised what they have in common besides nationality. Hailing from Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, Canada, on the south coast of Victoria Island, Tanya Tagaq is an Inuk woman whose heritage, spirituality and politics are deeply woven into her radical musical work. Studying the ancient tradition of throat singing, she developed a solo style of her own that gained her nationwide critical acclaim: releasing three albums of Aboriginal and folk music before winning the prestigious 2014 Polaris Prize with her fourth, Animism. Gaining international recognition for her work with Björk and the Kronos Quartet, Tagaq has shaped herself into a radical, forward-thinking artist.

Her punk spirit finds an affinity with Damian Abraham, the vocalist for the boundary-pushing Canadian hardcore band, Fucked Up. Noted for their ambitious, multi-faceted take on the genre, Fucked Up are also previous winners of the Polaris Prize, for their 2009 album The Chemistry of Common Life. As a performer, Abraham strikes a powerful visual and sonic blow, commanding the stage and audience with an all-or-nothing attitude and vocal range that sees him pull together elements of hardcore, punk, thrash and rock & roll with fervor.

In this excerpt from RBMA Radio’s Encounters, Abraham and Tagaq explore the connections between their shared philosophies on music, life, politics and the power of ideas.

Demonology and Religion

Tanya Tagaq

I grew up listening to Iron Maiden a lot, and Motörhead, and it’s so funny that metal music is affiliated with demonology. What people think evil is, I don’t really associate with it, because being Inuk, the idea of God is what decimated so many groups of people. I think it’s a human construct.

Damian Abraham

Absolutely. I think if you look at the Church of Satan, historically, as a religion, it’s not about being spooky and being evil. It’s about the idea of rejection of Christianity, and the idea that maybe the way Christianity has been taken up – not maybe, the way Christianity has been taken up – has been oppressive and decimating. Like, white Christianity has wiped out civilizations, and so many things, in that name.

Tanya Tagaq

Each other, too. Like the Spanish Inquisition and overtaking of Ireland. Everything all in the name of God. It’s really difficult for me to go, “Yeah, Christian faith is so excellent.” I respect people for their own faith on an individual basis. I think people can be good. Once you take it upon yourself to inflict judgment on anyone, I don’t think that’s right. I do really have difficulty believing in the idea of good and evil, because I don’t believe in there being any shame surrounding sexuality. Whether you decide to stay a virgin your whole life or whether you sleep with five thousand people, I don’t think that morally affects who you are as a person in any way whatsoever. I’ve never understood all of that body shame, shame to be yourself, shame to be everything. I’m also not a Satanist, because that means you have to believe in Satan, which is as bad as believing in God. That’s terrible.

Damian Abraham

What’s your favorite singer for Iron Maiden?

Tanya Tagaq

“Run To The Hills” is my favorite. It’s English people singing about colonialism.

Damian Abraham

They are intimately familiar with that subject matter.

Tanya Tagaq

We covered it, actually. We just didn’t put it on the album. Because an English band singing about colonialism and a half-English, half-Inuk covering this song is pretty fucking hilarious.

Damian Abraham

I want to hear that cover. If there’s one person who could give Bruce [Dickinson] a run for the vocal money, it’s you.

Tanya Tagaq

It’s hard.

Damian Abraham

I know, but I think you could take that song to places he couldn’t dream of taking it.

Living Through Poptimism

Tanya Tagaq

I have a pretty wide breadth of music tastes, I don’t know about you.

Damian Abraham

Very narrow. “Deep, narrow pools,” I’ve described them as.

Tanya Tagaq

Really? What is it?

Damian Abraham

I don’t know. Things that respond to me. There’s an energy, and it’s always music that is not pop-based. Modern pop-based music, I just can’t find a lot of connection with. I don’t want to say “outside,” but I think that, broadly termed, anything that comes from a place that isn’t that I find interesting. But I find for a lot of people, that makes me very narrow in what I like.

Tanya Tagaq

I wouldn’t describe that as narrow at all. I’d describe someone who only liked the Top 40 as very narrow.

Damian Abraham

I think, though, we live in a poptimist age. When we were younger, you’d look at a magazine and there was the stuff that was in the critical sphere, and that would be the Sugarcubes or that would be Sonic Youth or be those kinds of bands. Now, you look at what’s in the critical sphere, and it’s the exact same as what’s on the Top 40 chart. There’s not really that breakdown in the same way. I think we live in this weird poptimist moment.

Tanya Tagaq

It’s the same vehicle as the capitalism – that’s what the problem is. People are throwing the dart to try and sell as many units as possible. Therefore, everyone has to fit in a certain thing, they have to be a certain age, look a certain way, make a certain song. Quite often people don’t have to even be good – they just have to be marketable.

Damian Abraham

That’s probably always been the case, a little bit.

Tanya Tagaq

No, don’t you remember when rock stars were ugly? Not necessarily ugly, but they didn’t have to be perfect, like Janis Joplin and Mick Jagger. It was just about being sexy, and having strong presence. That is sexy, I think, having a strong presence.

I’ve been into Johnny Cash lately – that guy’s so bad ass. And Dolly Parton.

Damian Abraham

She’s amazing. [“Jolene”] is incredible.

Tanya Tagaq

She captures the feeling of that. Everyone’s felt that.

Damian Abraham

There’s a few songs that bleed across the speaker in that way. That’s such a real vocal, such a raw vocal, when she’s delivering it, even though I guess that was a pop song at one point, on the charts.

Tanya Tagaq

See, that’s what you were saying, and that’s what I’m saying. If you look at the Top 40 at that time, versus now… Not to sound like fuddy-duddies.

Damian Abraham

Also, I believe A Tribe Called Red is in the Top 40 right now in Canada. There’s awesome stuff, too.

Blasphemy and The Fear Of Death

Damian Abraham

There’s this band from Vancouver called Blasphemy, and they, to me, are like the most fascinating band in the history of music. They were an interracial skinhead group that were militantly anti-fascist and went to war with the Nazis. They’re all black and white guys in urban camo in front of giant fires and graveyards in their photos.

I’m in China on tour one time in a random metal head shop, and I’m looking through the shirts. It’s like, Slayer shirts, Motörhead shirts, and then there’s a Burzum shirt. “Oh, not Burzum, God no, not Burzum.” There were Burzum shirts but then amongst that, there’s also this Blasphemy shirt. I bring it up to the front and I’m talking to the store owner in the middle of Beijing about this Canadian band that never gets talked about in Canada. They’re one of the most interesting bands ever.

Tanya Tagaq

It’s the inferiority complex that Canada tends to have, this self-depreciating kind of thing. It’s frustrating because a lot of things that take in the States aren’t necessarily worthy of being as successful as they are. But there’s a lot of good artists that are very successful.

The thing about the metal scene that always confused me – it’s the same with the goth vibe – is I grew up seeing things being skinned all the time. Guts, bones – even human bones – laying around the tundra. Graveyards? Not scary. They’re just some calcium deposits in a box. Why are people afraid? The goth scene, or people pretending to be vampires? It’s like, “Well, you’re not?”

Damian Abraham

It’s that Judeo-Christian thing coming back again. It’s this fear of death, fear of sexuality.

Tanya Tagaq

It’s a movement against that, right?

Damian Abraham

I think it’s a movement in rejection of that, but I think it’s also that fascination with it that comes from a lot of people being raised in that, where it’s all about this obsession over control over life and death and if you believe in this faith, you can live forever and you don’t have to be in the graveyard. So much of it is around that, I think.

Tanya Tagaq

You know how our bodies are made up of cells? I’m sure there’s a cell in your lung that isn’t aware that it’s part of a body, and it’s not meant to. So what? It’s alive. I think we are part of something that’s way bigger than we can possibly comprehend. We’re not supposed to. There’s nothing to fear about death. There’s nothing to fear about not being here anymore. We have a little bit of time. It’s nothing. It’s a blink of an eye, our lifespan. I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with trying to delineate our meaning, when we’re living our meaning everyday.

Damian Abraham

You’re right. I think maybe it’s from being told, “Hey, if you come over here and believe in this set of values and believe in this set of shared principles, you can live forever.” You don’t have to be part of the natural order. You can be part of the unnatural order of eternal life through faith and religion.

Tanya Tagaq

Do you think maybe that religion might have been started because they wanted large groups of people to do all the work for them like slaves, so they were like, “The more you sacrifice in this world, the more you’ll get in the afterlife,” in the hopes of getting people to waste away their life and time by basically being enslaved and building everything? I don’t know.

Damian Abraham

I think you brought it up earlier when you said it’s about control. Like, it was about controlling women, controlling women’s sexuality. You read the creation stories in the Bible and it’s right out of the gate – original sin – and it’s very much directed at women.You can kind of see that a lot of times religion is used by men, primarily, to control women, and control people around them.

Tanya Tagaq

Why do you think they had the need to try to control women?

Damian Abraham

Laziness, maybe. I don’t know. Insecurity. Fear. They may fear the power women have.

Tanya Tagaq

I always thought if there was a God, we’d be the closest thing to it. Yeah, of course, we need sperm, but we make the thing. Our flesh becomes more flesh, and it’s so incredible. I’m trying really hard not to have another [baby].

The Power Of The Voice

Damian Abraham

I’m known for having an “extreme” vocal. I’ll read that, and I can’t even touch what you do.

Tanya Tagaq

I wouldn’t say that.

Damian Abraham

No, but I just think the range you have and what you do… It goes back to this one idea of what a voice should sound like and this one idea of what a good vocal is. To me, voices are there to express so much more than just poppy love songs. The first time I heard you, it’s like, “That’s a voice that does that.”

Tanya Tagaq

Like Geddy Lee. It’s like, “What the fuck is even happening, this is insane!” Like, you say “Okay, I’m going to rock this.” It sounds crazy. I remember when I was a kid and my dad would be listening to Leonard Cohen. I’d be thinking, “He’s not that great at singing,” but you don’t even have to be anymore. Not anymore, but not even ever.

Damian Abraham

Like Nico, from the Velvets. Her voice is another one that I think is not classically beautiful, but unbelievably powerful.

Tanya Tagaq

The uniqueness of each person’s expression is so good. That’s why I want us to collaborate vocally. Which we haven’t done yet.

Damian Abraham

I think it would be awesome. I think we could definitely do some fun stuff.

Shared Energies

Damian Abraham

If I looked at both of our musics, I think [we share] sonic experimentation. That seems very obvious and cheesy for me to go to, but I think we both use a lot of experimentation. Try and look at music as being a broader spectrum. Obviously, we’re painting in a much more limited palette.

Tanya Tagaq

What about energy levels? Energy levels is a pretty good common ground. The exportation of energy, the ferocity.

Damian Abraham

Maybe it’s surrendering. I’m watching you perform, and you just seem to surrender to the music. That’s what I think I’m trying to do. There’s this Japanese hardcore thing, in Japanese Burning Spirits, punk rock, that they would talk about called “complete discharge.” The idea of everything being left out on the stage, so you just don’t have anything left. It’s all there. I think when I’m watching you that’s the sense that I get and that’s what I’m trying to do, too, every time I’m out there.

Tanya Tagaq

You ever see GG Allin?

Damian Abraham

Never saw him live. Thank God. I think I’d probably still have poo in my hair from that, and I’m bald.

Tanya Tagaq

Poo beard. Artisanal poo beard.

Damian Abraham

The guy who runs Matador Records, Gerard Cosloy, played in GG Allin’s band. He’s got some funny stories.

Tanya Tagaq

Well, that guy was just crazy.

Damian Abraham

He was a performance. He was definitely doing brutal shit to himself, but the sense I get from talking to people that knew him was even though he was doing these ridiculous, reckless things, it was to the end of trying to become a pop star, or trying to become something. It had more in keeping with KISS than I think what we’re trying to do, which is, like, be as honest with a performance as possible.

Tanya Tagaq

Yeah, it’s the opposite. That was showmanship, for sure. Less about technical fortitude and more about-

Damian Abraham

Poop.

Tanya Tagaq

Poop. More about taking a shit.

I’m still fascinated by that man. He lived his idea of music so much. A lot of musicians, that’s why we die. We die young because we live the music outside of the music world too much.