F---ed Up to Tour with Public Enemy in September

F---ed Up frontman Damian Abraham admits he's not entirely sure how crowds will react to his band opening up for legendary hip-hop outfit Public Enemy this September when the Toronto punks join Chuck D and his crew for a five-day tour.

"I don't know how it's going to go," he tells Spinner. "I love Public Enemy and I'm excited to see how it goes, but I know if I paid to see Public Enemy and saw my ass come on stage, I'd be bummed. I'd kind of be like, 'What the f---?'"

"It's like when F---ed Up had Kurt Vile open, people were pissed because it's not punk," he continues. "You can tell people, "No, no, no, this is good. You might not like it now, you might not like it in this context, but one day if you go back to this, I promise you, you'll get that it."

Abraham is happy to bring exposure to lesser known bands that he and the rest of the F---ed Up gang are sweet on, but the singer is wary of artists pushing their personal music tastes on fans.

"As soon as you're in a band, your job is to entertain people," he says. "You can do other things like benefit records, but your first job is to entertain. People are not paying you for education -- it should never become, 'Here's why I know more than you' and 'Here's why you, the fan, should listen to me.'"

"Besides," the musician jokes, "someone could be at our show who has a record collection a billion times better than mine. It's unlikely, but it could happen."

So if it's not about tipping their audience off to the underrated stars of the underground, what criteria is the Polaris Prize-winning group using for selecting their tour support?

"If you're going to be seeing them everyday for a longtime, they had better be bands you like," says Abraham. "That's why we've had bands like Kurt Vile and Vivian Girls. We really love them."

And according to the outspoken frontman, F---ed Up lucked into their coveted spot on the Public Enemy tour, as well as their forthcoming collaboration with Chuck D (the project is still in the planning stages), for the same reason.

"Their manager wrote to us and said that Chuck D really liked the band, and it went from there."