The Fiery Furnaces
Fiery Furnaces: Heavy on the Other Shit
2008-02-07
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The Fiery Furnaces—the Chicago-born, sibling indie rock outfit known for their nonstop live shows and stream-of-consciousness lyrical musings—are something of a musical Frankenstein, with Eleanor Friedberger’s school teacher voice and Karen Carpenter-charm overlaying her brother Matthew’s sometimes tumultuous, sometimes sugary synth rock. It’s a strange symbiosis, but one that somehow works, at least for some people. We tracked down Matthew Friedberger in the back of a Sacramento, CA club, and sat down with him for a surprisingly congenial chat.
Seeing you live a couple times and listening to your CDs, I always figured that you’d be super aloof, but you seem pretty nice.
Well, I don’t know how nice we are, at least to other people [laughs].
I met Eleanor earlier, and she seems super nice,too.
Yeah, she’s not aloof at all.
So you’re not one of those bands that thinks a lot about perceptions people might have of you, from your stage presence or recordings or whatever?
We don’t think about it. I mean what would you do? I mean I guess, for some people, it’s fun; their whole fun for being in a band is to recreate themselves, recreate their lives and that’s fine…that’s interesting, maybe.
So Matthew from the Fiery Furnaces is Matthew in real life?
The band isn’t meant to be a personal expression; we’re not like a singer/songwriter band. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So it’s more abstract?
It’s like the craft…it’s like how people are all about their birdhouses, or furniture or whatever hobby people have and their relationship to that. It doesn’t sum them up.
I remembering reading somewhere that you guys thought of yourself as more of a “band’s band.” Do you think that you’re slowly becoming more of a people’s band?
I don’t know, did that get said? Did Eleanor get quoted as saying that? I don’t know, I mean, we’re in a band. So we’re always going to be trying to make something good for ourselves. As opposed to, “cut that shit out, we’ve got a song that we want to communicate directly.” We don’t want any of that bullshit. There’s a school of thought that says that you should write music in such a way that people will like it, and leave that other shit out. Well, I don’t understand that. Does that make any sense? Some people say that bands are self-indulgent, or something like that. What does that mean? That doesn’t mean anything.
It’s a good word though. It has a hyphen.
It sounds like you’re saying something, but you’re not saying anything. I believe in rock ‘n’ roll rules and stuff like that, I believe that you have to use them and know some. But there are no rules that say that you have to sound boring. That’s a terrible quote.
No, I like it.
We think we have tunes. So therefore, the people can like us.
Is it weird that the shows are starting to get bigger, and people are starting to think of you as one of their favorite bands? Is that kind of a weird experience, given that your music is not exactly Top 40?
Well, there’s not many people that say we’re their favorite band, maybe a couple…I’ve got little cousins, who like the song “Smelling Cigarettes” a lot. Do you know that song? It’s on the EP now, it was on a B-side. It’s a goofy song, it has a lot of little parts. It not necessarily making any sense. But they really liked it, because they heard it and they didn’t really have any preconceptions, because they’re little kids. And it’s true that people like what their friends like. They’ll like anything. As long as it’s in a social context. It doesn’t matter how weird it is. And we’re not that weird.
I don’t know, I mean playing all your songs jumbled up, as a medley, live, still seems kind of weird, in a good way.
We still do that, by the way.
Is that just for a change of pace?
I thought it would be fun. Everyone has to concentrate. I think with rock music, everything’s easy and you can pretty much play it, so you always make the same amount of mistakes. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard or easy. So if you play something that seems like you have to concentrate more, you’re going to make the same amount of mistakes as something that’s easier, so you might as well play something that seems harder. People give you more credit for your mistakes.
Seeing you live a couple times and listening to your CDs, I always figured that you’d be super aloof, but you seem pretty nice.
Well, I don’t know how nice we are, at least to other people [laughs].
I met Eleanor earlier, and she seems super nice,too.
Yeah, she’s not aloof at all.
So you’re not one of those bands that thinks a lot about perceptions people might have of you, from your stage presence or recordings or whatever?
We don’t think about it. I mean what would you do? I mean I guess, for some people, it’s fun; their whole fun for being in a band is to recreate themselves, recreate their lives and that’s fine…that’s interesting, maybe.
So Matthew from the Fiery Furnaces is Matthew in real life?
The band isn’t meant to be a personal expression; we’re not like a singer/songwriter band. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So it’s more abstract?
It’s like the craft…it’s like how people are all about their birdhouses, or furniture or whatever hobby people have and their relationship to that. It doesn’t sum them up.
I remembering reading somewhere that you guys thought of yourself as more of a “band’s band.” Do you think that you’re slowly becoming more of a people’s band?
I don’t know, did that get said? Did Eleanor get quoted as saying that? I don’t know, I mean, we’re in a band. So we’re always going to be trying to make something good for ourselves. As opposed to, “cut that shit out, we’ve got a song that we want to communicate directly.” We don’t want any of that bullshit. There’s a school of thought that says that you should write music in such a way that people will like it, and leave that other shit out. Well, I don’t understand that. Does that make any sense? Some people say that bands are self-indulgent, or something like that. What does that mean? That doesn’t mean anything.
It’s a good word though. It has a hyphen.
It sounds like you’re saying something, but you’re not saying anything. I believe in rock ‘n’ roll rules and stuff like that, I believe that you have to use them and know some. But there are no rules that say that you have to sound boring. That’s a terrible quote.
No, I like it.
We think we have tunes. So therefore, the people can like us.
Is it weird that the shows are starting to get bigger, and people are starting to think of you as one of their favorite bands? Is that kind of a weird experience, given that your music is not exactly Top 40?
Well, there’s not many people that say we’re their favorite band, maybe a couple…I’ve got little cousins, who like the song “Smelling Cigarettes” a lot. Do you know that song? It’s on the EP now, it was on a B-side. It’s a goofy song, it has a lot of little parts. It not necessarily making any sense. But they really liked it, because they heard it and they didn’t really have any preconceptions, because they’re little kids. And it’s true that people like what their friends like. They’ll like anything. As long as it’s in a social context. It doesn’t matter how weird it is. And we’re not that weird.
I don’t know, I mean playing all your songs jumbled up, as a medley, live, still seems kind of weird, in a good way.
We still do that, by the way.
Is that just for a change of pace?
I thought it would be fun. Everyone has to concentrate. I think with rock music, everything’s easy and you can pretty much play it, so you always make the same amount of mistakes. It doesn’t matter if it’s hard or easy. So if you play something that seems like you have to concentrate more, you’re going to make the same amount of mistakes as something that’s easier, so you might as well play something that seems harder. People give you more credit for your mistakes.
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