THE FIERY FURNACES
LINCOLN THEATER, RALEIGH, NC
WORDS: AW HENDERSON
PHOTOS: JESSICA SMITH
JULY 06, 2007

The question is, how does a band release five albums in three years that sound nothing alike, yet all sound like The Fiery Furnaces? The answer is, does it matter? Matthew Friedberger, the principle songwriting force behind our favorite schitzoid bro-and-sis duo, has, along with Eleanor Friedberger, consistently churned out album after album of increasingly uncategorizable post-millenial pop, equal parts brilliance and buffoonery, both under the siblings' shared moniker and under his own name. His solo debut, last years' double-album, Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School, is the last we've heard from him up until this point. But a new Furnaces album lurks (and, as of press time, also leaks) right around the corner, and Matt says Widow City is going to mark a step back towards rock and roll. Yeah, right...

If anything, the Furnaces' performance at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh could be called an (un?)intentional perversion of the concept of a return to rock'n'roll roots, albeit a thoroughly enjoyable one. Friedberger's stated intention of being a rock band manifested itself through two half-hour medleys, each generally delivered in the rock vein. The first medley, comprised entirely of tracks from 2006's excellent (but definitely not "rock") Bitter Tea showed just how far the band is willing to go to sound nothing like themselves; Tea's twisted electronic extrusions were transformed into grapeshot sprays of rapid-fire song-bullets, with enough twists and turns for several Furnaces records packed into 30 minutes of punk-y frenzy. I've listened to that album without remorse and I still had trouble picking out what song was being played. Friedberger leaves the audience with no room to breath, let alone dance, and Eleanor races through her lyrics with a panicky grace that would leave even the most accomplished auctioneer ashamed of his feebler articulation.

Though a few Widow City tracks have found their way into the current tour's set, a proper fall tour to support the new album is planned. I had a pleasant chat with Matt, and in the process he inadvertently answered several questions about his live show and the new album. Here's what he said:

'Sup: So are you just starting this tour?
Matt Friedberger: Yeah, we're going from Cleveland to Chicago.

Chicago, you grew up there, right?
Yeah, my sister and I are from Chicago.

And now you're signed to Thrill Jockey, which is in Chicago. It seems like you're re-centering in Chicago.
(laughs) No. But it's where we're from, so it's always home. If you don't live there..it's good not to live where you're from, then you get to go home and visit.

I was in Chicago recently, and I really liked it.
Yeah, it's nice! It's a lot nicer than it was. It's become more urban in the last 15 years.

What was it like before?
It was not as developed. Chicago had tough times in the last 40 years before, from about '50 to 1985

That's the time frame covered in Rehearsing My Choir.
It is, sort of. I mean, there's some earlier times. But it's a great place, it's an interesting place. It's nice, nicer than other cities in the country.

Do the two cities where the band is from— you were born in Chicago but started playing in New York City— have separate influences on you?
I don't know if we could say they've had any influence on the band. You don't notice the city having any influence on the band, I don't think. Except that New York is a wonderful place, a wonderful place to play. You meet lots of smart people there that can play music. (laughs). And the other city, Chicago, where the two of us, my sister and I, are from, obviously, influences us completely in ways we don't even know, you know? Now, in the band, we play with a couple guys from the New York area: Jason, who plays in the band, lives in New York, too, so...we're influenced by them inevitably. It's hard for us to say. You don't think you're influenced by a music scene, or anything like that. We don't think that, and we're not, in either place. I don't think it's as relevant, you know.

I feel like some places have, just, this permeating sense of aesthetic, and some places don't.
You know what, people fixate on that like it's a team, like 'Oh, they're part of the so-and-so's. I like them.'

Part of a crowd, or something.
People are fans in that way, in the same way that they're fans of a team or a brand name, like, 'I like bands from Toledo, exclusively. That hot new label from Toledo, and I buy and see every band that comes...' I'm not saying that's silly to think like that, but that's normal, kind of, fan or aficionado behavior. So you associate things like that. I don't know, maybe sometimes in smaller places the people do all play together, all play the same show. But in Chicago, it's a big enough city it's not like that, and New York it's certainly not like that. You don't even know people who live in the same neighborhood as you, let alone people who live in different parts of the city. Don't even know they exist.

You're known to switch back and forth with your live show between the long, complicated medleys and the simpler rock format. What have you settled on for this tour?
It's...(laughs)...it's two long medleys.

What are they mostly drawn from?
One is from Bitter Tea, all songs from Bitter Tea, and then another one is the older songs, and a couple new songs actually.

Anything from Widow City?
One song from Widow City. And then we play another song at the end of the show. So they're long, and I don't know how complicated they are. There's not much cutting back and forth between the songs. It's pretty much one after the other. There's some little bits that keep coming back, but...It's not hard for me to play. It's hard for the other people in the band. I give myself something easy to play, and I make the other people play something hard. To me it doesn't seem complicated, but that's cause it's just me playing a couple notes.

What are you playing on this tour? Keyboard, guitars...?
Uh, keyboard.

I've seen you play both ways, on your first headlining tour in Chapel Hill with the medley style, and then I saw you again with the more straightforward rock style.
That's good, that's good, because this is the most different from that. (laughs)

Well, I liked both, but I liked the medley more. It sticks in my memory for being different from any other concert I''ve ever been to.
It's not like that, because the music is very different from that stuff, but I think you'll like it. I hope you will.

With the keyboards back on stage for this tour, now, is that an indication that the trend away from conventionally-used guitars on the album is continued?
No, the Widow City album has got a lot more rock parts, normal rock bits, than any other the other records, really.

Really?
Well, I don''t know. I haven't listened to the first record since...; it has a lot of guitar solos. (Widow City) doesn't have a lot of guitar solos, but it's more normal rock sounds, a lot of it. To me, it doesn't have a lot of synthesizers on it at all, but I guess there are a lot of synthesizer things on it, but so much less that I think there aren't any.

Is there going to be another Widow City tour later on?
Yes. This tour, because it's not out, we'll play old stuff—old stuff in a new way, though. And then in the fall we'll play a medley, I guess, of the Widow City album.

The medley format is one of the coolest ways to do a live show.
Yeah, I see a lot of bands doing that now, more. Every time I see a show, the bands play their songs straight into each other, now.

Stealing your idea?
We're obviously not the first band to do that. (laughs) But I'm glad to see that. I don't want to hear people talk. I want them to play.

Like on-stage banter?
Yeah, you know, sometimes you go to a show and people kind of want to hang out with the band. I don't like that, do you like that?

Tell me about Chamberlains, which you're using on the new album, right? What does it do?
It's a keyboard that plays tapes of instruments. The keyboard activates a tape of a flute or a cello playing that one note. It's a '60s invention. You've definitely heard them before. Mellotrons are the more famous types, the British type.

Are they vintage, or do they still manufacture them these days?
I think somebody is making Mellotron now, but now, they're old. These ones we play are from the late '60s. They used to belong to Foghat. You know that band? They had them. A guy bought them and had them shipped to Chicago in the '80s.

How much were they?
Well, I didn't buy them, so I don't know. One guy's owned them since the late '80s. At the time he spent $800 on them, or something. But now they're, you know, five grand at least. Seven grand. They're very nice, and fun. And familiar. You know, the flutes in the beginning of "Strawberry Fields Forever"—that's a mellotron. It's a very familiar sound.

Each of your albums boasts a very distinctive sound; for instance, Blueberry Boat's fractured song structure, your grandmother singing on Rehearshing My Choir, or the backwards samples on Bitter Tea. Is there anything comparable on Widow City?
I dunno, but, you know...The record is electric guitar and electric bass and Chamberlins and Miko playing the drums. So that's what people will...that's what it sounds like. And Eleanor's singing, but Eleanor's singing on the other records, too, so it sounds the same in that regard. (laughs)

Do you sing any on Widow City?
Do I? I sing a little bit. I only have a...well, no.