'HE TORMENTED ME FOR YEARS'

The Guardian
by Alex Petridis
Monday November 10, 2003

Eleanor Friedberger looks across the pub table to where her elder brother, Matt, is explaining his theory about the music they make together under the name the Fiery Furnaces. "We'd like to play for little kids and in old folks' homes," he says, "and play in nasty bars as well. The music we want to play is more catholic - it's a big enough mess that whether it's the old folk or the kids, they could find something amusing. Hopefully, it is really silly, shiny music. I want it to have a broken toy sound. And also a piano singalong thing. I always like the idea of families entertaining themselves by singing, like every member of a family has a special song they sing when they get drunk enough, a Cole Porter song or whatever. That's fun pop music to me."

As she watches her brother, Eleanor, 27, raises her eyes and exhales softly. Not for the last time today, her face arranges itself into an expression pitched between incredulity and weary resignation. In fact, she spends a fair percentage of our interview looking like that. She also has a habit of repeating her brother's more outré ideas in a deadpan voice, giving the impression that they rank among the most idiotic things she has ever heard. "Having a song to sing at family events when you get drunk," she says, shaking her head. "Yeah. My song is Tomorrow. From Annie."

Despite the sibling rivalry, the Friedbergers have come up with what may well be 2003's most surprising and intriguing debut album. Picked up by British label Rough Trade - home of the Strokes and the Libertines - Gallowsbird's Bark was recorded as a demo in just three days. It was the first time singer and guitarist Eleanor had ever ventured inside a recording studio.

The album's 16 tracks sound like nothing else - nor do they sound much like each other. It careers from skewed psychedelic blues to weird, slightly disturbing nursery rhymes, bubblegum pop buried beneath layers of noise and mock folk, occasionally within the space of one song. It is fantastically exhilarating and exceptionally odd, even before you get to the lyrics.

Closing track We Got Back the Plague suggests that a brief outbreak of bubonic plague in New York last November was divine retaliation for George Bush's increased majority in the recent mid-term elections. Other songs deal with Finnish folk historians, faux-hillbillies, overheard conversations from the insurance office where Eleanor used to work and her travels around Europe. As a result, the Fiery Furnaces may be the only New York-based band in history to have songs about London Transport's poor tube service (The South Is Only a Home) and the Greenwich foot tunnel (Leaky Tunnel).

"It all really started when I came back from England with Matt saying to me, 'So, what was it like?' and me trying to tell a funny story to amuse him," says Eleanor. However, such topics may account for their album's poor performance back home: "We got a good review in the Onion and I think a guy in Seattle likes it," Matt says.

Watching the siblings in the pub, it's difficult to imagine that they are capable of collaborating on anything. Multi-instrumentalist Matt, 31, describes their working process as "me making that frame for Eleanor's picture to go in. That's how I think of it. How am I going to support Eleanor's talents or how am I going to use her to do something interesting?"

He is interrupted by a grim chuckle from the other side of the table. "That sounds very manipulative. Doesn't it?"

"It's not meant to sound manipulative," he protests. "You're the personality of the band. If it's going to work, it's going to have to take that into account, both by playing to your strengths and by making you do something weird for yourself that can be interesting too."

"I appreciate that very much," says Eleanor, "but I also see that as Matt pulling strings. It's my big brother. He tormented me for years. Now he's saying, 'Oh, I'm doing this for you.'"

Nevertheless, it slowly becomes clear that the two were fated to make music together. They grew up in Chicago, the children of an English father and an American mother. It was Matt who encouraged Eleanor's ambitions by buying her a guitar and a drum kit. In turn, it was Eleanor who dispelled Matt's youthful punk ethics: at one time he was so disgusted by the music industry that he refused to perform his songs for anybody. "I thought at the time that trying to get any attention for what you were doing was kind of gross. It's easier for me to rationalise making music with my sister, because it's 'Well, I'm helping Eleanor, doing my best.' Eleanor playing music helped me play music again."

"You see?" asks his sister. "Manipulative, huh?"

Initially, the two shared a flat in New York while they were trying to get their musical project off the ground. This arrangement was not a roaring success, but gradually the Friedbergers developed their sound - influenced, they claim, by "Bo Diddley, bad-sounding psychedelia, sentimental, weeping-in-your-beer ballads of the '70s like Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again Naturally and the bad imitations of dub reggae on Sandinista by the Clash". They also managed to condense their diverse racket into a live sound that is, as Matt notes "much more aggro": punchy, avant-garde garage rock. In addition, Eleanor is a startling and compelling frontwoman, blessed with a deeply disconcerting stare.

"I thought Eleanor would be very good and interesting as a singer of a loud rock band," says Matt. "I thought she would be a tough frontperson, so let's play aggressively."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this idea failed to find favour with Eleanor. "For the longest time, I was completely embarrassed. I didn't want to be in a loud rock band as a young woman. I didn't like any women singers. I identified with men. I didn't know how to go about it. Then I just decided, whatever comes out, comes out. I've got this new thing of just trying to look at people and see how they react."

"No," says Matt. "You've always done that." He turns to me. "She used to play sports, so she's used to standing around screaming at people." Noting his sister's puzzled expression, he shrugs. "No? Well, what do you think? Is it because I would yell at you and be mean to you until you weren't scared of anything?"

And they're off again. "There are," Eleanor says, perhaps unnecessarily, "some underlying issues here."