SIBLING REVELRY

The Guardian
by Will Hodgkinson
Friday April 16, 2004

Siblings in rock bands are not always noted for their cordiality towards one another. But Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, the brother and sister from America (no, they really are) who make up the Fiery Furnaces appear to have formed a band for the very purpose of getting on better. "We really don't have anything in common with each other," says Matthew, four years Eleanor's senior and the Friedberger family's authority on all things that rock, "apart from the fact that we both like the same music. So although we're still quick to yell at each other, it's lucky that we are in a band."
"Because Matt is older than me, I've always listened to everything he's listened to, and I like everything that he likes," adds Eleanor, who is quiet, slightly awkward and sardonic, but without her brother's intellectual confidence. "Principally because our rooms were next to each other when we were growing up."

The Friedbergers came together to make their catchy, eccentric pop music, which combines innocent and frequently nonsensical lyrics with folk, psychedelic rock and primitive electronics, as something of a last resort. After spending two years in London, Eleanor had returned to her parents' house in Chicago and was unsure what to do with herself. Matthew had also returned home for the first time since he was 16, having played in a string of unsuccessful bands, and hardly ever left the house. Eleanor suggested that they start making music together. She moved to New York to take on a series of "boring office jobs", and Matthew followed her to become a special education teaching assistant ("It made a man of me"). As Eleanor recalled her adventures in London, Matthew set her tales to song. Last year they recorded an entire album, Gallowsbird's Bark, in three days, and a deal with the London label Rough Trade followed soon after.

"Rough Trade thought that we had just made some demo songs," remembers Eleanor. "We thought it was the finished album. We looked at each other and said: 'What do they want it to be?'" The formula, if there is one, has worked. On an evening in Little Venice, one of the places name-checked on Leaky Tunnel, Gallowsbird's Bark's three-minute musical tour of London's canal network, the Friedbergers make a compelling pair. Eleanor has brought a Tesco carrier bag filled with their favourite albums, and she pulls out two by the Velvet Underground: their debut and their fourth, originally unreleased album, VU. "When I was 15, Matt bought me Loaded," she says. "I had never heard them before and none of my friends had ever heard of them. Therefore it was exciting to have Matt as my brother."

"The only good thing I have ever done is to introduce Eleanor to good music," confirms Matthew. "That is my contribution to the world. I also bought her a double album of Velvet Underground songs which had some Coke bottles on the cover." "You did not! I bought that myself," she responds.

When Eleanor was 11, she discovered Led Zeppelin. "They were beyond the pale for me," says Matthew, solemnly. "I bought the line that Led Zeppelin were bullshit because they were the opposite of punk, and I was a mean older brother to Eleanor because of her love of Led Zeppelin. I would take the record off the turntable. Also, they were the standard band for guys of my age to like."

"That's why I was popular with the boys," says Eleanor, nodding her head slowly. "The guys thought I was cool because I knew all the words." There are other musical bones of contention. Eleanor's love of the Faces caused a problem through Matthew's aversion to Rod Stewart (he has since changed his mind), and he is struggling with her love of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, which Eleanor describes as "a great atmosphere record." ("A hippy record," counters Matthew.)

But there are plenty of records the Friedbergers agree on. Both will happily admit to taking a direct influence from Bob Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes and anything by the Who. The Fiery Furnaces' next project is even based on the Who's mini-rock opera The Who Sell Out. "Our forthcoming album is a bunch of seven- to eight-minute songs with varying degrees of incoherent stories, so it's a narrative set to music, just like The Who Sell Out," says Matthew. "We're happy to imitate other bands. On Gallowsbird's Park, we tried, unsuccessfully, to imitate the first album by [1960s Brazilian rockers] Os Mutantes, Taking Tiger Mountain by Brian Eno, and The Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett."

"Os Mutantes were the first band I could proudly introduce to Matt," adds Eleanor. "I met a guy at a record convention and he told me about them. Matt had never heard of them before."

"Actually I had already heard [Os Mutantes' lead singer] Rita Lee being interviewed on a radio show," he adds, before quickly moving the subject back to the Who. "When I was younger, I tried to listen to heavy metal to be accepted by my friends, even though I didn't like it. But I was able to genuinely like the Who, which was great because they were tough enough for the metal kids. There were two people who did good things with synthesisers in the 70s: the Who with Won't Get Fooled Again and Stevie Wonder with Innervisions. I used to steal from my mother by keeping the change from any errands she sent me on, and at the end of the week I would have $2, enough to buy an album like Innervisions. That's how I discovered music."