Spinner

Fiery Furnaces Call Radiohead 'Bogus'

When the Fiery Furnaces -- the sibling duo of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger -- recorded 'I'm Going Away,' they adjusted their usual penchant for mad rhythms, inscrutable vocals and dizzily complex arrangements to create an album Matthew calls "more casual than our past records."

"The records in the past were made up of simple rock songs," he tells Spinner. "But the simple songs on 'I'm Going Away' are kept within the most obvious genre confines. Hopefully, for people who know the band, that's different and amusing. For people who don't know the band, they can relate to it how they would any song. In the future we will have our simple rock songs be less simply disposed of, but for this record we wanted the songs to be as casually arranged as possible. Well, maybe, almost."

An operatically-inclined and classically-trained pianist who enjoys such '70s rock icons as Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman as well as Richard Wagner, Matthew is well-versed in rock history. "Our model is album rock of the early '70s," he explains. "We like bubblegum and the singles of the '70s and '50s and '60s. We think of that period when pop musicians still felt the need to change and develop and it had to be good, though nobody knew what good meant. People were free then to be pseudo-intellectual about rock records and we agree with that mentality. But by the late '70s and mid '80s, bands were beginning to do the same old thing, so that commercial model is outdated. That doesn't mean that we feel obligated to change for commercial purposes. We think albums have to be different, otherwise you're a sellout and a fraud and you should hang it up. If you're concerned about selling T-shirts, you're a fraud. 'You're cheating the kids,' as Pete Townshend would say."

When told that Radiohead's Thom Yorke sent out a mass e-mail describing the group's tribute song to the UK's last veteran of World War I, 'Harry Patch (In Memory Of),' Friedberger adds the British rock star to his fraud alert list. "'Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch,'" Friedberger says mockingly. "F--- you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That's a put-on. That's a branding technique and Radiohead have their brand that they're popular and intelligent. So they have a song about Harry Patch.

"How's the song?" Friedberger asks. "Is it 48 notes to the octave? What does it have to do with Harry Patch? Oh, my wife says I am being very rude. She doesn't like me insulting Radiohead. She's afraid they will send their lackeys through the computer to sabotage us. But they needn't worry -- we are a band that sabotages ourselves."

'I'm Going Away' is available now.

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March 06 2010 at 2:11 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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March 05 2010 at 8:24 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rich

Wow Buford. You are really are cracking me up. Selling all their albums?! Man your drawing the line in the sand now. Thank God there are folks like you willing to Go Over The Top for art. Now please walk your self into a the next Maxim cross fire you can find.

December 05 2009 at 8:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Navigator

You guys are taking Matthew way too seriously.

November 15 2009 at 3:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bklyn74

This is like the scene in Spinal Tap where Nigel says his zodiac costume would look better if it had been done in "Dublin" after David St. Hubbins's gf says the record would have sounded better if it had been mixed in "Dublin".

November 10 2009 at 9:07 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Amanda

"We are a band that sabotages ourselves." Done.

November 09 2009 at 9:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buford T. Whitebeltkiller

You scenester idiots make me sick. You have made a clique as unwelcoming and ignorant as the fools in high school who wouldn't talk to you. The reason I got into music in the first place was because it wasn't a competition. It was a community of people who got together and appreciated art. I will be selling all my Fiery Furnaces albums today. Knowing that something that I'm listening to was written by an uninformed, diarrhea mouthed muckraker totally ruins it. You people continue to enjoy your episode of Desperate Housewives you call music. I'm going to listen to music because it makes me feel good and try to forget that dumb asses like Fiery Furnaces are out there dumping on other peoples art to make themselves feel better about theirs.

November 06 2009 at 3:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
BobboB

Bit of an embarassing outburst considering it was ill-informed, but good on him for speaking out against the oh so mighty Radiohead! Thom Yorke isn't talentless, but he's made a career out of making people believe he's a lot more talented than he is. They have all the posturings of an intelligent band, but when you look deeper the lyrics are pretentious meaningless crap and their music is only original if you take the top 40 as your guide for what's new and edgy in music. All together now: "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon...."

November 06 2009 at 4:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to BobboB's comment
Ricky

Brilliant reply.

November 06 2009 at 11:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Who\'s on first? What\'s on second? Who?

Hypocrite.

FF has no problem opening for "le artistes", like Wilco (who, of course, have no pretentions) or the Shins (who, of course, have no influences)....but yeah, he's gonna draw the line with that gosh darn Beck or Radiohead....

November 06 2009 at 12:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
brent

I like the FF but radiohead a lot more... just seems like he doesn't like the song, but it shouldn't mean that he has to put down an entire catalog of radiohead's songs. I can't say i loved the harry patch song, and since when was harry patch cool... but i'm not going to dismiss radiohead because of it. Show us what you really got FF and write a song as good as radiohead.

November 05 2009 at 11:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply