It's a flammable affair
Who needs indie rock when there’s a whole world of fab pop music out there to be influenced by? That’s what St. Albans techno trio Friendly Fires reckon at least. Singer Ed Gibson explains why they’d much rather be up all night listening to New Kids On The Block and Britney than Oasis or Kaiser Chiefs.
Paul Nolan, 20 Jun 2011
Can we take it that Friendly Fires are looking to move decisively away from the world of indie?
“I guess so,” considers Ed Gibson. “To me, the world of indie conjures up images of Liam and Noel arm-in-arm, staring down the camera. It doesn’t really feel like a world we were ever part of. With the first album, we were more influenced by DFA records and that kind of sound, which to me wasn’t indie either, it was New York disco. To us, ‘indie’ was a bit of a dirty word, which we never wanted to be exclusively a part of.”
So are Bobby Brown and NKOTB genuine influences or were they just thrown out there to get people talking?
“They’re definitely where we’ve taken some influence from,” replies Edd. “Maybe Bobby Brown a little more than, what was the other one – N*Sync or somebody?”
New Kids On The Block.
“Maybe less New Kids,” responds Edd, a tad sheepishly. “That’s sort of a way of talking about vocals with a pop sensibility. There are songs where, when we wrote them, we thought, ‘Does this sound too pop?’ Then we thought, ‘Well, every time we’re asked we say we’re a pop band, so let’s just push this forward and see how it goes.’ I’m really pleased that we did. ‘Show Me Lights’ in particular, we thought, ‘Christ, this is getting out of hand, isn’t it?’ But we totally embraced it.”
So might we soon see Friendly Fires’ singer, Ed MacFarlane, wearing a headset microphone à la Bobby Brown in the ‘My Prerogative’ video?
“Yeah, or like Britney,” chuckles Edd. “You need to get both arms going – you can’t have one impeded by a stupid microphone!”
Given the psychedelic nature of the artwork on Pala, the euphoric feel of the music, and the fact that the lead single off the album, ‘Live Those Days Tonight’, boasts a video compiled from vintage rave clips, I wonder if Edd considers it to be a drug album?
“It’s far more instant than that,” reckons Edd. “A good drug album would be non-stop, there’d be no let-up to come to at all. You definitely need sections to go on and on to lose yourself in, whereas we don’t like to waste too much time, we try and trim off the fat. You’d have a tough time taking drugs to this record.”
Page 1/3 <Previous 1 2 3 Next>
Photo Galleries For This Artist
©Hot Press 2011. Why be a member? | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy