INTERVIEW - Friendly Fires

Friendly Fires are an English dance punk band from St Albans, Hertfordshire - band members are Edd Gibson, Ed Macfarlane and Jack Savidge. Their self-titled debut album, released in September 2008, was announced as one of the shortlisted twelve for the 2009 Mercury Prize.

In recent months they have made themselves a name particularly in the dance scene and have played most major festivals over the summer. Victoria Richardson caught them backstage at this year's Creamfields Festival.

(Talking to Jack, the drummer, on the right in the picture)

Where did the name Friendly Fires come from? There aren’t many friendly fires around really - chip pan fires, house fires, wild fires…
J: I think you would be wrong there to be honest - apparently it’s a way of putting out raging forest fires: you make another controlled fire to starve the bad one of oxygen - that’s the definition of it.
But really it came from a song by a band called Section 25, it kind of looks good on paper too, and has the right kind of rhythm to it. It slips off the tongue, has good alliteration to it. I think it’s a decent band name. I have heard some pretty terrible band names.

How did the band form?
J: We were at school, about 13 or 14 or something and we were into music so it made sense to start a band, as you do, because it’s kind of cool to be in a band when you’re that age – or when you’re any age really. So we started out and then a little later Ed rejoined and other people came and went along the way but it was us three that were really the mainstays. We used to bunk off assembly and spend time getting off games.

What did you sound like back then?
J: We did Green Day covers and stuff like that... Because that’s the kind of music people are into when they’re 13 or 14 - it was just your utterly typical baggy-trousered school band.

What bands were you absorbed in growing up? Do you all share the same musical tastes now?
J: At school, Ed was into metal mainly, Edd was more into NOFX style punk and I liked Super Furry Animals and Oasis. Slowly we converged around things like Mogwai, DJ Shadow, and My Bloody Valentine, and then we got into dance music together.

Oasis has announced a split - how does this make you feel?
J: They've been treading water for about the best part of a decade. So yeah, sod them!

Your album has been a slow burner over the past year- which is a great position to be in I believe, better than having a big spurt of a one hit wonder - can you tell me a little about it?
J: At the moment everything is sounding really samba-inspired. We’re not going to have any four-to-the-floor bass drums. When we play drums live at bigger shows we’ve had six Brazilian drummers and two samba dancers onstage which was such an amazing experience that we’d like to write music where we get to do that more often.

(Jack is joined by Ed and Edd)

How’s the touring going?
It's going great; everyone seems to be very positive about our music in general and that’s very refreshing from the cynicism of London. The best show so far was the one in Philadelphia.... people actually going insane, they seem to be absolutely dance music crazy over there.

You are up for a Mercury prize, how are you feeling about that?
I don’t want to jinx it, I’m a bit sceptical as there has been too much talk around it…. I think Bat for Lashes will walk it; she has been nominated twice now and she seems like a Mercury prize winner, she has the face for it.

So how are you guys feeling about Creamfields and what’s the set like? Will it smack us in the face?
Well, we played Reading last night, so we are still feeling a bit phased out and ‘eurgh’ after that, but by ten we should be ready - the crowd here doesn’t want silence so we will have to be!

And will you be consuming any festival kind of substances?
Ha, no, we are Creamfields virgins - I’ll be on the Rennies, got a spout of indigestion.

What other bands/ Djs are you hoping to see?
We hope to see Laurent Garnier, we saw him a while ago and he was great – then we probably check out Erol, see what he’s playing, and Mylo, really liked that ‘In Your Arms’ track back in the day.

And what’s next for Friendly Fires, in terms of gigs, records, remixes?
J: Touring, touring, touring - and hopefully getting down to some writing in the gaps from touring. We're not the kind of band that can really write on the road, so time off is really appreciated.