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I was out in The Forum during the week, at a Heineken Green Spheres gig. The head liners were Friendly Fires (homepage, Wikipedia, Myspace) and I managed to grab an interview with their front man, Ed MacFarlane, after the gig.

As always, the audio is up in MP3, OGG and FLAC formats. Unfortunately I didn’t have the Zoom H4 on me, so I had to record it on my phone. The audio and text of this interview is licensed under a Creative Commons, Attribution, No-Derivs License.

We got chatting about:

• Why upcoming bands should keep their hits under their hats, don’t throw your best song up on Myspace, use it to woo a record deal
• How live acts change when people know your music, putting your energy into quality
• Their label XL Recordings (same label Radiohead, Sigur Rós, Beck, and a plethora of others signed to)
• How comfortable they were working with producer Paul Epworth, how he became an extra band member
• Piracy, remixes and sampling

Here’s the full text, enjoi!

DD: I’m here with Ed from Friendly Fires, how did the gig go tonight?
Ed: The gig was great, it was more than I expected it to be, the crowd reaction was fantastic, especially for a place I’ve never heard of. [Waterford is] a town that, to the eye, looks very small.

DD: How is the tour going?
Ed: It’s been never-ending for quite a long time now, but it’s been really good, it’s been great. We’ve had maybe one or two shit gigs, but every band has that. It’s really good to see our fans and to see how we have an impact on the general public.

DD: How long have Friendly Fire been around for?
Ed: We’ve been around since we were 14, now we’re in our mid twenties, I was 25 on May 15th.

DD: Cool. You signed to XL recently…
Ed: That’s right, that would have been last August.

DD: Other bands who have signed to XL; The Prodigy, Bassment Jaxx, Radiohead, Beck, Peaches, Dizzee Rascals. You guy seem to have a different sound, you use less sampling and you have more of an indie, prog sound.
Ed: I don’t know about that.

DD: Oh, so how would you describe yourselves, as a band?
Ed: I would describe us as a pop band, and I like describing ourselves as a pop band, because pop doesn’t really mean anything. The way I see pop; good pop is full of catchy hooks and catchy melodies, stuff you can latch onto. That’s our main goal… we’re influenced my lots of music that isn’t pop; post-rock, house, techno, ambient. We listen to lots of music, and we’ll latch onto little elements we really like, but we’ll try and force them into this very concise three minute pop song.
DD: Yeah, one of the influences you guys have previously said ye had was Prince.

DD: Who would you guys like to collaborate or work with, artist or producer?
Ed: It’s been hard enough for us to start working with a producer; we’ve only just started working with a producer, Paul Epworth. We did “Jump in the Pool” with him, which is the last track we recorded on the album. We’re very used to doing things our own way, working on our own. I don’t know, there are artists who I’d love to collaborate with, but realistically… Foals are a band I’ve been meaning to collaborate with, we share a lot similar tastes in music, we got on very well when we hang out. If I could choose who I could collaborate with it’d probably be Big L but he’s dead.

DD: What advice would you give to upcoming bands?
Ed: If you have a really good song, and you think it’s great, be wary of putting it on Myspace, and opening it up to the general public. I feel like when we wrote Paris, we put it up on our Myspace, and everyone had kind of heard it. If you put music on Myspace or stream off certain websites you’ve kind of released it already. I think if you have a really good one, and you think it’s really good and you think it will take off, just hold onto it. If you’re on the way to signing a deal, make sure you release it as a proper single, and make sure you hype it up really well, do something good with it.

DD: One of the things I’ve heard about you guys is that you’ve very selective about who you want to remix your music, or who you allow to remix your music. Why is that, why so choosy?
Ed: I suppose we listen to a lot of dance music, there’s a lot of shit dance music out there, and good dance music too. We get a lot of offers, suggestions from people in the label saying “you should get remixed by such and such”. We know who they are, but it just isn’t the kind of music I would ever dance to in a club. But the kind of people we do like, and do appreciate, we try and get and get in contact with them. It’s a but unexpected because it’s not expected for [indie bands] to like dance music, or give a shit who they’re remixed by.

DD: You guys use samples in your songs, so it’s a bit strange that you’re selective about who samples your music.
Ed: Naa, people can take samples of us and write their own music from it. But if we’re going to be remixed by somebody, we want to be remixed by somebody who we think is good.

DD: Ok, leading on from that, in terms of remixing and mashing up, what are your views as a band on Piracy? I’m sure as teenagers, you guys downloaded your fair share of songs off the net [ED: right], but now that you’re on the other side, now that you’re actually releasing music, what are your views and how do you see the music industry panning out?
Ed: You can’t fight against it, you’ve got to work with it. It’s a pointless task, pissing and moaning about people downloading your music. I mean if I don’t have any money I’ll download an album, simple as that. Most of time I’ll download stuff off iTunes or Beatpop (?) because I don’t want to install some program onto my computer that will fuck it up and give me a load of viruses, that’s one of the only reasons I don’t illegally download music. IT encourages bands to spend more time creating good artwork, becoming a good live band, because you can’t make any money from selling records. So it forces you to focus on other aspects of the music industry.

DD: So what are your views on fans taping your shows? If a fan wants to record you shows and post them online, are you guys for that or against that?
Ed: If they put us on a blog and write about us they’re helping promote us, so it’s fine. I think that’s great and cool. It’s different if somebody records a live show, and then sells it, that would be a little odd.

DD: No, I’m not saying anyone would make money from [the recording], purely non-profit. But if someone wanted to come along to a show, record a song, and stick it on their blog saying “I heard these guys last night…”
Ed: Well it’s just like people taking tracks off the album and putting it on a blog, I think blogs have really helped us, it’s a way of creating hype around bands. You can’t really do anything about it. If people are talking about you and writing about you, it’s a good thing.

DD: Cool, so are you looking forward to the future?
Ed: Yeah, *laughs* if I wasn’t looking forward to the future I’d be pretty depressed.

DD: Do you’ve anything big coming up?
Ed: Yeah, we’re doing to Istanbul in about three days, it should be fun, then after that we’re going over to America, we’re doing festivals, we’re going over to Brazil, doing a tour of Brazil.

DD: Do you’ve any new records coming out?
Ed: Yeah, we have this new single, we’ve been working with Paul Epworth on, it’s all traditional samba loops and samba rythms, it’s a really kind of euphoric. It’s the right song for a 45. We wanted to write something a bit more interesting and inspiring. I think with Jump in the Pool, we were kind of experimenting, and with this we pushed it aswell. It sounds different.

DD: What’s it been like working with Paul?
Ed: Really good. I can’t imagine working with anyone else to be honest. We’re kind of control freaks; it’s hard when you let someone else take control, you never know what they’re going to do. But Paul’s got the same opinion, what he thinks is good and bad, he’s kind of like an extra member of the band, more than a producer?

DD: What kit do you guys use?
Ed: When we record, I have a Universal Audio 6176 Pre-amp that I record into, that goes into my Apogee Audio Ensemble interface, that goes into Logic. It comes out very… I only have two pairs of speakers, when I get more money I’ll buy some more kit.

DD: Do you write for the band or is it a collaborative process?
Ed: I come up with most of the vocals. A lot of the time I’ll come up with the basis of the tune, I come up with the initial idea, and bring it to the table, and everyone and put int the it input, lime most bands, but we tent not to start with a guitar, but then some songs we have started with a guitar, but it’s not based around chords, with some songs we might just have a drum track, and then just write everything around that, or with vocals.

DD: I noticed that live you guys have quite a big display, with trumpets. Have you tried recording a live set? And would you think of releasing them?
Ed: Yeah, we’ve recorded shows we’ve done. Recently we did a show at the HMV Forum, XL funded and brought in a load of cameras and recording equipment. The gig was really successful, it felt so effortless, it was so nice, I felt like I was so in command of the crowd. Tonight was different, we’re in Waterford and who the fuck would know about us?

DD: This is one of the great powers of the internet; people hear about you, they hear your stuff, they get familiar with it, then they see you live.
Ed: It defiantly changes an artist, as you grow older. When we started and were playing small venues, we had to fucking prove ourselves, we had run up in peoples faces, and yell in their faces. But as the show got bigger you focus more on the details, on how well everyone’s playing. It’s not just about the energy, but how well it translates.

DD: Cool, well, thanks very much and good luck with the rest of the tour.
Ed: Yeah, good luck too.