Meet a Friendly bounty-hunter
"WHEN WE played LA, we were staying in the same hotel as Dog The Bounty Hunter," chortles Jack Savidge, drummer in St Albans dance-rock trio Friendly Fires.
For the uninitiated, Dog (real name: Duane) is the fugitive recovery agent star of his own Bravo reality TV series and surely the only man alive who can rock a quiff, mullet and comb-over. Simultaneously.
"It was pretty bizarre," he continues, altogether reasonably. "He would come up and stride out to the pool and then sit there with his crazy-looking tanned, pneumatic wife. We were really desperate to get him to plug the album or something but no-one could muster up the courage.
"I mean, that man's got some serious bounty-hunting skills. You wouldn't want a contract on your head from that guy."
When not attempting to have canine-named criminal-chasers (FYI, I always thought `Bounty-hunter' was just Beth Ditto's nickname at school) endorse their eponymous debut album, Friendly Fires have busied themselves with tearing up dancefloors like a sonic Hurricane Gustav.
Inspired by 'commuter-belt boredom', they create a thrillingly idiosyncratic hybrid of pop/rave. Yet despite their aesthetic, Friendly Fires formed out of the ashes of a hardcore covers band.
Frontman Ed MacFarlane, guitarist Edd Gibson, and Savidge met at school aged 14, forming a group that played versions of Sepultura, Pantera, the Deftones and Enya (guess which one of those we've made up). Dabblings in math-rock followed, but their pop Road To Damascus moment struck when Savidge moved to uni and discovered clubbing.
"I was really into house and techno and got Ed Mac and Edd G into it," he remembers while preparing a mix tape for Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac. "It was really fun because it opened up a whole new mode of how to consume music.
"Going to a club is different from a gig. There are names on the flyers but once you're inside, that's secondary to the social thing. It was more led by people rather than some untouchable band onstage."
Inspired by a post-DFA world where rock could coexist with dance, Friendly Fires penned their opening salvo, Photobooth, in 2006, before taking two years to distil their love of Chicago house, German techno label Kompakt, and records that would be played in a sweat-sodden Berlin warehouse at 5am into their first full-length long-player.
Banging our heads
"At times, it felt like we were banging our heads against a brick wall," explains Savidge. "Some songs had good parts that just didn't work well together. That happened a lot. And also, we were gigging every weekend.
"Luckily, we pulled in a fairly decent amount of money for gigs because of the really, really early hype. And that kept us in guitar strings and drum sticks.
"There was a long time when we were talking to labels and no-one was quite biting. So it was frustrating but, at the same time, it allowed us to evolve and write the collection of songs that was released on Monday."
Sterling plug, Jack! When XL came knocking in January, eager to add Friendly Fires to their roster, the majority of the album had already been recorded in the garage of MacFarlane's parents' house.
"One of the neighbours actually lodged a complaint with the council," remembers Savidge.
"They didn't come over and knock on the door and say 'Turn it down', they went straight to the authorities. Which we were pretty cheesed off with. That was a problem. And also having to stop every night at 11pm."
Self-produced
In fact, the only track on the album that isn't self-produced is the single, Jump In The Pool, where Paul Epworth was enlisted to sprinkle groove-dust over it. Or er, something. It was the second attempt the band had at working with the dancefloor deity.
"For Jump In The Pool, we just sat on a sofa recording one instrument at a time using a crappy microphone gaffer taped to a mic stand, which is very much how we do things back at Ed's house. And basically, writing the majority of it in the studio.
"It was such a difference from how we'd done it before. A major label who were interested in us had said 'Hey, we think you'd work well with Paul Epworth. Let's stick you in the studio and see what you come out with'.
"But it was in a big studio with far too much equipment that we were daunted by. And two engineers. One working Pro-Tools and the other working the tape. It's just not how we make music. There's not a lot of spontaneity that you do in a huge studio. Everything has to be planned and recording something feels like a major operation."
Hailing from the distinctly undisco postcode of St Albans, it was classic sleepy suburban ennui that gave them a boot towards the limelight, with the fear of ending up in a soul-desiccating McJob looming over them.
"Nobody knows what to do when they come out of uni, unless they're a really good scientist or something," muses Savidge. "We didn't want to be stuck in dull internships until someone gave us our lucky break. Faced with that, rocking out was a good option."
"We did a Christmas show in St Albans last year. We got a Christmas tree out and all dressed up in woolly jumpers and festive clothes and waited for our home town fans to come and swamp the gig. But it wasn't to be, sadly. I think only six people turned up."
While their birthplace may have shunned them, America and the land of the Rising Sun have been quicker to catch on. "All of the gigs in Japan were great," beams Savidge. "They especially loved our song Paris. Everyone seemed to know the words to that."
Friendly Fires' self-titled album and the single, Jump In The Pool, are out now on XL. They play The Ruby Lounge on Thursday, October 2. For info go to
myspace/friendlyfires
.
Published: Thu, 04 September, 2008
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