Burning down the house

Friendly Fires escaped the nu-rave movement to blaze their own trail as a pop band, says Ed Power

IT was heresy for certain music fans. The dance band Friendly Fires said they’d rather listen to Justin Timberlake than The Smiths. Within a few hours, their comments had spread on the internet. The controversy surprised them.

“We were very sincere in what we were saying,” says guitarist Edd Gibson. “We love pop music and think Justin Timberlake has made some good songs. Obviously, it got built up out of all proportion and turned into this big thing. All we were trying to do was make a point about our appreciation of pop.”

Six months later the furore has done little to impede Friendly Fires. They were a sensation on the festival circuit, received unanimous praise for second album Pala, and will spend the winter playing sold-out shows across Ireland and Britain. Yet, early on they were dismissed as make-weight members of the forgotten nu-rave scene (which gave the world Mercury Prize winner Klaxons and not a lot else).

“The danger with getting lumped with a scene is that when the scene fizzles out you go with it,” says Gibson. “We didn’t see ourselves in the same category as those nu-rave bands. We listened to our music and just couldn’t understand those comparisons.”

Friendly Fires can be tricky to categorise. Their best songs are a celebratory fusion of chiming guitars, Latino brass, world music beats and indie vocals. This is party music for the shuffle generation.

Rehearsing in a small garage in the greater London commuting town of St Albans, it seemed absurd to these three school friends that they would be lumped with a fad like nu-rave, a movement that seemed driven by the fashion industry’s desire to flog day-glo t-shirts. They see themselves as a pure pop group, as influenced by Madonna and Prince as by late ’80s rave or ’90s big-beat. The goal is to write joyous anthems that speak to a mass audience.

“We weren’t out raving with our glo-sticks, wearing overly decorative patterned clothing,” says Gibson. “We were definitely keen to swerve away from all of that and do something different.”

The band have problems with labels. No sooner had they wriggled free of the ghastly nu-rave associations than they were hailed as Britain’s answer to LCD Soundsystem, the New York outfit whose music applied a post-modern twist to disco and early ’80s underground rock. Not that Friendly Fires were slighted at the comparison. They were massive LCD Soundsystem fans. But they felt they were coming into their own as musicians and did not want to be regarded as a pale imitation.

“We were listening to a lot of New York disco, and fair enough, it did influence our first album to an extent,” says Gibson. “We weren’t keen on ripping something off and doing it badly. We wanted to take something and give it our own spin. It was towards the end of making our first record that we discovered our idiosyncrasies and began to sound like ourselves as opposed to a version of somebody else.”

Released with few expectations in 2009, their self-titled first record was a surprise success, sending critics into a tizzy and garnering a Mercury Music Prize nomination. You might think this would have set the trio up for the follow-up. In fact, they found the pressure hard. If ever there was a textbook example of ‘difficult second album’ syndrome, here it was.

“On the first LP, we were basically dealing with a collection of songs we’d accumulated over the years,” says Gibson. “On the second one, we had to go into the studio, and, over a few months, replicate that process. There were a lot more ears paying attention this time. And we’ve always been quite precious about not showing things to anyone until they are perfect.”

This is not criticism of the group’s record label, he says. Friendly Fires are signed to London’s XL, one of the hottest record companies. It was XL that signed Adele when nobody else saw her potential and took a gamble on Mercury winners the xx when they were just three skinny goths lugging synthesisers around East London.

“We couldn’t ask for a better label,” says Gibson. “They have always seemed quite pioneering. With Adele, they recognised something nobody else did. It has become one of the most forward-thinking labels out there. Whenever we go in there, it feels like a real home.”

Though their albums are accomplished, it is said that, to understand Friendly Fires you need to see them live. Gibson doesn’t exactly disagree. “We never set out to recreate our albums on stage,” he says. “It’s a much loose-limbed thing. Our live show is a world away from our studio recordings. We aren’t too precious about recreating everything. We bring a saxophonist and a trumpet player. Live brass is an incredible thing. It introduces a different element to our concerts. They’re chaotic, a bit of a frenzy, in a good way naturally.”

* Pala is out now. Friendly Fires play the Olympia in Dublin, tomorrow night.