Lolla Sessions: Ezra Furman and The Harpoons
Ezra Furman and Andrew Langer talk Lolla, Daytrotter and mean kids from high school.
Battling the sun and excessively loud music, HEAVE had a chance to sit down with Ezra Furman and Andrew Langer – front man and guitarist for the rising Ezra Furman and The Harpoons. Before the interview Ezra told me he would not pretend to have a British accent like he did for his previous radio interview. I knew I was in for some interesting conversation at that point.
HEAVE: How important was it to play Lollapalooza since you are originally from Chicago?
Ezra Furman: Every show means a lot. But this is a special one for us. Personally I hope there is somebody that was mean to me in high school will see me and be like, “Aw, man. I work at Hardees. Ezra is playing Lollapalooza.”
Andrew Langer: And I hope they like the music.
Ezra Furman: Yeah, they bitterly admit they bought our album.
Andrew Langer: I would like to see someone like that. “I hated Ezra, but this album is so good. I keep on listening to it. I’m torn on my emotions.” But every time I come here it’s like a homecoming in a ways. I’m gone for a little bit, so it’s always that sense of comfort and home.
HEAVE: Did you ever come as spectators?
Ezra Furman: The first two years when it was here I came as a spectator. I was really star struck and all of that stuff.
HEAVE: Who else were you excited to check out?
Andrew Langer: Mostly the Arctic Monkeys. I like them a lot.
Ezra Furman: Sunday is really the only day we get to enjoy. The last two days we’ve been so busy. I really wanted to see Lou Reed. Snoop Dogg I’m pretty pumped for.
HEAVE: They play at the same time.
Ezra Furman: Shoot. I’ll go with Lou Reed. He is a nice guy.
HEAVE: You have a couple of shows lined up in September, but what do you have lined up after that?
Ezra Furman: I think what we are going to do is go on a massive tour for all of October and November. I know we have scattered shows in August and September, so we are going to have to kick it into high gear after that.
Andrew Langer: We really like to play live. We like to tour. We try to play as much as we can be playing. We get to go to really cool places by doing that. Our song is really big in Austria now. It’s number one on some chart in Austria right now.
HEAVE: That sounds like something you make up. Like being big in Japan.
Ezra Furman: No, no! It’s true. It’s crazy, though. Austria. I’ve never been there. I’ve never thought about going there – but apparently we are going to go.
HEAVE: Your Daytrotter session got posted in March. When did you actually do that?
Andrew Langer: They post them pretty far after the fact.
Ezra Furman: It got posted in March, but when did we actually do that? It may have been like six months before that.
HEAVE: That is so long. I would assume it would be a pretty quick turn around. I’d forget about it and then be like, “Oh yeah!”
Ezra Furman: That was back when Andrew wasn’t even really here yet. We were still sort of in between guitarists. That was really fun, though. They have a lot of cool toys that they let you play with. I was messing with a harpsichord for a while.
HEAVE: How much influence do they put in?
Ezra Furman: They don’t say a word. We were messing around for a while and then they are just like, “Hey, are you ready?”
Andrew Langer: Yeah – they would record and we’d ask to do it again and they would tell us no because it sounded great. It’s really fun going there.
Ezra Furman: They have sort of a minimalist approach, I suppose. They like what they hear the first time. They know what they like and they don’t pressure you. It’s on the second floor of this pizzeria. It’s so unassuming. It’s a very unpretentious endeavor.
HEAVE: You get praised for your songwriting a lot. How do you gather your, oh what’s the word, topic matter?
Ezra Furman: This is tough. Let me think. I basically do what I have to do in order for a song to arrive. If songs were women then I would be a big slut. I’d always be trying to court them. It’s all about keeping yourself open and keeping your guitar as close to you as possible. When it happens, when you hear the phrase that is “the heart of a song,” then you are ready to pounce on it. I’m not like this; I’d like to add, with real women. I don’t pounce on them.
HEAVE: Good disclaimer.
Ezra Furman: But I do get that predatory instinct when it comes to songs.
HEAVE: Do you write a lot of songs and have notebooks full of lyrics– or do you take your time and what you write is on the album?
Ezra Furman: There is a definite backlog. For a long time I was writing a song a week on average. Maybe more. I guess it was because I had a lot of homework to do and I didn’t want to do it. There is a backlog and I just try to skim the cream off the top. It’s really sunny. Do you want my sunglasses?
HEAVE: No, but thank you. I understand Ezra Furman – but why The Harpoons?
Ezra Furman: This was my idea. I was reading Moby Dick, and was getting into the idea of art being a very long-winded voyage. My concept of the world is sort of violent place. The world does a lot of harm to a single individual, so harpoons are a good thing to combine violence and a long journey. I also like the grandeur of Herman Melville and Moby Dick. It just really gets me going.
HEAVEmedia: I was expecting that it just sounded nice.
Andrew Langer: Yeah, and the name just works.
Ezra Furman: Well we were throwing names around for two months and it was all we talked about, and we got an email asking us our name because we were going to play a show. I didn’t consult with anyone and we went with this name. It was pretty much a dick thing to do.
Posted by Wes Soltis on Aug 17, 2009 @ 9:00 am
