Matthew Friedberger
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Matthew Friedberger (born October 21, 1972 in Oak Park, Illinois) is half of the indie rock duo The Fiery Furnaces. In the band he contributes the majority of the instrumentation, writes most of the songs and lyrics and occasionally sings. His sister, Eleanor Friedberger, does most of the vocals and writes some lyrics.
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[edit] Background and career
Matthew and Eleanor grew up singing with their grandmother Olga Sarantos and family in a Greek Orthodox Church. Details of events in Sarantos' life are depicted on the Rehearsing My Choir album.
Matthew has been a vegetarian since childhood. [1]
The first song Matt ever wrote was in fourth grade. He was assigned to make a weather barometer for class but didn't feel like doing that, so instead he convinced his teacher to let him write a song on the piano about weather. The song was titled “Cumulous Nimbus Cloud” and was what Matt describes as "mostly pounding on the piano". [2]
Prior to starting The Fiery Furnaces, Matthew Friedberger played in bands including Corndolly, Liquorette, The Mezzanines and The Grand Vizars.
At the age of 17, Matthew moved to Germany only to return shortly thereafter. He attended the University of Illinois for a while and continued to live there, writing comic books, until the age of 26 when he moved back home. It was after moving home that he encouraged Eleanor to start singing. The two wrote the song Duffer St. George one night while discussing a recent trip Eleanor took to England (there's a London store by the same name) and The Fiery Furnaces began. [3]
Aside from his work with The Fiery Furnaces, Friedberger released a two-disc solo album, titled Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School by 859 Recordings in August 2006. He dedicated the album to his sister, saying later in an interview, "we dedicated all [the Fiery Furnaces] records to our parents, so I thought it was appropriate that this record be dedicated to Eleanor". [4]
In 2009 criticized the UK band Radiohead, focusing especially on their most recent song Harry Patch (In Memory Of), and apparently confusing the song's subject with composer Harry Partch. "'Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch. F--- you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That's a put-on. That's a branding technique and Radiohead have their brand that they're popular and intelligent. So they have a song about Harry Patch.How's the song? Is it 48 notes to the octave? What does it have to do with Harry Patch? Oh, my wife says I am being very rude. She doesn't like me insulting Radiohead. She's afraid they will send their lackeys through the computer to sabotage us. But they needn't worry -- we are a band that sabotages ourselves."[5] After some amount of media frenzy, the Fiery Furnaces' publicist released this statement as an explanation:
Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and their various chart busters. Of course, Matt and all of the Fiery Furnaces family have the greatest respect for all Tommies, living or dead. So much so that lots of the Fiery Furnaces work is, because of the pun, dedicated to imitating the Who's Tommy. Now, back in the fall of 1996 or whenever that interview was conducted, the interviewer asked what Matt thought of a Radiohead song celebrating a WWI veteran. Of course, Matt never “misread” any song title, as has been reported. Though he is not very proficient at it, he can actually read. Matt naturally thought it would be interesting to pretend that they wrote a song about the celebrated American composer with a similar sounding name, hence his joking in the interview about Radiohead composing a song with something like 48 notes to an octave. It was easy and amusing to imagine Radiohead's attempt to colonize that relatively arcane bit of our musical lifeworld. No doubt that would be very successful. Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, as opposed to his imaginary one about Harry Partch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion on this matter and the band can continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists.[6]
[edit] Discography
[edit] Solo albums
[edit] With the Fiery Furnaces
[edit] References
- ^ PETA2 // Out There // The Fiery Furnaces
- ^ The FADER - Friedbergered
- ^ Biography - Blueberry Boat
- ^ Pitchfork Feature: Interview: Matthew Friedberger
- ^ http://www.spinnermusic.co.uk/2009/11/03/fiery-furnaces-call-radiohead-bogus/
- ^ http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=844&fid1=42354
[edit] External links
- iJamming interview Speaking about Pete Townshend of The Who
- Pitchforkmedia.com Interview with Matt for Pitchfork Media
- Indiepit Interview
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