As the divisive duo re-release Blueberry Boat for its 20th anniversary, they talk being unfit for success, how indie got soft and the ‘dream come true’ of getting 1/10 in NME
The Fiery Furnaces had no expectations for their second album, 2004’s Blueberry Boat. The sibling duo recorded it before their debut had even come out, and so had no idea that 2003’s Gallowsbird’s Bark would receive such wild acclaim: in an 8.4 review, Pitchfork called its shambolic rock’n’roll and frontwoman Eleanor Friedberger’s arcane lyricism a “a mess of weird, undulating musical bits that are hugely intriguing despite not always making a whole shitload of sense”. They were busy fulfilling a five-album deal with Rough Trade, a luxury that was pretty much par for the course as a buzzy Brooklyn band in the time of the Strokes and Interpol – not that their Beefhearty blues had much in common with preening rock revivalism. “I thought they were so bad. I just didn’t give a shit about that stuff,” was one of Eleanor’s withering contributions to the scene oral history Meet Me in the Bathroom.
Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger had moved from Chicago: in a classic older brother move, he bought her a guitar and drum kit when she was in her teens, then she roped him into playing with her when he followed her east. “We were a New York band, and there were a lot of bands where that’s what people knew about them,” says Matthew, 52, on a three-way call with his sister, 49. “That seemed to be the distinguishing feature: they were from New York and sort of new-wavy. Why were they meant to be good? I was pleased with the idea that with Blueberry Boat, at least it would be hard to lump us in with them. We wouldn’t seem like an also-ran New York City band wearing leather jackets.”