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Forest Fire were the band who blazed (Boom! Boom!) a trail onto ANBAD back in September and wowed us all with their grimy, shambling, rock. We frothed at the mouth a bit, and spouted such platitudes as:
“Their music has that vital ingredient: unconfined individuality. Yum. A really very good new band.”
All of which would have been just lovely if I hadn’t then tried to crowbar some dreadful cooking analogy into the article. (But for those of you who simply love boiled octopus, you’re in for a treat.)
Still, I wanted to fan the flames of Forest Fire (last one, honest) a bit more, and so had a chat with the band to see where they were, where they are going, and to hear of their plans to violently assault Bob Dylan. They spoke in italics, thusly:
Hello Forest Fire! How the devil are you?
Well, thanks.
Where are you in the world right now? What do you see? And what is good about that place?
Seattle. Dogs. Coffee.
You’ve been gigging for a while now – are you the kind of band whose records are a document of their live shows, or are the live shows an expansion of your records?
Second one.
Where in particular have you enjoyed gigging?
We actually had a great time playing in London. France was great as well. But we are such a new band, every show still feels like the first.
I got a bit breathless over your music in my review of you, in particular the lovely shambolic nature of your songs. They sound like they fell together haphazardly – is this right, or is your creative process more tightly focused?
They fell together, but I wouldn’t say haphazardly. We took a really long time on Survival. We started out with flawed recordings, and then balanced them out with careful and laborious overdubbing.
From where I’m sat (which is under gloomy skies in Manchester, UK), Brooklyn seems to have an exciting and vibrant music scene. Is that true, and if so, what is particularly good about it? Which other good bands are there to look out for?
I think it must be true. But Scenes are limiting right? Check out Hologram, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers, and Goodbye the Band.
Your music is getting people nicely hot under the collar. Where do you go from here now that you know you’ve caught eyes, ears and possibly hearts too?
Well, that’s very nice of you to say. Thanks a lot. I feel like we just want to follow each song to it’s end. That’s all we ever really aim to do.
And speaking of endings – finally: if you could meet any musical hero, who would it be, what one question would you ask them, and what drink would you buy them?
Dylan. I’d Throw a drink in his face. After I heard the song “Sarah” I couldn’t pick up a pen or a guitar for about a month.
And with that, they were off, possibly to leave magnifying glasses in wooded areas full of paper-dry scrub whilst shooting fireworks into Californian hillsides. Or not. Their lovely album, Survival, is out now.
Photography by Victoria Jacob