by Rebecca Law
The Furies describe themselves as “an itinerant band of Eurotrash ex-millionaire playboys fallen on hard times”. With individual musical influences as disparate as their wardrobes, they are a motley crew who boast a raw energy in their music, which is as indefinable as it is inimitable. The anarchic skill of the guitarist combined with the natural showmanship of lead singer, Elmo Jones, in his obligatory indie uniform, make for a charged live experience.
Rebecca Law caught up with them in their studio in Victoria to talk music, Platonic realms of form and deliverance through creation.
Q. Who are The Furies?
A. The Furies are Elmo Jones on vocals, Suroj Sureshbabu on guitar, Eliseo Soardi on bass and Jez MacDonald on drums. Essentially though, The Furies are just four people who love to play music together. We came together through a bizarre series of coincidences in 2005. It was almost inevitable that we would meet. There is a certain force, which is guiding The Furies and it’s currently at its Zenith. We’re doing a lot of gigs and people really seem to like what we’re doing.
So who is going to like The Furies?
Anyone who likes to tap their foot hard and dance. With all things, there are fashions but as soon as something becomes cool and exclusive, suddenly, everyone knows about it and it’s not cool any more. Our mission, if we have one, which we don’t, is not to be a part of any particular scene. We don’t really fit into any particular pigeonhole but we hope there is something timeless about our music; timelessly cool and timelessly attractive to the people who are listening to it. If you look at Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Stooges, they have something that goes beyond trends and fashions and it’s a kind of spirit: it’s not just about the music, it’s about a way to live. It’s the kind of spirit Rock & Roll originally was.
Photo: Kamil M. Janowski
What are The Furies really about, then?
We are very much about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
So not too clichéd as a rock band, then?
It is clichéd, but people don’t really do it now. Not in the classical, romantic kind of way, that we hope we do. We’re pretty much disconnected from reality. It’s a dream. We are four young men who have basically decided to sack off from our responsible real lives in order to pursue a dream. And that’s what we’re doing. When people go and see a band playing, or when they hear them, or buy an album, they’re buying into that lifestyle. When you listen to the Rolling Stones, or the Libertines, or whoever, a part of you is fantasising about being that. We are like blank canvases, upon which people’s fantasies can be painted.
What motivates you? Your music has a lot of energy. Where does that come from?
At the moment, the desire to pay our rent and not end up in debtor’s prison. Seriously though, it’s the feeling we get when we’re playing together. If you go and see a band, often they’re pretty boring or mundane. Occasionally, you’ll see a band and they just blow you away and that’s what motivates us: trying to recreate that feeling. When we play together, that’s definitely what we feel. It’s as though nothing else matters and that’s like a real high. Things can be going desperately wrong in our lives but when we get in a room with these three other people, everything is justified. It’s like deliverance through creation.
So is being in a band like being in a marriage, like they say?
That analogy is the truest thing – it seems like a cliché but it really is. When you marry someone, you are sharing a collective future, imagining yourself with that person for the rest of your life and it’s the same with a band. Sex in a marriage is like the music in a band. In a marriage, even if you are arguing with your husband or wife, even if you’ve got problems with money, if you’re still having great sex and you’re both having orgasms, it’s alright. It’s the same with the band. We may have a day where we’re all arguing and hate each other and we go in the studio and make an amazing song and it’s like, oohh, ooooh, woahhhh.
What was your favourite song when you got out of bed this morning?
Elmo: “You can Go Your Own Way”, Fleetwood Mac
Jez: “Birmingham Blues”, ELO
Eli: “Los Angeles”, Frank Black
Suroj: “The Chain”, Fleetwood Mac.
Where do you see yourself in three years’ time?
There are really only two options. One: We do this album that we’ve just started working on and it’s successful.
What is success to you?
We want everyone to like us – we want everyone to have one song that works for them. If you look at any great band, they never belong in any particular group. What makes a band great is that even if you don’t like the band especially, there is at least one song that you love – the Beatles, U2, Prince – you might not like them in essence but there will be at least one song that you really get. That’s what it is that we’re after, that kind of universality. And the only way you can get that is by not really being anything in particular, but just by having a certain kind of spirit.
Doesn’t mean you are conforming to what other people want?
I think we’re conforming to a Platonic realm of forms. That’s to say, there’s a real world and there’s another mirror of that. To Plato, that was a world of ideas but these ideas are concrete and real. In the Platonic realm of forms there exists say, a chair, but the most perfect chair. And the fact that a chair can exist in this reality is only because it exists in the realm of forms. In this realm, there is a concept of a rock ‘n’ roll band and that is what we are trying to embrace and be.
And what was option two?
Just death.
*****
So save the Furies – get down to the Borderline on 10th April: That’s The Borderline, Orange Yard, 16 Manette Street, Soho, London W1
On Stage: 8.30pm Price: £6 adv / £8 door For more information visit the band’s website.
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