Ezra Furman

My “solo” debut. In quotes because obviously I made it with plenty of other people. But this was the one where I had no set band lineup anymore and basically nobody but me had any say about any of it. And I had no band name and figured using my own name was the only way I could retain some name recognition and get people out to my shows, so I went with that.

Some have called this “baroque pop.” I think it’s spelled “broke.” What happened here is that I moved into a house in Chicago where the top floor was a homespun recording studio run by Tim Sandusky, who became a dear friend and a huge part of my life. How long could I live there and not go up into the attic to make a record? So that’s what I did, even though the Harpoons were still technically together, even though I had almost no money and definitely no record deal, even though I didn’t really know what I was doing. I made a Kickstarter campaign to fund the record and found local musicians to play on it and we got the thing made. The constraints of not having a band opened a lot of possibilities in a certain way. A lot of these songs could never have been as cool as they are if I hadn’t been forcing myself to work in a new way, lots of overdubbing, a lot less drums and bass.

The songs were getting stronger and more honest. I was becoming a better artist and trying to become a better human being. Also I got in a lot of fights with people and I got a bloody nose, as the album cover shows. Enough said.

"One of the elite songwriters in the indie world." Consequence of Sound