Sometimes it’s tough being in a band.

Listening to Friendly Fires singer, Ed Macfarlane, nag on about “tour lag” really is enough to make your heart bleed. And after a gruelling schedule that has included travelling across the northern half of America, followed by “jumping on a bus across Europe with Foals”, and having to return to Japan next week followed by New York and LA (AGAIN!), we at tourdates are almost moved to tears.

“It’s a bit disorientating to be honest,” continues the front man of the St Albans three-piece (poor lamb). “I can’t complain about anything but I’m getting a bit sick and tired of just eating cheese and ham sandwiches. I think my cholesterol is definitely going up. We’re always just sitting back stage or on a bus. It’s really hard to find time to see anywhere of where you actually are. I think I’m missing my vitamin D.”

Unfortunately nobody seems to have told the singer that touring in band is not about sightseeing. Neither is it about monitoring cholesterol levels, taking regular exercise or getting your vitamins. Led Zeppelin – it seems – Friendly Fires are not.

This, though, is slightly unfair. Macfarlane goes on to enthuse about the “responsive” Japanese crowds; and as our conversation unravels, what starts out as whiny becomes more like an endearing lack of brashness.

“I’m really excited about going back to Japan,” he tells me. “The reception was really good last time. The fans there are amazing - they go crazy. I don’t know if we’ve got a big following out there or not. I think we’re doing well. We seem to be playing some big venues. I don’t think we’re massive though.”

Friendly Fires have had what you might call ‘a good year’. After putting out a series of well-received singles and EPs in 2007, 2008 saw them finally release their self-titled debut album; and (as well as all that beastly touring) they’ve now got an attention-grabbing Jools Holland performance of the stunning single ‘Paris’ under their belts.

For a band that might seem to have rocketed to fame in the last year or two though, it might come as a surprise that they’ve been playing together since they were 14.
“We’ve played in my garage for so long,” says Macfarlane. “Maybe it was under a few different guises but we were always the same band.

“We played a load of gigs down the local pubs when we were 17. Then I think we played our first gigs in London when we were 18. We all went to uni and then we started playing live again when we got back.”

And does that longevity of togetherness help? “Oh yeah. When our gigs are really good we can just sort of play a whole set without even looking at each other. The fact we know each other so well allows us to do that.

“We can just freak out and go into our own little world. It’s because we know each other so well. Know each other’s style and stuff like that. We know what each other is going to do at certain points. We have a strong connection because of our past.”

On stage Friendly Fires are a true force, and the songs are entirely different creations from what the band produce in the studio. While stand out single ‘Paris’ feels like a fizzing crossover of indie with astral electro pop on the album, it comes over much rawer in the band’s live show.

“I think when we play live it’s highly different to the record,” agrees Macfarlane (whose intensity as a singer encapsulates the band’s energy live). “It’s a lot trackier and it’s a lot more fun. I wouldn’t say the record’s not fun, but there’s a lot more of a live energy to the way we play at a gig. It’s not quite as tight and clean sounding as the record. When we play Paris live we actually add a load of guitars to the chorus. On the record there’s no guitars at all.”

Friendly Fires truly are what you’d call a crossover band. There’s an equal number of house and techno influences as there are indie or disco, and Macfarlane has a background in dance music production – having put out a dance record before the band really formed.

“I released a track on Scam records, which was an electronic label,” he tells me. “It was quite sort of rushy, housey sort of stuff. I was a producer really. I think ‘producer’ is the word you’d use, though I don’t really see myself as that. That was how I learnt how to record music on a computer really.”

Despite its glossy feel, Friendly Fires’ eponymous 2008 debut album was entirely self-produced. Macfarlane tells me it was not a conscious decision to do it this way (rather a result of a lack of contacts) but that after two years in the making the band are pleased they decided to do it themselves…

“It was a complete relief to get it out,” I’m told.

“Self-producing made us kind of really picky over which tracks were going to be on it, and allowed us to control all the sounds on the record completely. We just wanted the album to be as good as possible really. There were loads of other tracks that didn’t make it on. We didn’t want a massive gap between (first single) ‘Paris’ coming out and the album coming out, and getting it done by the summer was really good. It just feels like a chapter of the band that we have done now. And now I’ve found that nine times out of 10 when we do anything ourselves we wind up getting better results.”

The level of production on the Friendly Fires debut is a testament to Macfarlane’s skills as a producer. Done on virtually no budget and with the whole thing recorded on one microphone (“in something that “can only be described as a ‘studio’ in the very loosest sense of the word”), it sounds staggeringly professional.

And with an EP due next year on which Macfarlane promises one of the best songs the band has written, touring in 2009 should see Friendly Fires enjoying something more varied than just cheese and ham sandwiches…

Photo: Rebecca Miller