Senior Ezra Furman is no stranger to the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, having been the frontman of Tufts' newest musical export Ezra Furman and the Harpoons since his freshman year. The band has been touring in support of its debut release, "Banging Down the Doors," released back in August on Minty Fresh Records. The Daily caught up with Ezra and bassist Job Mukkada over the phone on the highway somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis.
Grant Beighley: So, let's start off with the basics. Where are you right now?
Ezra Furman: We are in the car on the way from Chicago to St. Louis, and we have to play a show tonight. We left Boston on Friday for Chicago. We were supposed to have a show there on Saturday, but we got stuck in Ohio. There was a huge blizzard - it was awful. We just got a hotel with a hot tub, even though we couldn't really afford it...
GB: This isn't the first tour you've done, right?
EF: This is the first tour this year, but it isn't the biggest, comparatively. During the summer we went on a three-month tour.
GB: Do you schedule your own tours or are you too big for that now?
EF: We have a booking agent now, and he gets us shows. He's a guy from Minneapolis that does this exclusively.
GB: How did you first get into contact with Minty Fresh Records?
EF: It all started with our good friend and hero Mitch Marlow, who is a guy from Chicago, and he's quite a character. He met me a long time ago when I was playing open mics in my home town in high school, and he was like, "Kid, I can turn you into everything you ever dreamed of," with a big cigar hanging out of his mouth. I kind of put his phone number off for a while until my freshman year of college when I called him up and said, "Remember me?" and he said "Yeah. I'm going to be your manager." So he helped get our first tour together, and he got the guys from Minty Fresh a copy of our demo, which was recorded in dorm rooms, and they were hooked.
GB: What is life on the road like?
EF: Less showering happens than we would typically prefer. Life on the road, it's ... absurd. It's so unreasonable, but that's how rock 'n' roll is. It's not a reasonable choice of something to do, but we chose to do it anyway because we're so awesome. You get into this little world, this road world that you take with you to different cities. Sometimes there's the loneliness; the loneliness gets kinda bad sometimes. But you're creating a high-energy rock 'n' roll environment every night, so it's very enjoyable.
GB: How do you handle the jump from college to being on the road?
EF: It's very different. It's a feeling very much like the rug has been pulled out from under you. It's hard to imagine, even a few days after leaving Tufts, being in a classroom again. It's like the difference between [being] at sea and being on land, you need a different set of legs. Lots of people have this mindset that when they graduate they should get a job that pertains to what they studied. But I just want to play rock 'n' roll for my life, and it's difficult to write a paper with that thought in your head.
Job Mukkada: Life on the road is like a carnival with three of your bestest mates. You just get your work done before you leave, and when you hop in that car, it's like it never even happened. Some of the guys right now are writing papers that are due this week, but I just try to get it all done before or after.
GB: How did the gig at South by Southwest come about?
EF: Minty Fresh was having a showcase at South by Southwest, and we initially got invited to that. We're playing a couple of Lou Reed covers at this tribute to Lou Reed that is happening, and Lou Reed is going to be there, and it's going to be awesome. Beyond that, I'm not sure how these things happen; you just put your name out there and talk to lots of people.
JM: Every place there is a venue, so it's like nonstop music, and there are bands everywhere. So it's going to be an exciting place to be. And we're covering some Lou Reed songs, and this is the first time we've ever really done a cover, so it's different. We just basically learned the song today, how we want to put our Harpoon mark on it. I'm personally excited to see Vampire Weekend. But there are bands everywhere, so we'll probably run into someone we'd never thought we'd meet, just hanging out eating Doritos.
GB: What atmosphere do you try to create while playing live?
EF: I like to think that our concerts can always be taken as directly addressed to whoever is listening. If any one person in the room was there all alone, it would be basically the same. I like to be personal. Rock 'n' rollers sometimes act like they're disinterested, and they're up there and they don't care, but we try to connect. The songs are very personal and there's lots of storytelling, which is something that's missing from some music these days. It's a conversation.
GB: What is your favorite song to play live?
EF: You go through phases of which one you're into most. It depends on what mood the audience is in. But I like playing the song called "God is a Middle Aged Woman." It's very direct, and I can see people in the audience react to each line, and then there's this big, glorious, noisy chaos at the end. It's very cathartic. We also play songs that aren't on the album - there's this song called "The Moon" we've been playing lately.
JM: They were all favorites at one point, but nowadays it's the new stuff we're working on that's the most fun. We're still changing some things about them, and it's fun to work out on stage.
GB: Any closing words?
JM: We've started a blog on the road at www.harpoons.wordpress.com, and in our downtime we're taking pictures and writing about the tour and recording songs on GarageBand and posting them. It's good to just get the new stuff out there.
EF: Don't forget the things that are living in your heart. I get the feeling that people at Tufts are just going to go, 'Well, I can make a lot of money as an investment banker, I majored in econ, and I'm already on this track, so I guess that'll be fine for my life's work.' I think the point of rock 'n' roll is to stir up feelings against that and remind people that they are living potentially extraordinary lives.
