St. Albans-based dance/punk band Friendly Fires have revealed they plan to play new tracks from their forthcoming new album when they play Scotland’s RockNess Festival in June.
Speaking to the Daily Record newspaper, frontman Ed Macfarlane said that the band, which also consists of Jack Savidge and Edd Gibson, plan to play at least one new song at the festival, and believes playing their new material live will help them while they work in the studio: “We will definitely air at least one new song at RockNess, maybe more,” he said. “We have finished four songs completely and we are really pleased with them, they’re better than the first record for sure. We are trying to balance it out between writing as much as we can and rehearsing the new stuff to get it ready for shows and things. It’s nice for us to play it and good to let people hear it. It helps to get out and play new songs through live. You realise things you can do with the tracks that you wouldn’t realise in studio.”
Edd Gibson also told the paper that they have ignored offers to record in an expensive studio, and are instead working in the same location they used while laying down tracks for their debut LP: “We are in Ed’s garage, where we did the first album, trying to write new songs,” he said. “We haven’t moved on to some lavish studio, we’re back where it all began. It’s nice we are still doing it that way, we’re our own bosses. There are birds tweeting, it’s really nice. I don’t think we are ready for the high-gloss studios yet. We haven’t really changed anything apart from the gear that we are using.”
Their new album will be the first since their 2008 self-titled debut, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and led to them being nominated in two categories at this year’s Brit Awards. As well as their appearance at RockNess, Friendly Fires will also headline Camp Bestival in Dorset which takes place between 30th July to August 1st.