Singer-Songwriter Eleanor Friedberger Doesn't Care if Her Music Sounds 'New'

But while it would probably be nice to have a song written about you (maybe), to leave Friedberger at that would be miss out on what is simply really good music. Although it is true that Friedberger is perhaps "most famous for being one half of the indie rock duo The Fiery Furnaces," her best work is definitely happening as a solo artist, now.

This week Friedberger will release New View, her third solo album following 2013's Personal Record and 2011's Last Summer. Where the psychedelic, multi-instrumental pep of the Fiery Furnaces screamed early-00s indie, Friedberger's solo efforts have been decidedly subdued, evoking the 70s folk singers who influence her (both in music and, based on what I saw her wearing when she played Rough Trade in Brooklyn last May, in personal style). Written and produced after Friedberger moved from her long-time home in Brooklyn to the famously quieter, less expensive upstate New York, New View is her most polished, cohesive record yet. Her lyrics often sound like a one-sided conversation; she skillfully avoids the obvious, unnatural second person favored by moody writing students while evoking a definite narrative that nevertheless leaves the listener wondering who she's talking to. A favorite, from "Open Season": "I'm opening a tree museum / It's my new hobby." The pep is still there, but it's all grown up; the keyboards on "Because I Asked You" or "Cathy with the Curly Hair" are spunky, yes, but no more than they need to be.

In advance of the album's release, we talked with Friedberger over the phone about her career, her songwriting process, and why she isn't concerned with trying to make something sound "new."

BROADLY: I read an interview in which you said you regretted starting Fiery Furnaces so late. I think you said you were 27 when you guys started. Were you singing or performing before that?
Eleanor Friedberger: I mean, I was singing… in my room. But I wasn't performing in front of people until I was about 24 or 25.

How did you get into it?
I think it was a matter of working up the nerve to do it. I was kind of a jock in high school, and I was really obsessed with music as a listener and a consumer. It just never crossed my mind to start playing. If I wasn't hanging out with friends and I wasn't playing sports, I was listening to music for hours and singing along, in a very dedicated type of way. We're talking about the 80s and 90s; I had the house to myself as a teenager, and I would just put on a record. I could spend three hours sitting in a chair in front of the stereo and singing along to music.

Did you feel like you were studying?
I think I was playacting or something. I don't think it was studying—it was just fun. I would really pretend to be somebody else as I was doing it. By the time I was 18, my brother bought me a guitar for Christmas. I moved to New York by the time I was 23 or 24, and I started playing with a friend from college. I kind of just threw myself into it, basically. When my brother moved to New York shortly afterwards, it just fortified things for me, because he was the best musician I knew, and it was very easy to team up with him—it made a lot of sense.

Were you working day jobs?
I was temping. I got a temp job as soon as I moved to New York that paid very well but was the most mindless, soul-fucking type of temp job. The last job I had, I was working at an insurance company way out in Queens. I quit [that] last day job a few months before our first record came out.

You haven't worked since?
I haven't worked since!

That's great.
It's a fine line. There have been many times when I've thought, I need to get a job. And then something will come up to make it, like, "I'm too busy to get a job." But… it's been hard, for sure. That's part of the reason I moved upstate [two years ago]—basically because I didn't want to get a job, and living in the city became too unaffordable.

When you go back at your past work, how do you feel about it? Your solo career seems fairly different from your work in the Fiery Furnaces. When I look at my earlier writing, for example, I feel like, Oh, that was definitely my "early work," and now I'm not doing my "early work" anymore.
Well, luckily I feel that way. It's hard to imagine if you don't feel that way. What would you do? Do you stop? Hopefully you start to feel better. Or maybe it's refreshing, like I'm starting over—I don't know what to do anymore, I have to start from scratch, like a baby. Maybe that's really cool, too! But I try not to be too critical of what I did before. The things I notice are my voice and how I sing—it's not so much about the words or how good a song might be. I notice my voice, and I hear it changing over the years. I think I'm getting better as a singer as I go on, which, to me, is the most important thing. I'm not going to criticize some stupid line that I wrote in a song. I think that there's no point in being embarrassed by that kind of stuff. But, for instance, if I go way back and hear our first albums, the Fiery Furnaces albums, I don't even recognize that voice. I'm like, Oh my God, I wish I could re-sing this stuff! That's the kind of attitude I have.

Many people would read romantic narratives into your song lyrics. Is that intentional on your part?
I'm very much following the tradition that I love, music from the 1970s. I'm not necessarily trying to break new ground—I'm just trying to get my personality across. In terms of style, something that I do [is] often walk around this lake by my house. When I'm by myself, I tend to (not actually out loud) tell stories to myself as if I'm telling them to someone else. It sounds a little crazy, but it's actually a really good exercise, in terms of storytelling.

What's interesting to me about your work is that there's definitely a progression, but they all very much sound like you. How did you approach New View compared to your previous solo albums?
The big difference for me—which may not sound like a big difference to anyone else—was that I made those two [previous] solo records kind of piecemeal, working with the same producer on both and assembling different musicians to play on them. When it came to touring, I had to assemble yet another set of musicians to tour with me. One of the great things about doing this for a while is that I know all these amazing musicians, but they're all busy. So after I made Personal Record, I thought it'd be much smarter for me to find a band who'd already played together but who maybe didn't have as much experience but were very eager to tour together. In that way, [New View] is almost like the first "real band" album I've made.

Are you ever trying to do something different?
I wasn't trying to reinvent myself [with the other albums]. I feel like I'm making myself more clear as I go along, and just finding my voice more and more each time, which I hope I'm doing.

What about in terms of style? Do you ever feel pressure to try to do something new?
I don't feel pressure from anybody, luckily. Or maybe unluckily—maybe it would be better to have some kind of label head breathing down my neck. Once in a while I get sort of bored and sick of myself, for sure, but in terms of Am I suddenly going to make an electronica album? Probably not. There's such an oversaturation right now. This sounds very jaded, but I don't know if anyone's going to do anything better than pop music that has already happened. I just don't think it's possible.

"Then why keep doing it?" Because I think people need temporary stuff to kind of glom onto. I hope people get some comfort, some satisfaction, something, out of what I'm doing.

I was listening to David Bowie's 2002 interview with Terry Gross this morning, and he said something about how they were trying to predict the 21st century in the 70s. And they sort of did it, in a lot of ways, and now it feels like there's nothing left.
He's just quintessential. Sometimes I feel like, Why are all these people bothering to do all this stuff? You know what I mean? He created this whole new universe… no one is going to do anything as good as that.

Is that not a little bit depressing?
It is a little bit depressing, but that's okay.