Ahead of their exclusive RizLab set where they’ll be musically interpreting a decade in dance, Nardene Scott caught up with Friendly Fires frontman Ed to talk about the concept behind RizLab, their time in the US, what they’ll be wearing at Bestival and what to expect from the upcoming tour.

How are you doing Ed?

I’m good, I’m in Leeds at the moment and it’s absolutely pi**ing it down, a bit of a depressing vibe going on but I’m in a lovely warm bus (laughs). I’m hoping that we can raise the spirits a little bit.

So how have the rehearsals been going for RizLab? You’ve hooked up with a quite a few different artists from the past, present and future dance world.

It was really interesting we kind of did some live stuff with SBTRKT and also Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs which is just interesting to see how each of them work live, their approach to how things are done.

Yeah we saw SBTRKT a couple of months ago live and it’s amazing what he does on stage with Sampha! What is it like being involved in the whole RizLab project because it’s quite a novel idea and unusual artists get as much power as you guys have for a project?

I see it more as an opportunity to work with people whose music you really love and respect. I’m doing a track with an artist called LONE from Nottingham and we sort of always had something on the cards to work together but it never happened. We’ve been so busy it’s been hard to find the time but it’s been great working together so its great to get in with him and like SBTRKT we’ve done a couple of shows with and we’ve got our tour coming up soon, SBTRKT are supporting so it just kind of made sense to work together on it.

You’ve been given the power almost to curate your whole event?

Yeah basically we’ve done that before we curated our own show at The Coronet and we kind of chose a load of DJs and electronic musicians that we really love and respect. I think it’s kind of an honour to be at this stage as a band and be able to pick who we play with on the line up because (laughs) trust me we played with a lot of bands when we first started that we really didn’t like and we can now chose a line up that represents our taste.

You mentioned LONE, TEED and SBTRKT there but how about A Guy Called Gerald and Frankie Knuckles what impact have they had on the music you all make?

I mean we did a cover of Your Love back in the day so I think that track is very close to all of our hearts. I think it does a really great job of combining really melancholic lyrics with uplifting music, it’s that kind of juxtaposition that we like as a band. A lot of the tracks off of our new record, the lyrics are sort of classic house inspired in that they’re very direct and I think that track was a huge inspiration for us, so Rizla came forward to us with the idea of doing something like combining more modern talent with legends as well so it seemed like the right artists to chose.

There’s so many new artists coming through like Blawan who you’ve mentioned before, what other artists emerging out of the underground scene are you into at the moment?

Ahh there’s tons of stuff! The thing I really like about Blawan is that one minute he’s doing a quite like dubstep sounding track and the next minute he’s doing a more straight up jackin house kind of song with a brand new sample over the top of it. I think its like nowadays there are no rules there’s just songs and the freedom for people to do what the hell they want and that’s inspiring. It means that modern electronic music never becomes stagnant so that’s what I really like about Blawan’s stuff. I think as far as what I’m really loving at the moment, I’m into a Berlin based producer called Kassem Mosse and he’s got this kind of raw, slightly warped analogue approach to writing house music and it’s just really unpredictable and doesn’t fall into the traps of obvious deep house build ups and drops. He’s got something really special going on.

How was your time in Amercia, did you notice a big difference with the scene there and the scene here?

Yeah I think America has a different approach to dance music but its not necessarily a bad thing. I think American audiences are super enthusiastic, (I said super that’s very Amercian sorry), they’re very enthusiastic and just really up for having a good time which is great but maybe that really dodgy dirty they call bro-step is perhaps embraced a little too much by America for my liking. I think I’m much more into British music with a bit more soul and feeling but as far as our shows it’s been great and I think it was a really good thing for us to do that DJ Kicks compilation too.

How did you guys feel about how the album was received as well, I know our deputy editor praised it over here giving it 4/5?

Oh thanks, I mean we were all over the moon with how it went. I think some publications didn’t like it and didn’t get it but I kind of like that, I think it’s quite good to be loved and hated in equal amounts because it means that you’ve got something that provokes a reaction. I think we really sort of raised the bar with our second record as far as production, where minimalism and atmospherics were popular at the time, I think Pala was the absolute opposite of that, it’s full of dense, lush textures. I felt like it stood out in many ways.

Are you guys looking forward to Bestival obviously you‘ll be opening up the RizLab arena but what are you going to be wearing? Since its rock stars, pop stars and divas we wanted to make sure you didn’t try to get away with dressing as yourselves?

Yeah I think that would be the lazy answer but I think admitting that you’re a rock star as well is something that’s not very Friendly Fires. Dress up as…nah I can’t do that…

Okay now we definitely need to hear your answer!

I’ve never kind of worn hip hop clothes (laughs). I do actually have, well Timberland gave us some free boots, so maybe I should do the, tuck the jeans into the Timberlands vibe, like Big L maybe I can rock the Big L look that would be amazing! (Laughs) Or just be called a wigger and completely embarrass myself.

That would be amazing! So what’s the plan after Bestival?

Well we have our headline tour, we’re doing THREE nights at Brixton which I never imagined us getting to that level. One night I would have been over the moon about, so the fact that we’re doing three is great! As I was saying we’ve chosen support acts that we really care about we’ve got SBTRKT coming down, Little Dragon and the middle Brixton night we’re doing an all nighter. We have like Tensnake coming down to DJ and Horse Meat Disco, a spectacle of the band and the DJs and the music just melt into one this all night kind of epic journey (laughs). I’m looking forward to RizLab though, it’s going to be kind of exciting but nervewracking at the same time because we only had like two hours to rehearse with the artists that we’re working with so it’s gunna be kind of winging it a little bit. I think SBTRKT was really trying to push it in that direction but I was like no mate but it should be fun, cool.

Keep up with all things Freindly Fires here and get to grips with RizLab. Also keep it locked to RWDmag.com for a Bestival ticket giveaway coming your way very soon…

Tags: A Guy Called Gerald, Bestival, Blawan, Electro, Frankie Knuckles, Friendly Fires, House, Kassem Mosse, LONE, Pala, SBTRKT, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs