When it came to assembling their entry in the Late Night Tales series of compilations, Ed Gibson of Friendly Fires admits that this occurred to him and his bandmates: “You want to look cool as fuck with your selections, for sure,” he says with a laugh. “With something like this, you have a great opportunity to share the music that you love. One thing I really like about the other compilations in the series is that I don’t know too many of the tracks on them – hopefully we’ve done something similar with this.”
Friendly Fires’ mix is broad in its scope, taking in everything from old-school disco through to contemporary club tracks and dreamy early ‘90s indie. It’s certainly an eclectic collection of songs – only in the surreal world of Late Night Tales would Cocteau Twins rub shoulders with Olivia Newton-John. For the band, it was about finding the perfect balance of tracks to reflect their individual tastes and personalities. “It’s difficult sharing a mix between three people,” Gibson says. “Divvying out the songs is the easy part – from there, you have to choose which songs you want to include, and figure out how they might all sound next to each other. In the end,” he continues, “we decided that we couldn’t be too precious about having every single song we wanted. We knew it would be best if we just concentrated on making a mix that would flow in distinct sections.”
The impulse to share your musical tastes with others is certainly a strong one. When I’ve had a little too much to drink at a party, I’ve been known to plug my iPod into the stereo and begin an impromptu DJ set of my own. I ask Gibson if the Friendly Fires boys also have this impulse, and he tells me that it’s a constant struggle to control it. “It’s difficult, because you can look like a real music snob when you’re forcing your tastes onto people,” he says. “I had a party recently, and there was some diabolical music being played, but people were dancing to it. The urge to commandeer the stereo kicked in but I had to resist it.” Gibson is quite adamant that the tyrannical impulse to control the tunes at a party comes from a place of love. “It’s only because you care so much about music that you want to hear the good stuff!”
Each of the Late Night Tales compilations ends with a spoken-word track, usually a well-known actor reading a snippet of a short story. The newest instalment features the vocal talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, star of the BBC’s Sherlock, and apparently, a Friendly Fires fan. “It was a bizarre sort of thing,” Gibson. “A friend of ours read an interview where he said he got out of character by listening to our first record. It was a crazy compliment, and we realised we could use it to our advantage! We approached him ourselves and he was very keen.” Despite the warm reception, the lads were slightly star-struck. “It was amazing and surreal to have someone like him involved,” Gibson says, “but it’s fortunate things came together the way they did.”
BY ALASDAIR DUNCAN
