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Music / By The Fireside

The music of UK group By The Fireside is an epic, sprawling, and ambitious sound. Their new album, The Great Hartford Fire, is reigned in thematically by lyrical references to the 1944 disaster in Connecticut that killed some 200 people. We spoke to By The Fireside’s Daniel Lea: What was the inspiration to write an album around such a calamitous event? ‘I watched a film called “Nightmare Alley” — a 1950’s film noir based in the circus — and from that I started looking for books about the circus. That’s how I stumbled upon the story of “The Great Hartford Fire”. It naturally happened after that. I started writing songs influenced by the circus and Robert Sagee, who was accused of starting the fire. I like creating little worlds I can get lost in for a while and this time around it just happened to be the circus and the fire. There was so much to draw from lyrically and musically I could have done a double concept album! Ha, not really’. Having successfully produced so many other acts, is it more difficult to release something under your name, with the weight of expectation on the finished product? ‘Oh, thank you. Well there’s always a lot of pressure writing and making an album; mostly from myself, to make it better and push it in directions I haven’t been before. For me producing albums and working with different people all the time adds a lot to my own projects. I love collaborating with different musicians and artists. It makes a song end up in different place to how you thought, which is sometimes for the better. I realized that after producing for artists you suggest things that they haven’t thought of and it push’s the song in a different direction. So I am very open to ideas when recording with friends, which is why I ended up co-producing half the album with Matthew Cousins. When you work a lot by yourself you can easily get stuck in a hole in your head and its great having someone with an outside point of view to pull you out of that and put a different angle on everything’. Is there one track in particular on the album that sent chills down your spine as you listened to it back through the headphones as it was being mixed? ‘The title track from the album — The Great Hartford Fire. It is the backbone of the album. The song is about Robert Sagee who was accused of lighting the fire. I wanted to write a song about him that questions if he was responsible or not. The song for me is like a mini-epic lullaby. It is the most cinematic piece on the album and my favourite to play live. What’s the next project you’re working on? ‘I’m recording the Dark Captain Light Captain album, who are signed to Loaf Recordings (Thurston Moore, Square Pusher) for January and February. We have a lot of By The Fireside gigs in February and March to support the release of “Moon Lake” 7” single. I plan to record an album with Matthew Cousins, who co-produced a lot of The Great Hartford Fire, which will be a project separate from his solo stuff and mine. I’m also in the process of writing new material for the next By The Fireside album and EP, which I plan on finishing by the end of the year’.

Tagged: London, pop music, UK bands

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