Ezra Furman

“THE WORLD DOESN’T ALWAYS SEEM LIKE A SAFE PLACE TO ME AND I WONDER SOMETIMES WHAT SEPARATES ME FROM BEING DRUNK AND HOMELESS AND ASKING STRANGERS FOR PHYSICAL TOUCH.”

are crushed by the weight of a society that overlooks them. Furman says the song is one of the few on the album that is in fact autobiographical. “All of those things happened. The hand job and the guy with the bottle and trench coat that asked me for a kiss,” she says. “The song is about broken hearts and it’s a riff on Psalm 34. God is close to the brokenhearted. Your spirit being crushed and being hopeless somehow opens you up to divine connection. The world doesn’t always seem like a safe place to me and I wonder sometimes what separates me from being drunk and homeless and asking strangers for physical touch.” In spite of the stridency of “Come Close” and the fears at its heart, Furman’s last few years have also contained brave actions and declarations. Though she didn’t reveal it until April of 2021, Furman has been a parent to her son who is closing in on his fourth birthday. And in the same announcement, Furman declared herself to be a trans woman. At the time, she made it clear that the purpose of revealing her motherhood was to provide support to others as she had “zero examples” of seeing trans women raise children. “Part of my impulse was that this could be useful. Trans people or anyone who has trans people in their life haven’t seen a model of trans futures,” she says. By vocation, Furman considers herself primarily to be a writer. In 2018, Furman wrote a book on Lou Reed’s 1972 album Transformer, as part of the 33 1/3 series. Not only does it profle Reed’s album, but also Furman’s own journey to that point. She shares, “The book is about the album, but it contains a good deal of memoir and it is about me as well.” In the book, Furman posits that perhaps queerness is defned by being in a continual state of transformation. Conversely, she also wrote, “And eventually, maybe, you stop worrying so much about it. I don’t know yet; I’m only 30.” Having recently turned 36 and having made some defnitive statements about the core of her being, Furman contemplates the question of whether her own transformation is concluded. “I think it’s healthy to grow and change throughout your life. That’s what it is to stay alive,” she says. “But I’ve gotten more into commitment and accepting there are some things I am and some things I am not. And that it’s not the worst thing in the world to accept a label.” Thinking back to when Furman wrote the Transformer book, she adds, “I was more into the mode of ambiguity than I am now. I sort of burned out on being an undefnable gender. If you are desperate to be free of anyone else’s control, you never really get to be anything if you can’t make a commitment.” Though one of the subsets that Furman identifes with is the “queer girl gang” that appears on All of Us Flames’ “Lilac & Black,” she says the making of the album didn’t necessarily coincide with her decision to come out as a trans woman and a mom. Furman says that the more declarative songs on the album and her decision to come out are related but don’t come from the same place. She admits that saying publicly that she is a trans woman does bring a level of peace. “To not actually have to decide every day, it anchors you a little bit,” she says and then continues with a thought on being a parent as well. “There are some anchors in the ocean foor when you are a parent, and it’s good for you. If you don’t keep changing course you can go deeper down the paths that you choose.” If All of Us Flames’ themes of being attached to and a part of the queer community are readily apparent, Furman also addresses her part in the Jewish community as well. On “Throne,” Furman sings of the “ancient strain” that runs in her blood. The song bears resemblances to the “prepper” mentality of Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime,” but is also set to the pace of one of Josh Ritter’s stomping apocalyptic rockers. Though Ritter is not a name that typically comes up in a discussion of Furman’s work, both artists pull from Biblical themes (whether of the Hebrew Bible or otherwise). In fact, Furman says that Ritter’s “Ole Black Magic” was the framework for “Throne.”

Though “Throne” blasts through the speakers with a doom laden undertone, Furman doesn’t believe in the “capital A” Apocalypse as it’s biblically defned (i.e. the end of the physical world and the return of Christ). “I guess you better call [the feel of some of the songs] post-apocalyptic, because I don’t believe in the Apocalypse. I don’t think that the world is just going to end or believe in the implication that our problems will just be over. That would be easier, but in fact we have to take care of each other and do the unglamorous work of keeping human civilization running,” she explains. “We have to make a society that works, regardless of what system or empire falls. It’s funny, because my record starts with just that on ‘Train Comes Through.’ The empire falls and the poor and righteous are vindicated. That’s actually something I do believe in,” Furman says. And if not already deep into serious subjects, Furman goes further into the complex and delicate topic of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. “If there’s a message of the Jewish tradition, one of the main focal points is how you treat a vulnerable subpopulation. Literally, how to love the stranger,” she says using the Roman alphabet translation of the Hebrew word for stranger as “ger.” While certainly the history of the Jewish people (and queer people for that matter) emanates from being a persecuted class, Furman also sees the challenges that the state of Israel has brought about. She points out that Israel didn’t become an empire as most have come about. Namely by conquest of other states or religions. “Recently [in the scope of historical time], we have the frst real Jewish statehood in the state of Israel. And lo and behold, abuses of power are happening,” she says. “It’s not morally black and white to me. But I do see that kind of power, as well, coming from the Christian empire of America. I see how being the ones in charge can quickly slide into becoming the oppressor. That’s a spiritual crisis that I think Judaism is in.”

ANSWERING THE ALARM

Rule governed by religion creates inherent challenges, but on All of Us Flames Furman focuses on hope for a way forward. “COVID was the frst time in my life that everyone on Earth was basically facing the same problem,” Furman states. Ironically, the same pandemic that started in early 2020 is also what claimed the last few dates of Furman’s U.S. tour in 2022. “Most crises these days have become global because of how the world has become a little village,” she continues. “And it changes what social responsibility means. That’s heavy stuff, but I folded it into All of Us Flames’ songs.” Interestingly, another subgroup that Furman already touched on she also sees as the subset that might become the catalyst of true change. And that would be those that are writers. Furman leaves the room she has been talking from and returns with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s book

The Future Is Disabled in order to share an epigraph that comes from science fction writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s speech at the 2014 National Book Awards: “Hard times are coming when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality.” Furman’s focus is on challenges, whether they be those facing the communities she is a part of or global issues. But not all of Furman’s past few years have been given over to seeking solutions that call for desperate measures. Between this year’s release of All of Us Flames and 2019’s Twelve Nudes came 2020’s Sex Education Original Soundtrack. The producers of the popular Netfix series approached Furman about using her existing songs along with some newly penned ones to help underpin the soundtrack to the show’s narrative, which revolves around the relationship challenges of the students of the fctional Moordale Secondary School in England and in particular one student, Otis Milburn (played by Asa Butterfeld), who is the son of a sex therapist (played by Gillian Anderson) and starts dispensing advice to his classmates. Furman also made a cameo appearance in one of the episodes. When asked about how her contributions to the show have added to her fan base, Furman quips, “It’s like a bat signal up in the clouds of popular culture. Certain people [hear my songs on the show] and they follow where they’re coming from. They fnd what I think of as my real work. It’s a corporate gig and it pays the bills. I put a lot of soul into it and I’m proud of it, but it’s less mine.” A student of her Jewish faith, a member of her self declared “queer girl gang,” and an admirer of Bob Dylan, Springsteen, and Waits, in no particular order, Furman is thoughtful, dynamic, and complex. But as she points out, maybe less complex now that she wakes each day as a woman and inextricably a mother as well. With critical aspects of her identity squared away and her trilogy of Springsteeninspired albums wrapped with the bow of All of Us Flames, her answer to the interview’s fnal question comes quickest and with no contemplation required. Much of the discussion has been given over to weighty and ponderable matters, but when asked what’s next for Ezra Furman, she concludes through a quick-to-form smile, “Whatever I want.”

EZRA FURMAN on Mean Streets (1973, directed by Martin Scorsese)

As Told to Mark Moody

Ifrst saw Mean Streets when I was in college. I was already in love with Taxi Driver and there was a time I would say Taxi Driver was my favorite flm. And then I saw Mean Streets and I just think it’s a superior flm. The main character, Charlie [played by Harvey Keitel], is quite repressed. He’s waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and thinking about eternal punishment in hell. He’s trying to be some version of a spiritual person, but he’s in this world [of gangsters] where he’s completely blocked by the culture he’s in. And that is where I was a lot of my own life. I’ve been trying to reach toward beauty as something I’m not allowed to have.

I’m not sure at the time I frst saw it, that I could have put into words why I loved it so much. But I understand it more in retrospect, because I really felt quite trapped. Charlie is always thinking about, “How can I be in the world I’m in, but also be like St. Francis.” He wants to be spiritual and no one around him will listen to him. And then he has to take care of Robert De Niro’s character [Johhny Boy] who is his girlfriend’s cousin. It’s heartbreaking because he’s trying to teach decency to somebody who doesn’t give a shit about anyone. So I really felt trapped by the world and by my own repression. So that’s why I connected to the movie. Also at the time I had recently gotten super into ’60s girl groups and I guess I will always have that. It’s part of my musical DNA. And there are all these great scenes in the movie like The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” in the opening scene or the fght scene in the pool hall with The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” playing. I’ve always been into juxtapositions of violence and bubble gum pop. It’s this combination of being feminine where you have to be cute, but you may also get killed. Be nice, and cute, and pretty, but you also have to carry pepper spray or a gun. The song “Dressed in Black,” from my new album [All of Us Flames] is sort of my take on a girl group type of song, but it’s a lot more violent. [Like Charlie], I’m obsessed with God and also a practicing Jew. Having a spiritual life sometimes feels like you can’t share with anyone. He’s doing Christianity as a totally inner lonely thing and that’s how I was doing Judaism. There’s no room for him to even allude to spirituality, and that’s how the social scenes were that I grew up in. I think it’s better for people to not defect entirely away [from religion] and give it up. The more people who are emphatically caring and willing to let tradition bend for the sake of human dignity and survival, the more people I’ll have looking out for me. But, yeah, sometimes it feels like all the queer people, understandably but regrettably so, get as far away from [religion] as they can. The whole movie is just emotional to me and how Charlie was so hard on himself. My inner life has often had that kind of tone, but I don’t feel so trapped in my own head [these days]. I’ve learned to speak with other people, to tell the truth. I’ve learned it matters who you hang out with. So I spend more time with queer people and with people who can hear me.

(Portions of Ezra Furman’s conversation have been abridged and edited for structure and fow.)

Safe From It All Words by Mike Hilleary | Photos by Koury Angelo

We’re barely a minute into saying hello to one another when Sharon Van Etten’s small terrier Lindy decides to introduce itself with a volley of attention-seeking barks. Naturally this all-too-familiar sounding call prompts my own clueless canine into delivering a frantic response, going so far as to rush to a window to see if her possible new best friend is somehow outside on the lawn. Unfortunately for my overeager labradoodle, Van Etten—and her dog—are roughly 3,000 miles away, connecting via Zoom from the kitchen table of her Los Angeles home. Van Etten—who spent years cutting her teeth and building her musical career as a resident of New York City—moved to L.A. in 2019. The seeds of the address change occurred the year prior when Van Etten was put on retainer for six months for the Netfix supernatural/sci-f series The OA, in which she had a recurring acting role playing a woman held captive with a group of other human test subjects who’ve all had near-death experiences. (She’s since gone on to have supporting roles in small flms such as the 2020 abortion drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always and 2021’s end of the world comedy How It Ends, while also contributing original songs to their soundtracks and appearing as herself in the 2018 revival of Twin Peaks). With plenty of time to kill stuck in L.A., Van Etten ended up recording her ffth album, Remind Me Tomorrow, during that period. Somewhere along the way Van Etten says, “I fell in love with Los Angeles, this certain neighborhood, and fell in with this really wonderful group of musicians, feeling a sense of community that I hadn’t felt in a really long time.” With her partner, former drummer turned manager Zeke Hutchins, and their young son, Van Etten traded their old Brooklyn apartment for a sunnier, suburban locale. “We found this two-bedroom, one-bath house with a cookie cutter backyard, like Edward Scissorhands landscaped it,” she says. “It has my favorite jacaranda trees in the front yard. It was perfect.” Perhaps the most appealing feature of the property however—at least to Van Etten—was the inclusion of a garage that had previously been converted into a studio space. “I used to work out of a studio in Brooklyn and it was in a basement,” she says. “It was awesome, but it fooded, smelled like mold, and I had to share it.” With a little help from friends, Van Etten made quick work of turning this new room into her personalized outpost for writing and demoing, capable of housing a multitude of acoustic and electric guitars, amps, a drum kit, piano, and synths, along with soundproofng, closet space, and honest-to-God windows to let in natural light. The house as a whole would come to represent many things for Van Etten in those frst few months of its occupancy: a place that would allow her to slow down, a place to spend more time with the family she had made for herself, a place that could offer her that rare sensation of feeling settled. It wouldn’t be long however, when the house would come to represent other, unanticipated things as well: a bubble of safety from a fast-spreading and deadly virus, a potential casualty of California’s climate-change-affected wildfres, an observation deck to a country’s political and societal unraveling, and a panic room for Van Etten’s existential anxieties as a mother, partner, and artist. It’s perhaps why the house is a visual focal point on the cover sleeve of Van Etten’s latest full-length record, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, capturing Van Etten as she stands in front of her home, the air around her embellished with a fery, end-of-days orange and red glow. “I wanted to encapsulate a time where I wasn’t avoiding talking about the realities of that period, that I wasn’t there to make a pop record,” says Van Etten. “There are still songs about love, and deeper love and family and connections and domesticity and parenthood and distance and just mortality. It’s not too far from what I used to write about, but in a much more specifc way.” Angel Olsen—who collaborated with Van Etten on the standout, standalone single “Like I Used To,” released last year (and #3 on Under the Radar’s Top 130 Songs of 2021 list), and performed together across the country as part of an extensive span of shows featuring the two musicians alongside fellow singer/songwriter Julien Baker called The Wild Hearts Tour—puts it another way. “Sharon has always seemed to write from a personal place, and that speaks to me more than anything,” Olsen says. “[We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong] is kind of about getting back into your body and into your self, making an alter for your truest place.”

BATTENING DOWN

When the unprecedented occurred and people throughout the world were told to stave off the spread of COVID-19 by means of self-imposed quarantine, Van Etten recalls giving little thought to the idea of making a record. “My intentions were just to be cooking and to be present for my son, to be creative with him, drawing and writing and reading and keeping him active,” she says. She wanted her family to just make the most of their lives—albeit in a very contained fashion. And while that was certainly achieved by turning the backyard into a makeshift playground, scheduling family movie nights, taking trips to the beach, camping, and a whole host of other distracting activities, Van Etten couldn’t help but steal away to her new workspace, slowly accumulating material. Van Etten’s writing process typically occurs in two phases: inspiration