“People call us that maybe because we think about music in a more conceptual way...than, say, making music to strictly get tail,” Harrington muses. “We just get rat tails at our shows.”
The Fav’s latest album, “Let’s Stay Friends,” is the band’s first in six years, released on bassist Syd Butler’s French Kiss label. “Friends” affirms the band’s commitment to remain fresh and relevant, and backhands the monthly breakup rumors that have floated around blogs for the past couple of years. One way to stay current: invite some of your hot-button buddies to contribute, including Eleanor Freidberger (Fiery Furnaces), Emily Haines (Metric) and the three members of Enon. The results are strong, with guitarist Seth Jabour upping his game with Gang of Four lines (“Patty Lee”) and space rock reveries (“What Would Wolves Do”), and Harrington growing as a leader, expanding his vocal and songwriting range with attempts at falsetto (“Pots & Pans”) and an ambitious duet with Freidberger (“Kiss Kiss is Getting Old”).
But the frontman excels most when sing-shouting about the absurdly amusing—“Raging in the Plague Age” takes the perspective of a dying king, kicked out of his own castle while his vassals drink blood red wine. “Being the king was pretty cool / I'd have to say that ruling ruled / And I'd be in throne still / Had I not one day fallen ill.” If only Sofia Coppola would have had the tune to pad her cheeseball title sequence in “Marie Antoinette.” We caught up with Harrington while he was on a break from his day job, creating splashy TV graphics for VH1 Classic.
I caught you live in 2001, in Madison, Wis...
Oh man, that show went terribly bad. By mistake, or probably by purpose, I put the microphone between a girl’s bosoms and sang. I thought everybody thought it was funny, but at the end of the show her friend came up to me and said I had shamed her. Shame what? I guess I shamed her if she was ashamed of her bosoms. It’s one of the only times I have chosen to interact with somebody during the show and they haven’t been into it. I’m usually pretty good at finding the smiles in the room. That girl was totally being a bumpy, lumpy grump.
When I found out that you were playing Randall’s Island with Arcade Fire the first thing that came to mind was that you are going to break something very expensive during the show.
We don’t really break things that often. In fact, club managers will often come up to us and say that they were surprised that we didn’t destroy the place.
I saw you play at the Khyber in Philly and you broke a window and tore down a curtain...
Oh, the one where my ass went through the back window? I was trying to climb behind our drummer Harrison to do a sing along and the next thing I knew I was feeling cool air on my behind. As a band we have the policy that if you break it, you buy it. But our thing is we take it with us. I broke a door once and took the whole door out to the van. Once somebody accused us of breaking their iron, this old ancient beater iron that didn’t work for crap in the first place. It was in San Francisco and I was swinging it over my head and making some pun about being an ironic band...
Did you break it?
They said we did and had to replace it for $90, which is when it started to get petty and embarrassing. After the show, while everybody else was having beers, Sid and I spent a long time in the club’s office looking online to find out the average price of irons. We found the exact model on Target.com and paid like ten bucks.
Have you ever injured yourself during a show?
Uh huh. We played NYU last year and there was this giant pile of rope in the back of the theater, and while we were playing I threw the rope up onto this balcony and had people pull me up. I got to the top really well, but got hung up and ended up under the balcony, while knocking my head around pretty well. In an attempt to reach the top I loosened my grip a little bit and as a result slide all the way down and ended up with these two massively disgusting blisters on my hands. I played the rest of the set with my hands stuck inside a beer cooler.
You guys formed at an art school, the Rhode Island School of Design. How do you think Seth Cohen (from “The O.C.”) is doing during his first year at school?
He got in? Good for him. The first thing he did after his parents drove away is he put his hair in a top knot. Then he figured out how he could get into a welding or glass blowing class, because he wanted to see what that would be like.
How will he do with the RISD ladies?
Most likely he will try to do intercourse with them. There will be some second base, but also a lot of longing.
Les Savy Fav plays Randall's Island (opening for Arcade Fire) on Oct 6.
