Joseph Matheny interviews Flaming Fire using a “fireside chat” method, which almost becomes Flaming Fire interviewing Matheny at one point! Songs, life on the road, grandpa’s tales of the Industrial and House scenes from Chicago circa the 80s, caffeine induced ranting and much philosophizing characterize this interview.
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“The Brooklyn-based collective Flaming Fire is more like an evangelical church congregation than like a conventional rock group, with its leader, Patrick Hambrecht, in the role of preacher and the other members (including his wife, Kate) as his loyal followers. The group’s songs pair deceptively simple Residents-like riffs and occasional bursts of noise with fearsome, Biblical-sounding group chants and call-and-response singing. Most refreshing are Hambrecht’s seriousness and fervor. (The band’s sense of irony is limited to the darker variety — ‘Kill the Right People,’ one refrain goes.)”
-The New Yorker
“Well, at least some of the kooks have stuck it out in New York City and they are in Flaming Fire, an awesomely kooky, theatrical band singing songs of biblical plagues and Egyptian sexual practices. Picture the Butthole Surfers, the Residents, the Manson Family, and the B-52s all running amok in a Kenneth Anger film.”
-Meg Sneed, Vice
