Ezra Furman — Evanston Township High School graduate and Evanston native — has lived in Boston and New York. But he finds himself back in Chicago for the first time in his own place. Growing up in Evanston was “idyllic” for Furman, and now back near the Windy City, he feels at home. His band, Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, churns out a folky punk rock that exudes energy and sincerity, something Furman likes to call “screw-up rock.” Furman begins a three-week series of Monday shows at Schuba’s Oct. 25.
You started your band when you were at Tufts. What was it like balancing the two?
I was screwing up at college already, but [if] the band does kind of a little okay, it’s a good excuse to pin it on. I would blame stuff on the band. Like, “I gotta go play a show in another state, that’s why I’m not going to class,” but I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway. Just toward the end I started skipping everything. But the classes I liked I did pretty well in. I had no motivation for college. Good students should have something else going on besides the library.
Was it in your mind when you started out at college that you wanted to do this?
I would have been — I hate to say it, but maybe it’s just how I feel at the moment, being in a new neighborhood and stuff — I think I would have been doomed, I would have had to find some way to make being kind of a daydreamer misfit into my career, and there’s only maybe a couple other ways to do that, besides being in a band. I got fired from every job I had on campus. I could have found something else I care about, I just care about this a lot.
It was not planned out, somehow I just had those young boy’s dreams of being famous, and I let those be crushed quickly, I was very fatalist about it. It was never going to happen, it’s the most absurd dream. Everything has been shocking, I’ve sort of started to understand it, like yes, we have a band and it’s going to go for a while and we have some records.
Do you think you’ve proved your younger-boy-self wrong yet?
Oh yeah. Well, I don’t know. I watched a lot of VH1. It’s a different thing now, to be in a band, maybe than it was in the 70s. Meaning, you don’t get rich. But yeah, I think so. I think the dream as a young boy is to play a show to a bunch of people who are into it. And we’ve done that many many times. I should be more ambitious. I mean, I have other ambitions for the art side of it. I’m hoping I’m really just getting started on my potential as a songwriter. But commercially, this is far beyond what I thought possible.
So your impetus to buy a guitar was to play Green Day songs. What were your influences then and how have they evolved over time?
I’ve had trouble with this question…about what influences are. I listen to a bunch of music, I don’t think I ever try to imitate it, I think it seeps in. I think influences are probably who are your heroes. I just keep finding new heroes, I keep finding new ones some how. What I do when I listen to music is, I fall in love with it. It’s falling in love with the band, with the record.
What’s your favorite setting to play live, a certain place or in general?
There’s a lot of good ways to have a show. Well I’m doing some shows alone and those could be nice with a really quiet room and people being really attentive. But it’s not necessary. Whatever room I get, I’ll take it and do something. But probably the best is when you’re opening for some other band and there’s so many people, but you can still see their faces. It’s bad if they’re covered in smoke or a thousand miles below you. I just like to see people.
The solo gig you’re talking about is happening at Schubas?
I don’t expect everyone to be quiet. I’m not going to shush anybody. I’m not like that. But sometimes there’s a nice moment of collective peace. Yeah, four consecutive Mondays at Schubas. It ain’t gonna be glamorous, but I think it will be cool. I definitely play way less shows alone, so there’s lots of time for interesting things to go down. Songs that I’ve never showed anyone before. It will be different.
Do you have any specific experiences playing anywhere that have stood out for you in any way?
That question just hurts me to think about. Every show is so good, you don’t even know. Well some of them are a bit bad, I should be honest. But I don’t think that we’re the good part of this that I’m evaluating. Just something happens and then they all just disappear and you play another one very soon after, the next night. That’s why I started to name all the shows, to try to keep them, like: that was a thing that only happened one time, and wasn’t that great? I don’t know why a title does that.
Recording-wise, you’ve recorded an album without a label?
Yeah, that’s what we did this summer. And we’re signing. It’s gonna come out. It will be early next year that it comes out, I mean, I hope. If all goes well.
We’ve had some trouble. Some labels, they don’t know what to make of us. I don’t know how to market myself. I think the right thing to say, is to tell them I’m a screw-up. We’re a band of screw-ups and that’ll be it. That’ll be our angle. Screw-up rock. I think you’re supposed to like, jump onto some trend or something, or pose yourself as part of some new genre. But I don’t know, that stuff bores me and I don’t understand. All you need is one little label that’s gonna hard. There’s a lot of nice hardworking people who care about what the music is like. It doesn’t have to be Columbia.
How do you feel about the Chicago music community?
I think Chicago is the home of my band, now. It’s the home of me, anyway. And I’m looking forward to becoming more and more a part of it. I think I’m part of it. I think I’m a local character. That’s my new dream. The old dream was to be Bruce Springsteen, when I was 10. But the new dream is to be a local character. And Bruce Springsteen too, I guess.
Anything else you want to add, jumping around in your mind?
I feel that this band, playing music was my only chance. I’m lucky. The only thing a screw up can do is be in a band. You know, people need screw ups to make them feel better about their little screw ups. That’s my closing thought. But go with the screw up. That’s the new image of us. The new record, it doesn’t have a title. Oh man. But I hope that you hear it. It’s really good. All the others are dust in the wind in comparison.