Flame fatale

Firehorse’s Leah Siegel may figure prominently in this magazine’s Hot For 2013 tipsheet but, on this crisp January morning in Brooklyn, the ambience is decidedly chilly. Hot Press has just inquired about the time Prince caught one of her shows and reportedly proclaimed himself smitten. An icy silence ensues. She is, one gathers, tired to death of retelling the anecdote (journalists, being an original bunch, ALWAYS ask about it). So why, we wonder, is it relayed in such detail on Firehorse’s website?

“It was exciting at the time,” sighs Siegel. “But I have erased it from my history. It will be taken down from my site as we move towards the next stage with the band. It’s a shame. That story has been minced so often. These things get spread on the internet. We’re in the wild west in many ways.”
As the ‘Firehorse’ name attests Siegel is not one for tentative understatement. Her songs are lush and strident, often lacquered with the goth-pop stomp of a pre-megastardom Florence + The Machine.
You get a sense of the aesthetic she is chasing in the video to last year’s ‘Our Hearts’; done up like a Williamsburg flea-market Siouxsie Sioux, she sings amid billows of smoke as a man in a polar-bear suit dances sadly in the background. It’s absurdist and faintly unsettling, adjectives you can apply to a lot of what she does.
The 34-year-old has knocked around New York music for years now. She got her break in 2010 as a high-class jingle writer: the eerie ditty she penned for the Topsy Foundation third world charity was feted at a Cannes advertising festival and won a prestigious Clio award. Siegel also spent several years in fondly regarded Manhattan band Little Mule. However it wasn’t until a fateful decision 18 months ago to walk away from that project and start over as Firehorse that she truly came of age as an artist, she feels.
“Up to then I had myself on such a tight leash,” she reflects. “I didn’t know how to treat myself well I suppose. I realised I would have to fulfill my own wishes as an artist rather than being bullied by someone else. It was about breaking free – which can be difficult and scary. It was definitely the biggest thing I’ve done in my professional life.”
She is currently working towards the release of her second Firehorse record with crowd-funding organisation Pledge Music (her debut And So They Ran Faster came out in 2011). Ever since Amanda Palmer raised one million for her new album on Kickstarter, crowd-funding has been the subject of renewed scrutiny. The way the model works is that the more fans pledge towards recording costs, the bigger the reward. In Siegel’s case $200 will buy you a one-on–one music lesson, for $400 she will cover a song of your choice. For $600 she will be your personal guide to Brooklyn for the day (sadly you’ll have to cover the cost of actually getting to New York).
Something of a wallflower off stage, this level of artist-punter interaction is a new experience for Siegel and, in truth, she seems quite wary about it.
“I’m not that type of fan,” she says. “I’m not a collector. It is complicated for me to understand how fans of mine might feel satisfied by me signing something or that kind of thing. I wasn’t the person who collected autographs. It’s difficult. I am reminded of the time I was asked to start tweeting in order to engage with people. I couldn’t understand the point. Unless I was knocking out five good jokes a day, why would anyone be interested in anything I had to say in 140 characters?”
Leah’s father Robert hosts the National Public Radio show All Things Considered and is one of America’s most respected news broadcasters. She is immensely proud of him but, between the lines, you sense his fame has not always helped her career.
“For many years, I avoided drawing attention to myself,” she reveals. “I didn’t want to cause a fuss, be centre of attention. I definitely did not want to rock the boat and make life awkward for my family. That was at the back of my mind: I had a responsibility not to cause problems for him because he was in the public eye.”

And So They Ran Faster is out now on PledgeMusic Recordings.