E-Mail This Article to a Friend Reborn again (continued)

Given the confessional tenor of the material on The Fire Theft, it’s no surprise when Enigk reveals that much of it was originally intended to be the foundation for a second solo album. "We actually started the Fire Theft the same day we quit Sunny Day. I had already written a bunch of songs that I was intending to use for my own album. But when William and I started talking about doing a new band, I just decided to give them all to the Fire Theft. That sort of changes the whole approach. When it reaches a band, the style of writing changes. Obviously, William adds something that I can’t add, and same thing with Nate."

The fourth cog in the Fire Theft wheel is guitarist Greg Suran, who toured with Sunny Day as a utility guitarist/keyboardist after The Rising Tide was released. For touring purposes, the Fire Theft have also added a fifth member, Nick Macri, who handles bass when Mendel isn’t available (Macri is also a Sunny Day veteran who got involved around the time of The Rising Tide) and keyboards when Mendel is around. In other words, the only thing that separates the Fire Theft from Sunny Day is the absence of Hoerner, less so as a guitarist then as a songwriting partner and foil for Enigk.

"I definitely wanted the Fire Theft to be different from Sunny Day, but I realize there’s only so much we can do differently while still sounding good," Enigk acknowledges. "So, yeah, the major difference is in the lyrics. With Sunny Day, Dan and I would always sit down and write the lyrics together. We’d come up with our own Sunny Day theology. You know, I’d believe this and Dan might disagree, but we’d still believe in the basic theme and try to make it more universal. So there were compromises. With Fire Theft, I just sit down by myself without any outside influences and write directly from my own heart and mind. It was difficult because I had been relying on the crutch of Dan’s brilliant mind for so long. The lyrics on this record are a lot more of me being open and honest and going in directions that Sunny Day might have eventually gotten to . . . but I think it took the break-up for me to get to that point. That’s the major difference."

Although Enigk’s lyrics are shot through with spirituality, he doesn’t use the new band as a pulpit from which to preach born-again theology. Two of the major threads that tie the material on The Fire Theft together are those of self-exploration and rebirth, but those are universal themes that were almost always present in Sunny Day songs. And as personal as the lyrics get, they’re never dogmatic. Indeed, even without Hoerner as a partner in rhyme, Enigk continues to be a cryptic lyricist, with one or two powerfully sung lines rising above the tide of Mendel’s undulating bass, Goldsmith’s pounding beats, and wave after wave of melodic guitars. "Taking back the hope that men destroy" is one such lyric from "Sinatra," which builds from a flute-based orchestral arrangement to become a climactic rock anthem.

"It’s sort of strange, but it’s nothing too magical," Enigk answers when I ask about the title and the genesis of that track. "The initial thing I wrote for flutes at the beginning of the song was a completely different part that was extremely reminiscent of ‘My Way.’ It almost sounded like we were completely ripping off ‘My Way.’ So that’s why we called the song ‘Sinatra.’ And it seemed to fit even after we changed the song, because it’s an epic song about change, and finding hope, and blah, blah, blah . . . you know, all that crap. It related in that Sinatra had an epic life, and ‘My Way’ is a reflection of how he lived his life. So it sort of connects in a strange way that has nothing to do with Sinatra or ‘My Way.’ "

As similar in sound and style as the Fire Theft are to Sunny Day, Enigk is adamant about keeping the two separate for the time being. "We don’t play any Sunny Day material, which kind of sucks, because there are some songs I miss. But it would be ludicrous for us to call ourselves the Fire Theft while continuing to play Sunny Day songs. We just can’t do that right now."

He even has mixed feelings about revisiting the Sunny Day back catalogue. "There are a couple of songs from Rising Tide that we never released, so maybe those will come out some day. There are also tons of really terrible demos with gibberish, because before I write lyrics, I always write vocal lines — that’s sort of what Sunny Day’s ‘Pink Album’ is. A lot of what I’m singing on that is just gibberish.

"There’s also been talk of re-releasing a remixed version of Diary, like a 10-year anniversary edition. But I’m skeptical on the idea because we got Diary. It’s mixed. It’s been done. We don’t really need to rehash something to sell more records. It is what it is, and you can’t fuck with perfection. I don’t mean that it’s perfect, only that in its rawness it’s right. And it’s a success because of exactly what it is."

The Fire Theft join the Violent Femmes, Presidents of the United States of America, the Rapture, the Von Bondies, Juliana Hatfield, the Stills, Stellastarr, Elefant, Laguardia, Midtown, Just Jack, the Lot Six, Streetdogs, the Unseen, the Explosion, and Runner and the Thermodynamics on the bill for this year’s Phoenix/FNX Best Music Poll party next Thursday, June 3, on Lansdowne Street in Boston. Tickets are $20; call (617) 423-NEXT.