In celebration of Trans Awareness Week (Thursday, November 12th-Wednesday, November 19th), rapidly rising indie darlings FVNERAL have released a new single in collaboration with pop-rock icon Ben Lee.
“Friendly fire” is the second offering from the band since announcing the additions of Madeleine Powers (or RAGEFLOWER) and Ben Siva (or jnr.). The queer supergroup is a collaboration between trans songwriter and producer Tay Blunt — whose discography (Stand Atlantic, Birds of Tokyo, Mokita) has clocked more than 15 million streams — alongside Powers and Siva, whose respective solo projects have garnered significant critical acclaim in their own right.
On the meaning behind “friendly fire”, Blunt describes that in order to come out to themself as a trans non-binary person, the final hurdle they had to overcome was one they were holding in front of themself.
“In many ways, the person the song is being sung to is me. It’s really asking myself why I find it so difficult to set myself free from my own internalised transphobia and begging myself to let the part of me that holds this hurt begin to heal,” they share.
It also provides a sense of closure in regard to their former self. “Although I’ve recently changed my name to Tay, there’s a line in Ben Lee’s verse (which he recorded a while back) where he uses my old name. As soon as I told him about my new name, he wanted to re-record it, but after thinking about it, I decided that keeping it provides a real sense of closure,” they continue.
“It allows me to farewell the part of myself that will always be attached to that name. It feels liberating to break the cycle that my old name kept me in.”
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For Lee, the single comes fresh off the success of his national tour, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his twice-Platinum and three-time ARIA award winning album Awake is the New Sleep. The 2005 album launched commercial hits like “Catch My Disease” and “We’re All in This Together”, and steered the Sydney artist into more indie-pop territory. Earlier this year, he released “Catch My Disease 2025”, a shoegaze-leaning rework of his 2005 hit, with backing vocals from various Australian artists including FVNERAL.
Lee’s most recent album, This One’s for the Old Headz, dropped last year on his label Weirder Together, which he co-founded with his wife, Ione Skye. He broke down the album for Rolling Stone AU/NZ, which you can read here.
Alongside the new single, FVNERAL have launched preorders for a limited edition Trans Awareness Week t-shirt, with 50% of profits being donated to Sock Drawer Heroes’ pay-it-forward program, which provides free gender affirming products (including chest binders, packers and tucking underwear) to those who can’t afford to buy what they need to feel comfortable in themselves.
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While the band hunker down for the remainder of the year to put the finishing touches on their forthcoming EP, 2026 will see FVNERAL play their first ever North American shows, as they showcase at New Colossus Festival in New York City, next March.
FVNERAL’s “friendly fire” (ft. Ben Lee) is out now.
