Ezra Furman

Inspired by Green Day and a Bob Dylan songbook gifted by her parents, singer-songwriter Ezra Furman started writing music as a teenager as a way to deal with feeling “maladjusted.” ∙ During college breaks, she toured Europe with her band, Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, after their song “Take Off Your Sunglasses” became a No. 1 hit in Austria. ∙ The overseas success of her solo album Day of the Dog helped Furman, who is transgender and bisexual, feel comfortable exploring her identity onstage and in her music. ∙ In 2018, Transangelic Exodus, a narrative-driven rock opera of sorts that Furman dubbed a “queer outlaw saga,” landed on several year-end best-album lists. ∙ Producers tapped her to score the TV series Sex Education, believing that her style of angst-ridden retro-pop was a perfect fit for the teen dramedy. ∙ She said that she feels a sense of artistic kinship with Lou Reed, and she wrote a book about the rock icon’s influential album Transformer for the acclaimed 33 1/3 series.