Ezra Furman is flying solo, for now

Ezra Furman is on a local solo kick. She has established a nifty little monthly residency at the Rockwell in Somerville’s Davis Square, with shows planned into April and the most apropos title: “Ms Ezra Furman Does What She Wants.”

Furman, 37, is not off the road for good. Nor has she exclusively become a one-woman show. She is on fine terms with her band — they’ve traveled the world together — and says, they’re essentially the same group she’s had since 2012. “I expect to stick with those brilliant core collaborators for any future non-solo shows, and recordings, too,” she says.

But right now, Furman is collaborating with former ONCE owner, promoter JJ Gonson. She did six sold-out gigs at the 180-capacity Rockwell last year. Pre-pandemic, she did residency shows at Gonson’s now-shuttered ONCE. Post-pandemic, they put on shows at Boynton Yards and at Crystal Ballroom.

Somerville was Furman’s base as a Tufts University student, where she formed Ezra Furman and the Harpoons in 2006, and it is once again.

“I wanted for a long time to do a residency,” Furman explains on the phone from her home. She describes these shows “half-casual” and “intimate.” There’s a different set list for each concert, as Furman has about 100 of her own songs to choose from and a panoply of covers.

When Furman and her band are on tour, they play venues ranging from 500 to 2300 capacities. “But repeating the same gig in a small venue is something I’ve always loved, both for me [as a performer] and as an audience member,” she says. “Not only that, I wanted to use it as a way to say what’s going on with me on my own without my band. It makes my music feel more” — she pauses to find the right word — “explored.”

Over the course of nine albums, the latest being 2022’s “All of Us Flames,” Furman has delved into all kinds of territory in her writing, musically and lyrically. There’s punk, folk, hard rock, a certain sense of striving mixed with vulnerability, reflection and rage. There’s classic tension and release with a bit of Springsteen-like story-song grandeur.

Furman is transgender, queer and Jewish, all of which factor into her music at times. As to whether her music is created for any group specifically, she says, “I’m writing for anyone who hears it. I try not to think about who’s listening. It’s hard enough to write songs without imagining a potential audience. The main audience I hope to please is the most demanding version of myself. I’ve got to at least come close to meeting my own high standard.”

A longtime fan of the late Lou Reed — in 2018 she wrote a book for the 33 1/3 series, “Lou Reed’s Transformer” — Furman says, “I would not be anything like the artist I am without Lou Reed, without the elements of what he has threaded through his career and life. Nonbinary is the term people use about gender and I think it applies to Lou Reed in regards to his sexuality.”

Furman doesn’t see Reed as a role model, considering Reed’s drug abuse and misbehavior early in his career, but considers him one of the main people who inspired her to write songs, or, "basically making literature and that is my way into music."

Although she was aware she was trans for years, Furman posted about it online in April 2021. It blew up, and was covered by numerous media outlets.

“It meant trouble for me because transphobic people had a field day with it, harassing me endlessly,” she says. “Sometimes I think I even casually said [I was trans] on social media, but that was the moment that felt like an announcement to people. I didn’t think of it that way, really. The purpose of the post was to talk about being a trans parent” — she has a son — “and how I had never seen one before I became one. The reaction to it and characterization of it being a ‘coming out’ post surprised me.”

What’s really important to me, to my soul, is writing. That’s my real job. And something about solo shows fulfills that, feed that focus.

Ezra Furman

In what must be one of the rarest of potential career couplings, at one point Furman had set her sights on becoming a rabbi. She is less certain now, calling the ambition “rather unclear. Not completely not happening ever or maybe it will someday, but I’m not working on that now. I tried to be in rabbinical school and I dropped out, but I am trying to be both a spiritual person and a leader of the Jewish people in some way. The title ‘rabbi’ is the official way, but you don’t need to have a title to do these things and create literature and gather your people.” That, perhaps, may be the link between the religious world and the rock world: gathering a group of like-minded people together with the hope of delivering inspiration or uplift.

Furman gained a measure of success for contributing 34 songs to the Netflix dramedy series “Sex Education,” but she’s taken her sights off mainstream fame and fortune. “I lost interest in being a pop star and really hustling for that kind of attention and that kind of self-marketing,” she says. “I was never good at it, and I never had an elevator pitch as who I am ‘as an icon.’”

“My real goal is to be a great writer and great at music,” she says. “I think it’s more about width and depth of reach. Maybe I’m doomed because of that, but there are so many great artists that aren’t good at marketing themselves. And there’s the short-attention span of pop culture. What’s really important to me, to my soul, is writing. That’s my real job. And something about solo shows fulfills that, feed that focus.”

Ezra Furman performs at The Rockwell Feb. 6, March 5 and April 10.