Half-awake, dressed in a print shirt and a blue jacket, Richard Butler, lyricist/vocalist/spokesman for the Psychedelic Furs, paid for his clam chowder and fruit salad dinner and ambled through the lobby of the Providence Holiday Inn towards the bar. He crumpled himself into a chair and ordered a Bailey's Irish Cream-"Good for the throat". The est of the band, all in various stages of exhaustion, are nowhere to be found-in the next three nights, they will be playing The Main Event, Providence, The Beacon Theatre, New York City, and the Orpheum, Boston; this is a long awaited day off on the first leg of their extensive tour to promote the new LP, Forever Now.
They are also promoting the new Psychedelic Furs. In the past year, three original members (saxophonist Duncan Kilburn, guitarist Roger Morris, and drummer Vince Ely) have either left or been kicked out, and the band has taken a dramatic step in a new direction.
"A lot of people have said our new album is more commercial," Richard Butler said, running his hand through his already-in-disarray straw colored hair. "Pop? No!" he shakes his head very definitely. "We didn't say "let's get commercial". It might have happened because we all like a bit of a dance beat ourselves. We didn't think, right, let's have a dance song for the American market- umm, let's see, it's got to be understood by a mass of people. Who's at the top of the charts? REO Speedwagon?" he asks.
"John Cougar? Yeah!" he says dryly. "Let's make it like John Cougar". Butler lights up a cigarette. He speaks softly, his voice a deep, distant cousin to his distinctive singing style. "When we were making up these songs we realized it was a different step for us. We were making up songs with stronger melodies, and we figured if we were going to change the sort of tunes we were doing, we might as well change the production-use Todd Rundgren, who would give us a clearer sound, as opposed to Steve Lillywhite, who on our first two albums tended to make us sound a bit murky.
"David Bowie said he was interested, but it never came through. Probably a very busy person." Butler shrugs, and grins slyly. "I think he says it to a lot of people. "Anyway, we got rid of Roger Morris, our rhythm guitarist, to give John Ashton more room to get more melodies coming through-we were relying too much on heavy driving rhythm. And we got rid of Duncan Kilburn," he smiles, "because Duncan wanted to play on everything, and we didn't want sax on everything, and he couldn't play anything else. So Roger and Duncan had to go...so we got rid of them." Butler laughs wickedly. "Vince Ely left because he wanted to produce," he says vaguely. Produce the Psychedelic Furs? "God No!" He looks horrified. "If anyone would produce it would be me or Tim (Butler, Richard's younger brother and bassist in the band)."
Phillip Calvert, the Furs new drummer, a tall blonde Australian with a nasal accent and an open, matter- of- fact manner, comes into the bar, orders a beer, and begins popping Pepperidge Farm goldfish into his mouth. "Have you heard of a band called Birthday Party?" Butler asks. “He was supposed to get married but he came with us instead."
"It was a snap decision but I have no regrets.” Calvert continues eating the goldfish."It is very different playing with the Psychedelic Furs. It is good, there is more discipline involved in the playing. And then coming here a learning a whole new set was quite a hard thing to do, it did my playing a lot of good.
"The thing is," he says,"this band works hard and doesn't relax and say, ‘Yeah, we're great,’ and get totally blase about it." Calvert becomes animated. "You don't get any better that way, and worse, you start neglecting your audience. If you say fuck the audience, that's disgusting. They are why you do it."
"Yes," Richard Butler says quietly. "That is why you do it. We actually enjoy touring. Besides," he adds, “It is better than sitting around in England. Pouring rain. Very miserable." He orders another Bailey's. ("Loosens up your throat, like milk.")
"Anyway," Calvert says, "I think this tour will be quite good. I like American audiences. English audiences are more restrained, clique-y. You follow this band or that band-this type of new band or that type."
"Like when Haircut 100 had their little day." Butler sounds annoyed. "All those little kids ran around in Fair Isle sweaters eating jelly babies. I can't imagine anyone saying "You're going to the Psychedelic Furs show, dress accordingly;" which is nice." Little fashions are like little armies. In punk rock time, punk rock was supposed to be so anarchistic and they all dressed up the same. Black spikey hair, leather jackets." The "armies on the dance floor" from "Love My Way"? "Yeah! Exactly!" said Butler. "I don't really know where we fit in. Those are things rock writers and critics think about. We just got up and did it without thinking, ‘where does this sound fit in?’"
He sips his drink. "We like to not fit in more than anything else. That is why this tour we are taking a cellist. We've already had some hardcore punks come down to see us and we came out with seven pieces- our band plus a saxophonist, a cellist, and a synthesizer player – and they don't know what to do!" Calvert and Butler laugh.
"Oh, we aren't dropping the ‘Psychedelic’ from our name, that was just the artwork on Forever Now, Butler mentions. "People have suggested we lose it, but I think the ‘Furs’ sounds a bit dull."
The Holiday Inn bar has filled up, and a three piece band with bouffant grey hair-do's begin to play."You are the apple of my eye," the organist warbles, as Butler names his cabaret singing influences:"I like French Singers. Charles Aznavour, Mirielle Mathieu, Edith Piaf – I might make a ballad album yet!"
Drowned out by the cacophonous lounge band, we leave the bar in search of quieter quarters. On thew way out I ask Butler if he ever played a place like this. He grins and tells how right before the Psychedelic Furs were signed, they got a "residency" at a pub called the Green Lion. Calvert knows the place and is set off into a fit of laughter. "It lasted one night." Butler, a sophisticated soft spoken gentleman , explains why: "Because I ran around the place with a chair on my head, smoking people's cigarettes, and drinking people's drinks. The owner said he didn't like this modern music."
Upstairs he is sitting on a bed, speaking quietly into the phone."Hello. It's Richard. Richard," he repeats. The man on the phone is the Psychedelic Furs road manager, recruiting volunteers to fill out Canadian visa forms. Phil Calvert is muttering something about a frazzled brain. "Driving 14 hours to get somewhere on a bus is a bit of a drag, y'know."
Gary Windo, a saxophonist whose playing is as distinguished as it is varied (he has played with Carla Bley and NRBQ, among others), is talking about the Psychedelic Furs favorite band: The Fab Combo. "We were staying down the road from the Holiday Inn they were playing at in New Jersey," Windo says seriously, "we were trying to get them to support us instead of Translator."
"This band was an old trio," Butler graciously explains. “We wanted to get them to support us and have a live sex act on stage while they were doing their old jazzy stuff."
"Our dream,” Windo states, "is to become the Fab Combo. Everything else pales in comparison." "....is toothpaste in comparison." Butler giggles.
"Once, for NRBQ," Windo remembers, "we had the Windsor Heights High School marching band open for us. It was wonderful. Wonderful."
"The Psychedelic Furs and the Fab Combo." Butler pretends to read it off an advertisement. "That wasn't their name really, we made it up for them," he confesses.
"It was the Trio Fabulario!" Windo lies, and breaks up laughing."We couldn't get them to come with us because they didn't want to give up their $17,000.00 a week contract with Holiday Inn."
"Plus," Butler adds nonchalantly," They didn't want the live sex act. We wanted to get an older middle-aged couple screwing onstage...of course we saw the ideal couple actually dancing to the Fab Combo at the time. So we got stuck with Translator." He smirks. "We've been trying to get them to do a live sex act."
When the laughter dies down, Richard asks if I've seen the new "Love My Way" video, a sliver and blue vision in which the band performs in a shallow pool of shimmering water.
"Oh, it’s great, I love it," he says. "The Psychedelic Furs walk on water! You see we were all on tiles in the water. Dangerous. It’s hard dancing on the water, cause if your foot drags you go off to the side, which at on point I did, and toppled over. I grabbed onto a lighting trolley. Someone came and grabbed it or the whole band would have been electrocuted." He smiles sheepishly and lights a cigarette.
Richard Butler is quite proud of the song "Love My Way". "It is a political song, if you can consider love songs political, which I think you can. Sexual politics. People being told they're deviants, whatever- homosexual, lesbian-I’m just saying, "don't worry, go after your own way, it’s just as valid." The song "Forever Now" is quite political also. Talking about people in politics being backed by big money form banks. And then it goes back to two lovers." He recites his line, "You and I are walking past, we don't count our money." President Gas as well. But we aren't going in any direction like the Clash, although I admire them, even like them.
"The only overall message, in any of our songs, is to make your own mind up about what goes on around you. Don't believe what you are told by anyone." He stops, "Including me."
Butler says his favorite on the new album is "Sleep Comes Down," a lush, romantic song. There is general agreement in the room. "Actually, I was trying to get to sleep while my brother Tim and Vince Ely were in the next room rehearsing. I was wishing I could get to sleep, and I thought, 'Oh, Sleep Comes Down would be a great title.' So I got up and wrote it down to what they were playing, and then went in and sang it. Fit perfectly, especially when we added the cellos."
Butler isn't bothered by people who miss the point of the lyrics. "It's always the same though. With any band you get idiots listening to it. Like when 'We Love You' gets played in the clubs," he points out, "people listening to it don't realize the sarcasm. I expect it. You have to. I'm just happy when somebody does understand it."
He ruffles his hair. "But now we don't play 'We Love You'. It is a punky sounding song-not that we ever were punk, but closer to it than now. We don't sound like that anymore. We sound like Forever Now. That is where the band is, and I don't think there is anyone doing what we are doing. Nowadays, we've become good musicians." He stops and laughs. "When we began we couldn't even remotely play. Now we play very well, and we play differently, which is very apparent when you see us live.
"We aren't relying on any of our influences anymore. You see, when you form a band and make your first album, you can't be totally original, you've got to be influenced by somebody. When it comes to your second album you look at the first and find your own strengths and you strengthen those. By the time you get to your third album, you've influenced yourself.
"Lyrically we are stronger than a lot of bands. People in rock music don't tend to use images--which I do, probably because of my visual training, it changes your perception of everyday kinds of things. Most people use narration, which doesn't involve much imagination. It is knowledge that you have,"
Butler says, "things you already feel, you already know."
"SHOCK TRAUMA!" guitarist John Ashton runs in, a small man wearing a giant black hat. "REAL ART! RICHARD! HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY!"
"OH NO!" Gary Windo exclaims.
Ashton changes the channels, barely waiting to see what station is showing. Disappointed, he runs out of the room.
Butler takes the interruption in stride, smiling indulgently. "I think it is the greatest thing to be in a band," he says, "actually making money being creative. I'd like to be doing that the rest of my life, making money by being creative.
"We have been talking about, as a band, if we get bored of rock music – we probably will sometime I'm sure! – of doing silk screen prints as a band, as opposed to individual artists. John knows a fair amount about printing, my brother Tim comes up with really wild, off the wall ideas, and I'm good at doing the physical side of it. Psychedelic Furs prints!"
Richard Butler gets up to leave, laughing; his laugh is infectious, a gesture that takes up most of his face ad reduces the cool, chiseled features to a warm boyish grin.
Everyone troops back down towards the bar, but Gary Windo hangs back, talking. "I have been having a lovely time on this tour. I've played jazz with Don Cherry, Andrew Cyrille, real avant garde musicians," he says, "and playing with the Psychedelic Furs is absolutely equal to that. This band is very sophisticated. This is avant garde music, and they are in many ways ahead, because they don't think like classically trained musicians, limiting themselves. They cross real barriers.
"We are playing sheets of sound." He is exhilarated, and waves his arms. "Orchestral Frank Sinatra on acid." Windo shakes his head. "Of course, everything pales in comparison to the Fab Combo."
The lounge band tunes up up while the Butler brothers ("There was another one in the band but we tossed him – didn't want it to get like the Osmonds," Richard remarks), trade Todd Rundgren stories. Tall and lanky, dressed in a shiny black jacket with a pair of satin lips sewn on the pocket, Tim Butler yawns and orders himself a beer. His brother teasingly messes up his hair, and succeeds in irritating him.
"When we first met with Todd," Tim Butler says, "he told us, 'I can make you sound like Hall and Oates, I can make you sound like Judas Priest, I can make you sound like anything you want."
Richard reveals that Todd Rundgren is the "Man on the Stairs" mysteriously thanked on Forever Now. "He would run halfway down the stairs that led from his booth in the studio, put his foot on the banister and yell things like," Richard imitates an American accent, "Can't you put more feeling into it?"
The band's road crew gathers around, trying to muster the momentum for a night on the town. ("Where are we? How far is Providence from Boston? What time do clubs close?"). Richard Butler disappears, but comes back quickly, in a cloud of eau de cologne. "Who smells in here?" someone blurts, and Richard embarrassingly owns up: "It's Millionaire by Mennen."
When Richard Butler has to sing in the daytime he covers up the windows with drapes or newspapers. It was still daylight, but the Orpheum theater on Halloween Eve was dark enough for him to pretend it wasn't; there he was, onstage, singing "President Gas".
The Psychedelic Furs were doing a soundcheck. Stage left, bassist Tim Butler, dressed in a tie-dyed Indian t-shirt. Behind him, cellist Ann Sheldon on a platform next to Ed Buller, keyboard and synth player, a punky Steve Forbert look-alike. Stage right, in a Furs sweatshirt, saxophonist Gary Windo. Then, guitarist John Ashton, in his hat/dark glasses/black and white "jumper" uniform. And front and center, frozen at the mic, looking frail in a baggy jumpsuit, Richard Butler.
They run through a few songs, trying to get the sound level right: "Yes I Do," "Sleep Comes Down," "Love My Way," "Into You Like A Train."
They have included only five old songs in their set list ("Pretty in Pink," "Sister Europe," "Imitation of Christ," "India," "Into You Like A Train"), preferring to play Forever Now in its entirety. This seems to have caused a debate between band and crew. In Providence, Richard Butler got into an animated discussion with longtime soundman Trevor, who suggested that the Furs could win over audiences faster if they performed more of their "hits." Butler wouldn't have any of it: "We have to challenge the audience. I'd rather make the audience sit back and think about a show, make them listen instead of trying to get that immediate response."
The band heads down to the Orpheum basement for some food, followed by winners of a CBS contest, "Have Dinner With The Psychedelic Furs." In the spirit of Halloween they are also followed by the Cowardly Lion from Wizard of Oz.
The meal seems a makeshift affair: buffet line, folding chairs and tables, paper plates. Tim Butler, sneezing, breathes in two pieces of chocolate cake, unfazed, but Richard is disgusted. "Do you think this is fair to these people?" He confronts the record company representative. The man shrugs, but Richard is persistent. "They won this dinner. Eating on paper plates? Do you think this is fair? Let's go out."
Ten minutes later, the band and the contest winners are seated in an elegant restaurant, conversing amiably while sipping frozen margaritas. Lovely singer Bebe Buell, a close friend of Richard Butler's, dominates the conversation with her effervescent chatter. "My band is going into Todd Rundgren's studio to record some demos, and in January, when the record companies have money, we'll go shopping. I just don't want Todd to make us sound like Spirit," she giggles, uncontrollably.
"Bebe is always giggling," Richard says teasing her, "either giggling or violent." She throws her napkin at him, and she blushes.
The band's manager is complaining loudly while eating burnt onion soup, "What happened to Translator? I mean, Berlin Airlift? Who are they?" Meanwhile, John Ashton is gleefully molding sculptures with his linen napkin – "Are you making penises again?" Richard asks him offhandedly.
Tim Butler starts to play "Love My Way" with his silverware on half-filled water glasses, and the rest of the Furs join in, snapping their fingers, duplicating the tinkling marimba refrain, "Love My Way/it's a new road/I follow where my mind goes."
Richard is in the back of the tour bus, dressed in a vintage David Bowie Live blue suit. he is getting paler by the minute("About ten minutes before I go on, I'd rather be doing anything else."), stuffing paper towels into his shoes to make them fit. He puts on a light green trenchcoat and fixes his hair.
Then out of the bus, down the alley, and into the Orpheum. Crossing the stage behind the amplifiers and equipment, he is nervous. "There's no one here," he murmurs, panicking. "It's intermission" somebody says, and he visibly relaxes.
Phillip Calvert, draped in silver belts and rosary beads, is in the dressing room with Tim Butler, who is wearing multi-colored bondage pants. ("Richard stole 'em from me and wore ‘em on the cover of Melody Maker.") One of the contest winners is out in the hallway, and she asks Richard for a kiss. He gallantly obliges, "He is so handsome," she whispers, over and over. "Just so attractive." He stares in the mirror and outs on some of Bebe Buell's makeup ("Why would you wear mascara?" she asks) and soon it is time.
"Get on with it." Just as the band is about to go on, word comes from the dressing room that John Ashton needs another five minutes. The delay shatters Richard Butler's fragile, pre-show calm. "Oh shit!" he yells, white faced. Then, the Psychedelic Furs are on stage, singing "President Gas."
"You have to have a party, when you're in a state like this."
The band's famous wall of sound, once unrelenting and almost impenetrable, now shifts and swirls. The melodies are supported by guitarist John Ashton and bassist Tim Butler, strengthened by the rhythmic assault of drummer Calvert, deepened and developed by keyboardist Ed Buller and saxophonist Gary Windo.
Windo's especially emotional playing, combined with the cello (Ann Sheldon also brings a classical, dignified look to their stage show), magnifies a profound, melancholy resonance in their music.
The very essence of Richard Butler's singing is that of melancholy spirit; it is not surprising that the French cabaret singers he so admires were known for their tristesse, the sadness and world weariness that they conveyed with their untrained voices. It was not the beauty of their singing, it was the beauty of the emotion that was felt by anyone who heard them.
Yet that sadness once threatened to overpower the Psychedelic Furs, making their music almost depressing – it is now much closer to bittersweet, and in concert, the personal withdrawal that Richard Butler always seemed to be on the verge of has been replaced by warmth and confidence.
Onstage, Butler exudes an ambiguous, forceful sexuality, reminiscent of early Jagger, and he combines it with the sophistication of a crooner like Sinatra, but his slow, strong moves, his dips and dancing, and his expressive voice are all powerfully individual, and the band matches his uniqueness, note for note.
Both Phillip Calvert and Richard Butler acknowledge the sadness present in their music, but they also describe it as a kind of "celebration"; this was especially evident when, at the end of the concert, with the audience on their feet, the band played to a crashing crescendo, Richard Butler swooning to the music, hands over his heart, singing, "Let it stay forever now." It was a chilling moment, and a moving way to celebrate.
Richard Butler threw drumsticks into the audience, hugged guitarist John Ashton, and walked offstage, ahead of the rest of the Furs. "I played rock star out there, I was standing on the monitors!" he says to no one in particular. He is wearing an elbow length, pearl buttoned white glove that a fan threw him. Gary Windo yells "Great Show!" as the audience claps for an encore, and Tim Butler answers him, "That's because we were in tune!" Bebe Buell tells Richard he was Sinatraesque: "Really? he asks, incredulous.
The backstage area is wall to wall people, and Gary Windo and Phill Calvert are suddenly upset. "How could they play a U2 song right after we walk off?" Windo says. "We want a space between us and other rock and roll. Maybe they should have played Noel Coward."
Richard Butler thought the audience was a bit lazy, saying, "We can only see the first couple of rows, and when they aren't standing..." Someone tells him he should have told the crowd to get on their feet, but this offends him. "Oh, say 'C'mon, get up and dance'...Oh, I hate that, I hate when bands do that."
Oedipus is back stage to greet the Psychedelic Furs, and tells Richard that he likes the album. ("Then why don't you bloody well play it," Tim Butler mutters under his breath.) Dressed in a beige satin Pia Zadora jacket, Oedipus catches more abuse. "That is really a tacky jacket," Richard tells him.
Phill Calvert is overheard remarking that, "I was in a band who put out great records that we expected no would buy," and Richard Butler uncomfortably poses for a photographer. Then out of the Orpheum, into a crowd ("I don't like that," Richard says, "it makes me nervous." I guess I'm basically shy."), and into a bar, where more fans tell the Furs, "Fantastic!" One even ventures so far as to imitate Butler's voice; he seems genuinely flattered. Then, out of the bar, into the bus, and out to Boston, and onto a new road.
