Around The Clock With The Psychedelic Furs
Show us your Billy Idol pose, Richard. "What pose is
that?"
The one on the poster with your arm up and your hair up and
your shirt up.
"You think that's Billy Idol? I think it's too poofy
for Billy!" A mighty laugh. "I've been doing those poses for years.
No, it's the perfect Richard Butler pose." Lots of poses: from jolly
anarchy to leather Hamlet and all points in between. Since '79 and "We
Love You," Richard Butler's had a go at everything-drink, drugs, insanity,
hair gel, hedonism, melancholy and cultdom. He's given up the lot except hair
gel and cultdom. In the last year, people who spend money have found out what
people who don't have known all along: the Psychedelic Furs are a good band.
Good by Dr. Robert's definition of a good band (imaginative, animalistic,
unpredictable, worthwhile: "You've got to have a good tune and suck your
cheeks in and have an air of otherness."). Good by any definition of good.
While their post-punk con- temporaries fell into making music to tidy up
knick-knacks by, the Furs soared on- ward and, uh, onward. I would rather be
whipped naked by Mort Harket down Ox- ford Street during rush hour than listen
to what passes for pop right now, but I'll make an exception for Midnight To
Midnight, the Furs' fifth album and the excuse for this meeting.
Are sex and glamor important parts of pop, Richard?
"Yes. I think that's what the whole thing's all
about."
Justify yourself.
"I've really put my foot in it and now I've got to worm
my way back out! Fame is glamorous. You get to a certain level where-it's
funny, I was watching a Bruce. Springsteen video and he's got a lot of glamor.
He's almost like this Uncle Tom character sitting there with his guitar on-
stage and all these thousands of people-but there's a glamor to it. And sex as
well, definitely. He's like-Rambo! To be a good live performer, you have to project,
and whatever you do projection-wise it's going to end up being glamorous and
sexy."
On the last American tour, when the Furs' name was being
immortalized in Brett Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero and the Furs' music was
being bandied about in John "Breakfast Club" Hughes's Pretty In Pink,
Richard was accosted by little girls putting their tongues in his mouth and
their hands in his trousers, "straight for the main event-no messing
about!" Is it the power of a hit single, or has he transformed into a sex
god overnight? "I don't think it's anything to do with 'Pretty In
Pink'-though that came at a great time because we hadn't had an album out in
such a long time; but it didn't really bring us any extra people. What it did
was consolidate the people we had. I think a lot of performers would tend to
get that. It's just that I'd forgotten it happened. I used to jump in the
audience all the time and grovel around on the floor- and it was much more of a
boys band in those days somehow. Our audiences were more boys. Audiences have
changed these days, and I guess when you get more popular, younger people come.
I was shocked!" A chuckle. "We're not a teeny-bop band, you
know!"
Richard Butler was offered a part in a vampire movie. He's
pale and handsome. He knows exactly how he is. He sees things from every angle
you can think of, which makes him that fine combination of involved and
detached, which makes for easy interviews and a hard life. He lives in New
York. He doesn't have an American accent.
Do you hang around with the New York art set, Richard? Did
you have your portrait painted by Andy Warhol?
Laughter. "No way! I hate all that! I think it's all
very pretentious. Andy Warhol did some great stuff, but I hated it when you saw
him out and he was surrounded by all these pretty boys and they were all trying
to pamper his ego."
If I'd had his money I’ve wanted my ego pampered by pretty
boys. But surely it was that very same art set that seduced you away from
Muswell Hill?
"New York always had a kind of mystery for me-to do
with the Velvet Underground and those old detective B-movies. And when I went
there it really was like that-it was winter, there was steam coming out of the
subway grates, I got in a yellow cab, and it was great. And it's still got that
magic for me. It's still mysterious and kind of dangerous-which London isn't.
London's very safe and predictable. When punk rock was going it was really
exciting, but when that all faded away, it went.
"Unfortunately, in England the social life tends to
revolve around pubs, and I found them really boring. There's a choice in London
of any one of thousands of pubs and a couple of clubs, so if you don't want to
go to pubs, you're in trouble."
We're sitting in a hotel between the bar and the gym, a lot
nearer the gym.
You're in your 30s now, Richard. A crucial time in your
life, a time to take stock, think of new directions, ask yourself what you
really want to do with the old mortal coil. "Not really. I hadn't even
thought of it like that! I haven't gone, 'Oh, I'm 31 in June, I'm getting on
So it's just an accident that last year you gave up drink
and drugs and now you're giving up cigarettes? It's just coincidence that we're
sitting by the gym?
"I'm not exactly a health fiend!" Chortle. "I
gave up drinking-I mean both of them-three years ago. It had a glamor about it
for a while. You thought how rock 'n' roll it all was, and then after a while-I
don't know, you feel what shit it all is. And then about two weeks ago I gave
up smoking because I figured I want to get better every tour, and the way to
get better this time was to give up smoking and be able to run around some
more. I'm getting incredibly ratty and losing my temper lately, like rage.
"But no, it isn't an accident. I think you can do those
things up to a certain point, and I had a pretty wild 10 years of it."
Pretty wild. After flirting with insanity as the thing to do, the
involvement-detachment balance went a bit askew and the boy went nigh on nuts.
"And then it comes to a point where you're looking at
yourself in the mirror, and you're not going to get any better un- less you
stop. I think the shows were tending to suffer when I was drinking. My
concentration was tending to suffer, I couldn't remember what I'd said to
people the day before. I was getting up in the morning and starting drinking
wine first thing-I don't know. It came to a head on an Australian tour, and I
just thought that was enough."
There's nothing to live for if you give up the lot.
"You don't think so? I think there's everything to live
for."
Like what. The gym?
"No. That's the con. I hate being told what to do. I
hate the fact that I have to go through rage to get out of a habit. Like
cigarettes: when I was a kid I hated the way they tasted at first; I was
actually phy- sically sick learning how to smoke because people told me it was
the cool thing to do. Then I'm just feeding a nicotine habit-and that nicotine
puts me on edge and you're told that being on edge is a normal life."
So have a drink to calm you down!
"No! I resent the fact that I've been sold that!"
Richard pours a cup of tea. He pours it into the cup of coffee he's just
finished. He's not given up caffeine.
Who did you impersonate in front of the mirror when you were
a youngster, Richard?
"Bob Dylan, I think. I don't know exactly what he does.
All I used to do was go look at pictures of Dylan, then go and stand in front
of the mirror and frown at myself. Oh dear. I never realized that he actually
moved around quite a bit. I kind of picture him with an earring, though he
never actually had one, you know what I mean? I think he looked great."
You have never been compared to Dylan. You have, however,
been compared to Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
"And someone the other day said we were really
influenced by mid-period Roxy Music-and it's just not an influence on us. Just
because we've got a sax player. I guess the guy thinks anyone who's got a saxophone
is Bruce Springsteen or Roxy Music, and we got Roxy Music."
There's a track on the new album- "Torture," it's
called-which sounds very Stones-y.
"Yeah, I think it does a bit. I'm not a big Stones fan
personally, so I was a bit iffy about that one. But you can't help it when you
get that kind of riff going. That's a Keith Richards-sounding guitar riff and
there's no hiding it! Well fuck it. I liked it, so I decided to keep it!"
And you decided to use a Stones co- hort to produce the
album.
9
"We listened to Mirror Moves," the last album,
"after a couple of years had gone by, and it sounded too studio. Keith Forsey
is a great producer and everything, but personally I think he can tend to take
a lot of the teeth out of the music. For this album we wanted a more band live
feel." It's definitely rock. Serious guitars.
"John (Ashton) didn't get a proper lick in on the last
album. And it was very atmospheric-feeling, that album, so he didn't get to
make as much of a statement as a guitarist likes! This time we wanted something
with a rawer edge to it, because that's the music I enjoy. I want something
like that and I can't find it any- where; all the rock music I find is incredibly
slick."
You said elsewhere, "The band is a real professional
outfit these days, which I never thought it would be. It didn't come into my
head when we formed the band that we were ever going to be great musicians."
What were you going to be, then?
"I don't know. It was just wanting to get up and do it.
It was seeing people like John Lydon, seeing that whole 100 Club gig, that punk
festival, really did it for me. Seeing somebody onstage being that angry with
that kind of music behind them was brilliant, and I'd never seen anything like
it. And it made me want to do it. It got me off my arse to do it. And it made
you see that you could. Before that, you had bands like Genesis with all these
thousands of dollars worth of keyboards and stuff like that."
Early John Lydon was 60 percent attitude and 40 percent, er,
attitude. "Yeah, and that was important. Still is." So is it art or
entertainment, Richard?" "I'd say it was entertainment." What
would you say is art?
"I haven't got a definition of art! OK, let me try
then. Maybe art is something that changes your perception of things, changes
your mood or something. And does that mean a cup of coffee's art? Maybe it
is."
A cigarette would certainly be art right now.
"Definitely! I don't know what art is, really. The
people that everybody thinks is art is like Andy Warhol and all those people.
Maybe in 100 years, great art is going to be Walt Disney and '50s rock 'n'
roll. Who knows? But it's not going to be some posey guy sticking a bit of
color on some canvas."
Have you ever done anything that's reached the hallowed
heights of art?
"I think onstage, some of our greatest moments. I don't
know, the song 'Highwire Days' sometimes, for some reason. It changes me. It
changes what I am. Suddenly I feel massive. I feel like my voice is big enough
to fill a big place, whereas sometimes you can be there onstage singing
away-and you're looking out and you can see this big place and it doesn't feel
like you're big enough to fill it. But then, with a song like that it just
seems like you can fill it with no problem, that and more."
What's the biggest misconception about you, Richard?
"That I'm arty is probably the biggest misconception.
That's the one I find the most boring and the most pretentious and it's just
not true."
Do you write better when you're happy or depressed?
"Always when I'm depressed, I think.. I don't really
write happy songs. Happy songs always sound like candyfloss. I like songs that
have a deeper feeling in them-not just in terms of 'That's so deep, man!' but
just that hit me some where deeper. I listen to the radio. Sometimes I find
myself humming along and singing the most trite, despicable songs because
they've got these great hooks, but I don't like them really."
Are there any doing it right?
"I don't know. I think it's a disease that's happening
right at the moment all over, that rock music is so slick and safe. I think
America's got more of a base for rock music and it's easier for bands to make
that edge kind of music there than it is in England-bands like R.E.M. What
bands really make rock music in England? Maybe the Cult, The Smiths do to a
certain extent, but not the hard edge that I'm talking about."
Midnight To Midnight was recorded in Berlin on Bowie-hallowed
ground. You could see the Wall from the studio. Richard went over and found
they have jeans and chocolate and lipstick just like real people. Last year he
did a CND (Commit- tee for Nuclear Disarmament) benefit. He says he'll do
benefits for lots of things. "I'm all for supporting CND. My parents-in
their 50s and 60s-are both members, going on all these marches, which is
great." He calls himself "naive" but I don't believe it. He has
very good bones. There's talk of him appearing in some movie about ol'
longneck, Modigliani. He doesn't know anything about the new psychedelia except
that he hates Dr. & The Medics and Gene Loves Jezebel and has never even
heard of Green On Red, who also used to impersonate Bob Dylan in front of the
mirror. He likes the original five-year-old version of "Pretty In
Pink" better than the film version.
If you could make pop writers write what you wanted them to
say about you, what would you tell them to write, Richard?
"I'd like them to tell the truth." And what,
Richard, is the truth? "That we're brilliant!"
