Richard Butler is calmly perched at the edge of two irreconcilable worlds, busy breaking down the subject matter of each into its smallest molecular components and reassembling the pieces into new compounds. The high priests of paradox, Chairman Richard and his fellow Furs have no fears of mixing the deeply romantic with a cinema verite seaminess; of wedding biting social commentary to disillusioned apathy; of simultaneous emulation and deflation of the pop star mythology; or of evoking intense LSDeification while abstaining from even smoking a casual joint. In fact, their name is itself born of contradiction: when the band was formed in the heady aftermath of the Sex Pistols' "Don't look at us; you can do it too" ideology, they flaunted the punks' anti-flower child conventions and deliberately chose "Psychedelic" for the main part of their moniker; "Furs" was added as an afterthought: "We sat around thinking, 'Let's call it psychedelic something; shoes, shirts, whatever.' Furs just sounded nice."
The Furs' ally in their punk-psychedelia recombination is the diffuse, hypnotic, dreamlike abstraction of their music. Contradictions filter down through the sometimes malevolent, sometimes luxuriant swirl of "beautiful chaos" and may take repeated listenings before their ultimately natural logic settles in. By any standards of pop, this group is an "acquired taste"; once acquired, however, the taste can be addictive, as shown by the Furs' steady growth in popularity: their new Todd Rundgren produced Forever Now stands at #68 on the album charts and their hauntingly ethereal "Love My Way" is at #64 on the singles charts after British success and plenty of American new music airplay.
To see Richard Butler onstage is to understand the more visceral, revelatory part of the Furs' cosmos. He is a genuine rock 'n' roll spectacle, seducing the audience with the melodrama of Bowie, the androgyny of Jagger and the sneer of Sex Pistols era Johnny Lydon. He sings pointedly to one girl in the front row, touches the hand of another, then leaps offstage onto the floor, enticing the screaming, energized crowd with his charismatic proximity.
"In Atlanta," new drummer Phil Calvert recalls, "Richard actually walked on the audience like they were a sea of people. He just walked on their hands. It was really wonderful; they all held him up."
Another riveting onstage moment comes during the Furs' "Imitation Of Christ": when Butler spreads his arms in mock crucifixion, fists clenched, silhouetted by brilliant white spotlights, the acid religion surrealism of Butler's vision defies description. How does Butler feel about being a fourth wave sex symbol? "Is that what I am? No, I'm not interested in that at all." When asked what happened to his bandaged arm, Butler says, "I was reaching out to the audience and some girl scratched my wrist." Not interested, but somehow it happens anyway. A typical Furs' paradox.
Richard and his brother Tim, the Furs' bassist, arrive for our interview in leather, Richard's jacket at least five sizes overlarge. His hair is longer now, bouffed up into a shag. The Butlers sit somewhat slumped; Richard for the most part stares into his Heineken. Occasionally he regards me smilingly, particularly when his fancy is tickled: "You know the line from 'Fall': 'Needles on the beach at Goa, you will have another flower'? I heard all these people went out as hippies and became junkies when they got to Goa; somebody told me the beach actually crunched under your feet with hypodermic syringes. I thought that was great...I had to use it."
Though the Furs are hardly as fashion obsessed as most English bands, Butler ardently subscribes to the late-60s ethic of playing with one's image and the relationship with one's audience. He has presently abandoned the dark outfits and shades of past tours for a blue suit with silk scarf, conjuring not only Bowie but the English cabaret era. Gone, too, is his stage habit of concealing his face with his hands held at differing angles. "I think Richard's much more cool these days, with his blue suit," remarks guitarist John Ashton. "He's upfront now, he doesn't really lurk in the shadows anymore. It's a different Butler, a quite a bit more accessible Butler, a Butler that isn't quite as arrogant...."
Despite his improvements in vocal range and melodicism evident on the Forever Now album and tour, Dylan and Lou Reed influenced Richard casts an overlaying modesty upon the subject of his voice: "I've got a very limited sort of vocal range to work within. I wouldn't say I'm a singer per se. The producers are pretty aware I can't sing," he laughs easily. "I've probably got nodes in the throat that've hardened nicely."
Nevertheless, he has been planning to record a solo album of songs by the likes of Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf when and if the Furs' frenzied schedule permits (the tour is slated to last through mid-'83). "I was going to do an EP in England of cover songs. Columbia over here suggested making an LP...and that I use Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, which in fact I wouldn't want to do, because I'm pretty content with Tim playing bass."
The Furs are anxious to abandon sleepy London town for New York. "Everybody over here has got this image of England as being a great place but we're pretty bored with it," grouses Richard. "It rains all the time and it's grey and everything closes at eleven o'clock. It's great for us over here, we love it. People understand the music more here..England's very trendy.
"At first, because we were sort of 'underground,' the English critics really raved about it, and then as soon as we started getting a bit popular with Talk Talk Talk, they tried to put it down again. They like to build people up and try to knock 'em down. Nobody in the band really gave a damn anyway. The critics are pretty ineffectual, generally; they're imbeciles for the large part. And with Forever Now, they've gone for it again, so I'm a bit dubious."
Indeed, for a band whose stated mission is to "out-weird the weirdos," anyone's unquestioned allegiance is unwelcome..especially the punks'. "When punk rock came along in England, the whole idea was everybody should be an individual, everybody should rebel against conformity," Richard recalls. "What happened was that all these kids dressed exactly the same spiky hair, leather jackets, and that was very conformist, you know? I'd like to think we get all kinds of people, a cross section. It means you're being successful in a way, in making people believe in what they want to. I mean, that's what we're saying: do exactly what you want."
Butler has stated a wish to make a lyrically definitive album, then quit music to do something else, such as silkscreening or literature. Is Forever Now close to being that ultimate statement? "No, it's not, at all," replies Richard. "I think for an album to be a definitive statement, it'd have to be much more positive. I think it's getting more positive all the time, but for me to leave, an album would have to be something like the Bible.... The albums we've done in the past are always saying, 'Don't do this,' and 'Don't do that,' but a definitive album would have to be saying, 'Do this, this is good.' It's so easy to be negative, but it's very difficult to be positive unless you do it in a really wimpy way like those flower-power bands and all that, which never really worked."
Does he know what sort of positive things he'd like to spread? "Ah, peace and love and... no, I haven't actually thought it out quite yet. I'll let you know...."
The Psychedelic Furs, the band's 1980 coming out, perfectly captures their initial musical approach, a clear product of the topical punk sound. Six ostentatious Furs sputtered viscous, thickly chiaroscuro rivers of sound energy, meshing in rushing, whirring planes. The locomotive, earthbound sonic barrage, occasionally rearing up with the untamed bray of Duncan Kilburn's saxophone, combined with shockingly surreal and vituperative lyrics ("We cut his eyes with razor blades, and out of him comes foul white light ("Flowers") to mark this as the first band since the Doors to be listened to in the dark, where things psychic and sexual occur and where truths emerge glinting and beautiful.
The sound spread upward from gut level in 1981. Talk Talk Talk's lewdly perpetual overtones and sonic effects mark an ascent to upper atmospheric headlands, to weird, revolving, jelly-squirting vortexes and ice chambers emitting blistering globules.
In a purely lyrical sense, Talk Talk Talk is Richard Butler's Blonde On Blonde, not as good, certainly, but fully sharing the frequent use of mundane random images transformed into rich symbols to describe a situation ("A heavy rain a holiday/ A painting of the wall/ A knife a fork and memories/ A light to see it all"). Talk also depicts distanced girl examination and worship, and the weary sense of a hangout continuum in which awareness is an endless, multi-exposed freeze-frame of weird neighbors, utterly ambiguous friends, circular pavement-beating movement and dark, stoned where-are-we-at-but-too-cool-to-break-down apartment scenes.
The Furs' sound streamlined in '82. Popular saxophonist Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger "Dog" Morris were sacked for personal and aesthetic reasons respectively, drummer Vince Ely quit for dislike of touring (Richard: "very lazy"), and the remaining Furs; the Butlers and John Ashton achieved a lighter, more varied and explorative sound. New drummer Phil Calvert, formerly of Australia's Birthday Party, is better suited to his fellow Furs and has a wider musical sensibility than Ely, adding melodic and textural ideas that go beyond his drum kit.
Producer Todd Rundgren, an early master of texture and sound layering whose Nazz had a psychedelic hit with "Open My Eyes," aided the Furs' transition when Forever Now was recorded last summer at his Bearsville, New York studios. The album is much cleaner and instrumentally distinct than predecessors The Psychedelic Furs and Talk Talk Talk, qualities the band had felt sorely wanting.
Rundgren also brought in Woodstock-based Gary Windo to play horns, who in turn suggested Anne Sheldon for cello. Both are now touring with the band, along with young keyboardist Ed Buller of London, who handles the often prominent Rundgren recorded parts with acumen. It was also Todd's idea to use the legendary Flo & Eddie of the late Turtles and Mothers as background vocalists. Richard was "a bit doubtful" at first but liked their work upon hearing it. "They're our standup comedy duo," he muses. "When they were staying with us they brought these girls back for us, you know, they thought we needed girls. I had to make an excuse and I went out fishing at five o'clock in the morning. I couldn't stand it."
Good fishing in Bearsville? "No, didn't catch a thing." "That's why you went out," notes Tim.... In many ways guitarist John Ashton is the Furs' Keith Richards: he takes the band's musical progression and purpose quite seriously, he dresses with penultimate flash (leopard tights, greenish gnome's cap) yet remains a background figure onstage. Ashton is spiritually and by inclination the group's Stoned Soul.
John is, in fact, lovable. His puppy-dog eyes peer through the nestle of rooster hair overhanging his forehead as he speaks. John's feelings towards the split are much more mixed than the Butlers'; the dis missal of Morris and Duncan Kilburn, in fact, gave him the option of ex-Furdom as well. "Richard phoned me up from Boston," Ashton recalls. "It was crossroads, really, at that point. 'We work together or we don't work together, this is it, I'm not going on with this any longer.' It was either working with Richard, or with Duncan and Roger. And I felt I would get more working with Richard. I felt I could at least come across with a sort of raunchy minimalism, fill up the gaps where he wanted. And could also impart a little bit of my interpretation."
John makes no secret of dearly missing Morris' guitar style and Kilburn's "wacky parts," though towards the end Roger's lack of input made their partnership boring: "I miss that whole part, I miss Duncan, I miss Roger, I miss that whole scene altogether because it was wild, it was wacky, it was totally blatant, totally rude..it was a rock 'n' roll band, and what we've got now, basically, is a couple of guys who are thinking along the same lines."
John's commitment to the present aggregation, however, is unmistakable: "There's still work to be done on the show. I guess we might've pulled it off last year in the same situation by just playing really loud and being really arrogant. Now we know we are crossing over in a way. We're playing more of the larger, polite, sit-down venues, not the hot sweaty clubs, and we want to be good at it. It's not just throwin' yourself around, gettin' lots of feedback and makin' a big noise, it's actually music."
The conversation turns to Anne Sheldon and Gary ("call me 'Sax Giant'") Windo, the former classically trained, the latter a veteran session stimulant whose experience ranges from free-jazz collaborations with the likes of Carla Bley to work with lan Hunter and Pink Floyd. The cross-breeding has reaped musical stimulation on all sides and aided the Furs' focus and maturation as a band. "Anne's going over to more 'head' music, as it were, says Ashton. "She's throwing away what she's been trained in for feel, which is where we come from. We're a feel band, you know?"
Of the cello, John contends, "There you have a bit of Butler foresight; a keen, shrewd bit of work on Richard and Tim's part. They'd been thinking about getting a cellist in for a long, long time, and they convinced me. She's great, she's got lots of good ideas, she's not like actually working with a session player cellist." Anne, in fact, fits in so well that permanent membership has been discussed: the decision hangs on the success of her current songwriting efforts with the band.
Was working with Todd Rundgren equally cooperative? "Todd didn't really like a couple of the songs,' John laughs. "He said, 'Aw, it's punk rock, y'know.' Which I really fell out with him over. I was really trying to wind Todd up and make him get a bit weird and he wasn't into it. He's mister straight man and I got really pissed off with him at one point, I actually walked out of the studio drunk, shouting, pointing back at the window, because I was so wound up.
"I mean, the guy's brilliant. He's fantastic, I wouldn't have any qualms about working with him again. Like with Richard and Tim, I can get pissed at them and shout and scream and I know if it's really worth anything I'll get a result, and they know they can do that to me.
"It was great, we all learned a hell of a lot. The band as such, a three- or four-piece at the time, was close, really close, and the sessions brought us more together than anything."
I have been invited to attend a Furs' rehearsal session in New York. A female voice over an intercom directs me to the right studio, and I push open the door. There are Phil, John and Tim (Richard is late) at the far end of the rehearsal hall, brightly lit, jamming powerfully, surrounded by plush floor and wall carpentry, three pianos, and yards of amps and other equipment about. There passes a long period of apparently fruitless jamming as John and Tim skitter through riffs and moods and move on quickly. Phil Calvert follows smoothly, though complaining of a lack of inspiration. They don't swing from the heels with rambling, indulgent jamming, and seldom get into extended entropic meditations. The Furs are pointed.
Finally, after perhaps forty minutes, Tim latches onto a chord structure, John a lead, and they work out an effective verse first skeletally hummed in John's hotel room the night before capped by two jarringly disjunct high squeals from John, he's capable of the Big Surprise, despite the seeming 60s familiarity of his guitar patterns. So are the Furs. I had begun to accept Ashton's Clapton-Jorma Kaukonen guitar sources as being part not only of the band's roots, but their destiny as well. But even this is to place a box over the Furs, which I suspect they could crack with a few solid chords.
Richard arrives, runthroughs and lulls ensue, and it becomes evident that the group likes to switch instruments, probably a heritage of their I-can't-play-so-I'll-try-this days. These efforts range from the quite serious and practical (John's explorative piano tinkerings and Richard's guitar illustrations) to the playfully enthusiastic (Richard's reasonably adroit drumming) to goofball humor (John's hysterical imitation of an American heavy metal blues screamer and Tim's onstage lip-synching of Richard's vocal mannerisms). "You looked like you wanted to be a lead singer out there tonight," I tell Tim, to which he replies, "I can't sing off-key enough."
Such maneuvers are a delight to observe, powerful evidence of the Furs' looseness, lack of elaborate ego protection, and tacit curiosity in the blurred boundaries of dreams and wakefulness, of surreality and reality, of this world and alternate ones.
Richard stands on a building ledge in his overcoat, arms stretched to the brick behind, face the dry feline observer. Tim's face is in a window just beside; he watches as well, bearing the crescent beginnings of his smile, the cat who just swallowed the canary. But John, John is amid the boiling street masses coalescing somewhere between celebration and chaos. With gunfire and violence swirling, he's sticking out like a spotlight and brandishing a gargantuan cellophane machete high with one hand and copper beer stein high with the other, loony grin beaming a consuming pleasure and madness....
