Grown Up Strange
From the undergrowth, tangled and damp and dark, the secret place where no
one ever goes... that's where they grew, and took their form, and awaited their hour. And now it's here, and here they come, closer, unstoppable. But don't be anxious. The Psychedelic Furs love you.
"I'm in love with Beautiful Chaos, I'm in love with Flowers. We Love You The Psychedelic Furs."
What are they on about? What am I on about? We're talking about one of the best bands around; a band whose music never fails to send my imagination AWOL, wandering away in a dozen directions of speculation and daydream all at once. The Furs are a rich and heady mixture, inspiring and unpredictable.
But over to you, Butler Rep (not so much the singer as supplier of voice noises): "The history of the group is we're all from South or south of London. We played places like the Roxy two years ago under the name of The Psychedelic Furs, and when the whole punk thing started it just struck us as being really ridiculous. It was so negative. From the whole punk movement only a few statements stick in my mind - and they don't make sense. "We were against that from the start, so we just decided to go out and call ourselves The Psychedelic Furs. The two words together just summed something up, without actually meaning anything. You feel something."
The band, in those early days, comprised essentially of Butler plus brother Tim on bass, with guitarist Roger Morris and saxophone player Duncan Kilburn. A second guitar was added at the start of this year, supplied by John Ashton, whilst the long, dispiriting search for a permanent drummer ended only recently with the addition of ex-Photon Vince Ely. And so, through those two long years, the Furs' sound was nurtured in near-seclusion, hidden away from the daylight. It grew up strange.
And others grew curious. As the past months saw more intense activity, so Business interest was slowly aroused. Perhaps in a fit of post-Conference determination, desperate to invest in some of that developing talent they've hitherto missed, it was CBS who moved in first. And that's why we're whiling away this sunny.afternoon inside the CBS building. In another room upstairs, the ink's still drying on a bundle of just-signed contracts. And that's why The Psychedelic Furs are feeling in such an expansive mood- that, and the copious quantities of company grub and celebration booze presently getting consumed.
Smakk, spiv-dapper John Ashton, looks at the spread, and ponders the corrupting potential of success. "This is how it happens, isn't it? You can get fat and obsessed so quick." Vince: "I think we've come to an upper-class doss-house.
It's true that CBS and the Furs make a surprising combination, with its only vague precedent being The Only Ones. I wondered if the band foresaw any problems in signing straight to such a major?
"I don't think it'll make any difference," says John. “As for pressures," adds Butler, "they signed us for the material we're doing. The first single will either be "We Love You" or "Fall" and the first album is going to be the material we're doing now. So there's no pressure on us, we do it our way."
In fact they describe their deal as "low fee, high control", extending to the choice of producer Steve Lillywhite. “Obviously we want as many people as possible to hear what we're doing and that's why we wanted a big company instead of a small one."
Given our culture's present preference for re-cycling over creativity, it's hardly remarkable that we've already heard the first murmurings of 'psychedelic revival'. We'd better stress that the Furs won't be there.
It's absolutely nothing to do with us," John affirms. "We're definitely not a revivalist band." Butler: "We're not taking any notice of fashions or trends and we haven't done in the past. Otherwise we would have called ourselves The Razorblades or whatever when we played The Roxy. We haven't tried to foresee trends; we've just done what we felt.
"We are 'Psychedelic in that we have the attitude that was going on in the '60s with bands like Pink Floyd when they were experimental and starting out. It was infinitely better than what happened in punk and we've thought that from the beginning.
"All that we're taking from the '60s is a basic attitude that people, individuals, should be inventive. We have an attitude in which we believe as a band that you go on with an instrument and try to be as inventive as you can, within certain structures. I think we're out on our own, apart from the bands coming along recently like Scritti Politti that are taking the same attitude.
"And the same thing goes for the lyrics. It's just experimenting with different things to say all the time. Nothing you say is final. Nothing is the best you will ever do.
"There was a time when I used to go on with lots of make-up, and that was just being silly. At that time we didn't really know what we were doing, but now we've got much more workmanlike; we are basically trying to say something, and something which is positive.
"We're trying to do something that we haven't heard before... and it requires much more work. But it doesn't freeze: we're never gonna play it the same two nights running. This band will never be like that, and CBS might hate the fact but I don't care."
John again: "And it shouldn't just depend on the band's attitude; it's the people who come and see us that we feed off. What do you feel about it, Duncan?"
"I'm falling off my chair," reports the saxophonist..
Yes, but what are they like? Well it's The Velvet Underground who spring to mind quickest, not least because of the band's apparent fondness for that 'Waiting For The Man' riff, although drummer Vince suggests The Stooges as a closer Parallel.
It's a very linear sound; it keeps steady and goes straight ahead. It's warm and romantic, in a mysteriously dark kind of way, and yet can flick around to show a face that's cold and foreboding.”
"All that we're taking from the '60s is it seems disciplined and detached. Of the musicians, only Duncan Kilburn assumes occasional prominence as he provides the all-pervading sax, softening the guitarists' abrasive attack but strengthening the total effect which is powerful at the same time as it's insinuating.
Butler, meanwhile, commands the visuals with a seemingly effortless elegance. Nearly ragged, but contrivedly stylish with it, the frontman strikes out his ground with studied indifference.
An impulsive performer, almost. sullen, and facially rather like John- Lydon (whom he admires and likes but thankfully never tries to apel, Butler considers his voice as "a sixth instrument" and he's keen to play down the importance of his role - either as focal point or, through his lyrics, as bearer of any group 'message'.
And it's true that I've always found the Furs' music more than rich in emotional content, even though! couldn't hear the words. It's also clear, nevertheless, that he takes his lyrics seriously-evidenced at our. second meeting some days later when he presented me with a clutch of neatly transcribed compositions. They're anything but bland: fantastical and elaborately, venemous outpourings like 'We Love You' a bizarre and sarcastic litany of bitterness or 'Fall' or 'Flowers' or 'Pulse'. Or the compelling 'Sister Europe'.
Or the most fascinating piece of all, "Imitation Of Christ" the title suggested by an Andy Warhol film rather then Kempis' classic text of medieval Catholic piety. But the song is a savage attack on the religious mind. Blasphemous, but gorgeous in its imagery and instantly reminding me of Jean Genet (the 'Jean Genie' himself), it's the song which audiences seem to feel closest to: processional and decadent.
"Really, it's about a lollipop lady in Finsbury Park," explains Vince Ely. "It's impossible to move this group in any one direction," Butler Rep concludes.
"It's like a stew," says Vince. "You gotta keep stirring it or it'll burn." And John, poetically; "It's like water it flows. It happens - it goes."
Consider us gone.
