An Interview with The Psychedelic Furs
In music as in just about everything- there are actors and there are reactors. At their best, the Psychedelic Furs have always fallen into the latter category. A decade ago, when punk had run its three year course, Richard Butler was one of the first Londoners to catch wind that the corpse was ready to be buried. Along with his bass-toting brother Tim, and a spotty collection of art students, he formed a band "as a reaction to the narrow minded attitudes of punk Happily enough, initial P-Fur volleys like "We Love You" provided plenty of meat to back up the mouth-motion.
But as the old saying goes, all good things must eventually crash off a steep mountain pass After an eponymous debut that blew chunks of art-damaged verbiage into a surprisingly dense maelstrom of shardrock, Talk Talk Talk saw a leavening— Butler's VSOP suave tendencies becoming less closeted and resting cozily in the more melodic creases. Distressed perhaps at the possibility of becoming pop stars, sax player Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger Morris split— less than amicably— and promptly disappeared. With Forever Now, the Butlers, guitarist John Ashton and drummer Vince Ely, decided to stop reacting and instead roll with the punches. Hit singles followed-a chart-topper Pretty In Pink), even but there was little joy in Furville their credibility had struck out.
At the dawn of the 1990s, however, the Psychede Furs have at last found something that's pissed people off enough to make 'em react again. Book Of Days is their seventh LP that fairly screams. What has them so livid? It's simple as taking a look long and hard in the mirror.
"We were guilty of trying to be too Top 40," Tim Butler says of 1987's Midnight To Midnight, an album he and his bandmates positively despise. "We were never meant to be that. We'd had success. but we were striving for that mega, Bon Jovi- type acclaim. It made us go a bit off the rails." “I don’t think we had any idea what we wanted.” counters John Ashton. “Last time out, it was big budget, big production, big hair. You have to cut through that and I think we finally have. We’re back
Back to where our heads used to be Richard Butler, being the introspective, chain-smoking type (not to mention the author of the songs on that much self maligned disc) is a bit more philosophical about things. Not that he differs all that much from the party line. “It's definitely my least favorite of our records," he nods "But it's one we had to make to get a fresh look at things. It was a real release— we went into the album without any plans. I mean, if you sat the four of us in room and told us to make up something. It’d sound pretty much like this record.”
Folks who’ve come to the P. Fur camp at the wake of their silver screen success will be surprised to discover that Butler’s words tacked on Book Of Days is a sullen collection— all stained and laden with regret. It’s marked very much with angst (which, like any other adolescent, Richard Butler has an agonizing acceptance of an existence with plenty & precious few peaks.
“I think everyone is fairly depressed all the time," shrugs Richard. "Those periods last a good long time, whereas the highs go away quickly. Anyone who’s perfectly happy all day. I tend to worry about.”Richard Butler never lets on that he peruses tools to slay his own dragons, much less than the adoring masses. He allows himself a loud guffaw at the mere thought.
"It's pounded into you, doing this that you got something 'important’ to say.” Stating the mere fact that you have the opportunity to say something doesn't mean that it’s worth having to. And I'm speaking for myself as much as anyone else. I'd like to think I've got something to say, it'd be presumptuous for me to think everyone should listen. You come to a point to when you realize you're not going to say anything completely special. But you feel that you're going to."
Butler's deceptively existentialist continues that final phrase might point away from what sounds like, however tentatively, the man has written such mocking verse as "Imitation Of Christ” and “Sister Europe” (and who made the word virtual pop mantra), is becoming positive. Does this mean he's no longer emotionally jaded? he exhales in a cloud of smoke. “In a way, I'll always be that way I always sound very angry or very melancholy, but merely that’s two moods my voice has. It's
out of my control, since I'm not really a singer. I don’t have a singer's voice, I have a voice that's characteristic, which pleases me. I'd rather have a voice that people recognize than a great range.”
The need for Butler to be displeased with his choice of life. Despite five years as a nondrinker and since-lapsed couple as a nonsmoker, he's very capable of emitting his trademark rasp. Pinning these expressions of an ennui-laden expatriate on technical aspects of the Furs, however, once oversimplified. Why does Richard Butler work with such hopelessness?
“I'd say a lot of it has to do with lacking religion,” he muses "Not being even slightly religious keeps you in a much more constant state of solitude emotionally. It makes life easier centrally, if you've got somewhere to turn." Is that the void Butler wants to fill? He pauses for a good while. “Yes.”
The two years since the release of Midnight To Midnight have been marked by frequent, sudden change for the Psychedelic Furs. Guitarist John Ashton finally followed the Butler brothers lead and moved to the States- settling a few blocks away from Tim on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Ashton also found himself forced to reconsider his profession- the hard way- when a drinking binge resulted in an accident that severed some nerves in his hand.
“We were in a state of self-examination as a group.” Ashton adds, sipping a glass of cranberry juice straight up. "We had to sit down and actually find reasons to go on, or else call it a day. There has to be doubts- if you've got no doubts, you tend to disappear up your own backside.” Having apparently found some reasons to carry on (like facing Ashton's cross continental moving, no doubt), the band decided to pull a 180 degree shift in their modus operandi. They honed their songs, haggling endlessly over the arrangement, long before entering the studio. The Ashton led-charge guitarward was embraced by all. They also reunited with drummer Vince Ely, who'd left the Furs just before the release of Mirror Moves about five years ago.
“Vince being back just worked incredibly well on a chemistry level, which is a phrase I've always put down as incredibly stupid," Richard says. "But for a record to be made this way- essentially the band playing live in the studio- chemistry is extremely important." “It’s funny how you don’t miss someone until they’re back.” adds Ashton. “Whether we knew it or not, we were always telling our other drummer to play like Vince. They can try but ultimately, they won’t be able to since they’re not him.”
Ely’s more visceral pounding does keep the drums on Book of Days from getting (in Tim Butler’s words) “too fairy-fairy.” But some of the percussive aggression came from the overall attitude shift. Like “Entertain Me," which harks clear back to The Psychedelic Furs in its atonal, wave of scree approach. “It is pretty raucous," chuckles Richard Butler. That song was the only one on the record that just happened in the studio. John and Knox (Chandler, the second guitarist they've been touring with) were playing around with the riff, I thought it sounded good and went over to get one of Vince's snare drums, set it on the floor of the studio and just started banging. I liked that rackety quality- the sound of total amateurism! Vince, obviously thought he could do it better- or didn't want people to think the amateur sound was his, so we ended up using a proper kit. But the sound is still there.”
That sound- hard, brittle, almost Germanic- isn’t exactly uncharted territory for the band, but as a back-to-the roots type artifact, it works wonders It'd be easy to lay the blame for their recent flabbiness at the feet of auteur type producers like Keith Forsey and Chris Kimsey (who tinkered with "Pretty In Pink and Midnight, respectively), but John Ashton wants the Furs themselves to shoulder the blame.
“It's our fault," he insists. "It shouldn't matter who's producing, because in the end, we're responsible for ourselves. We started out last time wanting to make an album that was hard and ended up overproduced because we couldn't make up our minds about how to do it. This time, we decided to write some decent material and then go in and record quickly in took seven weeks, beginning to end, which is quite good for us.”
It helped, the three reckon that they were afforded a way to tread water for most of 1988 when CBS decided to sneak out All Of The And Nothing a greatest hits disc (with one new track “All That Money Wants.”) “That gave us perspective,” Butler agrees. He bit agitated, gripped with a combination of claustrophobia (having spent the bulk of the past week in hotel rooms and conference rooms) and Camel cravings (not a match in sight), but he soldiers on. “We had to sit down and listen to everything we'd ever done. I don't normally do that I never listen to my own records- so when I did, I found myself asking “Just what is it we do best. And why?”
"Of course, it wasn't the kind of album the band would ve chosen, but then again if we had, we'd have picked a collection of songs that were never released as singles at all.” “Someone who'll remain nameless.” Ashton adds diplomatically from the record company had that complaint “from the record company had complaints about Book Of Days. They said “We don't hear a Pretty In Pink on this album.” Our answer was well, you didn't hear one the first time either.”
True enough- it took the digging of John Hughes to get the thing reissued and stan the Furs down the Yellow Brick Road. While stopping short of outright disdain these days, the three Furs present all insist they'll refrain from such work in the future. But what of the new found Fur fans who've come to love their cuddlier, MTV-friendly material?
"We should have respect for our audience," Ashton affirms. "But then our audience should have respect for what we do- it's a two-way thing. We made this record to please ourselves. Essentially, we've done them all for that reason- we've just been more successful with some. But for new fans...well...they'll have to grow with it or stay away. We're not pulling any punches."
In examination of the outside world, that's always been true of Richard Butler and Company. Book Of Days, however, is almost painfully self-critical-with songs like "Should God Forget" and the aforementioned "Entertain Me" burrowing deep into the psyche of the artist as a no longer all that young man. "I always think about why I think about what I think about," Richard ventures. "Creating something with those thoughts is just an urge I have. I don't know why I do it..."
Is he surprised that he's left a mark on people? "I don't really care about that," he replies. "People get bored with everyone eventually, I suppose. But as long as you're genuinely trying to express the way you feel, you'll never run out of things to say. It's not a matter of trying to leave an epitaph, though." His best work-from "Sister Europe" through the cut-up images of Book Of Days "Wedding" and "Mother/Son" have rarely tried to say anything directly. Or so it must seem to listeners used to more linear forms of expression. The message, like the medium, is just far enough off-center to do funny little jigs amongst your nerve endings.
"I've always felt guilty about writing a song that doesn't have some root in meaning," Butler insists. But when I write out the words, if they're too narrative, I won't use them. I don't like to say things in obvious ways. Facts are boring-imagery brings things to life much more effectively."
Sounds more like the attitude of an artist (Butler did attend art college for a spell in the Furs' early days) than a craftsman. Does he feel his-the Furs'-work is utilitarian? "No," he sighs. "There's no real purpose in any of it, I would imagine. If I weren't able to be a performer, I'd still write things down. I'd still paint.”
Does he still practice the latter craft? "No, and I want desperately to get back to it. I've been telling myself that for years.' Until he decides to take the bait and follow in the footsteps of Pablo Picasso (in his eyes, this century's only bona fide genius), Richard Butler is left to the world of commerce via pop music. Like a lot of things, he accepts that, clad in a cloak of resignation.
"I don't think there are any great truths to be discovered," he whispers, staring out across the skyline. "When you're very young, you think other people have answers, and there are big things they know that you don't. I think when you get older, you realize there ain't anything more to be found. There are lots of little truths, and it's a delight to hear them said the right way. Thinking that way is a phase everybody has to go through, really," Butler smiles thinly. "You know, when I was young, I used to believe it was us against them. And my music put that across. That's still a neat little truth to hang onto, but it's not so. It's much more scary when you realize the truth- there is no us. It's all them."