Treading Water
Watching The Psychedelic Furs could get to be a religious experience.
"We've just done a video for our new single, "Love My Way, and because it's a really airy, spacey kind of song we thought we'd get cloud machines and project them all over the place. Then we thought it'd be nice to use water as another reflective surface. I think you can see we're meant to be walking on It," explains lead singer Richard Butler, "but it tends to look a bit more like we're paddling. It's quite good actually.
The Psychedelic Furs, you may recall, are the London four piece who formed back in 1977 and feature Tim Butler, Vince Ely and John- Ashton alongside Richard. Most people's idea of the archetypal cult band, they've just finished recording their third album, due for September release, with the legendary Todd Rundgren in the good old USA.
"It took us about two months in all," explains Richard, "and we were living right next door to Todd's studio in Woodstock, a boring town about three hours drive away from New York City.
But we chose Todd because he'd done some covers of the Beatles stuff and we heard 'Strawberry Fields' while we were touring round the States and we thought anybody who can get all those sounds down that accurately has got to be good for the sounds we want. "And it's worked out great. We used a lot more Instrumentation. Cellos, synthesisers, a horn section and backing vocalists.”
"We're going to start rehearsing in about a week's time for a tour of England, Europe, America and, hopefully, we'll do Japan this time too. We've still got to decide exactly what we're going to do on stage having got all this sound on the album. We may use tapes. I want to go for a cello player live but there are disagreements about that. Some of the band want a horn section which you can synthesise better.”
"And we're still working on ideas of slides to use as backdrops on particular songs. There's an old Warren Beatty film where at one point It flashes up a lot of images. It says 'love' and you get a picture of a family. 'Death' and there's a picture of somebody lying dead. Then it's 'love' again and there's a picture of the Hitler Youth. It flickers in and out and you get all these images mixed.
"We've got this song called President Gas', an anti political song, and that would seem to fit in there. I think the stage show's going to be quite a big production because the tour takes us right through until next February."
Touring is something the Furs are quite used to, especially in America where they've undertaken a couple of three month jaunts already. In fact In many ways the group are bigger across the great pond than at home in Blighty.
"Yeah," acknowledges Richard, "and I don't know why. We're still not on a level with the Human League or Soft Cell for Instance but we're like a big cult band. "I suppose it would seem logical to go over there and live, instead of battering our heads against a brick wall here. But then again I think this album will be successful here. We've been quite successful as an albums band but never as a singles band.
"But I've got high hopes. because 'Love My Way is doing pretty well at the moment and we'll release a follow up when that starts going down.”
"I think there's a permanent British Invasion across in America. They all have a lot of respect for British bands since the Beatles. And having done a couple of tours we've been to some towns about four or five times and got to know some people which is nice.”
"Some places are great. Like Austin in Texas which is a huge college town. I I couldn't believe the music scene there. They're very anglophile and very aware of music for such a small town in the middle of nowhere. But we have had some flak there, especially in some of the cowboy towns. They see you walking around with make up on and wearing pastel coloured clothes and they really go for you.”
"In Richmond Virginia we played a real cowboy bar. They had one of those bulls where you put your money in and it throws you up against the wall. We came in for some real stick there. But it's fun. It adds a bit more adrenalin and excitement to the show."
Prior to forming the Furs Richard spent the obligatory spell on the dole after leaving art college where he studied Fine Art. "I still paint for enjoyment," he says, recalling the four years spent studying only to find there was no work. "At some future time I think it might be nice to set up an 'art' company with the Psychedelic Furs as artists. But that's a little way off. "I just started the Furs because I couldn't get any work doing art. I asked my brother Tim if he'd like to start a band and he didn't want to play drums because a drum kit was too expensive so he thought he'd get a bass because that had fewer strings than a guitar so it'd be easier to play. It just started like that, just with friends.
"When I made up the name, psychedelic seemed more of an era and a feel, than it was anything to do with drugs. But not in America. It's like calling yourself the Drugged Furs which has been more of a problem over there."
But not too much of a problem because the future's looking pretty psychedelic and rosy for the Furs with a host of projects lined up. "It's nice to move Into something else," says Richard. "CBS in America are keen on the idea of me doing a solo LP of covers next year. And we may be doing the soundtrack for a movie by the girl who made 'Fall Of The West' about punk in Los Angeles. It's good to have these things building up because only half of them
ever work out."
Watch out for the Psychedelic Furs. They'll be walking on water yet.