Fur Below
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, but there’s a lot of it about. Jackie Wilson just made Number One in Britain, Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves A Woman” is the latest ‘60s classic to be used in a Levi’s TV ad, Siouxsie and the Banshees have just managed to ? their way into the charts again with the umpteenth cover version of Dylan’s “Wheel’s on Fire” and even Bruce Springsteen covered Edwin Starr’s “War” as his last single. Could there be any better time to belong to a group with a resoundingly ‘60s name like the Psychedelic Furs?
Sipping a grey-looking cup of tea, chief Fur Richard Butler contemplates the fourth interview of the day without enthusiasm. In West London, it’s raining and it’s cold, though a roaring heater is beginning to stoke up suffocating heat in the cramped basement room. But after more than two years of silence, there’s now a new album and a new world tour to promote, so the show goes on...
“I don’t think our name’s dated,” he reasons, after some thought. “You could say it was dated when we made it up. But no, I don’t think it is particularly of the ‘60s. I think it’s got a certain kind of humor in it and I like the sound of it. “Mind you, there have been times when I haven’t liked it – like when you’re on the road in the middle of America and waitresses ask you which group you’re in and you say the er, the Psychedelic Furs. They go. Psychedelic how's that? Fuzz? First? But no, I don't regret the name now."
As lyric writer, singer and poser-in-chief in Psychedelic Furs videos (just check those body twirls in Angels Don't Cry), the press duties automatically fall to Butler. Actually, the role suits him perfectly. Tall, fair and spaghetti-thin, he brings a languid charm to the task. even when inspiration is difficult to find. Butler ought to be impressing upon me (so that I can impress upon you) how marvellous the Furs' new album, Midnight To Midnight, is but that's not really his style. Still, he maintains, there's a lot more going on in a song like Heartbeak Beat than British critics gave it credit for when it was released as a single last year.
"I think the actual arrangement of what's going on with the guitars and the saxophone underneath the verses is really unusual," he argues, sounding suspiciously musicianly. "It's not something I would call mainstream it's got an unusual kind of texture in it, and we've done quite a lot of that on the album." It would take a brave man to argue a case for the Psychedelic Furs being any kind of musical innovators. Midnight To Midnight is produced by Chris Kimsey, whose previous credits include the Rolling Stones and Killing Joke, and it is a tough, rough rock album. But revolutionary? No. Some of the new songs even sound as though they were designed with live shows more in mind, especially All Of The Law.
"It's funny," chuckles Butler, "but All Of The Law was one which didn't work as well live as we wanted it to. It works well on record, but we've had to cut it down for the stage show. There's something not quite clicking right with it. Shock sounds great live, and Heartbreak Beat and Shadow In My Heart are going over great on tour." Midnight To Midnight, with its pummelling beats and raging guitars, was conceived as an antidote to the softer qualities of its predecessor, 1984's commercialish Mirror Moves. which featured hypnotic ballads like My Time and Heaven.
"Mirror Moves was really like a studio made album," Butler recalls. "We went in and put the drum tracks down first, sometimes with the bass, sometimes not. Then we'd put the guitar on top of that and then maybe we'd change the melody round a bit, so we'd go back and change the drum track on the drum machine.
"But with this new album, it was more like playing as a band, thought afterwards I'd still want to change things round. I was constantly changing lyrics and melodies..it was driving Chris Kimsey mad! I'd nick a bit out of one song and stick it into another one and by the end, I had about three different ways of singing Angels Don't Cry and at least two versions of Heartbreak Beat. Finally Chris said 'OK, you've got to settle on just one version of each song, you're driving me crazy." Still, Midnight To Midnight does suffer from an overall sameness. Butler doesn't claim it's a perfect album, but he reckons it's the one the Furs wanted to make at this stage of their lives.
"Mirror Moves was a great album, but in retrospect I kind of missed the attack that earlier albums had had. We wanted to stick some more guitar edge on this one." Butler is disgusted by the flaccid condition of rock music these days and doesn't mind who hears his views. "I think people are being ripped off by all the stuff on the radio," he spits. "I think they're being ripped off by the pop industry," he stresses, spilling his tea over his trousers in agitation. "Advertisers want to hear the Top-40, and if you want to be a successful pop band, you've got to be on these stations.
"There's got to be a point where bands say I’ve had enough if that's what rock music's about, then I'm just not interested any more!' We're certainly at that point we've never gone for that market, but it's just got to the point that you think 'I don't care if this record sells a million or only 50 copies I just want it to be a record that I feel is great.'
Having said that, there's no doubt. which sales figure Butler has in mind for the new album. So what is there about success that appeals to him? "Money. I think it's really addictive, I think fame's kind of addictive. That's why I like America, especially when we went to play Boston; in certain areas of North Eastern America we're a superstar band. And in Boston we've been the best selling album in the last couple months. It's the same in New York..."
The Psychedelic Furs belong to a mini-generation of groups who sprang from the fertile soil of the late '70s, goaded into action by the punk explosion but more influenced by Lou Reed, David Bowie and the Stooges. Alongside them you could bracket Joy Division/New Order, Echo & The Bunnymen and Simple Minds, each of whom has developed their own particular niche while exploiting a belief of some sort in the power and imaginative scope of rock music. Emerging into the daylight as the '80s dawned, the Furs received immediate press attention in England, but weren't the first group to discover that adulation from NME, Sounds and Melody Maker doesn't automatically guarantee platinum status or even a small operating profit!
After making a couple of albums their eponymous debut album and 1981's Talk Talk Talk, both produced by Steve Lillywhite they went to America to record Forever Now with Todd Rundgren. A single from it, Love My Way, became a substantial U.S. hit, largely due to Rundgren's insistence that Butler should have a stab at actually singing in place of his preferred ranting.
"I still feel Talk Talk Talk was a brilliant album that was massively underestimated in its time," says Butler now, "and I feel kind of resentful about that. On the other hand, you feel 'How can we get ourselves across?', and that's probably how you get a song like Love My Way coming through. Todd said the radio will love this if you just sing it and I thought 'Yeah, that's what I want I want the radio to like it and for it to get played.' That's where the pressure comes in, but in a way it's a healthy pressure."
As American audiences built up, logic began to demand that America should become the band's operating base, and so Butler moved to New York, where he now feels very much at home "I've got my apartment in the Village and I like having coffee on Bleeker St., it's just got into a habit and there's no place equivalent in Britain. New York's a real rock'n'roll town."
By the time they released the accessible, tuneful Mirror Moves under the guidance of crafty Keith Forsey in 1984, the Furs had scored a sizeable hit with Heaven and could fill out quite large venues on tour, so paying the rent was no longer a problem. By this time, the band's nucleus had been whittled down to Butler, his brother Tim on bass and guitarist John Ashton. This trio have written all the material for the new album, although they're augmented on tour by a quartet of musicians including drummer Paul Garisto and hornman Mars Williams, both Furs collaborators of long standing.
The Furs have remained touchingly old-fashioned, still strutting about in their leathers and guitars while all the other hip British bands are having a go at plastic soul music or idealistic pompous rock anthems for the Live Aid generation. The Furs' lack of guile is still part of their charm, but it may also be their downfall.
A more opportunistic, money-minded outfit would surely have cashed in harder on John Hughes' movie Pretty In Pink, which was based on a song taken from their Talk Talk Talk album. A rerecording of the tune gave the Furs a major hit ("I think the original version has a better spirit in all honesty," grins Butler) and an album release last autumn would have made perfect commercial sense.
But it didn't happen that way..partly because the Furs' record label, CBS, were preoccupied with snowballing demand for Bruce Springsteen's box of live albums. A British tour was also scrapped, which has led to accusations that the Furs no longer care for their homeland and that British fans who have followed the band since '79 feel badly treated.
"I don't see why they should," answers Butler quickly. "We don't make any money touring Britain, we lose money. It's much better for us to at least lose money when we've got a record to promote rather than just lose money out of hand.I think the other thing is English audiences, they've been really good but compared to American audiences they don't go over the top in the same way, which I kind of miss. I miss crazy Americans. I think when you get people going crazy in the audience it drives you to do more, you might be giving 100% but you then give 110% and you get an extra 10 from the audience.”
Most of 1987 will be spent touring "Other bands come up to us and say 'God, how do you do such long tours? But we've just got used to it and I actually enjoy doing it these days", after which Richard Butler plans to begin work on his long-awaited solo album. He has stepped outside of the band framework only once before, when he recorded the Brecht/Weill classic. The Alabama Song for 1985's Lost In The Stars collection.
"People had compared me to David Bowie before that but if you play his version and mine right next to each other, I think it puts paid to that notion!" And then what? Butler pauses and finally reckons the band will continue the search for the perfect Psychedelic Furs album, which he modestly admits they still haven't made.
"I just want to try and make the final album and stand back and say 'that's what we're about. So if anyone ever asks me what I used to do, I can give 'em that album and say 'There! And I'm proud of it!"