For Heaven’s Sake
The Psychedelic Furs!
First time I heard that name, in 1978, I knew they'd be good. Then I saw vocalist Richard Butler, ambling like a sleepwalker through the Soho offices of CBS Records - wraparound shades, pale skin drawn tight over bones- and I was certain.
Finally, I saw them play some subterranean dungeon in London's Camden Town. It was like a dream threatening to become a nightmare. Too many people, not enough air, too much smoke, green lights and music like a tidal wave picking me up and shaking me like a rag doll. I went home shattered but feeling luminous.
However often I saw them or met them in CBS (where I was working at the time), they remained mysterious, potentially dangerous but endlessly fascinating. Renegades. Degenerates.
Then came the CBS Christmas Party. Richard and brother Tim showed up. Would there be trouble? Would it end in grief? Not quite. They simply took control of the stereo and played Abba records all night long. "Dancing Queen" and "Take A Chance", over and over. We all laughed a lot that night.
We're sitting in a vacant office at CBS. Phones ring. Muted music throbs from nearby rooms. Through a window in the door behind Richard's head I see members of Freur and The Shillelagh Sisters going about the business of becoming pop stars.
Richard, looking healthier and happier than I've ever seen him, talks most of the time. Tim listens quietly, occasionally adding brief comments. But who are these people, and why has it taken seven years to have their first hit record?
"We never set out to become pop stars," says Richard, "but if that happens as a by-product of what we do, I don't mind."
Including the word 'psychedelic' in their name at the height of the punk era was seen by many as commercial suicide but it was method rather than madness.
"All the other bands had violent names like Clash and Stranglers and Damned. We wanted something that made us stick out," Richard recalls, lighting his first cigarette of the interview. "Besides, people were saying the '60s was rubbish and we disagreed. A lot of our influences, like Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground, came from them."
Although they never took the charts by storm, The Furs gathered several well-respected admirers. David Bowie, who has twice expressed a desire to produce them, is no stranger at their live shows, and Bob Dylan recently wrote a song for them.
"We were amazed he'd even heard of us but, apparently, his daughter loves us and then he got into it and decided to write us a song." Though they love the song, "Clean Cut Kid", it doesn't fit their style and hasn't been recorded. Intriguingly, the wheel has gone full circle because it
was Richard and Tim's father, a doctor of chemistry in Richmond, who introduced them to Dylan records. "And Edith Piaf, Hank Williams and Jim Reeves," recalls Tim.
Although doing reasonably in Britain, they did better in America and moved to New York in 1981. Since then, the quintet has reduced to a trio; Richard on vocals, Tim on bass and John Ashton on guitars with others brought in for recording.
Tim and Richard share a small apartment with Richard's actress girlfriend Sherry Jamieson in New York's Little Italy district. "It has a village feeling, lots of musicians and artists, and cafés where we sit on the pavement in the evening."
It's also apparently run by the Mafia, as Richard discovered one day by entering a café and asking for coffee. "The man poured some tea, but he kept giving me strange looks until I left." It was only later that Sherry explained that many cafés are merely fronts for illegal gambling dens. The thriving night club scene operates similarly.
"You see more English groups in a week in New York than you can here," explains Tim, who favours Danceteria and The Ritz, where the music doesn't even start until after midnight. "But illegal clubs suddenly spring up in basements, operate for a few days then get shut down by the police. A week later they open again a few doors down the street."
They both feel that New York has a less fickle attitude to music. "In London clubs,
younger pop musicians won't talk to older ones, but in New York, you wouldn't be surprised to see Madonna, Robert Fripp and Billy Joel chatting to each other. A musician is a musician, whatever his age.
"Tim does the clubs but I usually stay home with Sherry. I have the same pattern every night. A bath, then into bed with the crossword. In fact, my songs are like crosswords."
He spends hours perfecting lyrics, ensuring they're not too obvious or clichéd. Even "Heaven", written quickly in their studio after realising they hadn't enough songs for their fourth album, is subtler than it seems. "The words are like clues to what it's really about, which is nuclear war, but you need to think about them to realise that."
I suggest that his songs are basically unchanged in seven years. Tim looks horrified but Richard nods. "I know what you mean. It's been said that Sting is always trying to write one perfect song, and I'm like that too. I don't think that's bad. How I write remains the same, but I get better at it.
Although the hit has taken years to come, Richard feels The Psychedelic Furs are on course. "When we first signed to CBS they told us they didn't expect hits for several years. That took the pressure off. We didn't have to compromise, so now we're doing exactly what we want and having hits. I have no complaints."
Me neither.
