{"id":28702,"date":"2025-01-21T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28702"},"modified":"2024-12-27T09:31:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T14:31:28","slug":"psychedelic-furs-the-boys-that-reinvented-rock-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/psychedelic-furs-the-boys-that-reinvented-rock-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychedelic Furs: The Boys That (Re)invented Rock & Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the British band approaches its 50th<\/sup> anniversary, they\u2019re still making great new music<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

The Psychedelic Furs burst onto the London postpunk scene in 1977. As the group\u2019s name suggests, the Furs came on strong with a dark, brooding approach that drew from punk and \u201860s psychedelia, setting them apart from many of their contemporaries. From the start, their rough-hewn sound was a hit with critics, earning the band an underground following.<\/p>\n

Led by brothers Richard (vocals) and bassist Tim Butler, The Psychedelic Furs broke through with their third LP, 1982\u2019s Forever Now<\/i>. A single from that record, \u201cLove My Way\u201d was an international hit and a U.S. Top 40 single. The band got another commercial boost in 1986 when a re-recorded version of the title track from their second album was used as the theme song for a popular John Hughes-directed film. The group continued with well-received albums and tours into the early 1990s, and then the Butler brothers put the band on hiatus, launching another group, Love Spit Love.<\/p>\n

But by 2000, the group restarted, and has continued ever since. Unlike many of their contemporaries, though, the Psychedelic Furs have written and released new material rather than coasting on the success of decades past. I spoke with Tim Butler about the Psychedelic Furs\u2019 past, present and future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When the Psychedelic Furs\u2019 self-titled debut album was released in 1980, it was remarkably different from much of what was going on musically at the time. <\/b>In those early days, what was the vision for what the group wanted to do?<\/b><\/p>\n

There was not really any concrete vision. When we started out, we couldn\u2019t really play well, so we sort of went for more of the Velvet Underground-y, elongated songs. We\u2019d jam around and stuff, trying to work out our instruments, basically. The whole sound of songs like \u201cIndia\u201d was just everybody [in the band] trying to be noticed; it was like a wall of chaos. We were huge Roxy Music fans, too. Because Roxy Music has very interesting song arrangements; not your usual verse \/ chorus \/ middle eight \/ verse\/ chorus. So we took our cues from those two bands.<\/p>\n

\"\"Todd Rundgren produced your third album, <\/b>Forever Now<\/b><\/i>. That choice was controversial in some quarters; everyone seemed to have an opinion about it. What were your feelings about it at the time?<\/b><\/p>\n

We thought it was great. We \u2013 especially Vince [Ely], our drummer at the time \u2013 were big fans of his. We were wanting to move on to start using strings and horns. Todd had produced an album called Faithful<\/i>, with covers of songs by the Beach Boys and other bands in that era; he used strings and other interesting instruments and arrangements. So we thought he was a perfect choice when he offered to produce Forever Now<\/i>, and we went into it really excited.<\/p>\n

Along with Made of Rain<\/i>, it\u2019s my favorite Furs album.<\/p>\n

From where did the idea come to have Flo and Eddie [Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles] sing on that album?<\/b><\/p>\n

That was Todd. And at first we didn\u2019t want it; we were like, \u201cOh, they\u2019re a couple of old farts from the \u201860s.\u201d Todd said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to use them [just] as \u2018backing vocalists.\u2019 I want to use them as a different instrument<\/i>, because of their vocal ranges.\u201d So they came in. We didn\u2019t go to the studio with them, because we were dead against it, but we allowed Todd to try it out. And when we heard \u201cLove My Way,\u201d we were like, \u201cOkay! What else can we use them on?\u201d We were totally<\/i> sold. They\u2019ve done backing vocals for everybody; they\u2019re a couple of cool guys.<\/p>\n

Another thing that set that song apart was the fact that we used marimba. That was an idea we had when we made demos in England. And it made a refreshing sound on the radio: Todd on marimbas, and Flo and Eddie.<\/p>\n

Tell me about a Psychedelic Furs track that you feel is perhaps overlooked among listeners.<\/b>
\nI\u2019d say \u201cOnly You and I\u201d from Forever Now<\/i>. It\u2019s not often pointed out as a fan favorite, but it\u2019s one of my favorite tracks. I think it\u2019s great because of the song structure, which was a move up for us after [1981\u2019s] Talk Talk Talk<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The 1980s were a time when pop songs started being added to film soundtracks. How did the use of \u201cPretty in Pink\u201d in the film of the same name affect the group\u2019s trajectory and fortunes?<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, it was good and<\/i> bad. It was good because it got us through to a lot more people. But the bad is that a lot of our hardcore original fans thought we\u2019d sold out, so they gave up coming to see us!
\nThank goodness now, those fans \u2013 and younger fans \u2013 are coming back to see us. I guess they\u2019ve forgiven us for the pop faux pas!<\/p>\n

In 2020, the Psychedelic Furs defied the odds and released an album of all new material, <\/b>Made of Rain<\/b><\/i>. Forty years after your debut, you made an album that got great critical notices. Not many bands from the \u201880s have been able to do something like that. Why do you think that you succeeded in that regard where other bands have not?<\/b><\/p>\n

When we got back together, it took us a while to have the confidence and the nerve to record songs. We had songs, but we were sort of worried that [some of them] weren\u2019t going to fit in with our catalog. But when we finally had songs that we thought were great, we did it pretty quickly. We didn\u2019t go to the studio wanting to recreate the sound from the eighties; during the time in between, you\u2019d hear other music and you\u2019d get influences. So we went in there and put our heads together.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s great about Made of Rain<\/i> is that the songs were played in one or two takes; we rehearsed them, but then we went in, recorded one or two takes and picked the best one. And then we overdubbed over the top of that, which gave it a freshness, as opposed to rehashing over and over again, which we did on [1987\u2019s] Midnight to Midnight<\/i>. We took too long on that one; it\u2019s overproduced and lacking a certain energy.<\/p>\n

Is the band continuing to work on new material?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, but as with Made of Rain<\/i>, we\u2019re not forcing ourselves to [work within] any particular time. Basically, we\u2019re still promoting Made of Rain<\/i>, because when it came out, Covid was happening; we couldn\u2019t tour. So we\u2019re sort of making up for that. After the tour, we\u2019ll probably think about writing new songs.<\/p>\n

Does the set list for the current tour survey the Psychedelic Furs\u2019 entire history?<\/b><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah. On this tour, we just got back from Spain, and we\u2019ve been playing some songs that are much demanded but that we had rarely or never played live. So I think the audience will be really happy.<\/p>\n

Forty-plus years on with the Psychedelic Furs, what keeps it interesting for you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Just going out there and playing for the audience and getting the reaction from them; there\u2019s nothing better. There\u2019s no drug that could replace seeing an audience singing your songs while you\u2019re playing them. It makes all the work we put into it worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the British band approaches its 50th anniversary, they\u2019re still making great new music The Psychedelic Furs burst onto the London postpunk scene in 1977. As the group\u2019s name suggests, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,53,59],"tags":[1747,2214],"class_list":["post-28702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-post-punk","category-punk","tag-psychedelic-furs","tag-tim-butler","cat-41-id","cat-53-id","cat-59-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28705,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28702\/revisions\/28705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}