++INTERVIEW++
In the first of an excellent two parter, Ric Rawlins catches up with Gruff Rhys to talk beards, becoming yetis and what Bunf does when the others are cutting solo albums. Cute dog too. Is it a cairn terrier? I can't tell...
“I think all the Beach Boys had pretty good beards for a while,” muses Gruff Rhys, gently stroking his chin, “Dennis had a fantastic beard…and Mike Love had a beard for the duration of the Beach Boys career, I believe. In fact, when Mike started losing his hair, the beard appeared in relation to the hair loss. It was a strange kind of correlation.”
"I tried a Britney Spears style microphone once, and that worked fine. But I prefer singing through my eye... "
Gruff has locked himself out of his flat whilst taking the dog for a walk – and consequently has enough time on his hands to discuss the hair trajectories of the Beach Boys. Luckily for us, it also means he’s got time to give his most in depth interview ever on the subject of Super Furry Animals: acid pop pioneers, proud fathers of new album ‘Hey Venus!’ and the group that Drowned In Sound have recently declared “the finest guitar band of the last decade.”
“We’re in danger of becoming a heritage rock band”, he says, stroking his dog Tekan, “but hopefully the five of us think so rashly and reactionary that, you know… we’ll always snap out of it.”
MAKING ‘HEY VENUS!’
AR: I remember you saying once that all the Super Furry Animals records are influenced by the weather. Did that happen with ‘Hey Venus’?
GR: Erm… it was recorded I think last October… in France… in a hot area near Marseilles. The Rouen Valley, so it got the Mistral winds coming off the Alps, which brought the icy air from the glaciers and created a very unique icy draft - even on the hottest of days…so that was the backdrop for the recording…
AR; It’s quite a simple and direct record, isn’t it? Compared to ‘Rings Around The World’ for example.
GR: Yeah… that was the plan. We’re working on a long term DVD project, an ambitious project which is an instrumental orchestral album. And it’s going to take two or three years to make. So we decided we’d go to the studio and make a couple of noisy records really quickly. We recorded it in a vineyard and Dave Newfelt got rather high and mixed it in a couple of weeks.
AR: The catchiest song on the record, for me, is ‘The Gift that keeps Giving’. Where did it come from?
GR: Geoff Travis (owner, Rough Trade) asked us for one of our pop records, so we thought a pop record should have a Christmas single. And we’d been playing around with this phrase, because we’d had a Scottish engineer who helped us make the 22 minute version of ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’ and er… he always used to say “it’s the gift that keeps giving!” He was just referring to the length of the song… but we found out it’s also a popular American shopping phrase.
GUERRILLA TOURING
AR: Your tour vehicles are quite legendary – from the techno army tank to the glow in the dark golf buggy. What’s been your favourite so far?
GR: The golf buggy was fantastic. We managed to get it on every stage on the ‘Love Kraft’ tour, I think. The Glasgow Barrowlands was the most problematic, because we were playing on the third floor and had to winch the golf cart up through a window. Incredible. We were very fortunate that the staff in Glasgow Barrowlands didn’t tell us to fuck off!
AR; On the ‘Phantom Power’ tour, you were all dressed as yetis. Did the yeti costumes effect any of you psychologically to the point where you started behaving like yetis full time?
GR: Ah absolutely… it was very… er… we became the yetis in costume. And it completely changed us. I don’t think me or Bunf have ever got over it.
AR: You chew crisps as a rhythm instrument don’t you?
GR: Er… yes, depending on what’s around. If I can get somebody to sell me celery or carrots, that’s excellent. But crisps can be easier to get to – they’re usually on the rider.
AR: What about the Power Rangers helmet that you wear on stage?
GR: I found it in a second hand theatre prop shop in North Carolina. At the time they were also selling an Imperial Guard helmet. So initially Bunf had an Imperial Guard helmet, which had, I think, also featured in ‘Star Wars: Phantom menace’. But that was unfortunately crushed by a large flight case.
AR: Isn’t there a microphone installed into the Power Rangers helmet?
GR: I tried a Britney Spears style microphone once, and that worked fine. But I prefer singing through my eye. It gives the illusion that my mouth sits where the eye is painted the helmet – the visor. I like giving the impression that I’m singing out of my eye.
AR: So what’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you on tour?
GR: Singing through my eyes…
SUPER FURRY SIDE INDUSTRIES
AR: Ok. You make solo records, Cian’s in Acid Casuals, Daf’s in The Peth, and Guto makes reggae compilations. That leaves Bunf. What does Bunf do?
GR: He’s an enigma… he records field noises, and he’s currently recording an album about geology. He’s going to be putting out a sort of ‘field recording’ a month on the Super Furry Animals website in the coming months. I’m confident that somewhere along the line he’s going to appear with this incredible record inspired by geology and… take over the world.
AR: It’s been rumoured for years that the Furries have an unreleased techno album. Is that true?
GR: You can buy it… I’ve seen some for sale on ebay, the techno album. (long pause) Bits and bobs came out as SFA songs, songs like ‘Slow Life’. Cian’s always made a lot of techno and instrumental electronic music. When he joined the band he had to put that on the back burner to a certain extent, but he carried on making demos and a lot of those ended up on the first Acid Casuals album. So the first Acid Casuals album is like a ‘Best of Cian’ almost!
AR: So there’s no other SFA techno album out there?
GR: Well…we formed a different band in ‘98 called ‘Dasz Koolies’.
AR: Who was in the band?
GR: It was… Helmet Von Kool, Velvet Von Kool, Al Bosnia and Val Bosnia.
AR: Is that SFA with different names?
GR: More or less, but nobody knows for sure. And they recorded an improvised album called ‘Steel Werks and Stone’ It hasn’t been released… it’s improvised music bordering on the unlistenable. But you could argue it’s a techno album. We worked out with a system of pie charts that Dasz Koolies were actually the best band in the world. It wasn’t some kind of empty brag. It was proven with musicality and technical ability… that they were actually… percentage by percentage… the best band in the world.
READ PART TWO: GRUFF ON POLITICS, SLEEVE ARTISTS, AND THE FUTURE OF THE SUPER FURRY ANIMALS…
++ Ric Rawlins ++
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