Super Furry Animals Interview

Undeniably one of the most inventive British pop groups of all time, forever testing themselves to deliver more critic-stunning and fan-exciting material (and fantastic live events), Super Furry Animals are as much of a force in the modern musical landscape as they were during the Britpop highs of the mid-‘90s, when they shot to prominence with a series of chart-tickling singles.

In fact, they’re probably more significant these days, with no fewer than nine studio LPs under their belts and a couple of compilations collecting A-sides and B-sides respectively. Their influence is felt far and wide, and reinvention on every release seems to be the order of many a Super Furry day. The Welsh band’s latest offering, ‘Dark Days/Light Years’, has been hailed as their best collection in years, a “distillation of the best bits from nearly twenty years of Furry madness” according to ClashMusic’s own critical take on its brilliance (REVIEW HERE). In short: it’s a winner.

So we wasted no time in tracking down drummer Dafydd Ieuan for a telephone chatter about the group’s latest long-play excursion, and of course their career to date and continuing relevance in a world seemingly concerned exclusively with the promotion of the perceived So Hot Right Now.

The Furries – completed by Gruff Rhys (vocals, guitar), Huw Bunford (guitar), Guto Pryce (bass) and Cian Ciaran (keys) – call at a number of summer festivals later this year, including the Clash-sponsored RockNess weekend in Scotland. Full listings follow our interview.

You launched ‘Dark Days…’ with a live internet broadcast. Nice to see an ‘old’ band embracing new technology, and using it to further the ‘SFA doing something different’ vibe…
It was quite something, and we’d not done anything like it before. Well, we’re not touring for a bit – save for a few festivals – so it was kind of a lazy way of getting out there, although it was really a lot of work at the time. People could see us from the comfort of their bed.

It’s great that you’ve never fallen into a state of creative stagnation, and after… what, nearly 20 years?
Well, I think we formed in Cardiff, properly, around 1994, so it’s been about 15 years. It’s still a lot though, innit.

Sure is. And at no point have you ever ‘stopped’ – a fair few bands from that period, active now, have experienced periods of hiatus.
Well, over the last few years we’ve not toured as much as we used to, but we’ve put out a record almost every year and a half or something, I think. We’ve had nine proper albums, and then there’s the b-sides album and the ‘Songbook’ [best of] album. It’s quite a lot of work, I suppose.

Is that sort of productivity vital to ensure a degree of longevity for a band?
For us, making a record is something of a personal necessity – it’s not because we’re trying to keep up with the rest of the crowd, as we’ve a healthy disregard for what’s fashionable and so on, but because we love making music. It’s all to do with our own strategising over anything else.

So you finish one and think: right, on with the next?
It’s almost like that, yeah. Every record we do, the songs are chosen from a batch that can actually be drawn from a bigger batch, pooling songs that we’d previously written but perhaps didn’t fit the record of the time. So, that’s the case with us mostly – songs have to fit together on an album, but we always have a surplus, and songs can literally end up on the next album, or something else.

The ‘Out Spaced’ compilation of 1998 clearly shows the quality of your B-sides.
Well, that ‘Out Spaced’ album only took us up to 2000 or something, so there’s been a few B-sides and the like since. Perhaps it’s time for another one?

I certainly wouldn’t say no. And it’s probably time to think about the second volume of ‘Songbook’ too, no?
(Laughs) Well, give us another ten years, yeah?

Fair. It’ll have to be a double album then. Do these releases, the compilations, serve as sort of ‘chapter-ending’ releases?
I think you have to do that, to almost close a book and move on. We try to not repeat ourselves – we’re not successful every time, but you do have to move on, and there’s always the sense of ‘next’. I think we’ve always had that sort of mentality. As a musician, if you want to carry on, you’ve got to always look forward to the next thing. It’s something you have to do.

You’ve always, for my money, delivered something entirely singular – even when you were lumped in with a load of Britpop makeweights, your music never fitted the general shtick.
Absolutely, and we hated that Britpop thing. It’s worse outside the UK – I find all that flag-waving a bit shit, really. We’d always be associated with these shit bands when we went abroad, just because we were from the UK. It seemed a bit ridiculous.

The States seemed to take to you pretty well – not all British bands of the period were so lucky.
We’ve done alright out there, and toured there quite a bit. It’s quite tough to tour in the States, so we’ve got to count that as a success, just because we’ve been out there and played.

Is there anywhere you’re yet to play?
The only continent we’ve not played is Africa. We’ve never been asked to go play there, but now we’ve decided to not tour for a bit I guess we won’t get asked any time soon. It’s quite a big continent, too.

Something that’s been commented on elsewhere is that the band’s a little more ‘together’ as a songwriting force these days, while the first few albums were primarily led by Gruff…
I think we’ve always been quite a democratic group, if that’s the right term, but maybe that’s not been presented in the best way. I think the key to sticking together this long as a band is because everybody does have a say, and in the studio it’s very much a team effort – if you come up with something, play it and it’s good enough, it’ll get used. I think that’s healthy – things don’t always run smoothly of course, but we’re always honest with each other.

Are there any songs that you’ve not been able to finish, for one reason or another?
There are, but actually not too many. With this one every song went on the album, because we only did 12. It was one of the most focused pre-recording periods we’ve ever had. Things that don’t fit the albums tend to find their way out as B-sides and so on, but honestly there’s very little that doesn’t get finished. Some songs, y’know, we just don’t have time for, and they get forgotten about rather than abandoned.

As the band’s ‘grown up’, I suppose, has having families put pressure on making albums, and touring?
Absolutely it does, yeah. I’ve had kids for seven years, but it does get more difficult as there’s more in the group. I don’t think having families will ever stop us from making records, though – like I said, this album was probably the quickest one we’ve done, and some of that was due to the difficulty in getting down to London, and so on. But working quickly is actually beneficial to the record, I think – it means it’s not overcooked.

I think the speed of the process this time has given ‘Dark Days…’ a real spark, a vibrancy that perhaps wasn’t there on the past couple of albums.
Yeah, I think that might be the case. We’d given ourselves quite a tight deadline to get it finished, so we couldn’t be too casual – you know, like put something off ‘til the next week. We knew when things had to be done, and usually they were on that day. That was quite nice I thought. It was challenging, but exciting to let things go whereas before you might not have trusted your first instinct – you get thinking too much about directions, which can lead to a dilemma over which version of a song is the better one. We were recording and mixing at the same time – it was quite production-line like, in a way, with one room recording and one mixing.

I think, even in the early days, the suggestion of more expansive, textural material was there – you just didn’t have the budget ‘til a few releases in.
We knew what we were trying to do in the early days, but as the years have passed we’ve got better at implementing these ideas we have. Anything can change your mood – the weather, food, someone else… There’s never any saying what’s going to affect the way we develop. We’ve developed as friends, too, y’know.

Well, clearly something’s working for you. How do you feel, though, when a one-time peer-level group falls by the wayside?
It doesn’t really affect us. It only does when a band we really like goes, like Grandaddy. There’s so much to concentrate on, in your own music, that it’s hard to be too bothered by other bands, and if they break up. You can be aware of it, but unless you know the reasons it’s hard to be too judgemental.

And do you keep abreast of new music?
Usually… We like to read all the ‘papers every week. Well, some of us do; the others couldn’t give a shit. We’re not trying to keep up as such, with ‘new’ bands; we just like good music.

What about your own influences – are there any bands you can pick out and say: yes, they’ve helped to shape the SFA sound?
Errr… The Beatles? Y’know, the big ones. There’re lots of songs in the memory banks, and there’s always a radio on in the house – we’re always hearing music, but often I, anyway, hear the sounds, like a drum sound I’ll really like. Sometimes that’s a pain in the arse, because I end up dissecting a song rather than just enjoying it. Every fucking record on the radio, unless it’s an amazing song, I just pick it apart. It’s hard, after spending so much time in a studio, to not listen out for the way the levels are balanced and so forth.

What about bands influenced by you. I bet there’s more than a handful.
Perhaps there are some bands that have similar influences, and we know there are bands that are fans – Kaiser Chiefs are big SFA fans I hear, but it’s clear they’ve other influences, too. I uses bands who are influenced by us are influenced by the bands that influences us, y’know.

The visual side of the band’s releases has always been important – you worked with Pete Fowler for a long time, of course. You seem to believe in the album, ‘proper’…
For a time we’ve always been like that – we like making albums, and that includes the artwork. That’s very important. When you download songs individually… Well, I don’t know if we’re fighting a losing battle against the tide, but we like making albums that we like to listen to in full, but that doesn’t seem so necessary anymore. You just need one good single to sell a shit load of albums.

I think the way you’ve kept yourselves on your toes, by always trying new things, must have been crucial in your lasting appeal. What do you think has glued the five of you together?
It’s never dawned on us not to test ourselves. I don’t know if there’s one answer to the question, though – we’re all music freaks, and love being in this band. We’ve played around with solo stuff, but it’s always nice to get back together. It was really nice coming back to make this record.

You feel an electricity in the room?
Sort of. We can be quite methodical, you know – everything can be on a chart, so we know what we’re doing. But before we do the songs we need to decide if they’re good enough in the first place, so that’s the excitement, the doing it for real. We don’t really jam – most of the stuff is pretty worked out. There are the odd wanderings at 1am that end up changing a song completely, and we do accommodate those things. But I think we all just love the process, the time being in the studio. Perhaps playing live is more instant, but our work in the studio will be around forever.

It’s not like you’ve not got a reputation for flamboyant shows…
Yeah, and it costs a fortune to do those shows! But we’re thinking about what to do live next. I think it’s hard to top what we’ve done, with the light shows and all sorts. I suppose there could be harakiri live on stage…

Not sure about that, but when I saw you ‘no frills’ at the ICA the other year, that was amazing.
Well, we did a few shows like that last year, and a lot of people said about what a change it was to see the band and see the band, y’know, not lost against a wall of lights… So, maybe that’s something we can do more of.

Super Furry Animals’ ‘Dark Days/Light Years’ is out now on Rough Trade and is reviewed HERE. See the band live this summer at the following festivals…

May
29 Wychwood Festival

June
27 Donegal Sea Sessions Festival
30 Inverness RockNess festival

July
4 Hampshire Blissfields Festival
5 Kent Hop Farm Festival
11 Abersoch Wakestock Festival

August
29 Brighton Beechdown Festival