Ahead of their performance at the Wider Than Pictures gig series in Collins Barracks, Super Furry Animals head honcho Gruff Rhys spoke to Des Traynor about the big issues; playing together again after ten years, Welsh independence and Dublin audiences.
Gruff Rhys is a peculiar interviewee, to put it mildly, but also a genial one. It is well known that he tends to live inside his own head. In conversation, this results in very long pauses mid-sentence, as he cogitates how best to get to the end of the line of reasoning he has started. Sometimes you don’t know whether to let him be, to find his own way there, or if you should give him a friendly nudge in the right direction. Sometimes the inner machinations of his brain waves resolve themselves eventually. Other times he loses his train of thought completely. Accordingly, there will be a fair smattering of … ellipses in this feature. It would be banal to characterise this mannerism as typical of those who have overindulged in psychotropic substances over an extended period, their predilection catching up with them in later years. Maybe he was always like this. Maybe he is more like himself than he ever was. He is, whatever else, unfailingly polite, which goes some measure towards making the whole process fun.
This morning, in particular, you’d be more than willing to cut him some slack. After all, the band he has fronted since 1995, Wales’ own Super Furry Animals, have just played their first gig in ten years the night before, and he is understandably befuddled, and in recovery mode. As he sits down in a noisy hotel breakfast restaurant, he could probably do with a couple more hours’ sleep.
….
So, how did it go last night?
Quite amazed, it happened. It started and, you know, it finished.
Why did you choose to have a reunion now?
We get asked to play often but, you know, it’s a big commitment. You give your life to the band, in a way, and everyone was looking for it this time. And our booking agent for thirty years, Jeff Neill was like telling us this is the one, if you’re going to do it, it’s this year. And we have to come to terms with … maybe there couldn’t physically be a 60th anniversary, for example.
So this was the year to do it, 30th anniversary, and everyone was into it. We’ve been rehearsing in Cardiff for about a month, but we got together to jam a few weeks before that, to check if the muscle memory was still working. And with some songs it was, with others it really wasn’t. It’s been a process of getting things together.
Do you think you’ll have any new material?
It’s not the plan. The plan was to just enjoy the songs. We have nine albums, and all the decisions have been made on our creative positions. The most stressful part of being in a band is the daily decisions you have to make together, on the font size and things like that.
Democracy?
Yeah.
What about the set list? You have to hammer that out?
We use D’Hondt’s system. It’s extremely proportional. It’s a Single Transferable Vote. This time we got to choose twenty songs each. If there’s five that coincide they go in, you know, and then it goes down, there’s a few fours and even a few threes, etc.
Which Furrys’ material do you enjoy playing the most now?
Well, I enjoy it all. Because some of it is challenging because you have to reacquaint yourself with a younger person. We didn’t play everything. We’ve rehearsed more than we can play in one gig, and I do enjoy the ones we can sing together. You know, it sounds corny as hell, in a way, but when you sing in harmonies, I really enjoy the down beats. But I also enjoy the sort of real things we do as a band. It elevates into something an individual couldn’t match.
So when the band was still a full-time concern, how did you decide what was a Furrys’ song and what was a solo song or a solo album? How did you divide your creativity, personally?
I think that, as a band, we know each other very well, so when I started doing solo stuff, I suppose instinctively it was, maybe there’s no point taking particular songs to the band. It just wouldn’t be suitable and it was just a chance to experiment a little bit with different ways of doing things. There were conceptual things that I wanted to see through to a particular sort of end. And I imagine it’s the same for everyone in the band, we’re quite prolific.
We’d write so much as a band, we just had to create space for everything. I think we faced criticism – friendly criticism – from some critics, like, ‘Please don’t give us another album now’. Like, ‘Not yet! Give us a year off.’ Because we were releasing an album a year, different projects. It was like an avalanche of music.
Why did you stop? Why did the band stop?
Well, I suppose it’s an age thing, in that it coincided with when I had kids. I mean, I think that’s the obvious thing, just life changed. When we were touring, when we released the albums, apart from the last one, I didn’t have kids, so I was putting everything into the band, 100%.
So, life changes?
Life changes. And it’s great, you know. And I suppose, at the time … you don’t quite understand what’s going on.
You probably got a bit tired as well?
Well yeah, but, I mean . . . I think we appreciated every minute. It’s not a painful existence, it’s a … (after a minute or two) sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought.
I suspect, during this pause, he was thinking about and trying to articulate what a beautiful, mad existence it is. Moving along, the day of our meeting sees the British local elections take place. As it happened, the obliteration of Keir Starmer’s so-called Labour Party saw Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru gain the majority of seats in the Senedd, the Welsh parliament. Although failing to achieve an overall majority, Plaid Cymru forced Nigel Farage’s dreaded Reform Party into second place, and ended Labour’s century-long electoral hegemony in Wales, with Plaid’s Rhun ap Iorwerth installed as First Minister.
So, you’re not going to be able to vote today in the Welsh local elections.
Naw, no, none of the band.
(I note a wistful tone of regret.)
How do you think it’s going to go?
It’s a big election. I mean, it’s a proportional system. There’s a strong left bloc in Wales, but we saw in the Brexit referendum, how the right wing could be more effective through social media and media in general. But I think this campaign has been good in Wales. It’s been very empowering. Since Brexit, there’s been a rise in progressive Welsh identity, a change in people in Wales’s self-perception, their perception of themselves.
Presumably you’d vote for independence tomorrow, if a referendum came along?
Yeah, it’s popular. The question of independence is a real one now, and I suppose the levels of opinion are somewhere where Scotland was before their last referendum, before that campaign started. But what, I suppose, what there is now is polarised politics in Wales. You’d have to convince a lot of people that it is a good idea.
It’s not a foregone conclusion?
It’s a process, but for Wales it depends on a lot of external factors as well, constitutional external matters, including Ireland and Scotland, England itself and the European Union. So it might not be a question of whether Wales wants it, it might be forced upon us. In which case we might try to sabotage it.
You’re big Kneecap fans?
Yeah, I admire them very much … their bravery.
You share a kind of language activism…
Yeah, yeah, they put us to shame, in that sense. I do admire how popular culture can reach places that public policy can’t. It’s got a special power. I admire the use of language that is not earnest, at all … what’s the right word?
Irreverent?
Their irreverence and their playfulness, you know, it’s powerful as well. I’ve seen them a couple of times in Wales. It’s interesting to find a band coming into Wales with a complete understanding of Welsh geopolitics. They used to come to Welsh language festivals when they were forming the band, there was a kind of …
Network?
A network of minority language …
Enthusiasts?
Yeah, festivals … but that’s how we started out. We used to tour – before we toured in England – we were touring in Brittany, where there’s a sister language to Welsh. The first Furry Animals tour was going down Brittany, playing for Breton language activists and backers.
Did you ever feel a lot of pressure being in the role of the representative Welsh band? I mean, kind of the biggest Welsh band, or certainly the biggest Welsh-speaking band, more so than, say, the Manic Street Preachers or Catatonia or whomever? It was kind of like you were ambassadors or something, for the whole Cool Cymru thing.
Well, we grew up in the Welsh speaking community, but we were liberated by our irreverence, in a way, so we didn’t feel that pressure, because we were rebelling against our own community. And so it was … we were extremely irresponsible, you know, with our own culture. So we did find quite a lot of artistic liberty in doing that … Although it wasn’t particularly clever of us, it meant that we were a bit out of control. And as a band, we all have varying opinions, you know, politically … 95% of which we can agree on, you know, but we do have new ones. So, it’s a band that’s a little bit out of control.
Do you still feel that now?
Oh yeah. I mean, that’s the beauty of it, you know? It’s friendly. I mean, I’ve laughed a lot in the last twenty-four hours. We have a band where we can do that.
Do you see each other much when you’re not playing music together?
Yeah, I see Dafydd and Cian, they’re brothers, and I see them regularly. I’ll see Cian at, you know, kids’ football. Bunf lives like a mile further in a different town, which is stuck to Cardiff but there’s like a psychological barrier. Guto lives in Scotland, and plays a lot with Pictish Trail, and his own band, Gulp. So I see Guto less, but I get to stay with him sometimes.
So you’re back here in Dublin at the end of August. Any particular Dublin memories?
Yeah, I mean, one of the times we played the Olympia was the last night of smoking in Ireland, which shows my age. So everyone was lighting up. It might have been banned in a decorative theatre, I don’t know, I can’t remember the situation. But we all smoked anyway on stage. Yeah, that was a memorable one.
Is there anything different about playing here than other places, in terms of the audience?
I’d say, so, yeah. What I found in Dublin in particular is people like to sing along, and we’ve had great experiences playing here, usually involving a late ferry crossing after the gig. It continues long after. A few people from my hometown came on the ferry yesterday. But yeah, when we play Dublin, we feel like The Beatles.
Words: Desmond Traynor
Read more here… From Amyl and The Sniffers To Mac DeMarco and Super Furry Animals – It’s Wider Than Pictures!
Super Furry Animals play Wider Than Pictures at Collins Barracks on Sunday, August 30th, promoted by Singular Artists, with Baxter Dury and Really Good Time as support.
Wider Than Pictures takes place at Collins Barracks, Dublin from Tuesday Aug 25th – Sunday August 30th. The programme is as follows:
Aug 25th & 26th: Amyl And The Sniffers + Mannequin Pussy + Spider
Aug 27th: Faye Webster + Sprints + Amie Bleu
Aug 28th: Berlioz + Sofia Kourtesis + Ricky Chong
Aug 29th: Mac Demarco + Tex Crick
Tickets & Info: widerthanpictures.ie or singularartists.ie
