Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten interviewed by Jools Holland for their Later... performance

"Chris, now you know the audience are going to have their eyes glued on you, looking to see if you're asleep behind those sunglasses!"

Pet Shop Boys drop in to chat to Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty on BBC Breakfast. This isn't a direct quote, to provide a little more context! Full interview here.

"We recently bought an apartment, a fairly large one, with a small studio inside.

We finally wanted to have our own place to stay. Our friend, the photographer Wolfgang Tilmans, has a very similar apartment. A good 100 years old, with a “Berlin room” in the middle. It was very difficult to get an apartment in Berlin at all. We have bicycles that we like to cycle with in the Tiergarten. Summer is particularly wonderful, of course. In summer everything is great in Berlin. We spend a lot of time outdoors with our bikes, either in the woods or at the lakes in the surrounding area. We particularly like the Schlachtensee, it is the perfect size.

In the studio we spend more time chatting and laughing than making music. The basic mood of the Pet Shop Boys is a furious, cheerful mood."

"Do married couples stay together as long as we do? Not many, right? However, this is more of a friendship than a marriage with us. We like each other but we don't have sex. Okay, some spouses may not either. Anyway: the basis of our relationship is music and we both love good food. We are constantly trying out new restaurants."

Chris Lowe, on him and Neil sharing an apartment, making music together, and on their relationship after 40 years of being a band, resembling that of an old married couple. Interview from 2020.

Fontaines D.C. talk to Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1's New Music show

Grian and Curley dropped by BBC Radio 1 to talk to Jack Saunders about the first single off their upcoming fourth album Romance, which comes out August 2024. I'll grab the audio clip once the broadcast of Jack's show is done. Sorry if this sounds like a blurb off the BBC site, I don't work for them but they should bloody consider that.

[On the lyrics to Fontaines D.C.'s first new single, 'Starburster']

Grian: "I felt a sense of immobility when I was writing these lyrics. I actually had the lyrics written, and was unsatisfied was them. I was on the way to record them and had a bit of a freak-out. I sat down and texted the producer James Ford and said, "I can't do this right now," I had to have it postponed. I sat down and just redid them because it wasn't what it was meant to be. And then it kind of came out in one go. It was sort of the experience of listening to yourself as opposed to expressing yourself."

[On the gasping breaths on Starburster, which Jack described as 'coming up for air']

Curley: I think working on this project breathed new life into us, we were excited to work on new sounds and go for it instead of being safe, which I don't think we've ever done, but on this one, we tried for it even harder.

Grian: You've got to take steps forward. Previously when we were releasing new music, we though that we might alienate some people with what we were going to release, but where in the past we may have thought that we didn't necessarily completely commit to the step, this time we did really jump.

[On the hip hop influence]

Grian: I was really into hip hop as a kid, and as you [Jack Saunders] mentioned, there's definitely a bit of a Gorillaz element to the production [the strings]. The focus came from a place of aggression and frustration, all the vowel sounds came out first and I had to figure out what the vowel sounds were.

[On the band's new aesthetic and bright coloured look, and 'finding light in a dark place']

Grian: The idea of the title is about embracing the necessary delusion in terms of how to function [in everyday life]. I imagine it as a world within a snowglobe, that you can slip into like a warm bath, but within that world is all the madness and the hysteria. It's about embracing that.

[On the album 'Romance']

Grian: We're releasing a new album, it's name is 'Romance'. That track [the snippet posted yesterday] is the opening track and it's also called Romance.

'Starburster' is BBC Radio 1's Hottest Record of the Week.

Update: Full interview

A good interview! Interviewer actually got Lou talking, perhaps because he didn't set out to antagonise Lou from the get go. It's a good interview.

GRUFF RHYS (SUPER FURRY ANIMALS) - September 25/07

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2007 AT 04:53PM in Soundscapes.

Welsh songwriter Gruff Rhys has something of a Cheshire cat quality about him. It's not just the wide, generous grin—which he brandishes eagerly and often—but rather it's the way he manages to be two things at once. Like a Lewis Carroll creation who just missed the Wonderland cut, he's simultaneously an outlandish caricature and real flesh and blood. So much of the reputation of both himself and his group, Super Furry Animals, is based on contradictory mixes: rock culture/rave culture, saturated noise/restrained calm, atonal dissonance/harmonic marriage, cold electronics/warm acoustics, giddy humour/political commentary.

It's this last juxtaposition that perhaps underscores what's so special about his band; they're one of the few acts to nail the kind of social satire mixed with a highly marketable image (at least in the UK) that is normally the domain of cartoons like the Simpsons. Whether it's been showing up at the Glastonbury festival in a tank(!), releasing their albums in 5.1 surround sound with DVD films for each song, or singing songs on stage through a giant Power Rangers helmet, no idea is too surreal or excessive for the band. And yet, despite these excesses, their heartfelt songs are able to address issues of not only love and loss, but colonial imperialism, global warming, war, and politics in ways that avoid the heavy-handed, preachy tone for which so many of us have long lost a taste.

In person, Rhys happily continues the contradiction. His speech can be slow to the point of paralysis, but just when you wonder if you've lost him, his comments reveal themselves to be quite economical and insightful. His social graces echo that of a Victorian gentleman. He stands when people arrive and leave, looks you in the eye, inquires as to how you are, gives you his full respect and attention. But, as he pauses in the midst of answer, there's that mischievous grin again...

More than anything Rhys is a very educated, highly talented musician who knows that all of the issues about which he sings mean everything and nothing all at once. We discussed politics in their songs; his new solo disc, Candylion; working on SFA's latest, Hey Venus!, with Toronto producer Dave Newfeld; and the group's "horrid" new musical experiment.

Soundscapes: I've noticed that Super Furry Animals don't really have political songs, as much as politics and social commentary are naturally part of the tunes. I want to know if that's somewhat accurate, and how you feel about addressing politics within the songs?

Gruff Rhys: Yeah, we didn't form the group because of politics. Y'know? Our instincts are musical, and our reason for being together is our love of records and to play music. I think that we grew up in a period of political activism and a lot of our friends' families have been politically active. So, it's part of our upbringing. But we come from a generation from after punk rock...

SS: Yeah.

GR: ...which was full of political sloganeering. So we're kind of turned off rhetoric and sloganeering. So we decide, um, it's rare that we're inspired by an event to write a song in a kinda protest singer way.

SS: Right.

GR: There's lyrics and they're very, y'know, it's inevitable that it will be part of our lyrics in the end in some way.

SS: Well, there's a sense that that kind of sloganeering, people are sort of dead to it now. It doesn't resonate in the same way, it's not the same "call to arms". There's a sense that it should be casual dialogue amongst people (when discussing politics now). That puts people at ease.

GR: Yeah, and I suppose there's less, people are less ideological than they used to be. And don't necessarily follow one doctrine. So in that sense, maybe in the 1980s, you had bands that rigorously followed Marxist doctrines...

SS: Mm-hmm.

GR: ...something which would be really difficult to apply today.

SS: Do you think it's good that it's become a little more personal? That it's not so easy to just be left or right anymore?

GR: Yeah, and also people are naturally so hypocritical, that it's often difficult for a rock band to have any kind of credibility if they start making political statements. It's just sometimes so obviously contradictory to what they do.

SS: Mm-hmm. Well, I thought about that a little when I was listening to "Neo Consumer" (a tune about mass consumer confusion off Hey Venus!), just because at home I have a Phantom Power mug and a Rings Around The World uh, little dish...

GR: Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah! (smiling)

SS: (laughs) ...I mean, I understand what you're getting at (in the song), but I also understand that it seems to be a part of the band that you're kind of, well, there's no way to separate yourself from this kind of vortex. You can observe it, but you're still...

GR: ...in it, yeah yeah. I mean, it's observations from within it.

SS: I was reading in a interview that when you were working on Hey Venus!, that a lot of it came from wanting to make some songs that were a little more upbeat to play live. Was it frustrating at all that a record like Love Kraft didn't come across the way you'd like live? Because I felt like that record was a little misunderstood.

GR: Uh, I mean, we're not really worried about... (pauses) I mean, we're pretty happy with (Love Kraft), but it's quite a symphonic record, y'know? And the only frustration was that it was just difficult to play. (laughs)

SS: Yeah.

GR: And any frustrations are purely with ourselves. You know, it's a very long, beautiful record, but it requires a lot of patience to listen to and to play.

SS: Well, certainly on a song like "Zoom!" the crescendos in there, with all the choirs and strings, would be extremely difficult to pull off live with just five people.

GR: Yeah.

SS: So, is there that too? Not just the energy level, but with Hey Venus! you really get the sense of the five of you playing in a room together.

GR: Yeah, obviously on the arrangements it's pretty, umm, it's a very simple record. I suppose the emphasis was more on songs than the arrangement. I think we've made records that are more adventurous sonically, but I think we always react to the last record that we did.

SS: I often felt, especially when watching you guys play live, that for a long time you were trying to merge dance culture with rock culture. Is that still a big part of what you're doing or has that evolved live?

GR: Yeah, I don't know. Our decision making is pretty chaotic and anything goes and everybody pushes and pulls the band in different directions. On this record, nobody brought samplers into the studio, so there's far less electronics than on a lot of our records. I think, and in a way it's difficult for anyone to speak on behalf of the band (laughs), but I think what we were trying to do is, we're making...(pauses) Well, you see, a lot of electronic music is quite a solitary pursuit. You sit at your computer or sampler and sometimes it's more of an individual kind of thing. Whereas with this record, we were trying to play as a band: a five people at once kind of record.

SS: Yeah.

GR: But, but, sometimes we...(looks up smiling) ...I think. (laughs)

SS: I certainly remember seeing you guys play for Rings, when you released the DVD (with a video for each song), and you guys were starting to play with a lot of videos and sequencers.

GR: Yeah.

SS: The first time I saw you guys on that tour, I felt like the energy level was a little lacking because the rhythm section felt like it was learning how to play with a click track for pretty much the whole night.

GR: Right, yeah, yeah.

SS: And then later, on the second leg of Rings and for Phantom, it felt like you had it nailed. What you're saying about electronic music being an individual pursuit, there's that sense of rigidity. It's difficult to be loose.

GR: Yeah.

SS: You've already got a script.

GR: Yeah, absolutely. That can be very frustrating, and in a way, the purer and more electronic it is, the better it sounds. I mean, when we take it to extremes, it's usually more convincing then. We often use a lot of click tracks and it's very difficult to get right. We're still trying to learn that, and I think energetic music, if it sounds energetic then you can get away with it. But with a record like Love Kraft, there's a lot of click tracks in order to orchestrate the show live, and it's very slow music. (laughs)

SS: Yeah.

GR: Whereas on this tour we've got rid of all the video and we've still got a computer on stage which we're using on some songs, but it seems a bit more energetic.

SS: There's a sense to me that on Hey Venus! the layers are still there, it's just a little more purely integrated. It's almost as though now that you're learned another language, the band is a little more multilingual. I don't know if you know what I mean, but instead of just speaking rock, or speaking electronic, now that you know how to speak both of them, there's not the same need to speak one of them exclusively at certain times.

GR: OK, yeah, yeah.

SS: Because parts of Hey Venus! remind me of Fuzzy Logic.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: But then there are bits where the orchestration reminds me of stuff on Phantom Power or even Love Kraft. Like "Carbon Dating" sounds like a Love Kraft song to me, or even "Battersea Odyssey".

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: But then, I know I just picked the two songs you didn't write.

GR: No, no. (both laugh)

SS: But it feels like you have more of a command of musical languages now. Does it feel that way to you?

GR: Yeah, I think it's real interesting if you listen to "Carbon Dating", which is a song by Cian (Ciaran, keyboardist and electronic whiz), most of his, because he's developed a lot as a writer and his background is electronic, and he put out a record as Acid Casuals (Omni) a couple years ago, and that record is almost like a greatest hits of the past ten years of his stuff. 'Cause he was making all this music, and he put out some 12"s which we're like minimal techno, kind of newer dance floor things, but he was making all this other stuff and he's very much a perfectionist, so he wasn't releasing it even, but he was giving it to friends.

SS: Yeah.

GR: And some of it would end as Furry songs. We'd all jam, like on "Slow Life" (from Phantom Power). We'd kind of sing on top of it and try to bring it in the group. But, with the Acid Casuals album, by the end he's singing a song. I think the last song on the record is lyrics, and you can see how he's changed his position. So, when he brings things to the band now, he's often reluctant to play them from the computer, but he'll try and get us to play his tunes live.

SS: Right, like he doesn't want to dictate the format to you. He'd rather it came out, give you all the chance to imprint yourself a little bit more on the song from the start.

GR: Yeah, well, I think, although nobody's particularly pushy in the band--it's not a part of our culture--I think he's just really keen that way. For us to take his ideas and play them rather than just keeping an electronic demo and then stick it into the record. Thought we'd rehearse his ideas. Y'know, the stuff he writes is very beautiful, melodic. Hopefully, this makes it quite original. Hopefully, we start to belong to our own sound. Our ultimate goal would be to lose a lot of our influences and make something original. I think we're still quite far away though. (laughs) But that's what we're trying to do.

SS: Well, the influences tend to be evolving constantly at least.

GR: Yeah.

SS: It certainly always comes out sounding like you guys. And that is one other thing too. Now that you guys have been a band as long as you have, your mark on the landscape is little bit different now. You're not a band that has just begun.

GR: Oh no, yeah, yeah.

SS: You have a real history, a huge amount of time and lots of side projects. And some influence, too. What was that collection you did, Under the Influence (a UK compilation series)?

GR: Oh yeah.

SS: And Guto (Pryce, bassist) just did the Trojan Furry Selector (reggae) compilation.

GR: Oh, yeah, yeah.

SS: And there was a quote of yours on the front of the Selda record (cult Turkish psych singer), at least over here. You know the one I'm talking about from Finders Keepers?

GR: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SS: So, I mean, it's different now. You've reached the point where you guys are recognized as having varied tastes. That there's something that can be learned from where your ears lead.

GR: Yeah, I mean, we formed because we didn't come out of a... I don't know, we've all got quite varied tastes, but I think that's what we were interested in when we all came together. Try to see what we could do. (laughs)

SS: Well, there's a sense of a common language that gets brought out—and I don't mean in the 'music is a universal language sense'—but the fact that when you integrate psychedelia, Beach Boys pop stuff, electronic music, dub or whatever, I find that you guys are able to draw a lot of the same things from them. The qualities that address the dreamier part of the mind, or the more euphoric part of the mind. It seems like you're drawn to the same things about them: their sense of exploration and of melody, regardless of the style of music.

GR: Yeah, I think we've got a sweet tooth, you know, melodically. And sometimes we shy from using it, and sometimes we gorge too much on it. (smiles) Sometimes we just embrace it. And y'know, we formed during the sort of electronic boom in Britain. We used to go to a lot of raves and stay up all night and come home the next day and listen to Surf's Up on ecstasy. (laughs)

SS: Yeah, yeah.

GR: So, that's basically the kind of soundtrack when we formed.

SS: In a lot ways, that's how it sounds to me!

GR: Sort of. (laughs) Yeah!

SS: Particularly Rings, there is that real collision of kind of a 60s pop culture meeting this electronic boom culture and that notion of gorging and excess, there are elements of that. But also something like your first solo record (the all-Welsh Yr Atal Genhedlaeth), which seems like a real purifying moment. Everything is very minimal, the way it's written. There's a lot of repetition of phrases. Even without knowing the language, it seems like some songs only had a couple of lines to them.

GR: Yeah.

SS: What was your aim with that first album?

GR: Well, the first record, was, um, our friend Gorwel Owen has a studio in his house, and that's where we've done, where we recorded a lot of our earlier music. Albums like Radiator and most of Mwng. So, we've been going there to record really for the past twenty years. So he's a real close friend, so I went to his house. I often go there to do demos as well. Just go there for a day so I can reel off fifteen songs every couple of years.

SS: Right, yeah.

GR: So, I'd been going there. I went there for a couple of days and made some kind of demos and I liked the sort of feel of them. So I ended up going back for another few days and did some more. And then, I took another couple of days and mixed them. So, when I made that record, for the first couple of days I did them, I wasn't really aware that I was making a record as such. I just having a laugh and just messing around and having a good time. Just creating. And y'know, Furry records had become, especially at that time just after Rings Around The World and Phantom Power, where the albums had become huge undertakings. Because they both came out on DVD and we mixed them in 5.1 surround sound...

SS: Yeah.

GR: ...as well as stereo, so the record took twice as much time to mix.

SS: They were like big movies.

GR: And we had to try and collect films for each song...

SS: Yeah.

GR: ...so that was quite an undertaking, just keeping all that together. And then, there's a remix for every song as well on both those records.

SS: Yeah, yeah! (laughs)

GR: You know, it was just kind of mind-boggling. But, y'know, fantastic thing to try out. So, making a record in seven days flat is just great, y'know? (laughs)

SS: Yeah, yeah. So how did that lead to Candylion? This seems to be less of a surprise solo record.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: Things are much more richly worked out.

GR: Yeah, I thought I'd make an acoustic record. So the initial idea is that. I had a self-conscious decision to make a record. So, I had all these songs on acoustic guitars and they sort of coincided with, after Love Kraft, we (SFA) were kind of thinking of making a loud record. So, I had a lot of quiet songs, so I thought maybe I'd go to Gorwel's house and record them quickly. I took two weeks to make it. I wanted it to have a sense of spontaneity, but I didn't keep the mistakes. If there was a mistake, I'd try and do it again.

SS: Mm-hmm.

GR: On the first record, I just left it how it was and kept all the imperfections.

SS: Right, right.

GR: So, it was more refined. But I got excited and threw in drums, got a double bass player down. So, it wasn't as, I thought it was going to be more minimal, more based around a single guitar, but, maybe another time. (laughs)

SS: Well, some of my favourite moments come from how the percussion works, especially on "Lonesome Words", so I wouldn't say it's a mistake. (laughs)

GR: Yeah. (smiles)

SS: What led to you guys working with (Broken Social Scene producer) David Newfeld? I mean, we're pretty familiar with him here...

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: ...but it was pretty excited to see what would come of you guys working with him. So what led to that?

GR: Well, we were looking for a kind of, coach-style figure stroke referee.

SS: (laughs)

GR: Because we wanted to make quite a live record and we didn't wanna repeat the past two records either. So, we were looking for someone new to work with. So we were racking our brains trying to think of whose records we actually liked the sound of. And our recording sessions are usually very creative but they're like quite fracturous as well. They're very tense. So you're looking for an outsider that could be objective and help out.

SS: Mm-hmm.

GR: And I was having a conversation with our friend, and listening to his records. I think we were listening to a Broken Social Scene record and we all kind of, "Oh fuck, y'know, it must be nuts making those records because there's so many of them. Wow, maybe this is the one!" (both laugh)

SS: If he can rein in 13 people, then he can probably rein in five.

GR: So, I mean, obviously, I only knew his records, I didn't know anything about him. So, it was real interesting making that kind of, we wanted to make a pop record as well. We wanted to make a rowdy pop record. And he revealed to us early on that he had a background as a wedding DJ...

SS: Yes!

GR: ...and that he'd done 500 weddings at least? Or something, it's a big statistic.

SS: Yeah, I've been to one of them. He's done a lot.

GR: So, he's perfect! He's got such a knowledge of pop and what makes people react. What gets the whole family to the dance floor. And so, he, I think we were with him for maybe three weeks? And most of the time he just stood there by the desk. We had a bit of an adventure, because went to France, and we haven't spent that much time in France. We found a studio that was one big room where we could all sit in and I don't think that he'd (Newfeld) been to France either and we had the studio guys who were forcing wine and cheese on us all the time. It was a bit of an adventure. And then, he wouldn't accept a take until he was physically moved by it, in a wedding kind of way.

SS: (laughs) Yeah.

GR: You know?

SS: Yeah.

GR: It was great, you know. He could reel off all the songs that he was reminded of, if you were doing a song like "Run-Away".

SS: Well, for sure, there's a load of pop references all over Venus. It's funny too because, Dave seems to have a really distinct sound (as a producer), but sometimes I think that's only because so much of what people know of him is Broken Social Scene where you do have a ton of instruments coming at you at once.

GR: Yeah, yeah.

SS: I was talking to Kevin (Drew, BSS) a little while ago about speaking to you, and he asked about Hey Venus!, "Does it sound like a Newf record?" And I said that it didn't sound like a Newf record BSS has done, but it sounds like a record Newf would be a part of because there is so much classic pop reference it in. It's that other part of his language.

GR: Yeah.

SS: It seemed like a good fit.

GR: And it's something that he completely grasps, y'know, and understands. He really pushed some songs. Because you listen to the demos, and there were songs that we were gonna leave off, like "Suckers" for example.

SS: Mm-hmm.

GR: Which is quite a kind of obvious song, melodically. You know, it's like, that was his favourite. So, he had the power in kind of shaping the record, in terms of what songs we ended up recording. We had so many of them that, I mean, we recorded maybe twenty songs.

SS: Yeah, really?

GR: We demoed much more. So he listened to demos of kinda live versions of the record.

SS: It's almost funny to hear you say that, just because it is such a short record. It's interesting to know that it came from such a large pool.

GR: Yeah, we were quite brutal, and the record could have been very different as well. Some of the songs we left off were really heavy and raw, you know? So initially, at the time of recording, we thought we were making a heavy record. What we ended up with is more consistent with our back catalogue.

SS: Mm-hmm.

GR: But we almost made a really radical record, (both laugh) but we didn't manage it.

SS: But is it not true that you also have been working on more than just, you were working on a couple records?

GR: Yeah, we've been working on a, we're working with a conductor. (laughs) We've been making an instrumental record, with a guy called Charles Hazelwood as a kind of coach figure. He comes from an academic musical background, which is kind of the opposite of our musical background. It's been real interesting, and we've been working with a notater as well, who can actually orchestrate our ideas.

SS: Right, he helps, writes them out?

GR: Yeah, and the conductor has been giving us advice on what orchestras can do and what they can't do, which we usually ignore. (smiles)

SS: Do you mean in general, or just for this project? (laughs)

GR: Well, no, y'know, he's been encouraging us to try things that maybe, y'know, saying, "Well, that's not orthodox, but you should try it anyway. See what happens." Because, we don't want to make a kind of 'rock band meets an orchestra' record, which is a horrid thing. So we've been jamming with the kind of core members of this orchestra. So we've got about, I think we've got about twenty hours of music so far recorded.

SS: And is the idea for this to be an album at some point?

GR: Yeah, it's probably going to take years, because we've got hours and hours already, some of which sounds pretty good, but not very focused, and then we'll probably listen back to them, arrange the whole thing, and then maybe record it live with an orchestra.

SS: Right, and this would be the five of you playing along.

GR: Yeah, I mean, maybe not strictly an orchestra, but a lot of orchestral musicians and a conductor. (pauses and laughs) It's sounds awful, but...

SS: No, (laughs) I mean, it sounds totally plausible to me. I wouldn't bet against you guys doing anything at this point.

GR: The stuff that we've recorded so far sounds like goblin records, it's almost like an Italian horror soundtrack.

SS: Right. Yeah, like some Argento movie or something.

GR: Yeah.

SS: Yeah.

GR: But I think it sometimes sounds awful, y'know?

SS: (laughs)

GR: But, when it's good, it sounds like a horror soundtrack.

SS: Well, you've got twenty hours to pull from. Can't be all bad.

GR: Yeah... (drifting, smiling) There's still songs left over from Hey Venus!, which we'll either make that into a record or do it all again, not sure. We're starting to tour, so we'll all be together for six months. We'll formulate a plan. Or, probably do something completely different. (smiling)

Gruff Rhys has scored the super film adaptation of the children’s book Lost And Found, a book about a boy who finds a penguin and decides to help return it to the South Pole.

Gruff has scored many films over his career, but to me this project brings back memories of his kids’ musical/play at the National Theatre of Wales based on his 2007 solo album Candylion. This should be a treat for anyone who goes to a screening!

Half Moon Run make pizza on CBC News while talking inspirations, influences and life on the road. A transcription can be found here.

“I’m the first child of five; when I was first born my mother was in her late twenties, and she’s devoted so much energy and love to me that I was kind of given every opportunity. The foundation of love and understanding between us allowed me to be a fearless person; I felt invincible because she convinced me that there’s nothing to be scared of. And the most important thing for my mother, I know, is the engagement with me and with all of her kids. She watched these lives come out of little tiny babies, and she developed the closest possible relationship with these humans; as we drift off and become our own people, the most important thing for her is that we maintain that closeness. I could do anything, fly her around the world, buy her a house, if I wasn’t present for her, emotionally, none of it would matter. All of us in the band have been taking steps in the last year or two, to rebuild that part of our lives, because the initial part of the Half Moon Run project involved a lot of sacrifice. Of almost everything. We all dropped out of school, quit our job, lost our personal relationships with our friends, had no money for a long, long time. And that was all necessary sacrifice in those days, and then it came to a point where you have to draw a line, you have to build these things back up or else you won’t have anything to give. I was so afraid of it, and I feel a sadness about growing older because I’m never gonna be as close with my brothers as I was when we were on our camping trip fifteen years ago. You try to, and you try to remember those things, but it’s never gonna be quite the same. I look forward to having my own family and repeating the process.”

“We were starting to feel more and more upset about things more easily, our emotions were less controllable, we were showing signs of just being unhealthy. We were overworked, we were traveling way too much, we were drinking way too much, and all led to just… We were scrambled, frankly we were scrambled. It’s so tame compared to that rock star shit you hear about from the 70’s, where people are out of control, it wasn’t like that. We were living unhealthy, but it was still fixable, and we just realigned our priorities. I think my family all understood when I moved to Montreal, five or six years ago, that I was going off and I was doing my thing; and they all supported me. They never felt like I was abandoning them, but then it became clear through instinct that a time came when I needed to put more energy, and to be more present and available for them. And you know, they came here for Osheaga, and stayed in my apartment, and it was all wonderful.”

“When we hit rock bottom we were recording the first album. At least there was still the album we were making, and I could see that was a goal. But take that away, and I had no hope. But I still had hope so I didn’t quite reach the depth of total despair, feeling completely depressed. I’ve never really felt that to be honest, I would say that I have a pretty good capacity for joy; I’m naturally quite a happy person, and that’s lucky. But there was a time when we were making the record… we had no fans at the time, and I’d work in a pizza place first thing in the morning, and then we would record all day, and it went on for months and months. And I never had any money, I had like negative money, and then I came home one day and found there were bed bugs in my house. I got so stressed out my arms tensed up, and I was physically falling apart, drinking a lot, and I just felt total despair. And it was the depth of winter! But I still had hope for the record, and it’s not a pity story because everything worked out so well, and we had to go through that.”

—Conner Molander of Montreal indie rock band Half Moon Run, on the struggles and sacrifices that music and touring bring, to Portraits Of Montréal

EU Sexy Thing: An interview with Super Furry Animals

by ED POWER for Hotpress

On the 20th anniversary of Super Furry Animals’ debut album, frontman Gruff Rhys talks about taking the record back out on the road and offers his thoughts on the EU, Wales at the Euros and that time he drove a tank around Glastonbury.

Gruff Rhys is packing for a trip to Mexico. He crosses the Atlantic at a strange moment, suggests Hot Press. “We won’t be going anywhere near Trumpland. Maybe we’ll see it from the plane,” says the Super Furry Animals frontman in his treacly burr. “Fucking hell man… fucking hell… ”

Super Furry Animals are about to embark on the mother of all victory laps. The 20th anniversary of the Welsh psychedelic crew’s debut LP, Fuzzy Logic, recently passed so, starting in Mexico City, they are going on the road playing the album in its entirety. Just for laughs – and because one 40-minute record would make for rather a short set – they will also reprise 1997 follow-up Radiator (the tour hits Dublin on Thursday, December 1).

“The first album didn’t sound anything like we wanted it to,” says Rhys. “We went into a big flashy studio we didn’t know how to use. With the second one we went back to our producer’s house and had a smaller setup. It was easier to mess around and experiment.”

Super Furry Animals have, for the past two decades, reigned unchallenged as UK rock’s most endearing eccentrics. They’ve had straight up pop smashes (2001’s Rings Around The World was a top five hit in Britain), released a Welsh-language collection and, in the video to the 1999 single ‘Northern Lights’, celebrated the ancient Irish sport of road bowling. In the best sense, you never know what is coming next.

Their earliest initial incarnation was as Britpop party-crashers. These five friends from Pembrokeshire in south Wales were discovered by Alan McGee of Creation Records at a pub in Camden in 1995.

“We were over the moon to be signed to Creation,” says Rhys. “Growing up we’d been massive fans of all their bands: Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain. It was like being in some strange dream for us all to meet those artists.”

McGee has been widely recognised as a visionary, albeit one who tended to fly by the seat of his pants. With the success of Oasis ushering in a period of unabashed bacchanalia at Creation, how did the Super Furries find the label to deal with?

“They were hands-on in that they were aggressive about putting the artist first,” says Rhys. “They had good advice. Mark Bowen, our A&R guy, would come into the studio with these obscure albums – all this American college rock for us to listen to.”

The Super Furries went mildly crazy, when they had Creation buy them a branded tank, which they drove around Glastonbury festival in 1996.

“It actually only cost about eight grand – plus another two for the paint job,” remembers Rhys. “At the time, a full page advert in the NME would have cost around 20K. We asked Creation would they mind if we didn’t have an advert but a tank instead. It was that kind of time – a lot of dreams were coming true.

“We caught the tail-end of the era when bands still sold records. Oasis sold a hell of a lot and financed ours – it was like being in some kind of betting syndicate. We as a five-piece won the pools and were able to quit our day jobs and go on the road.”

The cover of Fuzzy Logic featured Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks in a variety of his disguises. Soon afterwards, Marks published his memoir, Mr Nice, and became a familiar figure on the spoken word circuit (and long-time friend of this magazine), prior to passing away in April.

“We’d written a song called ‘Hangin’ With Howard Marks’, that was all about things that were very unlikely to happen – such as hanging out with Howard Marks. Then he was on the front of the record and his autobiography came out. He proved to be extremely popular.

“We were happy about that because he represented a different side of Wales – we didn’t want to be dealing with rugby and leeks and all of those stereotypes. He was a very interesting counter-culture figure. He put Welsh to use in interesting ways because when he was overseas smuggling drugs nobody could understand it.”

To coincide with the tour, Fuzzy Logic has been reissued in the usual super-deluxe format. However, putting out a spruced-up version of the record was a challenge, as the band discovered when they went looking for the master tapes.

“Creation was sold to Sony who then merged with BMG,” explains Rhys. “Then the Monopolies and Mergers commission broke up Sony BMG and BMG took the Super Furries’ back catalogue. What we didn’t know is that it was transferred to a warehouse in California. There was a massive fire and when we got the tapes back they had water and smoke damage. In a funny way we were fortunate that the band’s name starts with the letter “S”. If it had been further up the alphabet it would have been destroyed.”

Rhys and the rest of the band grew up in the Welsh-language community in Pembrokeshire. The singer is fervently anti-Brexit and ahead of the vote released a ballad entitled ‘I Love EU’.

“Wales is polarised like anywhere else. In the Welsh speaking areas, the pro-EU vote was eighty or ninety per cent. Five years ago, a vote to leave the EU would have been unimaginable. Thanks to the media, we are living in a post-truth environment. With the austerity that’s been going on, people are frustrated.”

And yet this was also the year in which Wales came of age in the sporting sense at the European Championships. “It’s very schizophrenic,” he nods. “Thousands of people greeted the team on the streets when they came home. It’s been a strange several months—a time of highs and lows.”

Interview: Muse - Paranoid, Glam and Supermassive

On evil corporations, glam rock, classical music and Hitler

— by Peter Culshaw, Tuesday, 21 September 2010 in Art Desk

Muse: The biggest band in the world? The most paranoid?

Maybe I hadn’t been paying enough attention. It was only at last year’s Children in Need concert, broadcast on prime time which featured the great and the good of British pop that it finally sunk in just how huge Muse have become – they were there appearing with Sir Paul McCartney, Take That, Leona Lewis and Paolo Nutini. Weren’t Muse the alternative Radiohead-lite band from Devon who sing politically loaded and enjoyably paranoid lyrics against the system and all it stands for?

In fact, Muse, while managing to retain something of their outsider status, were evidently bigger - at least, for now - than any of the other acts

They sell stadiums out faster than Coldplay; their last album, Resistance, went to the top of the charts in 20 countries and even got to Number 3 in the States; and they are playing massive venues on their current tour (see theartsdesk’s review of their Wembley Stadium gig a couple of weeks ago: “awesome, dazzling, dizzying”) not to mention planning a groundbreaking tour of Eurasia, playing countries like Tajikistan that bands usually don’t get to play.

Seeing them on their last tour at a sell-out stadium to 25,000 people in Antwerp on their current European tour, they definitely give the impression of a band whose trajectory is rapidly upwardly mobile. “We want to be the biggest band in the world – we’re not ashamed to say that,” says bassist Chris Wolstenholme, whom I met before the Antwerp gig. “We’ve always been a very ambitious band,” said drummer Dom Howard. “We always had big ideas beyond our abilities.” Whereas with some bands the feeling is of a front man and songwriter and a backing band, Muse have a strong band ethos fused over 10 years and five albums, “through plenty of bad times as well as good".

Wolstenhome is still based in Teignmouth, Devon, where the band formed and developed, and seems to be the most down-to-earth member of the band, while Howard lives in London and singer Matt Bellamy is based in Lake Como, living in the house that used to belong to the composer Bellini and where they have their own studio (which was where they self-produced Resistance). The band had recently returned from touring with U2 in the States. As Chris put it: “What blew me away and was totally inspiring was the way that they’ve been together for so long and still enjoy playing music.”

The utter confidence of the band was palpable, kicking off the show with their single “Uprising” (see video below) and playing over half their new album, only just released at the time, which most of the audience already knew the lyrics to, and having the nerve of doing the 16-minute “Exogenesis Symphony” as part of the encore.

The show was as spectacular as any rock gig you’re likely to see with rising walls of massive video projections suggesting a dystopian cityscape. It’s by turns absurd, inspiring, funny and, at times, moving, and it was not surprising that the band have picked up assorted Best Live Act in the World awards such as at the Q Awards.

But it is precisely this level of showmanship and ambition that has caused the most resistance among some of the more serious-minded rock critics, who prize the virtue of authenticity above all others. Muse are the other end of the spectrum to the likes of Bruce Springsteen or Manu Chao. Veteran rock critic Jon Pareles of the New York Times complained that the band “overdecorated its troubled songs with the virtuosic guitar, keyboard and vocal excesses of Matt Bellamy, including a quasi-classical piano interlude worthy of Liberace. Mr Bellamy was the most conventionally gifted singer on the bill, and the most insufferable one”.

The lyrical excesses of Matt Bellamy, often full of references to an only vaguely defined powerful elite who are controlling the world, have also alienated some critics. But, as Bellamy said to me in Antwerp, when I suggested they were walking a very fine line between seriousness and preposterousness, people don’t always get the humour of the band. “We had more fun making Resistance than at any time since before the first album. We often would crack up in the studio. But even the most serious-minded people, and we are that, can’t be serious all of the time.”

Bellamy sees Muse as part of a tradition of bands like Genesis, Queen and Depeche Mode, all of whom have been highly successful globally if not always critically acclaimed at home. “People really appreciate that slightly mad, eccentric English tradition around the world. Bands in the Nineties seemed to forget the entertainment aspect of rock music." He adds that he has been thinking of appearing on stage in a bird costume.

Bellamy is only too conscious of the inherent ridiculousness of rock stardom. “We are aware that at any point we are one step away from a Spinal Tap moment, especially if you have a complicated stage show like ours.”

One of the strengths of the band, he believes - although others see it as a weakness - is their massive range of musical influences. Resistance quotes, not always in a fully digested manner, from Chopin, Saint-Saëns, Blondie and, more than anything, Queen. “I never understood bands who were only influenced by a narrow era of say five years of music. I think younger bands like us listen to more diverse music than previously, because it’s so easily accessible.” In spite of that, he thinks that, “Muse have one of the strongest identities of any band around now. But it’s more of an emotional identity than anything else.”

While London bands, Bellamy feels, “are more concerned with what is cool, it’s never been the most important thing for us”, citing his love of Prog Rock. “I think we have a lot in common with classical composers of the 19th century, although I’m not claiming to have their intelligence. They wanted to create a musical explosion, to blow the crowd away. Opera can be exceptionally moving, but can also be pompous.”

Bellamy’s father was a member of The Tornadoes, whose biggest hit was the futuristic "Telstar", produced by the visionary producer Joe Meek, so “thinking big musically has been part of my upbringing”. The lyrics, says Bellamy, “have to match the epic nature of the music”. For the single "Uprising", an incandescent mix of the Doctor Who theme tune, Blondie’s “Call Me” and Glam Rock, he sings “Paranoia is in bloom” and talks of “drugs to keep us all dumbed down”, with a glorious singalong chorus line of “They will not control us/ We will be victorious.”

The previous night the tour was in Berlin. We ended up talking about how Hitler, with his lighting designer Albert Speer, was the first amplified rock star. How Barack Obama ran, at least in part, as a rock star with stadium gigs (and that’s opened the door to the likes of Sarah Palin to do the same). Bellamy is aware of the crowd energy and how it can transmute into hysteria. “In the early albums I used to write as 'I' - now I notice I’m using 'we' a lot more.” Their sense of the ludicrous is their saving grace, though, at the same time played with all the conviction and intensity they can muster. When I say that the band is actually a kind of safety valve for the kind of crowd hysteria dictators in particular and politicians in general exploit, he agrees, sort of: "We are engaging the people, there's a place to do it without being risky or damaging."

Muse plug into a vaguely disquieting sense we all have, especially in the UK where there are more CCTV cameras than anywhere in the world, that we are being constantly monitored. Every call or purchase can be traced. So who is out to get us, exactly? “The world has been engineered around corporate thinking – maybe there’s some good things about that, but it's very bad for a lot of other things. Some people are rejecting that.”

Bellamy says the album’s key image was of the love story in Orwell’s 1984. While he has been “reserved” about being specific about his politics - “I’m a musician, not a speech-writer” - when pressed, he says things like how he thinks “the entire tax system should be overhauled in favour of a land-value tax”, that corporations shouldn’t own nature or the forests, and that he believes, “We are on the brink of something as spectacular as the Sixties. Because of things like climate change, the collapse of the economy and corrupt politicians, we will have a dramatic reaction against the older generation. It might be wishful thinking, though.”

He’s intrigued by all the talk of 2012 as a watershed year, the end of the Mayan calendar, and fancies playing New Zealand to see the fateful year in first. The soundtrack to the Revolution will be part metal, part Prog Rock, part classical but it will be, if Muse have anything to do with it, somewhat paranoid yet hugely entertaining. A glam-rock, metal uprising.