Super Furry Animals |
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Fri. April 02.2004 12:00 AM EST |
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Super Furry Animals: All Due RespectThe Welsh wonders speak about people they hold in high regard, from Bill Hicks to Serge Gainsbourg. by C. Bottomley |
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(Kevin Westernberg) |
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Ask the Super Furry Animals about their heroes and you'll be barking up the wrong tree, says their lead singer Gruff Rhys.
"I don't particularly like that term 'heroes,'" he said. "People should regard themselves as the equal of others.
You can hear snatches of the Beach Boys or Electric Light Orchestra in the Welsh band's solarized pop music. They even sample arch '70s ironists Steely Dan on their tune "The Man Don't Give a F*ck." But the eccentric Animals have their own agenda. Their latest album, Phantom Power, attacks imperialism and fundamentalists in the guise of songs whose joyousness (and silly puns) will make you crack a big grin. So maybe it's fairer to ask them who they consider their fellow travelers. Rhys obliged VH1's query with a rogues gallery of perverts, punks, pyromaniacs...and one angry comedian. BILL DRUMMOND When people create chaos in contemporary culture, it's probably got something to do with frustration over mundane entertainment. I suppose Bill Drummond knew the music business inside-out and had become a little bit bored with it. When he managed Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes, he sent Teardrop Explodes to New Zealand and Echo & the Bunnymen to Iceland. He thought the fact that he sent his bands to opposite sides of the globe would create some force field that would empower him. So he stood on a manhole on a street in Liverpool, where he had worked out these forces would come together. By standing on this manhole he thought he'd be given some cosmic energy. It's a very unorthodox way of managing bands! He's far more interesting than [Sex Pistols manager] Malcolm McLaren, just because of the sheer oddness of what he did. Then he had a string of No. 1 hits in the U.K. with the KLF, and wrote a book called How to Have a No. 1 Hit. He made a million pounds, took it by helicopter to a remote Scottish island, burned the money and made a film called How to Burn a Million Quid! It was pretty shocking in this day and age. We still argue about whether he was right to burn a million pounds or whether he should have donated it to a hospital or something. But I think it's a great gesture, to make that much money out of weird pop singles and then burn the profit. SERGE GAINSBOURG He perfected a kind of beautiful subversion. The Sex Pistols could subvert with high-energy rock music, which was exciting because they were 20 years old and "God Save the Queen" and "Anarchy in the U.K." were incredibly powerful. Serge Gainsbourg made a reggae version of the French National Anthem that had the same impact [in France], but he was in his 40's and a bit chubby, so it was far more honest for him to subvert in more subtle ways. He had a kind of musical perversion, where he was willing to test people's tastes. His Vu de l'Exterieur is a concept album about sh*t, but it's also a beautiful album, you know? I can imagine it winding a lot of people up. Because I don't speak much French, I lose a lot of the subtleties. His 1971 album Histoire de Melody Nelson is a great piece of music, but I'm glad I don't understand the lyrics. Some French people have translated it to me and it's a very dirty album! ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM Andrew Oldham practically introduced the Rolling Stones into '60s music, then retired at 21. He managed to paint up the Stones as the anti-Beatles. He created the notion that there was some kind of edge to what they were doing, and that by associating yourself with that you were involved in some kind of rebellion. But on the face of it, a gang of spotty middle class kids from London doing very dodgy covers of American rock 'n' roll was pretty laughable. There's not much credibility in that, really. To turn that around into something which spearheaded a generation is incredible. He was a very interesting guy. BILL HICKS What's interesting about the people we're talking about is they weren't really musicians. You don't need to be a musician; you just need a strategy. Bill Hicks was a frustrated rock musician, but he fits in as someone who shook things up. What he did was incredible, because he was considered a comedian when in fact he was completely serious! He wasn't really a comedian, he just managed to persuade everyone he was. I suppose he was a political satirist. What's interesting is that his work is still relevant. He had a lot of [monologues] about George Bush Sr., and most of the themes still apply today! [Laughs] I discovered him through his records and he used to do a lot of TV shows in the U.K. I'm lead to believe that he's probably more popular in the U.K. then he is in the U.S., which is a great shame. We've use a sample of his "All Governments are Murderers and Liars" every night on the past couple of tours. When we play his stuff to people in America who are not aware of him, they usually end up in tears of laughter. Has anyone taken his place since he died [in 1994]? Not really. I suppose the next Bill Hicks might be an artist, or someone with that kind of clarity of analysis, like a journalist. GOLDIE LOOKIN' CHAIN We've been obsessed with a new hip-hop band from Newport in South Wales called Goldie Lookin' Chain. It's very X-rated and their cultural references are extreme, too. Most of their lines are about dope smoking in Newport, but they explore everything from Wayne Kramer of the MC5 to the pyramids in Egypt to the Nazca lines in Peru. They freestyle about the most ludicrous subjects and sample really sh*t '80s pop music like Eric Clapton. It's incredibly funny. They're already playing theatres in South Wales without ever releasing a record, because they've had their Web site YouKnowsIt.com.uk up for years. They've made like four albums' worth of songs available through it for free download. So they've bypassed radio and all the usual record industry bollocks. There's an EP we're putting out that they're guesting on, but we haven't quite sussed out what to call it yet. It will probably involve the name of a very large German airplane manufacturer. DATBLYGU David Edwards, the lead singer with Datblygu, and people from that '80s era of Welsh language punk music had a great influence on our politics. I use the word "punk" loosely. Datblygu were never a punk band in the conventional meaning of the term. Datblygu were more experimental. They were one of the first Welsh language bands to be played on TV in England, but it was very underground because it was very experimental. They were a very political band. [SFA drummer] Dafydd used to step in on drums, and I would go along as a drum tech or help carry the equipment. They didn't have a stereo in the van, so they would talk about politics all day long. That was certainly a very big education. They were a pretty intense group, too. I was in a band called Ffa Coffi Pawp. We supported Datblygu in a show in London in the early 90's. Within the first song, David Edwards had ran offstage through the crowd and started strangling the sound engineer, at which point the bouncers threw him out. As he was being chucked out, this journalist from Melody Maker was on his way in, and Edwards landed on top of this journalist - who was deeply offended. Within the space of a few seconds he had been thrown out of the venue, attacked the sound guy and the journalist who was possibly going to give him a rare write-up. It was spectacular! |
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