Studer Community Institute

The Psychedelic Furs keep it in the family after 40 years

May 26, 2015
/ Mike Ensley
/ community-dashboard

In 1976, brothers Tim and Richard Butler were already talking about forming a band, when a single shared experience changed their lives forever. “We saw The Sex Pistols at the 100 Club in London,” Tim Butler said. “The energy, the attitude – it was the greatest show we’d ever seen.” In 1976, the Sex Pistols were the focal point of England’s punk rock movement. In a brief two-year career, they scandalized the British press with their outrageous off-stage antics and inspired a whole new generation of bands that sought to tear down the staid and tired music landscape. “We walked out knowing that we had to kick the band in gear,” Butler said. Among those notable bands to form after seeing The Sex Pistols were The Buzzcocks, Joy Division and The Smiths, among others. The Butler Brothers started writing songs soon after and they had high musical ambitions. [sidebar] Want to go? The Psychedelic Furs w/Noiseheads WED, MAY 27, 2015 7:00 pm Vinyl Music Hall Pensacola $25.00 Tickets available online and at the box office. [/sidebar] “We wanted to capture that energy and attitude of punk and mix it with The Velvet Underground and Roxy Music,” said Butler. The band they formed, with Richard as vocalist and Tim on bass, would go on to be hit makers on both sides of the Atlantic in the ‘80s and influential on a whole new generation of bands - The Psychedelic Furs. But it didn’t start out that way. Initially, Butler says the band’s reach exceeded their grasp. “We were very experimental early on,” Butler said. “That was because we couldn’t really play.” Butler describes gigs in which songs often went for more than ten minutes “because we didn’t know how to stop them.” “Early on, we were a wall of melodies,” Butler said. “It was beautiful chaos.” The melodies were where The Psychedelic Furs diverged from their punk rock forefathers. “We got bored with the three-chord thrash and nihilistic music of that time,” Butler said. The experimental nature of their songs stuck with them, but as time progressed, so did their musical skills and more importantly, their songwriting. “We learned how to craft a song,” Butler said. “We started making pop music, but it was on our own terms.” And as the band’s sound emerged, so did the hits on the UK and US charts, including “Dumbwaiters”, “Love My Way”, “Heartbreak Beat” and “Heaven.” One single they had first recorded in 1981, returned later in the decade to transform the band again. “Pretty in Pink,” from the album, “Talk, Talk, Talk,” had inspired writer/director and ‘80s teen film legend John Hughes to write the film of the same name, which starred Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy and John Cryer. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuWmsg-ihLg[/embed] Hughes wanted another band to record the song for the soundtrack, but The Furs stepped in and re-recorded a polished version of the song and found themselves, for better or worse, with a whole new audience. “Before that, particularly in the U.S., we had a fan base,” Butler said. “After the success of the movie and soundtrack, we started to get a young girl crowd which drove away some of our original hardcore fans.” The re-recording of the single also leaves Butler wondering why it was changed. “I seem to recall it was some record executive who said the original sounded out of tune,” Butler said. “We re-recorded it, but I wish we hadn’t. The original is so raw and much closer to the way we sounded then and now.” The band’s popularity continued and they became staples on the burgeoning modern rock scene of the late ‘80s. After several albums and more hits on college radio, the band went in an indefinite hiatus in the early ‘90s. The Butler brothers weren’t done with music or working together, however. In 1992, the pair formed a new band, Love Spit Love, and while the sound was similar, the baggage wasn’t. “There was no pressure,” Butler said. “We didn’t have to rely on a back catalogue of songs.” Love Spit Love soon had a hit – “Am I Wrong?” – which went to number three on the Modern Rock Chart and while the music wasn’t that fundamentally different than The Psychedelic Furs, according to Butler, playing with his brother was suddenly new again. “We just followed along on the quality of what we had been doing, but this was a breath of fresh air,” he said. As the ‘90s continued, The Psychedelic Furs’ influence started to make itself known in the music world. “Suddenly, bands started to name check us in interviews,” Butler said. And as contemporary acts like The Killers continued to praise the band in interviews, booking agents took notice. In 2000, the Butlers were approached to tour with fellow ‘80s icons The B-52s and The Go-Gos. “We did it mainly just to see how it would feel,” Butler said. “It was 40 minutes a night with no pressure and when we got on-stage, it felt like we had never left.” The reunited Furs began touring again on their back catalogue and that’s the show they will bring to Vinyl Music Hall on Wednesday night. “This is the best group of musicians we’ve ever had in this band,” he said. “Right now, we’re doing our songs, but they feel very current and very raw.” As for new material, Butler says it could be on the way. “We are writing,” he said. “I really hope we can start recording some of these songs later this year and put out something new early next year.” While many bands with siblings often crash and burn due to personal conflict, it was never the case with the Butlers – at least not seriously. “We certainly had our ups and downs,” Butler said. “There were ego clashes back in the ‘80s, but we’re older and wiser now.” After being in a band with his brother for nearly forty years, Butler has some advice about musical sibling rivalry. “Richard and I realized long ago that we are both equally important to the band,” he said. “I think that bands with siblings that have issues need to sort out that they’re family. Love conquers all.”

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The Psychedelic Furs keep it in the family after 40 years

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