Still Fuzzy: Telling The Story Of The Super Furry Animals

One of the most creative forces in ‘90s music, which is all too often remembered solely for Britpop, Super Furry Animals were a band who always managed to maintain an air of mystique and curiosity: just what would they do next?

They presented their work in their native Welsh language, they mashed together unusual instruments with samples, they wrote hit singles and their records arrived adorned with the fruits of Pete Fowler’s colourful mind. They were a group of forward-thinking, innovative minds who possessed a restless energy and an appetite for writing new stories.

Author Ric Rawlins has spent the last five years collecting yarns from both the band - Gruff Rhys, Huw Bunford, Guto Pryce, Cian Ciaran and Dafydd Ieuan - and other influential individuals, and the result is a new book, Rise of the Super Furry Animals.

You're clearly a fan of the band’s work. What was your first experience of them and what made them stand out for you?

I guess playing Mario with my teenage cronies, plausibly while smoking jazz cigarettes. We’d listen to their first four albums while skidding around those rainbow roads and chastising each other’s driving complacency. SFA seemed to chime more with Beck or the Beastie Boys than the Britpop bands: they were cooler, funnier, more sample crazy.

How and when did the idea behind the book first come about?

Weirdly enough, the first time I ever interviewed Gruff, he used it as a platform to half-jokingly appeal to publishers to do a big coffee table book full of Pete’s artwork. That would still be a great book. But, SFA have had such an inspired and colourful career that I knew it’d make for a fun book. That and discovering that the band were up for helping made it possible.

It isn't written in the traditional style of a biography is it? What made you go down the route of telling the story in a more cinematic manner?

I think, like a lot of rock writers, my early inspirations were Hunter S. Thompson, then Charlie Brooker and Jon Ronson came along; great comic writers with a flair for weirdness and ‘putting you in the scene’. And at first I had some kind of cunning plan that it would be a Gonzo biography, but then I turned 30 and realised how clichéd that idea is.

I grew up making videos and writing scripts, so that ‘cinematised’ thing is almost something I can’t help, for better or worse. Initially the book was going to be a lot more freaky with Pete’s gods ’n’ goat skulls coming alive and interacting with the characters, but toning that down probably helped keep the narrative grounded.

How did you approach getting all the stories together?

I tried to encourage the band and other interviewees to think in terms of stories: what memories make you laugh the most? That sort of questioning. Loads of the book was really written by other people, I just kind of formatted their memories.

Were there particular themes you went in planning to focus on?

I’m not sure what I was planning, but it ended up being a book about the mobile phone revolution as seen through their night-vision goggles. They started out in the Welsh language scene, and it really informed their DNA, their politics and their brilliance. But they also wanted to burst onto the scene like The Hulk. Just kind of rip out of their shirt and see the world.

This urge to communicate meant that when the comms revolution came calling, it slotted in with their warped ideology. They were really enthusiastic – and also suspicious – of mobile phones, and as a result they ended up being the only band that somehow documented the change they brought in society.  

Give us a taste of what to expect.

Hopefully you’ll laugh frequently, hopefully there won’t be too much muttering and cursing. There’s lots of funny, quasi-outrageous stories in there. We do go into the studio with SFA and explore how they made their records – particularly the Creation era ones – but it’s not too scientific. It just kind of bounces along.

Any tales that didn't make the cut?

The publishers actually wanted more, not less! The narrative arc focuses on their rise from the Welsh language scene to being a kind of Dadaist international pop group funded by Oasis record sales. That story seemed to end symmetrically with the release of ‘Mwng’. But my publishers asked me to at least take us on a quick tour of what came next, so they encouraged more book.

Pete Fowler has done the artwork for the book, having created some fabulous sleeves for the band down the years. How did that collaboration happen? Do you have a favourite piece of his work?

I was drinking in Brick Lane and spotted Pete over the other end of the bar. I nervously went over to say hello, and told him about the book. I was mentally preparing to beg for his help, but he brought up the idea and jumped into it. The book artwork is amazing. It’s appropriately very Mario. Though my second favourite thing he’s done is probably the snow god from Northern Lites.

The band has spawned numerous side projects. Any favourites?

There’s loads of great records popping out. ‘Silver Sea’ by Cian and ‘At The Heart of Love’ by Gruff both soundtracked great times in my life. Gulp and The Earth have done marvellous things. Strangetown Records is like some kind of Motown pop factory.

Finally, if the book was a Super Furry Animals song, which one would it be?

That’s so difficult! In my mind it’s possibly a bit like Dim Brys, Dim Chwys. Hopefully it taps into the hyperdelic majesty at the heart of the band.

‘Rise of the Super Furry Animals’ is out on February 19, with a launch event slated to take over Rough Trade East, London on the same day.

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