Melodic Anger and Power: The Psychedelic Furs’ Tim Butler Delves Into ‘Made of Rain’

The Psychedelic Furs have been touring hard since they got back together around the year 2000, turning themselves into even more honed performance dynamos, but the long suffering question has always been, will they put another album out? Fans who have been waiting for 30 years for a new album will get their wish on July 31st with Made of Rain.

Several singles and videos have been released ahead of the album, and they all have a very strong presence, making a bold statement about a band that has never really been gone, but was wary of releasing music that might not fare well in comparison to their globally lauded earlier work.

However, there is no time like the present, and fortunately, the band came to the conclusion not too long ago that the material they'd put together met even their stringent quality control and was fit for fan consumption. Fresh, lively, and definitely rather dark, Made of Rain takes us to interesting places sonically and conceptually.

The Psychedelic Furs co-founder, songwriter and bassist Tim Butler spoke with Tower's PULSE! about what we can expect from Made of Rain, that is, if the end of the world doesn't get us first.

Hannah Means-Shannon: Thanks for talking with Tower Records

Tim Butler: I remember Tower Records vividly from New York and LA. I didn’t know you all were still around.

HMS: Yes, we’ve relaunched, but we’re mostly online right now. Of course, some things have been slowed down by COVID.

TB: Yes, everything in the world has been slowed down by COVID.

HMS: Congratulations on the new album. It hasn’t been slowed down too much, thankfully.

TB: Well, it’s been slowed down for 30 years or more.

HMS: [Laughs] You have a point.

TB: But it’s finally here.

HMS: Roughly how long did you all work on it before release?

TB: A surprisingly short time. Since we got back together in 2000, we’ve been writing songs and passing them around among each other. But we were never confident enough that they would be up there with our past catalog. We were very, very nervous. Probably a year or less before we actually recorded it, we had the songs where thought, “Wow, these are great songs. These could be classic Furs.”

So we rehearsed them together for about a week, a week and a half. Then we went into the studio together for two 12-day sessions, recorded them, and overdubbed them and stuff. Then Tim Palmer mixed them in about a month. So, not a long time. Which is what I think keeps them fresh sounding.

We didn’t spend hours, and hours, and hours doing take after take, and overdubbing. It’s pretty much two or three takes, and that’s it. You choose the best one. Like we did with our first album before we got caught up with the studio idea, the idea that you can do anything in a studio, so you tend to go down the rabbit hole of technology, which isn’t a good thing.

HMS: I think the songs on the new album feel very fresh and not overworked at all. I can definitely understand that now based on your explanation, keeping the amount of editing and rerecording limited. It feels more like a live set, more like something performed.

TB: There are things you record together as a band versus alone. I’ve recorded things for the Furs where it was just me in a studio with a drum machine.

HMS: Wow.

TB: Mirror Moves. That turned out to be a great record.

But this was a lot easier the way we did it, playing it live. The bunch of musicians who played on it have been playing together live for years, so the sympatico between us was right on. I think we picked exactly the right time to record it.

HMS: You’ve been doing live playing together for years now, so it makes sense that it would be evident on an album that you’ve done together.

TB: Yes, I think the thing that finally pushed us into recording, despite being nervous, was the fact that all of our fans, new and old, have been coming to see us since we started playing live again. They might have been getting a bit worn down by the fact that we’d get out and play and we’d do different deep cuts every tour. But the fans would know those songs. We can’t wait to get out and play and have new, fresh songs.

HMS: I’m selfishly glad that the fans pushed you to do it!

TB: [Laughs] Well we have to give them something for their patience. A lot of them have waited 30 years.

HMS: This is true. How would you describe the sound direction on this new album?

TB: It’s definitely The Furs, but I think it’s The Furs infused with a modern edge. You can’t help but be a musician who listens to everything that’s going on around you musically, in any genre. Which I think played into us putting together a Furs album that was definitely a 2020 Furs album as opposed to a 1985 Furs album.

HMS: Absolutely. As we were saying, it’s a very fresh sounding album, and not one that tries to reproduce previous sounds.

Some of the press that’s come out has commented that Made of Rain is a “darker” album than expected, with darker ideas or themes. I took that with a pinch of salt, but after l looked further into the album, I could see where that was coming from. There is a somewhat Gothic feel to some of the songs. Do you think that’s fair?

TB: Yes. We are living through darker times. What Richard is living through influences how dark the songs are. We have always been a pretty dark band, except for a few things. There’s “Heaven”, but even the song “Heaven” has got dark lyrics. On the outside, it’s a dance tune, but the lyrics are about looking out your window and seeing bombers flying over. It’s a pretty dark visual there. Our stuff has always been compared to other bands who came out around the same time as dark and moody, and thought-provoking.

HMS: Has anyone commented yet on the fact that the cover art for Made of Rain shows a statue looking afraid? Which is kind of predictive of our times?

TB: No! I hadn’t thought of that. I’m sure when it’s released there’ll be lots of comments on that. [Laughs] Maybe Richard can see into the future.

HMS: It’s even got a little spray paint too, and the statue is looking afraid in that direction.

TB: Yes. At least we didn’t choose a statue of Robert E. Lee or someone like that. That would have been too much!

HMS: I think the album definitely fits the mood of the world right now. Even the title, Made of Rain, suggests we’re going through some stuff here.

TB: To me it suggests looking out the window on a rainy day and thinking about what’s happening. On all fronts, things are looking in dire shape. 2020 has been a pretty disastrous year.

HMS: Yes. It’s hard to even know what to say…

TB: Let’s hope nothing else comes up. It’s crazy, I’ve been reading about animals coming up with Bubonic plague.

HMS: Oh yes, I saw that!

TB: One of them was somewhere in China. Another one was, I think, a squirrel in Colorado. What is happening??

HMS: What is going on?

TB: It’s the end of the world. But at least with the Bubonic Plague, they’ve got a handle on how to cope with that.

HMS: It’s not a totally new thing, at least.  

The song “Come All Ye Faithful” has been released, along with a video, and it’s a powerful statement in terms of sound and in ideas. Is there anything you can tell us about how that song came together or what you like about it?

TB: That song was actually written by Richard and by Rich our “new” guitarist, who’s actually been with us since 2008. Richard wanted the vibe of it to be like the song by David Essex called “Lamplight”. The vibe of it set Richard off, lyrically. It’s sort of menacing and very moody. That gave us a musical direction to go. And so, it’s a moody, menacing song.

HMS: Yes, it is. I love how there’s a contradiction between the title, which sounds welcoming, and the actual song, where the mood is combative. The contrast is nice.

TB: [Laughs] Yeah. Well, that’s Richard for you. One of the best lyricists of the past 40 years.

HMS: There you go. I noticed that in the lyric video for “Come All Ye Faithful”, there are vinyl records featured in the imagery. How do you feel about physical media?

TB: Well, I grew up listening to and playing records. I used to love the idea that if you bought a record, you could sit and look at the artwork and read the lyrics. With a big 12 inch square picture. When it went down to CDs, I was a bit frustrated, and now that’s disappeared. I’m glad that LPs seem to be making a comeback.

HMS: They really are. What do you think of that?

TB: You can be looking at the album sleeve, turn it over, see a picture of the band or whatever, and you can read it without having to have a magnifying glass.

HMS: Right. You can actually see the credits. It’s the only way that you actually get to read that stuff.

TB: It’s all part of it. A lot of effort is put into the artwork for albums, as well, and that’s very hard to see on the CD, much less the digital downloads. There’s nothing to see.

HMS: A lot of people say that looking at the artwork while listening to the music is part of the world of the album and it helps them have an experience of that music.

TB: It’s a whole experience. It’s a total package. A band comes out with the music, the lyrics, artwork that they want to convey a certain mood for the album. Even before you put on the record, you can see the album cover and get the mood that the album is going to be.

HMS: On Made of Rain, do you think there’s good reason to listen to the songs on the album in order, in an arc? Or are the songs more independent of each other, more like a collection?

TB: It’s a collection. We did sit down and decide which order these songs should go in. I think they each tell a bit of a story on their own. It’s not a concept album.

HMS: Another song I’ve found very interesting on the album is “No-One”, which has been released with a video as well. Could you tell us any of your thoughts about it?

TB: That’s another one that Richard wrote with Rich, our “new” guitarist. It went down in a couple of takes after we rehearsed it. It came on pretty strong. When the guitarist actually put a different guitar part on it, it sort of jumped up there as one of my favorite ones on the album. I think it’s one of the most traditionally Psychedelic Furs songs. I think it will be great when we actually do get out to perform live. I think it will be a great live song.

HMS: It’s really powerful. It kind of made me think of this idea that we can haunt ourselves, in our own lives. There’s a spooky feeling about that that’s interesting, and the video picks up on that, using empty hallways, and a camera perspective where you don’t know who’s “looking”.

Do you think there’s anything in your work that should be considered a psychedelic influence? I know that the use of the name was not exactly straightforward.

TB: I don’t think there ever really was any. When you see the name Psychedelic Furs, you tend to think of hallucinogenics and the 60s. We used that name just to set ourselves apart from all the Punk names that were happening at the time, when we formed. Our influences were not really psychedelic. Rock music was an influence, early Bowie, The Stooges. I know they were once called “The Psychedelic Stooges” but there’s nothing about their sound that was psychedelic. I think the most psychedelic thing that influenced us was The Velvet Underground and they were dark, dark, dark psychedelic.

HMS: Yes, absolutely.

TB: I know back in the early 80s, there was a psychedelic revival with The Teardrop Explodes and others and we were lumped together. But none of those bands had any really psychedelic sound to them. We used to get onstage, and we only had about four or five songs, so we’d jam around and make them last ten minutes or fifteen minutes. I guess that’s a bit psychedelic.

HMS: [Laughs] Actually, yes it is. And maybe that’s part of the association. Because bands like The Grateful Dead, and even The Allman Brothers, would have these really long songs with a number of musicians on stage, playing.

TB: I think we had a couple of songs that came out of jamming around one song onstage, and something would develop. “India” came out of that, from the intro to “Flowers” off the first album. That’s a bit psychedelicky. Though there were no psychedelic drugs involved. Maybe a few pints of lager! Maybe more than that.

HMS: [Laughs] Maybe some of the improvisational approach was there that other bands would not have used to develop things.

TB: Yeah, especially coming out of the Punk period. Because what it basically was, was six people or five people getting together who didn’t really know how to play their instruments that well. So we’d all playing trying to be heard, trying to be the one sticking out that people would take notice of, so it turned into a wall of melody. I think someone dubbed it “beautiful chaos”.

HMS: Wow, that’s cool.  When you all perform live, how important to you are the visual elements of the setting, the lighting, backdrops and things? Or is it more just focused on the music itself?

TB: The music is the most important thing. We’ve never been the band into lasers and all that. But it’s nice if the lighting can help set the mood for a song. It’s just about how you communicate with the audience. We don’t want to be aloof, “We’re the rock stars. You’re the audience.” More like, “How are you doing down there? Are you enjoying yourselves? Are you doing okay?” It’s more of a communication thing than the whole visual bells and whistles. An example would be having 15 dancers on the stage, and the song can be absolutely awful and sterile, with no feedback from the audience. It’s just to be up close and personal.

HMS: I think that has been what people have really loved about your touring.

TB: We don’t phone it in. Every night we are there. We want the audience to go away having had a really good night. It’s all about communicating with the audience, not putting on any rock star attitude. They are the reason you’re there, so if they are not happy with anything, you’ve failed.

HMS: That’s wonderful that you feel and think that way. I know fans appreciate it.

What is it about live performance that has made it possible for you to commit to performing so much, year after year? What do you get out of it and stay engaged?

TB: It’s just the joy that I personally get. Night after night, you have a different audience. They sing along to the choruses. You have people come up to you afterwards and say, “This song or that song got me through a bad period in my life.” Or, “I got married and ‘Love My Way’ was the first song I danced to at my wedding reception”. Stuff like that.

To realize that the songs that you wrote in a little rehearsal studio somewhere in London actually made a change in someone’s life and that these people still come down to see you because they love that song so much. That’s all you can hope for when you form and write in a band. That you’ll write something that’ll be remembered and appreciated.

HMS: There’s no danger there, believe me. People love your music and I think they are going to love Made of Rain, too. It’s a really cool album.

TB: Fingers crossed. I know it took a long time. When we were playing live, we were very nervous that we wouldn’t be able to put something out that would be on par with our back catalog. But I think Made of Rain is way up there. My favorite album by the Furs has always been Forever Now. And I think Made of Rain is up there with Forever Now.

HMS: If you look around the internet, you’ll see articles about how the Furs’ music has influenced younger musicians in the past, and even now. Do you feel like you can see that influence when you look out over the music industry?

TB: I think we influenced, especially early on, the direction of alternative music after Punk, to be more melodic, but still have the passion and aggression of Punk with the more thoughtful and melodic. But with anger and power, if that’s possible.

HMS: I love that description. My personal opinion is that that’s the beginning of your influence, the starting point, and that there’s actually a lot more after that.

At Tower Records we have a motto that you may remember, that’s “No Music, No Life” and “Know Music, Know Life”. Which do you think applies to you, and what might it mean in your own life?

TB: I’d go with “No Music, No Life”. For me, relaxing or whatever I’m doing, I have music playing. It sparks me to do things. It makes me want to do things, not necessarily to write, but sometimes I do write things and mess around with things in a little studio. To do anything, it seems to give you, emotionally, a boost. ‘No Music’ would be a very depressing world. Whatever sort of music. It doesn’t have to be a type of music that you’d personally go out and buy. I think music makes people happy with life, so to speak.

HMS: So you think that it can help various aspects of life in different ways?

TB: Yes, even in this pandemic, you can put on music and get engulfed in it. You can forget about all the troubles that are going on in the world and relax.

HMS: It has certainly already played a very big role in peoples’ lives during this time. There’s been more presence for music right now because I think that people have realized how much they need it.

TB: Yes. Sit and take some time to chill out and quiet yourself down with music because there’s nothing else you can do with things locked down. Stay home, put on your favorite music, and relax, because otherwise you’re going to get so full of anxiety and fear. It can engulf you, and goodness knows what. I know suicide rates have gone up and things like that. But put on your favorite music and step back from your hectic life a little bit.

HMS: I’m sure I can speak for Tower Records in agreeing with you about how important music is right now.