‘Better than ever’: Longtime UK band feeling good ahead of Maui concert
The Psychedelic Furs have seen a recent revival with songs featured in hit productions
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Acclaimed as one of the U.K.'s most exceptional bands, The Psychedelic Furs arrive on Maui after touring Australia. With fans including David Bowie and David Byrne, their songs have been covered by the Foo Fighters, Annie Lennox and Counting Crows.
Bowie praised the Furs "publicly a number of times," recalled founding bassist Tim Butler. "There's an old story of the three Davids, Bowie, Byrne and Johansen backstage at one of our shows fighting over which one of them would get to produce our next record. It didn't happen in the end though."
Decades after their formation in the late 1970s, their popularity has seen a revival in recent years with their music employed in a number of high-profile movies and TV shows. The hit Netflix show "Stranger Things" featured the Furs' 1984 song, "The Ghost in You," while "Love My Way," was featured in the Oscar-winning drama, "Call Me By Your Name," and the critically acclaimed 2020 drama "The Nest."
Fronted by lead singer/composer Richard Butler, Artist Magazine proclaimed him "one of the foremost experts on rock'n'roll lyric writing."
Earning rave reviews on their latest tour, their concert in Perth on Nov. 16 was hailed by The Rockpit, "as the best rock and roll show since Covid robbed us of such wonders."
"I feel like we've been playing better than ever," Butler reported. "Plus, we're throwing in some new songs that have been going down really well. So we're feeling good about it. It's nice to hear such nice reviews. We're doing Australia and Hawaii on this leg. We're really looking forward to seeing the beautiful island and playing a really great show for everyone."
The Furs were formed by the Butler brothers in London in the late '70s.
"The punk scene was really coming into its own," Butler recalled. "It was a show by the Sex Pistols in the '70s that really inspired Richard and I to want to start a band."
As far as influences, he said, "we liked the musical-ness of Roxy Music, and the attitude of the Sex Pistols, and Velvet Underground, Love, and many things that have come since."
Crafting enigmatic songs that were hypnotic and brooding, Spin magazine hailed their debut album as "a textural masterpiece." They sounded unlike any other band at the time, creating a unique wall of sound that was instrumentally rich and dense with massive choruses.
"I guess it's always been part of what we do," said Butler. "It's been called a 'beautiful chaos.' "
Dubbed by Rock Cellar Magazine as the "gods of the MTV era," their popularity soared after their song "Pretty in Pink," inspired the hit teen movie of the same name. The film's star, Molly Ringwald, suggested director John Hughes make a movie about the Furs' song.
"It certainly changed the fan base," Butler explained. "What started out as college-age rabid fans quickly became teen girls in pink shirts who were in love with the movie. It took us a minute after all of that to regroup and win back the original fans, but these days we're fortunate to have a mix of both camps, plus their kids."
Rolling Stone included "Pretty in Pink," in its list of "The 25 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time."
Relishing their success in America, the musicians departed England to relocate on the U.S. Mainland.
"When we first toured America, it turned out to be everything we also thought it would be, especially in New York City, exciting, vibrant, vast," he noted. "We moved to New York not long after and have been in America ever since."
Briefly breaking up and then reforming, it took close to 30 years for the band to release their latest album "Made of Rain" in 2020. It was hailed as one of their best and featured in end-of-year Best Albums round-ups in Mojo, Uncut, Classic Pop and ABC's "Good Morning America."
With all of the album's songs recorded in two or three takes, there are grand moments like the dramatic opening "The Boy That Invented Rock and Roll," about the birth of rock, and the magnificent, Bowie-esque "Ash Wednesday." "Tiny Hands" recalls the psychedelic flourishes of the Stones' "Their Satanic Majesties Request," and you can even hear echoes of the Velvet Underground on the swirling might of the Celtic-tinged "You'll Be Mine."
"It just wasn't something we were interested in," Butler explained of their long absence from the recording studio. "We were concerned that it would be an outlier and not compare well to our previous albums. Happily, though, that wasn't the case. We were playing well as a band and thought we should try it and going by reviews and fan reaction, it all worked out better than we could have hoped."
They need not have worried. The online magazine Consequence noted: "Rarely does a classic band come back after so long with this much artistic merit." And Pitchfork praised, "unburdened by nostalgia, accepting the world as is while avoiding complacency, Made of Rain isn't a comeback -- it's a new road."
The Psychedelic Furs bring their "Made of Rain" tour to the MACC's Castle Theater at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets are $30, $45, $55 and $65, with a limited number of $125 Gold Circle seats (plus applicable fees). Tickets are available at www.mauiarts.org.