Here's a previously unpublished piece on Gruff Rhys from an interview I conducted with the singer/songwriter in 2018. 

Ever since the days he spent fronting the Super Furry Animals when he declared to Melody Maker his band’s intention to “create cultural havoc in our time”, Gruff Rhys has never been content to play the conventional rock and roll game. Examples of SFA’s guerrilla tactics include having mugshots of the Welsh drug smuggler, Howard Marks, on their debut LP, Fuzzy Logic; having giant 40-foot bears manufactured for their Radiator tour and inviting Paul McCartney to munch celery and carrots to include in the mix on ‘Receptacle for the Respectable’ on the Rings Around the World LP. However, for sheer lunacy, nothing tops the band’s decision to buy a tank. Using the money allocated by their record company, Creation, to promote their fourth single- ‘If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You’- the armoured vehicle was painted blue and emblazoned with the band’s logo and song title. Decks and speakers were installed to convert the tank into a mobile Soundsystem which was taken to festivals and even driven across London and parked outside Radio 1’s headquarters to blast out their latest release. Such left-field antics made complete sense to a band who considered the money spent on the tank as being preferable to spending tens of thousands of pounds on a full-page advertisement in the NME. Now that’s what I call fuzzy logic!

Away from SFA, Rhys has recorded five solo LPs and a film soundtrack for Set Fire to the Stars (2014), Andy Goddard’s biopic of the poet John M. Brinnin. He has also collaborated with numerous acts, most notably forming Neon Neon with DJ and producer Boom Bip. Combining 80s synth pop with hip-hop, Neon Neon recorded two critically acclaimed concept albums. Their Mercury Prize nominated debut, Stainless Style (2008), chronicled the fall from grace of the De Lorean Motor Company founder, John De Lorean. Its follow-up, Praxis Makes Perfect (2013), repeated this conceptual approach to tell the story of the Italian left-wing publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

There was a hint of Rhys’ interest in biographical narrative in the SFA track ‘Herman Loves Pauline’, an eccentric recounting of the lives of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie which has Rhys informing the listener that “Marie Curie was Polish born but French bred. Ha! French Bread” However, since going solo, Rhys fascination with the concept LP and narrative forms of songwriting has proliferated, as evidenced in his 4^th solo LP American Interior (2014).

American Interior tells the story of the quixotic pioneer John Evans, an 18^th century Welsh hill farmer who travelled to America in search of a Welsh-speaking tribe - the Madog. In the process of his vain search, Evans became the first man to chart the Missouri river, was imprisoned under suspicion of being a British spy, contracted malaria and died. It is an epic tale of grandiose ambition and hubris which explores the themes of national identity and the creation of mythologies. Including the two Neon Neon albums, American Interior is the third concept LP of Rhys’ career.

I spoke to Rhys over the phone from his home in Cardiff as he was preparing for his Babelsberg tour in 2018 and asked him what attracts him to the concept LP and his subjects? “These are biographical records”, he tells me. “Biographies in song. Most songs are just personal observations and it’s nice to be able to take a break from self-analysis. The John Evans story is such a fantastic journey. He died at 29 but it’s incredible that he lived that long in a way. So, I think why write about myself when all these other people are living such insane lives? It took over my life for about three years. When you are writing about something specific, like someone else’s life, it’s easier in a way and it’s nice to have a change in the way you work. Sometimes it can speed the process up and you can just go off on one”.

American Interior is testament to Rhys’ creative restlessness and desire to explore new outlets for his music. Rhys wrote a book to accompany the album and there was also an American Interior app and film, co-directed by Dylan Goch who also worked with Rhys on the psychedelic travelogue, Separado! (2010). Coming across like Bruce Chatwin on acid, Separado! sees Rhys travelling to Patagonia, following in the steps of René Griffiths, a distant uncle who sung Welsh ballads in the style of an Argentinian cowboy. Rhys, a sci-fi troubadour in an astronaut helmet, is teleported from location to location to perform his songs to the bemused locals.

Rhys’ ventures into film and his detours into alternative media highlight his peripatetic nature and innovative approach to what the pop song represents. For Rhys, though, it’s all about the music. “I think of myself primarily as a songwriter, I just like to find different places for my work. As long as it’s all connected, I feel comfortable and I don’t think it’s particularly different from putting a record out. It’s an extension of my music.”

A musically heterogenous approach has always been Rhys’ forte. SFA merged indie-rock with psychedelic pop and techno, occasionally melding these styles into the same song, most notably in ‘Slow Life’. With occasional detours into soul, folk and country, SFA emerged as the most consistently interesting and eclectic of the bands around during the Britpop era. With his solo career, Rhys has continued this approach. “I’m interested in getting better in my songs,” he says. “I suppose the way I write is pretty simple, so it’s a way of not trying to write the same record over and over again. I can’t change my voice that much therefore my records are going to be fairly similar. So, I take the chance to experiment within what I do.”

Rhys sees the incorporation of new styles and formal innovation is an integral part of his evolution as a songwriter. The soundtrack for Set Fire to the Stars ventured into jazz and Rhys was committed to using instruments which would have been available during the 1950s timeframe the film was set. “When I got the film soundtrack, I would never had made music like that outside the film”, he explains. ‘Then I apply that technique to the next record. I’m just trying to develop what I do and, ultimately, I just want to make unique music. I don’t think it’s particularly unique yet but that is what I am aiming for.” Returning to the narrative element in his work, Rhys says, “A lot of my songs are quite abstract, using wordplay, writing funny couplets and throwing lyrics around.” Telling a story through his music means that his songs “make more sense”, he says.

“I don’t think I’m at the Bobbie Gentry level of storytelling but that’s something I’m working on. I’m a work in progress. You cannot mimic the vitality and energy you have when you first start out. The work can get more sophisticated, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s getting any better. But it definitely keeps me going. I still feel there’s a fair way for me to go.”

If Rhys previous offering, Babelsberg (2018), is anything to go by, he needn’t worry about the quality of his music. Although the LP ditched the biographical approach of his previous record, Babelsberg’s collection of songs still have a loose thematic connection to tie them together. Riddled with anxiety at the malaise of the modern world with the malevolent spirit of Donald Trump and the threatening rise of right-wing populism haunting the LP, the addition of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, melodious arrangements and Rhys mellifluous voice, enables the music to transcend its gloomy subject matter. On Babelsberg’s opening track, Trump is the ‘Frontier Man’, operating on a “frontier of delusion” to become a “monument to times gone wrong”, whilst ‘Architecture of Amnesia’ warns that “Paranoia will eclipse the rational”, chillingly detailing the increased bigotry surrounding the fear of the immigrant ‘other’: “And the narrative/ Led the hungry to the axe/ With the lure of false promises and fear of attack/ And they built a wall/ Switched on searchlights to the brim/ And invented a pariah/ At which everyone was shouting.”

There are also wistful reflections on social media, the narcissistic pervasiveness of selfie culture and how increased technology is diminishing social interaction. On ‘Take That Call’, Rhys says, “See you on face-phone” with the track lamenting that “a meaningful exchange/ The natural embrace/ Is replaced by the space/ Of a virtual arrangement”. Echoing Burt Bacharach and ELO, ‘Take That Call’ is an exemplary lesson in how to write a timeless three-minute song which comes pretty damn close to achieving pure pop perfection. Elsewhere, the albums closing track, ’Selfies in the Sunset’, is a gorgeous country and western infused ballad with Rhys duetting with Lily Cole about the prospect of the approaching end of the world with people still obsessing about posting selfies despite the encroaching Armageddon.

There has always been a political element to Rhys’ songwriting. SFA’s ‘The Man Don’t Give a F**k’ railed against the power of the system and its antisocial tendencies. Sampling a line from Steely Dan’s ‘Showbiz Kids’ (“You know they don’t give a f**k about anybody else”), the radio unfriendly single included the F word a total of 50 times. More recently, during the 2016 European Union referendum, Rhys released the single ‘We Love EU’ stating his support for the Remain campaign and last year he wrote ‘No Profit in Pain’ for the National Theatre of Wales’, celebrating the creation of the NHS and condemning the encroachment of the free-market on the service: “Don’t rip it apart/ For some bastard bank/ To make some money/ Ripping out your heart.”

SFA’s staunch political principles led them to turn down lucrative offers from advertisers for their songs, the most notable being a reportedly seven figure offer from Coca Cola for their 2003 single ‘Hello Sunshine’. “We were turning down a lot of adverts at the time.” Rhys says. “After the [Coca Cola] offer we were introduced to the Coca Cola workers in Columbia and they had been put through hell, shot by paramilitary anti-trade union groups.” (In 2003, trade unions campaigned for a worldwide boycott of Coke, claiming the corporation had colluded with right-wing paramilitary organisations in the murder of union activists in coke bottling plants in Columbia.) In retrospect, Rhys partially regrets the decision to turn down the advertisement: “If I’d been aware of the trade union struggles, I’d have done the advert and given them the money, so they could have healthcare and trade union organisation,” he says. “But when I turned it down I had no inclination and it was an instinctive reaction. I would definitely have been uncomfortable being the voice of Coca Cola, or Vodaphone, or Levi’s or Ford. There were a lot of them who were very keen on the band at the time.”

During the writing of Babelsberg, Rhys frustration at the political climate both in the UK and abroad led to a period of creative dejection. “At the time, I was on a total downer in terms of songwriting, incapable of thinking about anything else or writing in any other way. It wasn’t writer’s block- I was writing plenty of songs- but they were all so grim. The songs were quite heavy when I was making it, but once there was an orchestra added, it sounds quite light. I’m sort of out of that place now, but I wrote Babelsberg about two or three years ago when things were pretty bleak, and they still are. I think politics is in a very uncertain place at the moment.”

When he toured the album with the band who played on the record, the first half of the set featured Babelsberg in its entirety with the second half delving into his solo back catalogue. Rhys has re-assembled the band for a number of festival shows in the summer. Although he has discarded- for the time being- the PowerPoint presentations he incorporated into the American Interior live shows which saw him pausing between numbers to discuss the narrative themes of the songs, Rhys is maintaining his tradition of utilising the Brechtian device of holding up placards as audience prompts. The placards encourage the crowd to “Applaud”, “Louder” and go “Ape Shit” before revealing a final placard which ironically declares: “Don’t Follow Signs”. Such idiosyncrasies make Rhys persona light years away from the rock and roll posturing of most other performers. It is inconceivable that the Gallagher brothers, for example, would ever supplement their live shows with a PowerPoint presentation.

A Welsh maverick, like John Evans, with a pioneering desire to chart the hinterlands of the medium, it is difficult to identify anyone operating in the music world today with such a singular vision and scale of ambition as Gruff Rhys. Pang!, his latest Welsh speaking album, is out now on Rough Trade records.