“It’s the sound of us jumping into a pool,” says Super Furry Animals frontman Gruf Rhys of the opening of their new album Love Kraft, as though that explains everything.
Still, seven albums and almost 10 years down the line, Rhys is finally in a position to wax pragmatic about his musical output.
“The more albums you make and the longer you keep going, the more unusual it gets,” he states. “We’ve had the same line-up for 10 years, but it feels like we’ve been going three years. When you read interviews with us back in the day, we said we’d do exactly what we’ve done, which is good.”
Constantly changing direction has kept the group fresh, he says.
“We sort of react from album to album. After the first and second albums, we tried to evolve our sound. By the third, we worked out how to make glossy pop records. We reacted to that by recording a really lo-fi Welsh album in two weeks.”
More ambitious projects followed.
“We were in the studio for nine months, and made a double album about the state of the world. There was surroundsound, with a film for every song. On this new album, we’ve been trying different aspects of the band sound.”
Love Kraft may be their seventh studio album, but it’s the first on which Rhys has relinquished his duties as the band’s sole songwriter.
“Everyone is getting more confident about their writing,” he explains. “(Keyboardist) Cian Ciaran wrote and sang two songs, (drummer) Dafydd Ieuan wrote a song, and (guitarist) Bunf wrote three songs. Daf and Cian’s are introspective, sung from the heart. Mine were more energetic and poppy, they didn’t really fit in with everybody else’s work. We had 30-40 songs and went for the more introspective ones.”
Prior to making Love Kraft, the respective band members parted company to work on various solo projects.
Earlier this year, Rhys’ debut album, Yr Atal Genhedlaeth, was released. It was recorded in Gorwel Owen’s studio, with virtually all the instruments played by Gruf. The result was a decidedly lo-fi supplement to the band’s versatile body of music.
“The audience was extremely kind, as I didn’t really know the songs at that point,” he laughs, recalling his well-received solo show earlier this year in Dublin’s Sugar Club.
“I had a batch of songs, and I recorded them quite informally. It took a week to do the whole album. It was things I wanted to try out, in the knowledge that our next band album was a different kettle of fish.”
Creatively revitalised and reinforced, Rhys maintains that their solo tinkerings served to invigorate the band as a whole.
Having more than one songwriter, allows a group to develop in different directions, he proffers.
“We’re entering a phase of a band with more than one character and singer, and I suppose we have certain role models that have come into play. We’ve always been huge Beach Boys fans. When they were on their seventh album they started to share songwriting. My favourite Beach Boys album is Surf’s Up, where Dennis, Karl, Brian, Mike and Al all wrote.”
The Super Furries’ current role models are the Wu Tang Clan – “'cos they all go off, do their own stuff, be creative and learn from it, and when they come together they reign supreme”.
Though certain critics contend that the band have finally hit their creative and commercial ceiling, Rhys has other ideas.
“We’ve never had runaway success,” he reflects. “Thankfully, we’ve never had the massive single that’s overshadowed any of our other work. We’re able to sing new songs that people listen to, and they don’t throw things at us ‘cos they want to hear the hit.”
Gruf reckons that Love Kraft is their least poppy and commercial record yet.
“It’s more about capturing the sound of the band. We’ve avoided experimenting with production and electronics so much. In the past our records have been like a children’s international language of screaming. This record, play it to kids and they’ll start crying!”
In addition to experimenting with their sound and making small people weep, the Super Furries have been concentrating on the visual elements of their music.
For a start, the band have appeared in Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs.
“We got an e-mail from Michael asking, ‘Can I shoot a scene for my film at your Brixton gig?’” recalls Rhys. “He went on to say it was a love story and that was all we knew about it. They came with their cameras and filmed during the set. My mate was in the crowd and he saw a couple shagging and he was like, ‘Ooh, put them away’…then he saw someone with a camera filming them, and he was like, ‘This band really do attract some pervs.’"
It was only much later that he realised what he had become involved in.
“The next thing I remember, a year later I open a newspaper on the train, and I see the headline, ‘The most pornographic movie ever released’, and there was a picture of me on the opposite page illustrating it. I had a heart attack! Crazy stuff. It’s great though…it’s a funny story to tell my grandmother.”
For the Super Furries, live performance remains a favourite arena.
“At Oxegen, we disembarked onstage triumphantly from our golf buggy and showed off our new stage costumes for the first time,” he says proudly.
Dressing up isn’t quite the hoot it seems, however.
“They’re quite utilitarian jumpsuits, though it’s a bit sacky around the arse,” explains Rhys. “They’re made of fibre optic thread, so we can be switched on and off. I guess we do it because we’re not much of a spectacle ourselves. It’s not enough for us to do the music. We’re 1000%, so we try ideas out when many wouldn’t. We go on tour, people turn up, and we want to give them blood, sweat, and tears…and electric light outfits.”