On tour after hiatus, Furs back to psychedelic selves

Kirk Baird

Friday, April 6, 2001 | 7:41 a.m.

Much has been written about the '80s band the Psychedelic Furs.

From front man Richard Butler's unmistakable raspy, nearly out-of-tune vocals, to the band's Velvet Underground-meets-Roxy Music sound.

But probably nothing has garnered more attention about the Psychedelic Furs than their name.

Is it a reference to "Venus in Furs" by the Velvet Underground, as some critics contend, or does it have a deeper, hidden meaning?

"Well, we were pretty drunk when we came up with it," Butler confessed in a recent phone interview from a hotel room in Jacksonville, Fla.

So much for the illusion.

The truth of the matter is the name was an attention-getting device, which worked well at first, he said. That is, until the group, which performs today at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues, left its native England and hit the States for a tour around 1980.

The name then quickly became burdensome -- especially when playing the smaller, less liberal-minded towns in the South, where residents often didn't know what to make of the band or its music, let alone its name.

"We'd see some people at a diner and they would ask, 'What's y'alls band called?' And we'd mumble 'Psychedelic Furs,' " he said. "At that time I think we wished we'd named it something different."

Still, Butler said, he can't complain.

"It could be Echo and the Bunnymen."

Or Love Spit Love, for that matter, which is/was Butler's "other" band.

These days, however, Butler is just happy to again be in the Psychedelic Furs. Of course, a 10-year absence can do that.

On a spring tour in support of a new greatest-hits package, the Furs -- featuring original member and bassist Tim Butler (Richard's younger brother) and longtime guitarist John Ashton -- broke up in 1991.

Well, sort of.

"It wasn't like an official split-up," Butler said. "It was more like, 'I don't want to do this right now.' And we wandered off into different directions."

For Butler that direction led to the forming of the aforementioned Love Spit Love, which scored minor air play with "Fall on Tears" and "Am I Wrong," both of which could easily fit into the Furs' latter-day catalogue of inviting melodies with moody, introspective lyrics.

It was while working on a batch of new songs for either a solo or Love Spit Love album, his brother suggested the music could serve as a new Furs album.

"I hadn't really thought about (reuniting)," he said, "but the more I thought about it, the more it interested me."

Then Butler was contacted by his manager, who wanted to know if the singer would be willing to reform the Furs and hit the road as part of a B-52s/Go-Gos tour.

He did, and the reunion went so well that the band then toured on its own, all the while working a few new songs into the set list along with old favorites, such as "Love My Way," "The Ghost in You," "Heaven" and "Pretty in Pink," the inspiration for and title of the 1986 John Hughes film and perhaps the band's most popular tune.

Ironically, it was those songs and other fan favorites that led to the Furs' decadelong hiatus.

"I was so bored with playing them, and I didn't want to be onstage bored all the time," Butler said. "But then having taken a break, when it came time to singing them again, it was great.

"Some of them were angry, some of them were very beautiful," he said of the songs. "But there was a lot of fragility there I didn't think about at the time."

The fact that the Furs are touring with a greatest-hits disc would make it easy to label the band another nostalgia act. Butler, however, insists that's not the case, since the Furs are playing new songs, some of which will eventually make it to a new album.

"It's the difference between the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys," he said. "I mean, the Rolling Stones continue to write new songs, whereas the Beach Boys don't."

Of course, both of those bands have left an indelible legacy on modern music.

So what about the Furs? What is that band's legacy?

"Sometimes we'll hear a band that says they were influenced by the Psychedelic Furs and (that group's music is) absolute crap," he laughed.

Anyone ever say that about the Furs?

"Probably," he joked. "(They) still do."

With a name like Psychedelic Furs, how could you resist?