Brooding ’80s new wave act the Psychedelic Furs made an indelible mark on that era’s music scene, scoring critical praise and hit singles. Forty-plus years later, the group is still a vital going concern, touring regularly, pleasing live audiences and delivering more than just a nostalgia trip. With opening act Rooney, The Psychedelic Furs come to downtown San José’s Plaza de César Chávez on July 25.
Emerging in London in the wake of the punk rock scene, the Psychedelic Furs cut a distinctly different musical figure. Eschewing the bratty, poke-in-the-eye approach of bands like the Damned and Sex Pistols, the Furs—led by brothers Richard and Tim Butler—took their inspiration from select ’60s acts. And while groups like the Velvet Underground informed their dark and doomy sound, the music of the Furs didn’t fit into the goth-rock subgenre either. From their earliest days, they were unique.
“That helped us get our audience,” co-founder and bassist Tim Butler says. “People were tired of the three-chord thrash of punk.” And even if potential live show attendees didn’t yet know what the band sounded like, the group’s distinctly-unfashionable-for-punk name offered clues. “When they were looking at gig listings, they’d see ‘Psychedelic’ first,” Butler says. “Because other band names were like the Stranglers, Venus and the Razorblades… all these vicious-sounding names! So people were like, ‘Oh, Psychedelic Furs? That’s interesting. Let’s go check them out.’”
What those early audiences would find was a band that drew its inspiration from bands ten years gone, filtering those ideas through a post-punk sensibility. “We took influences from the ‘60s that we liked—maybe the first Frank Zappa album, Freak Out—and that gave us a whole different outlook,” Butler says.
The lyrics penned by Tim’s brother Richard bore the influence of Bob Dylan. “We were raised with our father playing Dylan all the time,” he says. “And that made a big imprint on us.” He says that Richard read works by a wide array of poets, but that Dylan was his leading light in that regard.
An early break for the Psychedelic Furs came in the form of influential and tastemaking radio deejay John Peel. He played the band’s debut single, “We Love You,” in October 1979, and invited the Furs onto his program on three occasions, two of which date from before the release of their self-titled debut album. Peel would continue to champion the band through the middle of the decade, by which time the Psychedelic Furs had gained international success with hit singles like “Pretty in Pink” (1981 and again in 1986), “Love My Way” (1982) and “Heaven” from 1984’s Mirror Moves.
Peel “was a big help,” Butler says, noting that when they first appeared on his popular BBC One radio show, they had only played about 40 live gigs. “Which is not a lot,” he says with a bemused chuckle. “Some of those what we used to call ‘pub rock’ bands got up and down the motorway playing hundreds of shows in a year. But we got signed after only 40!”
Butler says that Peel went above and beyond what the band could ever have expected. “When we lost our drummer [Paul Wilson], he said so on his show, and [told listeners] that we were looking for a new drummer. That was big.”
Around the same time as those early Peel shows, the group began work on recording their first album. “Other than [making] demos, that was our first time in a recording studio,” Butler says. Columbia Records went all-in for the band, enlisting the talents of Steve Lillywhite. The 24-year-old British record producer was fresh off a rapid-fire string of recent successes, working behind the console with the Members, Johnny Thunders, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Steel Pulse, XTC and Peter Gabriel.
“That was great,” Butler says. “Because his whole idea for the sound was just to capture what a live Psychedelic Furs show sounded like.” He says that the group set up their gear in the studio and played together. “There are very few overdubs on that album,” Butler says. The album reached the lower rungs of the U.S. Billboard album chart (#140) but the band made serious inroads with college radio, a factor key to their soon-to-come wider success.
The Psychedelic Furs earned and enjoyed a high profile through the late 1980s, but went on hiatus by 1991. Richard and Tim formed a new, not-too-different-sounding group called Love Spit Love. During that decade, the new group landed four singles on the U.S. Modern Rock chart; 1994’s “Am I Wrong” was Love Spit Love’s commercial high point.
By 2000, The Psychedelic Furs were back together, with the Butler brothers leading an ever-changing lineup (though keyboardist Amanda Kramer has been with the group since 2002). Unlike many bands of the new wave era, The Psychedelic Furs have done more than coast on their MTV-era fame: in 2020 the band released Made of Rain, a critically acclaimed collection of new songs that bring the band forward while connecting with its early post-punk sound.
Regular touring—especially in the U.S., where the group is now based—has helped keep the Psychedelic Furs in the public’s mind. Sync licensing has helped as well. “The Ghost in You” was featured on an episode of the Netflix series Stranger Things. “Love My Way” was used in the 2017 film Call Me By Your Name.
“The band’s heyday was in the ’80s,” Butler readily concedes. So he’s pleased that these sync opportunities have arisen. “They get us a younger audience who probably wouldn’t have heard us had those songs not been in those movies.” And while he’s proud of Made of Rain, he knows that many concertgoers are coming to hear “Pretty in Pink” and the band’s other 1980s hits. That thinking informs his perspective as the group continues its 41st year as a live attraction. “If we brought out [more] new music, I don’t know that it’d get the radio exposure,” he says.
For Tim Butler, live performance is the most fulfilling part of being in the Psychedelic Furs. “After all these years,” he says, “it’s exciting to go out there and still attract quite a large audience.”
Psychedelic Furs & Rooney play at Music in the Park beginning at 4pm on July 26 at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose. Tickets: $42.50–$89. caltix.com
