Super Furry Animals discuss 20 years of ‘Phantom Power’ and their ongoing hiatus
It doesn’t feel as if much time has passed since Super Furry Animals reunited in 2015, leading to the band spending two years with their feet glued to the road playing venues worldwide. Somewhat surprisingly, their latest hiatus is currently more lengthy than their initial split. However, despite being inactive, two-fifths of the band reunited for a conversation with Far Out.
During their eclectic career, the Furry’s released nine albums over a prolific 13-year period between 1996 and 2009 before parting ways to work on other musical projects, putting them at the heart of the Cool Cymru revolution. They created a progressive body of work, which made them one of Britain’s most beloved cult bands of their era.
Endearingly, the Super Furry Animals never followed a standardised formula throughout their career. At every step, they were always taking bold risks, such as recording 2000’s Myng entirely in Welsh, which could have alienated a significant portion of their fanbase. Fittingly, it was the 15th anniversary of this album that reunited the band in 2015, and a handful of shows quickly spiralled into a world tour.
Super Furry Animals are now casting their eye back to 2003’s Phantom Power, an album that recently celebrated its 20th birthday. The LP has been remastered and re-released to mark the special occasion, but unfortunately, no concerts have been booked in the diary. With this being the Super Furry Animals, anything could happen in the future, and another reunion isn’t ruled out, albeit unlikely at this stage.
The joyous album spawned Super Furry Animals favourites, including ‘Golden Retriever’ and ‘Hello Sunshine’, capturing the band’s imperial phase. Although they are no longer bandmates, singer Gruff Rhys and keyboardist Cian Ciaran hopped on a Zoom call from their respective Welsh abodes to take a trip down memory lane to 2003.
The Q&A with Super Furry Animals:
Far Out: It’s 20 years since the release of Phantom Power. What are your memories of that time and making such an array of records in short succession?
Cian Ciaran: “At the time, it all felt natural, and we wanted to offload all this stuff from every time you go on the road. For me, going to the studio was always a welcomed break from touring. It allowed you to offload as well as explore new ideas, so it didn’t feel like a conveyor belt, or we were just churning albums out for a laugh.”
Gruff Rhys: “When we’d go the studio, we’d work on albums for sometimes three or four months and be in the studio every day.”
Cian Ciaran: “Every album was a new challenge too, whether this was a piece of kit you wanted to explore, a new label, or new flavours you wanted to do. There was always a new itch to scratch.”
Far Out: What particular itch did you want to scratch with Phantom Power?
Gruff Rhys: “I mean, the technology was moving so fast, and we were ready to experiment with even more with sounds. Cian also set up a studio, which is where he is now, I think, and we could experiment without being on the clock, but then we also went to local studios in Wales like Rockfield where we could track as a live band, but it was the first time that we had our own space.”
Far Out: Technology has played a pivotal role in not just Phantom Power but the entirety of the Super Furry Animals journey, especially compared with other bands from the same era.
Cian Ciaran: “We’d always embrace it. We wouldn’t be purists in that sense. As a band, we were pushing it more than others, but other artists were pushing it further in different fields of music. We liked our combination of traditional instruments and technology together, but you’d get drum ‘n’ bass artists who were purely electronic, unlike us.”
Gruff Rhys: “Films were pioneering surround sound audio, and we thought it was a bit weird that recording artists were way behind, so Cian set up a facility in the studios where we could replicate that technology.”
Cian Ciaran: “I’d watch films in there and try to dissect how they were doing it, but a lot of the albums at the time would just be live albums, which were just boring, really, they’d use audience mics and stick them in the back which would create a spatial effect, but it wasn’t utilising the technology available. Then Napster came along and killed the surround sound for bands.”
Far Out: Looking back on Phantom Power, where does it sit in your ranking of albums by Super Furry Animals?
Cian Ciaran: “For me, all of the albums blend together because it was a busy time over that ten-year span. Obviously, you remember which one came first and last, but to exaggerate the point, the fact they all blend makes it feel like all of the albums are one body of work as opposed to individual albums. They are all a continuation of each other, but they also stand alone. They’re like kids; they’ve got their own personality and character, but they’ve got the same parents.”
Gruff Rhys: “There’s a context behind them all, and we know the context in which we made each of the albums, so it’s hard to give over to favouritism. We were refining over time and always reacting to the last album that we put out.”
Far Out: Although you see the albums as chapters in the same book, is there a song that stands out from Phantom Power?
Gruff Rhys: “The one I go back to more than the others is ‘The Piccolo Snare’ because I think it combines a lot of the ideas of the band really well. It’s refined, harmonic and melodic, but also experimental, so I enjoy listening to that.”
Far Out: The 15th anniversary of Myng in 2015 was the catalyst for your reunion tour and the ongoing reissue series. How did that happen?
Gruff Rhys: “It happened very quickly, and then we went on the road for two years (laughs). Now, suddenly, we are in this cycle of 20-year anniversaries, but it’s been good because we are getting to remaster them at a really high resolution compared to when they came out.”
Cian Ciaran: “Digital converters are much better than they were back then, so what you’re capturing off tape is more accurate these days than what would have been originally conveyed. For me, the fact that we can go back to archive this stuff and document it almost like we heard it at the time is really nice.”
Far Out: With the privilege of speaking to you both at the same time, I need to ask, on behalf of Super Furry Animals fans everywhere, will we ever see you sharing a stage again?
Cian Ciaran: “I’m probably the worst person to ask because I’m not a fan of being on the stage with anyone full-stop, including myself, but I didn’t see it coming last time.”
Gruff Rhys: “Yeah, I didn’t see it coming last time either, and it feels so recent to me anyway.”
Cian Ciaran: “The gap between the last album and the 2015 reunion is shorter than what the gap is this time around, even though this feels shorter. Maybe it’s to do with getting old as time gets faster.”
Gruff Rhys: “We’ve spent so much time together making music, and in that sense, it feels the most natural thing in the world. We all know each other musically and personally extremely well. It’s not something that’s far-fetched, but time flies, especially when you have kids and are doing stuff. It all feels extremely recent.”
The remastered version of Phantom Power is available to buy here and is also available to stream online.
