This article is more than 13 years old
This article is more than 13 years old
The Furries frontman on singing in two languages, perfecting the cover version and how he was inspired by a Harold Pinter play
On singing in two languages: "The space between two languages is an interesting place, and one of the exciting things about writing in two languages or more – especially with the Welsh language, because most people who can speak Welsh can also speak English – is that you can make puns. I once did a song with Mogwai [Dial: Revenge, on 2001's Rock Action] and I think they were into me writing in Welsh, because they're an instrumental band and they wanted a singer who would be just sounds for most people. Back then, people were still using payphones. When you take a payphone off the hook, on the LCD screen it flashes 'DIAL'. But in Welsh, dial – pronounced 'dee-al' – means revenge. It puts you in a weird place when you're making a phone call. So the song was about that."
On writing lyrics for a band: "If we're making a Super Furry Animals record, it's a collaborative process and everyone has a veto on any aspect of the record, including lyrics. In a way, you can self-censor a little bit. If you think there's something that someone else in the band won't appreciate, you'll strive to write it in a certain way. If I'm making a solo record, I'll think: this is my chance to do daft things, for better or for worse, and at least I'm not affecting anyone else."
On writing narrative songs: "On my last solo record [2007's Candylion] I tried to write a ballad, called Skylon, but I didn't think about the time it would take to sing; it was supposed to be four minutes, but when I went into the studio it took 15. For the new record, I set out to write a more concise narrative, which became Space Dust #2. It's a love song set at a seminar or industrial conference taking place in a modernist conference centre in a pine forest – somewhere like Canada or Scandinavia, maybe. It's about three minutes from meeting to breakup. I asked the singer El Perro Del Mar to sing it with me, because I'm a huge fan of her lyrics – they're full of idioms and life lessons, some of them very bleak. She's sort of a Scandinavian Brian Wilson."
A cover that feels like my own: "The song I've covered the most is Religious Experience (Singing a Song in the Morning) by Kevin Ayers. It's like a mantra, and I've partly covered it because it's so simple to remember. The lyric is: 'Singing a song in the morning/ Singing it again at night/ I don't even know what I'm singing about but it makes me feel alright.' It's just about the power of music. I play it to finish concerts, because it's a very easy song to harmonise to."
On the influence of playwrights: "For some reason, plays are quite conducive to songwriting – there are a lot of one-liners in plays, and they're a lot like lyrics. I picked up Harold Pinter's Mountain Language, quite randomly, when we were recording Radiator. It's about a group of people living in isolation, persecuted, on a kind of hillside. I grew up in a mountain village, so it really resonated with me. That had a direct influence on the song Mountain People – I almost credited him on the sleeve."
On the perfect song: "The Pavement reunion was worth it for Shady Lane to be sung again – 'You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation of the sequel to your life' is a pretty good one-liner. Maybe in terms of writing a simple motivational song that everyone with a rudimentary grasp of English can understand, the song No Limit by 2 Unlimited is perfection. It's extremely motivational and can be understood almost universally. But then, I wouldn't necessarily want to listen to it every day."
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