Super Furry Animals: ‘We could sign on and get income support so we could eat. It’s harder now’

Things could have turned out very differently for Super Furry Animals. Before he paraded around in his pants as Hugh Grant’s oddball housemate in Notting Hill and took on Spider-Man as a big lizard, actor Rhys Ifans was the frontman of the much-loved Welsh band.

Ifans left to find fame and fortune, with the split probably being good news for both parties, all things considered. Now his youthful exploits have resurfaced on SFA’s new compilation, Precreation Percolation, released to coincide with their first gigs in 10 years. But it sounds unlikely that the actor will show up and perform Pocket Sam, a recently unearthed song from his time with the band that features on the new collection, or any of the smattering of other songs he sings on for that matter.

“It was amazing being in a band with him, but we never did any gigs,” recalls the man who took over as frontman, Gruff Rhys. “He’s a one-in-a-zillion character. There’s not many people like him. If he had carried on with us it would have been a great adventure. He came on tour with us, which was a small glimpse into what could have been. Quite dangerous.”

Guitarist and co-songwriter Huw ‘Bunf’ Bunford adds cryptically: “If he had stayed in the band, it would have been way more like 1974.”   

So, is there any chance whatsoever he will come to any of the gigs to sing Pocket Sam with you?

Both: “No.”

Rhys adds: “We checked he was OK with us putting the song out, but we didn’t go further than that. It’s a good tune, he’s got an amazing voice, so it’s nice.

“We’ve always known that the music exists, and there’s actually more of it that we can’t find at the moment. It’s good for people to get to hear what it was like, the period when he was in the band, because we’ve talked about it a lot. I’m pretty sure it was him and Daf [Ieuan, drummer] who came up with our name. He’s always been really supportive of us. He even appeared in a couple of our videos for the singles off Fuzzy Logic [their 1996 debut album].”

Of course, back then it was easier for musicians to get together and write without the fear of making ends meet. That period was a lot more fertile for bands springing up from all walks of life, whereas today the cost of living crisis has made it difficult for artists from working-class backgrounds to earn without the aid of a safety net, especially as record sales have dipped to a fraction of what they were back then. Super Furry Animals were able to shrug off the departure of Ifans, regroup and release two EPs (included on the new compilation) on their own Ankst label in 1995, shortly before signing to Alan McGee’s Creation Records. 

Rhys says: “There was still the remnants of a social safety net so me and Daf could claim housing benefit from the council. We could sign on and get income support, just so we could eat, have somewhere to live. We had to do courses and all that, but we did have the time to write songs. It wasn’t dissimilar to a kind of basic income.

“It is much harder now, and it’s because the important thing is just having the time to do it. If you’re having to do long hours in a job, you’re going to be too tired to record a demo. I think things could be much better – something like universal basic income for young people, and especially musicians and artists, could be something to explore.”

When labelmates Oasis took off into the stratosphere, SFA enjoyed Creation’s cash-rich moment. They were given a hefty marketing budget to work with, which they used in inventive ways, their choices helping cement the legend of a band who did things unconventionally. They famously bought a tank (later sold to keen collector Don Henley of the Eagles) which they fitted out with a sound system and took round festivals playing techno music, as well as embellishing their stage with 40ft inflatable bears and (later) dressing up as yetis.

Bunford recalls: “People still talk about this stuff now, much more than a poster. Things like that, that people still talk about, were things that we really did want to explore, as opposed to what you normally do. It’s a very creative way of doing it. I don’t know why other bands didn’t do it.”

Read more:

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With nine successful and critically acclaimed studio albums and 18 UK Top 40 singles, SFA were both critical darlings and chart regulars before they first took a lengthy pause in 2009. The group were renowned for having playful, slyly subversive presence in music, much like recent Big Issue cover stars Kneecap today. At certain points, Super Furry Animals set a precedent for the Irish hip-hop pioneers, such as their establishment-baiting 1996 expletive-strewn hit The Man Don’t Give a Fuck and, although a distinctly non-political record, the success of their Welsh-language album Mwng in 2000 (which even ended up commended in parliament when Plaid Cymru MP Elfyn Llwyd tabled an early day motion in its honour).

“We went to see Kneecap in Cardiff, and I love the film,” Rhys says. “It’s really powerful what they’re doing. I mean it’s a different generation, and they’re doing it totally differently – they are politically engaged in such a powerful way, which puts us to shame really. I’m definitely a big, big fan.

“The cultural influence they’re having is changing things for the Irish language that, you know, government policy or grants or whatever can’t touch. They’re taking it somewhere through popular culture. They’re taking it somewhere brand new, and worldwide. And they’ve been victimised as well. It’s outrageous. It’s incredible how they’ve stood up to that pressure. It’s beyond comprehension.”

SFA have always been outspoken about their politics and commitment to social justice. When they reunited last time in 2015 after a six-year break, the shows coincided with the “Tory scum” they refer to in the 2009 song Inconvenience being re-elected after five years in a coalition with the Lib Dems, during which they had imposed severe austerity policies, on a mandate which included a reckless commitment to an EU referendum. Since then, we’ve gone to hell in a handcart.

Bunford says: “You can look back to the financial crash [in 2008]. The problem was that all the baddies didn’t get thrown into jail, it was just like nothing to see here. No one got any heat from it, apart from us. And ever since then, it’s been Tories and Brexit and Trump.” “And impunity,” adds Rhys, “complete impunity, no accountability, it’s absurd.”

Rhys continues: “There’s elections in Wales in May, where it’s a battle to keep Reform and the far-right out of government. The polls are looking OK, but nobody can be complacent. You have to think back to Brexit, and the money that was poured into social media to power that vote. There’s probably enough of a left block to stop them. But there’s a new PR voting system which is unpredictable, so if anyone gets into 12% or something in any region, the votes just evaporates. So you could have 12% of the vote just disappearing. It’s a bit unpredictable.”

Bunford adds: “I bet people that they ask probably don’t say, oh yeah, I’m gonna vote Reform. They lie.”

With that in mind, surely The Man Don’t Give a Fuck will be making its nightly appearance on their tour setlists, what with it being as relevant as it’s ever been?

“Yes. I think we tried dropping it for one tour, but it didn’t really work,” says Gruff. “Backfired spectacularly,” adds Bunf. 

The initial batch of UK and Irish SFA shows sold out in remarkably quick time (with other dates subsequently added that spread across the summer and beyond). The appetite for their uniquely playful pop and mind-bending live performances has clearly grown in their absence, their last gigs being back in 2016 when they played both Fuzzy Logic and follow-up album Radiator in full.

“The response to announcing the shows was insane. That’s not something you can plan for,” says Rhys. Are the Yeti suits coming back? “We’re working on it,” he teases. “It’s just like normal, we’re spending all the money on production. No half measures. We’re going to try a few things. There’s one song we tried to play but we lost one of the chords [laughs]. We’re concentrating at the more mundane stuff too, like figuring out how to play all the old songs. It’s chaos at the moment.”

“It’s getting more and more elaborate, the show,” Bunford confirms. “But it’s great that so many people want to come, across so many ages. You get SFA fangroups and things like that, and they’re now parents, so a lot of them have got their kids coming. Whether they had a choice or not, I don’t know…”

Super Furry Animals’ Supacabra tour starts on May 6 in Dublin. Precreation Percolation is out on May 8 on Strangetown Records

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