I spoke with Gruff Rhys, the always inventive artist, frontman of Super Fury Animals, sometomes half of Neon Neon, author, director and all round potential Welsh national treasure.
Super Fury Animals, often considered the last great band on Creation Records gave a sense of surreal adventure and a global musical pallet unusual for the Britpop era. They sung sometimes in Welsh, were politically conscious, at one point they had a tank, they mixed in techno, tropicalia and a million other sonic sources and of course there’s that song The Man Don’t Give A Fuck that sampled Steely Dan.
Then at some point, Gruff set out with a solo and collaborative body of work that’s seen his music grow into films, collaborations, such as Neon Neon (with Boom Bip) a book and a rather novel use of power point presentations.
We had a chat about language, about the Velvet Underground, about his film American Interior and about scoring a hit with a song that says “fuck” over 50 times. Enjoy!
Title music by ESO