In Conversation With #097 - FUR
With the world turning upside-down at the moment we needed something to burst into our lives to give us a kick in the right direction - and in well timed fashion in walked Brighton based band FUR - with their new ‘Facing Home Mixtape’. This seven track offering was self-recording by the band and is filled with that infectious pop sound that we have grown to love them for. We had a chat with the band about the surprise release and how it all came together.
Hey there FUR - so how are you?
Hello hello, Murray here, I’m good! All the windows open and still hot. Ready to go back to complaining about ‘how cold it is considering it’s August’.
You have just released a collection of songs called ‘Facing Home Mixtape’ - what made you want to release them in this style?
I think a number of things played a part. We had considered it. Both Josh and I slave quite a bit over the demos we do and try and get them as full sounding as possible - sometimes to great success and other times not - so we’ve talked about maybe releasing home recording before. We’d just had a recording session we felt didn’t go too well, with our ideas not getting through and we left feeling like we’d had no control. We wanted fans to just hear what we were working on and with a big stack of demos it felt wrong to not re-record and release some. Then lockdown also gave us the last final push of ‘let’s just do it’. People were finding other angles to come at their music with after gigs and the studio (for most bands, at least) were taken away.
These songs were put together during lock-down. What struggles did you encounter trying to record them?
I didn’t really run into any struggles if I’m honest, it was an enjoyable process but lengthy at times, like programming the drums doing keys with my untrained hands. I think the main nuisance was neighbours and the street being noisy through the single glazed windows. That did result in someone outside, sitting in their parked car listening to the radio full blast, for them to be told to either turn it down or stop because I was trying to record a shaker...
It has no producer, label involvement or anything like that, how did it feel to work that way - with only your input?
It felt really good, as I said those things had played a part in why we went for this style of release in the first place. The only people that had creative input were the people it mattered most to which was us 4 and I think that’s something really important for us going forwards. If everyone in the band wants something done a certain way, then it should be done. There then isn’t then anything like money or success from third parties getting in the way and influencing decisions and taking away from the music.
Do you feel you will work this way for future releases?
100% I think being the producer for your own music makes so much sense. If you have the ideas in your head, then it’s easier to convey them through actually doing rather than trying to verbally explain to someone who doesn’t know your band like you do and who has their own tastes and interests too. Or at least that’s our experience so far, there are plenty of talented producers I’m sure we would enjoy working with but for now, it’s gonna be us.
What are the key themes on the mixtape?
I think isolation is the main theme. Josh had been living back home for a while and I had just ended a relationship, not in the easiest of ways for me, and I think we both just wanted a bit more. Those themes were present before lockdown but I think actually being physically isolated during the recording definitely played a part in the emotions and how they were expressed in the recordings.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the mixtape? If so, which one and why?
‘I know you just wanna hold me but can’t you see you’re holding me down’
In ‘A Song to Let You Know I Cant’t Stay Here’. It’s an intentional homage and inversion of one of our favourite lyrics of Grahame Nash ‘I just want to hold you, I don’t want to hold you down’
However this is from the other side and it seemed to resonate with me when the perspectives were switched.
No this is out there - what next for FUR?
We’re gonna start working on the album and getting the live show as spotless as it can be now we can be back rehearsing and we’ve got a while before we start playing venues again. It’s exciting and we’re glad to have added this mixtape to the journey.