Tim Butler: "It's all recorded and it's being mixed in the moment, hopefully it will be out in the spring of next year. It's taken a while!
"We've done it slowly because that whole pressure is what made us take that hiatus in the '90s, and we didn't want to get back into that. We've taken our time and we want it to be good enough to stand up against our back catalogue, which I think it does." (Portsmouth.co.uk 2019)
Tim Butler (on being asked if the fans would hear any of the upcoming album's songs during the 2019 UK tour): "Yes, there will be a couple, which we're excited about – it's been a while since we've had new songs to play! We just can't wait, and for the album to come out so we can play more of them." (Portsmouth.co.uk 2019)
Tim Butler: "We're about to release a new album after all these years, and we've done it all on our own terms, with no pressure and no, 'Why don't you write another "Pretty In Pink" or another "Love My Way"?' We wanted it to be as good as our best work from the '80s... and I think it is, but we'll wait and see what other people think." (WriteWyattUK 2019)
Tim Butler: "What's cool about this band is that we actually have two other people putting song ideas in – Paul Garisto and Rich Good. They've sent ideas and have songs on [the upcoming Made Of Rain]. So it's a collaborative effort as opposed to either Richard and I writing the songs or Richard and John [Ashton]." (WriteWyattUK 2019)
Tim Butler: "Ninety-nine per cent of the songs were written in, I'd say, the last year and a half. We've been writing songs since we got back together but the more recent ones were the ones we've been immediately happy with.
"We still have other ones that we could work on another time. These ones just came together with the band quickest." (Yorkshire Evening Post 2019)
Tim Butler: "I'd put this somewhere between Forever Now and Talk Talk Talk.
"It's more, I'd say, rock 'n' roll than we'd become with World Outside or Book Of Days." (Yorkshire Evening Post 2019)
Tim Butler: "It's going to be a cross between Forever Now and Talk Talk Talk. Obviously it's updated, it's not going to be The Furs back in the early 80s." (Yorkshire Evening Post 2019)
Tim Butler: "A few of the songs were written some time ago, but most were written in the months before we recorded the album." (All Access 2020)
Tim Butler: "Richard [Fortus] was an old friend, fan and knew the band really well. He was able to remind us of what we did best (and worst! ... lol). He was an absolute pleasure to work with, he has phenomenal musical sensibilities and created relaxed, productive, creative sessions." (All Access 2020)
Richard Butler: "We had written more songs than we actually used for the record. We had four or five songs that didn't go on the record, and then we went into a rehearsal studio, played all the songs and added parts, changed bits and pieces around, and pretty much had a form for the song.
"Having said that, ideas always came up at the last minute. [Rich] Good would come up with an extra idea for something, and I'd spend that night in the hotel writing lyrics, then recording those lyrics the next day." (American Songwriter 2020)
Richard Butler: "What a miserable year. We finally made [Made Of Rain] happen after all these years, then we couldn't promote it because of COVID. It's kind of ironic." (American Songwriter 2020)
Tim Butler: "When we got back together, we were talking about doing another album. We were writing songs. But we would constantly second-guess ourselves: 'Is this good enough to stand up against our back catalogue?' We set such a high benchmark for ourselves with our best work. That was preying on our minds over the years.
"Finally, we started to write a bunch of songs which we were knocked out by. We impressed ourselves! We said, 'It's time: we can go in and record an album that will stand up there with the best of our past work.' So we did. We're excited for everybody to hear it." (The Aquarian 2020)
Tim Butler (on the songs coming together quickly): "Except for 'Wrong Train,' all the songs on the album were written in five or six months. 'Wrong Train' was probably written roundabout 2006, and we played it in our live set." (The Aquarian 2020)
Tim Butler: "The music on Made Of Rain is definitely Furs sounding, but with an updated sound. You can't be a musician and not be totally influenced by music around you, which is why I think it sounds current. I think it definitely stands well beside our older albums." (Chicago Concert Reviews 2020)
Tim Butler (on the album title): "Richard was inspired for the title idea after reading a poem called The Man Made Of Rain by Brendan Kennelly." (Chicago Concert Reviews 2020)
Tim Butler: "Richard Fortus is an old friend, fan and even one-time bandmate. He was a great choice as a producer, because as someone so familiar with the band's music, he could advise us what was the best of the Furs and what wasn't. We tend to be too close to see sometimes. Also, because he was an old friend and we were so familiar with one another, the sessions were very relaxed." (Chicago Concert Reviews 2020)
Tim Butler: "It harkens back mostly to the Forever Now and Talk Talk Talk period of Furs, but, of course, you get influenced by the music around you, and there's been a lot of music going on around us in the years since the last album came out. It's a modern-sounding Furs, but still definitely The Psychedelic Furs." (Classic Pop 2020)
Tim Butler: "We got back together to play/tour in 2000. At that time we were constantly talking about doing a new record and we were writing new songs. We were also always second guessing ourselves if the songs we had would be of a sufficient standard to hold their own against our back catalog. It came to a point that we had a 6-7 month period where we had a new influx of songs from different members of the band, and we thought, 'Wow, these songs could be great. I think we can go in, record these, and come out with a great album.' So we finally decided it was time.
"We recorded them pretty quickly. We rehearsed the songs that are on the album for maybe a week. We then went in and had two separate two week sessions to record, and it took probably a month for Tim Palmer to mix. When it came together, it came together pretty quickly." (Cryptic Rock 2020)
Tim Butler: "Richard Fortus guides us in the direction, because he had been a fan before being the producer; we've known him since the early '90s. He guided us in the direction he felt was the best of The Furs and steered us from the bad areas. I think the sound is maybe a cross between Forever Now and our first album from 1980, which were dark and atmospheric. I think it is back to our roots." (Cryptic Rock 2020)
Tim Butler: "We've actually been playing together since we got back together in 2000; we know each other's style of play inside and out. We were not nervous about criticizing or being criticized for what we were playing. It was a lot of back and forth, which is really healthy. As I said, we went to rehearse for a week before we started recording and it came together really quickly. There are no huge egos in the band, we just get on with each other personally and musically, we are in the same head space." (Cryptic Rock 2020)
Tim Butler: "We are so happy with the album and so excited to get out there to play it live for the audience. They have been loyal to us since 2000 and coming in increasing numbers to see our live shows. We are really excited to have new stuff to play for them. As soon as the restrictions are lifted, we will be touring." (Cryptic Rock 2020)
Richard Butler: "We're very proud of this record and we can't wait to get back out on tour to play it for everyone!" (Electrypop 2020)
Richard Butler: "It hasn't truly been 29 years of in-studio activity... in that time I did a solo record and two albums with a band called Love Spit Love, plus various soundtracks and other projects. But in the case of this album, we'd been playing for quite some time live, and this lineup has been particularly solid and we felt like now would be a good time to introduce some new music." (Electrypop 2020)
Richard Butler: "The songwriting process for lyrics is much as it's always been where I'll have a particular piece of music that I can connect with and write words to. The difference these days is that instead of spending time in the studio doing it, I'd get ideas sent from Tim or Rich Good or Paul Garisto remotely and work on it that way.
"We'd gotten together with co-producer Richard Fortus to run through the songs and arrangements prior to going into the studio, at the beginning of 2019.
"We recorded at Sawhorse Studios in St. Louis for two sessions, one was about eight days and the other two weeks. After that we added keyboards and some vocals and Mars [Williams] added sax, then Tim Palmer mixed it all." (Electrypop 2020)
Richard Butler: "I think this stands up there with the best of [the albums]." (Electrypop 2020)
Tim Butler: "We finally got to a stage where the songs would be good enough to stand up against our back catalog with everything. We were always worried whether it was going to stand up against our back work. So we finally got a bunch of songs that we thought: 'These are great ideas. It's time we go in and record.'" (Forbes 2020)
Tim Butler: "We were still nervous when we went into recording. A bit nervous about how the general public or fans would take it. We're very proud of it and I think it's up there with our best work." (Forbes 2020)
Tim Butler (on the current (at the time) lineup): "We've played together since 2008. So we sort of know what each other is gonna play and how they're gonna create certain parts. That really made it easy to go in and record it, do 2-3 takes of a song, pick the best ones, and overdub them on top of that, which we did on the first three albums. It keeps the freshness to it. As long as it has the immediacy and the excitement, you keep it." (Forbes 2020)
Tim Butler: "Once we got the songs that we were happy with, it all came together pretty quickly." (Forbes 2020)
Richard Butler: "We wanted to make a record. We'd been writing bits and pieces over the years. 'Wrong Train', that's been around for a while. But it was more that the band was playing really well. This is the best live line-up we've had and I wanted to put that on a record. A few of the songs, one or two, they've been knocking around for a while, but mostly it's new songs." (HMV 2020)
Richard Butler: "[The writing process] changed in the sense that when we were a younger band, we would get together in a rehearsal studio and plough through ideas. We'd jam until something sounded good. These days it's more different members of the band sending me music and me putting a melody over it and sending it back. We got about 20 songs that way and then we went into rehearsal and made them into full songs. Writing over email and Dropbox was new, but it's the way to go." (HMV 2020)
Richard Butler (on the inspiration of the album title): "I'd read this epic poem by Brendan Kennelly. He was going through a heart operation and in and out of death. At least that's the way he describes it. He's visited on his hospital bed by this character he calls 'The Man Made Of Rain'. I really liked that, but I didn't want to rip off Brendan entirely. It sums up the record well. There's a real sadness and a real melancholy to the songs. It summed it up perfectly." (HMV 2020)
Richard Butler: "We were writing songs here and there along the way, but it wasn't until about three or four years ago that we really decided we should make an album. My brother Tim and different members of the band starting sending me ideas, and it sort of snowballed. We hadn't thought it particularly important – of that last 29 years, I spent the first 24 saying 'Why make a new album?' and the last four saying 'Why not?!'" (laughs). (Hot Press 2020)
Richard Butler: "It's funny, somebody else – I forget who it was – compared it to [David Bowie's] Blackstar. It has a very similar mood in its melancholy." (Hot Press 2020)
Richard Butler (on being asked if he designed the album cover): "No, actually it was a friend of mine called Kevin Grady. He posts things on his Facebook page, and when I saw that image, I immediately contacted him and said, 'What is that? I love it.' We'd already suggested he do the artwork, because he's very edgy and contemporary. I really loved this thing he posted, so I said, 'Can we do something like that? I just love it.' He said, 'Well, you can use that if you want.' And I said, 'Great, we'll have that!'" (Hot Press 2020)
Richard Butler: "The album title was actually stolen from an Irish poet called Brendan Kennelly.
"I believe he underwent a quadruple bypass, and was kind of at death's door. He had this vision come to him, which he described as a man made of rain. The title of his long-form poem was The Man Made Of Rain: I just loved that title and the idea of it. (Laughs) But I couldn’t rip his whole title off – so I just took the 'made of rain' part!" (Hot Press 2020)
Rich Good: "So proud of this record. I've been with The Furs for eleven years; in that time we've played countless shows, lived through everything imaginable and I now consider them family. Writing and recording music is a very personal journey. It takes time when you all live in different places and the pressure to deliver, both internal and external, was always present. In the end what I love about this album is that we made it for ourselves... if you create art solely for your audience you'll almost always lose your way and produce some pastiche born of expectation. I hope Made Of Rain challenges our fans and reminds them why they loved the band in the first place." (Instagram 2020)
Richard Butler: "There's a couple of songs on the record that have been around for a little while, but for the most part it all came together. Probably in the year before we recorded the record so it's all very fresh, really." (Interview with Janice Long, 2020)
Tim Butler: "We wanted to make sure that all the songs were what we considered good enough to be on the eighth Furs album and there was no pressure." (Interview with Kyle Meredith, 2020)
Tim Butler: "We have a lot of songs but most of the songs on the album came together in the last six months before we started recording." (Interview with Kyle Meredith, 2020)
Tim Butler: "For the last four Furs albums it was pretty much, you know, songwriting was Richard, myself, and John Ashton. But on this album, we had everybody. Rich, the new guitar player, and Paul Garisto sent some ideas in. And so there's a lot more people having input, which made it easier." (Interview with Kyle Meredith, 2020)
Richard Butler (on being asked if he is pleased with Made Of Rain): "We are, Made Of Rain sounds like us and no one else. Our producer Richard Fortus has known us for a long time and at one point used to play in the band so he knew exactly what we needed to sound like, not like getting in another producer who wanted us to sound a different way." (Lancashire Times 2020)
Richard Butler: "From time to time, we'd write a new song, rehearse it and play it. One of them made it onto this album ('Wrong Train'). It felt like the time was right to make a record. There was some downtime between touring, band members started sending me music, and we just started writing. We ended up with 16 or 17 songs to choose from." (Magnet Magazine 2020)
Richard Butler: "Richard Fortus is pretty handy in the studio, and he's toured with the Psychedelic Furs before. He knew pretty well what we were at heart. For a lot of the '80s albums, there was a good deal more time spent in the studio. This time, there was a lot of preparation in advance, and we got it done fairly quickly in the studio. In a way, it was like recording Talk Talk Talk more than anything else." (Magnet Magazine 2020)
Richard Butler: "I think I sound pretty much the same as I always have because I stay pretty comfortably in my range. It's mostly my natural speaking range—or perhaps when I'm shouting at somebody. On Mirror Moves, I doubled a lot of vocals, which smoothed out a lot of raspiness in my voice. On Made Of Rain, it's fairly natural." (Magnet Magazine 2020)
Paul Garisto: "It's about eleven years that I'm back in the band and... 8 years into my return, I started to feel the necessity to create something new and I really was hoping that Psychedelic Furs would do another record. Around the same time I started to send Richard Butler some of my music and Rich Good, our guitarist, was doing the same and Richard got excited about it at that time but… it took another five years or so, actually because we started talking about it but we were touring a lot too and we all live in different areas of the States, so we didn't really have the time. You know, it's not like getting together and walking down in a studio, we are all spread out. Anyway it's the first record in 30 years, so we are all really excited about it." (Melody Lane 2020)
Paul Garisto: "I know that I got about four or five of my songs recorded and mastered and I think three will end up on the record and I'm so happy about that. Rich wrote four or five of the tracks, and of course Richard Butler wrote all the lyrics, but as a team me, Rich Good and Tim Butler we all wrote the music for about three or four songs each and that's how it came about and it was really a painless effort to record once we got going. We recorded down in St. Louis and the album is co-produced by The Psychedelic Furs and Richard Fortus, guitarist from Guns 'N' Roses. Richard is a great musician and person to work with, he's very easy and diplomatic and allows people to do what they do best. It's been a great experience." (Melody Lane 2020)
Paul Garisto: "The rest of the record is really good and a bit different from what you've heard so far. Usually I'm a bit of a harsh critic of my own playing. I find it hard to listen to my playing sometimes, but I forget I'm the drummer when I'm listening to it. I really enjoy the record. It's something I would listen to even if I had not been involved. And, you know, Richard Butler's written so many beautiful songs in his career and this time was no exception. I'm really impressed, he did a great job, he keeps on writing timeless lyrics; and musically I guess that... there are some elements that we retained but the sound's moved forward in some way, it's an honest sound." (Melody Lane 2020)
Tim Butler (on having to delay the album's release because of the pandemic): "It's very frustrating. It's been a while since we had our last album out, so we were all excited about the album and going out to play it to the public, but that's all been pushed back." (Music Week 2020)
Tim Butler: "We didn't even think the break we took in the '90s was going to be that long! It was just going to be a hiatus, but it stretched on and, when we did come back together in 2000, we were tentatively thinking of doing an album, but we were also worried about whether we could write and record something that could stand up alongside our better albums from the '80s. We would do demos and not be happy with them until, finally, we did this album in two sessions. We all had really new ideas. One song on the album, 'Wrong Train', is quite old, but it's been totally re-envisioned. But the other songs on the album were rehearsed and worked out six to nine months before we recorded them, so it's all pretty fresh. Which is another reason why we were so looking forward to going out and playing it. They're not old songs, listening to them is still exciting and we just want to get out there and get the excitement of playing them to the audience." (Music Week 2020)
Tim Butler: "The good thing is, Richard Fortus, who co-produced it with us, was an old-time fan. So he guided us into what was the best part of The Furs and steered us away from what was maybe the worst part! That was really healthy for us, because we were all over the place as to what period of The Furs was the best. Richard [Butler] has always said he thinks Talk Talk Talk was the best and my idea of what was the best was Forever Now. But with this, we got a cross between the two, but brought up to date. It's definitely an album that stands up to new music that's out there at the moment, which is heavily tinged with the '80s sound." (Music Week 2020)
Tim Butler: "We've got to grips with [streaming]. But the funny thing is, vinyl's making a comeback. Made Of Rain is going to be issued on vinyl and there are even people making cassettes. What's next, 8-tracks?" (Music Week 2020)
Tim Butler: "We've only just signed with [Cooking Vinyl] and this is the first thing we're releasing with them. So we'll wait and see. But they're doing pretty well at the moment. We've met with the head of the company [MD Rob Collins] and he's an old fan, so I think he'll treat us with a little bit of delicacy!" (Music Week 2020)
Tim Butler: "When we got back together in 2000, we planned on doing an album but were gun-shy about whether we could still record something that would stand up with your best work from the '80s. After a few years of doing demos, we finally decided upon some we thought could be great songs. Most of the best ones came only seven months before we started recording, and now we're just looking forward to doing another album – we've already started demos for it – and not leaving it another 30 years. The positive reviews of this album has helped. One of our worries, and why we took so long, was that we'd get pulled apart in the press." (NME 2020)
Richard Butler: "I feel it's a great record and I'm very proud of it. It feels like I spent 25 years saying 'Why make an album?' and then the last four years thinking 'Why not make an album?'" (NPR 2020)
Richard Butler: "It's going to be really exciting playing all the new songs. I'm really pleased with the record and I think they're going to be great live songs." (Out Of The Box (Q104.3) 2020)
Richard Butler: "They're all new songs besides one, I think, which has been around for a little while. But we've been writing songs and we've played some new songs and then [inaudible] them and some songs were written with the Psychedelic Furs which never got released. Some songs were written with other people that we have played, but didn't want to include on this album because we wanted it to be mainly as a Psychedelic Furs album." (Out Of The Box (Q104.3) 2020)
Tim Butler: "[The pandemic] affected the fact that we can't go out and play to support the release of it. We were really excited about the album coming out and being out, playing new songs–brand new songs–to an audience. Of course, that's been pushed back to next year, so that's really disappointing and frustrating, but at least the record's finally coming out after 30 years." (The Pitch 2020)
Tim Butler: "It was a long process, because when we first got back together in 2000, we were talking about doing a new album but we were very, very nervous about making sure that what we put out was on-par with the other records we'd put out. We would kick around ideas and we'd say, 'Ah, that's okay–let's carry on writing,' but finally, in the six or seven months before we actually recorded the album, the input of songs from the other guys in the band and stuff started to really improve in our mind.
"We thought, 'Wow, we've got an album's worth of material here. Let's go and record it,' and when we actually decided on that, it was a really quick recording. There were two 12-day sessions of recording–one late last year and one early this year in January, then it was mixed by Tim Palmer in three or four weeks and that was it. When it finally came together, it came together very quickly." (The Pitch 2020)
Tim Butler: "When we thought about doing the record, of course Richard Fortus helped us. He oversaw when we actually recorded it, but he suggested Tim Palmer. He rolled out the whole list of things that Tim Palmer had mixed and we're like, 'Hey, that's a good album, that's a good album–yeah. Is he into it?' Apparently, he is a fan of the band and he was really into mixing it, so we used him." (The Pitch 2020)
Tim Butler: "We had known Richard [Fortus] since 1992 when his band, Pale Divine, played support for the first World Outside tour, and he was a fan, so it helped that, when in the studio, he could guide us in the direction that he thought was the best of The Furs and steer us away from what was maybe the worst–or the overindulgent area–of the stuff we've done. It was really relaxed, as well, because we knew him, so there was no getting used to a producer. All in all, it was a very relaxed, fun recording process." (The Pitch 2020)
Tim Butler: "[Richard Fortus] pushed us to go in new directions–which, of course, we would anyway, because you're influenced by all sorts of music that goes on around you. When we went into to record or rehearse, we were already ready to try different sounds and directions and he just sort of made it happen. He actually played guitar on some stuff and he played viola on some tracks, so he brought a lot of extra ingredients to the sound of this record." (The Pitch 2020)
Tim Butler (on the pressure over Made Of Rain not standing up to the older songs): "That's the one reason why it took so long. 'Love My Way' and 'Pretty in Pink' and 'Heaven': our audience knows those and they're very eagle-eyed. If something comes out that's not up there in quality they're gonna say. They're not gonna hold back. So, yeah, there is pressure but, once we got on a roll with the recording and we were happy with it, we thought, 'Yeah, these songs can compete in quality.' We just went with it and that's why we did it so quickly–we were so happy with this batch of songs." (The Pitch 2020)
Richard Butler: "It got to this point where we felt we had to make a new record, we needed new songs to get into. We're all friends, all family. And now I hear this album and I'm very pleased we did. It's got our depth and weight of sound." (Record Collector 2020)
Richard Butler (on being asked what crystallized the album title): "There's... a lot of sorrow and darkness in it. A while ago I read the book-length poem The Man Made Of Rain by Brendan Kennelly. A person who was dying was visited by 'a man made of rain' and I liked that idea; it fit." (Record Collector 2020)
Tim Butler: "We were always planning on recording again when we got back together and we just didn't have the confidence in the initial sorts of songs that we were coming up with that they would stand up against a back catalog. Finally, the last, probably six or seven months before we recorded Made Of Rain, all of a sudden songs were coming that we were writing and we're thinking' 'Wow, you know, these should be recorded. Let's do it. Now's the time.'" (Rock & Roll Globe 2020)
Tim Butler: "We have lots of songs in various forms that could be used in the future, but, most of the ones that actually made it onto Made Of Rain were written in six or seven months before we decided to go in and record. So that it's still fresh and new to us. Nevermind being fresh for you, an audience. We were really excited about touring with the release of the album and even getting out there and after 20 years of being back together with a vast amount of the set being brand new songs, but that will have to wait until next year." (Rock & Roll Globe 2020)
Tim Butler: "We hadn’t rehearsed, you know – we got the rough ideas on demos and then went into rehearsal for a week and just kicked them around as a band and then went straight in and recorded. We would do three or takes of a song and pick the best version and worked on that. So that’s why they still have the freshness. They don’t have a studio overworking on them." (Rock & Roll Globe 2020)
Tim Butler: "We've been getting some great reviews for each single and they were all very positive and we've been getting some English paper reviews for the album. So fingers crossed when we play next year we’ll get a super good audience." (Rock & Roll Globe 2020)
Richard Butler: "The members of the band would send me ideas, and I'd work from those. Rich Good lives up in the desert in California somewhere. Tim, my brother, is in Kentucky. [Mars Williams] is in Chicago. And Paul Garisto is in Baltimore. They'd send me ideas. I'd sit down, and with some ideas nothing would come to me. With other ideas, I'd come up with a melody pretty quickly, and I'd write lyrics and send it back. And then back and forth it went.
"And then, when we had a lot of ideas, pretty evenly balanced, actually, between the members of the band, we went into the studio and developed them and fleshed them out and changed bits around and changed keys and worked on them as a band. So we didn't go to the studio not having played the songs, and that's where the band sound comes from, I think." (Rock Cellar Magazine 2020)
Richard Butler: "[The album title] was taken from a book by a guy called Brendan Kennelly, an Irish poet who went into a hospital for I think it was a quadruple bypass, and in the space between life and death that he experienced, this character came to him and he called it The Man Made Of Rain. I was particularly struck by the title. I thought it was a beautiful title, very evocative, and I thought it fit really well with the songs on the record." (Songfacts 2020)
Richard Butler: "Lyrically, this album was much more about internal things and not exclusively narrative. So one of the band members would send me a piece of music, and I would find myself either singing along to it or not, if the music didn't work. But if it did work, I'd find myself singing along, then writing lyrics. And because certain songs or melodies appeal to me, it seems to involve a certain melancholy, where I'm certainly looking inwards. So I'll often just start writing without knowing what I'm writing about – I just put words together until some sort of meaning happens. So it often doesn't strike me until afterward, just what I was writing about." (Spin 2020)
Richard Butler (on being asked why he waited until 2019/2020 to make Made Of Rain): "With the band, the lineup became so solid, so consistent at playing live, I just thought, 'Wow, this is one of the better incarnations that this band has ever had. We should make an album.' That was the reasoning behind it, I suppose, and once we decided that, everybody started sending me song ideas and it just blossomed. It came together very quickly." (Tidal 2020)
Tim Butler: "Since we got back together in 2000, we've been writing songs and passing them around among each other. But we were never confident enough that they would be up there with our past catalog. We were very, very nervous. Probably a year or less before we actually recorded [Made Of Rain], we had the songs where we thought, 'Wow, these are great songs. These could be classic Furs.'
"So we rehearsed them together for about a week, a week and a half. Then we went into the studio together for two 12-day sessions, recorded them, and overdubbed them and stuff. Then Tim Palmer mixed them in about a month. So, not a long time. Which is what I think keeps them fresh sounding.
"We didn't spend hours, and hours, and hours doing take after take, and overdubbing. It's pretty much two or three takes, and that's it. You choose the best one. Like we did with our first album before we got caught up with the studio idea, the idea that you can do anything in a studio, so you tend to go down the rabbit hole of technology, which isn't a good thing." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler: "[Made Of Rain] was a lot easier the way we did it, playing it live. The bunch of musicians who played on it have been playing together live for years, so the sympatico between us was right on. I think we picked exactly the right time to record it." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler (on the sound direction of Made Of Rain): "It's definitely The Furs, but I think it's The Furs infused with a modern edge. You can't help but be a musician who listens to everything that's going on around you musically, in any genre. Which I think played into us putting together a Furs album that was definitely a 2020 Furs album as opposed to a 1985 Furs album." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler: "To me [the album title] suggests looking out the window on a rainy day and thinking about what's happening. On all fronts, things are looking in dire shape. 2020 has been a pretty disastrous year." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler (on being asked if there's a good reason to listen to the songs on Made Of Rain in order, in an arc, or more independent of each other, like a collection): "It's a collection. We did sit down and decide which order these songs should go in. I think they each tell a bit of a story on their own. It's not a concept album." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler: "I know it took a long time. When we were playing live, we were very nervous that we wouldn't be able to put something out that would be on par with our back catalog. But I think Made Of Rain is way up there. My favorite album by the Furs has always been Forever Now. And I think Made Of Rain is up there with Forever Now." (Tower Records 2020)
Tim Butler: "After we got back together in 2000, we were always planning on doing an album. But we were very nervous of it not being on par with our past work. So we'd write songs, send them to each other, and be like, 'That's OK,' and then push back the idea of going into a studio. But then in the six months leading up to when we recorded Made Of Rain, we felt we finally had enough great songs to go on an album. It was like, 'It's now or never,' and we recorded it really quickly. Now the plan is to do another album, but a lot quicker than 30 years." (USA Today 2020)
Richard Butler: "I was struck by the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly, who wrote a poem called The Man Made Of Rain. It was about this figure that appeared to him while he was undergoing quadruple bypass (surgery) and slipping between life and death. He had this somewhat epic vision where this man made of rain would come and visit him. I thought that was a great title, but I didn't want to totally rip it off. But I thought Made Of Rain fitted with the mood of the songs. It's a fairly melancholic record." (USA Today 2020)
Richard Butler: "We've been doing tours, playing shows and playing the old music and it just seemed that the band just gelled. Going out and playing the music was great and we were doing fantastic shows, and it just seemed like it would be the right time to be making a record with this band. It got to the point where we felt that we had to make a new record. We needed new songs to get into, and now I hear this album, I'm very pleased we did." (Vive Le Rock! 2020)
Richard Butler: "What would typically happen was that people would send me ideas through the internet; mp3s and stuff, I'd put them into GarageBand and sing along with them – Or not, if no melody came to mind. We got about 16 or 18 songs like that, and then we went into the rehearsal studio and rehearsed the parts. Richard Fortus came down and we all worked on them together, honing them into some sort of shape, and then we went into the studio and recorded them. I think the first time we went into record it was for about a week, and then the second time, it was about ten days. So getting down the basic tracks was fairly fast." (Vive Le Rock! 2020)
Richard Butler (on Vive Le Rock! naming Made Of Rain their album of the year for 2020): "I am thrilled that the general reaction has been really good but when a magazine gives your release its Album Of The Year award, there is no greater accolade than that. It is just amazing!" (Vive Le Rock! 2020)
Tim Butler: "I think everyone will be very pleasantly surprised and we're very, very happy with it. It's a typical Furs album in that it goes from all-out rockers to ballads and back again. That keeps you interested. If an album's all 'balls to the wall' or all laidback, you tend to lose interest. But hopefully this will keep people interested from beginning to end." (WriteWyattUK 2020)
Tim Butler: "We recorded it in two 12-day sessions in St Louis. One was late last year after our tour with James, then in January this year, and I think it took Tim Palmer three or four weeks to mix it. And once we had the songs, it all came together really quickly." (WriteWyattUK 2020)
Tim Butler: "[Richard Fortus's] worked at that studio we used, Sawhorse Studios, a nice cozy set-up, with no pressure, and of course, Richard's an old friend of the band, right back to when his band, Pale Divine, supported us on our last tour for the World Outside album in 1992. And being a fan of our work, he could give us pointers on what he thought were the highpoints of The Furs and which areas to sort of steer away from." (WriteWyattUK 2020)
Richard Butler (on being asked why the release of Made Of Rain took so long): "I don't even know. I mean, I think I spent 25 years saying, 'Why?' and then four years saying, 'Why not?' And then we just did it. We were a very creative force, and when we started writing songs, it just happened quite naturally.
"I'm actually happier with this record than I thought I would be going into it, which is always a good position to be in. I'd hoped the best for the record and was fully confident in the band, knowing that we played well and worked together well – but I'm [surprised with] the songs we came up with, even at the last minute, things that happened in the studio." (Yahoo! 2020)
Tim Butler: "Since we started back up in 2000, we've built a reputation for being a [solid] live act. Unlike many of the bands who came up with us during the eighties, [the media] could never pin us down, 'cause we constantly evolved. We were not a punk, new wave, or alternative rock band, we were all of that and so much more. And unlike those eighties artists, we recently released a new album, Made Of Rain." (The Aquarian 2021)
Tim Butler: "The album had already been delayed a few times [because of COVID-19]. We thought the pandemic would soon subside. Little did we know it would still be a thing more than a year later." (The Aquarian 2021)
Richard Butler: "Over the years the band had become a very solid unit. We were getting better and better playing live shows and the venues were getting larger and larger. We were just jelling so well and we thought we should write some more material; that we should come out with some new stuff. People have been telling us to come out with another album for years, but I didn't feel driven to do it at the time." (AS IF Magazine 2021)
Richard Butler: "[Richard Fortus] also played with the Psychedelic Furs for a while so he instinctively understands the music and he's massively talented. He had never actually produced anything before but I was pretty confident he would be able to do it, and it turned out to be better than I even thought it would." (AS IF Magazine 2021)
Tim Butler: "When we got back together, we were talking about doing a new album, but we were a bit gun shy about coming up with an album that could stand up alongside Forever Now or Talk Talk Talk. We had what we considered good songs and had a band that was really playing well together. We figured the time was right–and it was." (Long Island Weekly 2021)
Tim Butler: "When the new album came out, we'd planned to do a big tour with new material and everyone was gearing up for that. And then the whole world shut down and it was a big disappointment. [The album] was supposed to be released early last year because we thought COVID-19 was going to be under control, which of course it wasn't. It was a day-to-day sort of thing. You weren't sure what was going to be shut down next. It was pretty nerve-wracking to watch the news and see how many people got [COVID-19] that day. It was probably a bad thing to watch the news every day glued to the governor's four o'clock news conference. So the tour came down to [being staged] in 2022, having not played for around two years. We're really excited to go out and play the new album." (Long Island Weekly 2021)
Tim Butler: "With the final release of an album that sounds current, despite not having done a record since 1991's World Outside, shows we still have something to say musically. It's really exciting to finally be getting out there playing new songs–not just for us, but for the audience, who have loyally been coming out to see us since we got back together. Now we've got a new album to play for them." (Long Island Weekly 2021)
Tim Butler: "We planned to tour [the album] last year. We were excited to play the new material. We were nervous to bring out new work, but as a band, we'd been playing really well. So we said, 'Let's record.'" (Miami New Times 2021)
Tim Butler: "We did it in two different two-week recording sessions, and we mixed it in four weeks. We all live so far apart, but I'd send a song idea to Richard. He'd throw in some lyrics and make a suggestion like speed it up. We were still The Furs but with some new influences. I was listening to The Killers, the Arctic Monkeys, and those first two Roxy Music albums – nothing still sounds like those two records. They still sound so different and interesting." (Miami New Times 2021)
Tim Butler: "It was supposed to come out in April of last year, and we were all geared up to do a tour to support it. We were really excited because it has been quite a while since we had an album out, like, 30 years. We were just excited to get out there and play the new songs for our ever-patient fans. Then COVID came in." (PopMatters 2021)
Tim Butler (on being asked how the crowds responded to the songs): "Oh, great! I mean, it's cool if they don't latch on to it like our old stuff. It's always the same when a band goes out with a new album. People can hear it on the radio or CD or the download or whatever, but it's not as ingrained in their minds as songs like 'Pretty In Pink' or 'The Ghost In You'. Because they're new and pink, they're still absorbing them." (PopMatters 2021)
Tim Butler: "I think the reason [Made Of Rain] took so long before when we got back together after the hiatus in the '90s, we always talked about doing another album. But we're always so over-worried whether we had good enough songs to stand out against our back catalog. It came to a point where we had all these guys in the band that worked great together, and we got input and song ideas from Paul Garisto, the drummer, and Rich Good. So, lots of songs were coming in. Normally, it would be Richard and I trading ideas. But with more people working on tunes, it makes for less pressure." (PopMatters 2021)
Tim Butler: "It's been getting great reviews, better reviews than any of our other albums. And it's given us a bit of confidence to think about another album." (PopMatters 2021)
Tim Butler: "When we got back together we talked about doing new material but we were sort of scared of doing it in case it didn't stand up with Talk Talk Talk or Forever Now and our catalogue. But it came to the stage where we were exchanging ideas and we finally had 18 songs that we thought were good enough to be on an album. So we said, let's do it. The time to do it is now. The band was playing really well together, a great bunch of players and we finally did it." (Spill Magazine 2021)
Tim Butler: "We have the Psychedelic Furs sound ingrained in us and especially with Richard's voice, because it can't be anything else. The signature with this new album is that Rich Good, the lead guitar player, and Paul Garisto, the drummer wrote some song ideas, which is really cool because they brought their influences to the sound as well. It makes it sound newer sounding for The Furs, it still sounds like The Furs, but there are new influences coming in." (Spill Magazine 2021)
Tim Butler: "We've been touring together for quite a few years since we got back together and the guys in the band came into the whole thing wanting to please Richard and I, but also add their own take on things. They all contributed and gave their best to what they thought the perfect Furs album should sound like. If you just bring someone in and hire them for the tour, they don’t give their all but if they know they are part of the band and they are going to get publishing and stuff they put more into it." (Spill Magazine 2021)
Tim Butler: "['Evergreen'] keeps the album and band in people's minds. To bring the fact that there is a new album out there and bring it to the front again. It has been a year since it came out and in this world of social media people's attention spans are not great so it reminds everyone there is a new album out." (Spill Magazine 2021)
Tim Butler: "To come back after 30 years with a new album, it's a worrying thing – about how it'll be received – but, actually, we got rave reviews for it. Several 'album of the year' from magazines. So it was really gratifying. We're just blown away by the reaction to it. We breathed a sigh of relief." (The Aquarian 2022)
Tim Butler: "When we got back together in 2000, we were always planning on doing [a new] album, but we were a bit scared – we didn't want to come out with anything that wouldn't stand up alongside our older albums. So we put it off and put it off." (The Aquarian 2022)
Tim Butler: "We were exchanging ideas. Then finally we had a great band that was really clicking together. It was like, 'We have some great songs here, let's go and record them.' When we actually did get down to it, it was really quick." (The Aquarian 2022)
Tim Butler: "We took the break because we were tired of being the Furs, and [we were tired of] the tour, record, rehearse, record conveyor belt that record companies put you through. When we got back together in 2000, we thought about doing another album, but we were afraid to see if we could do an album that could hold up shoulder-to-shoulder to our previous work. That's why it took so long. There was still that fear of being panned by the press and hated by the hardcore fans." (Cleveland Scene 2022)
Tim Butler: "We would do two or three takes, and we found that the energy is still there for us and so is the excitement of playing the songs. We didn't slave in the studio for days and days. Richard [Butler] knew of this studio [Sawhorse Studios]. He had worked there before. It was nice and quiet. It was a laid-back atmosphere. It wasn't a huge mega-bucks studio. It worked out really well. It's not like one of those places where you can't take a day off because you're playing thousands of dollars in rental fees." (Cleveland Scene 2022)
Tim Butler: "The new songs sound like Psychedelic Furs, but it's sort of up-to-date. You can't not be the Furs with Richard's vocals. Musically, it fits alongside with Forever Now. Made Of Rain and Forever Now are my favorite albums we recorded." (Cleveland Scene 2022)
Tim Butler: "When we first got back together, we were planning on doing an album, but we were a bit gun shy about whether it would stand up to our past material. We finally got a bunch of songs we thought were really good. Most of the album came together within six months of our actually recording it. When we went in to record, the songs were still really fresh to us. We didn't overwork them. We did two or three takes and we'd have the backing tracks. That's why it sounds fresh and exciting as opposed to us being in a studio for six months and overworking the songs." (Dayton Daily News 2022)
Tim Butler (on when the pandemic first hit): "It was a real disappointment to us that we couldn't get out and promote it or play it to the audience. The whole thing is, when you bring out an album, you tour to promote it, but we didn't get that chance. After 30 years of no new music, we were really excited to play it for people. We finally got a chance to tour it a year-and-a-half after the album had come out. That was a bit of a shame, but it couldn't be helped." (Dayton Daily News 2022)
Tim Butler: "It was actually delayed once but COVID was still raging, and we didn't want to delay it again. It probably wouldn't have been received in the same way the longer it was from recording. We were lucky when it came out because we got pretty great if not rave reviews for it. Since we had gotten back together, we worried about how it would be received and if it would be favorably compared to our past work. When it came out and the positive reviews started coming out, we were blown away. It proved to us we still have what it takes to come up with an album's worth of great songs." (Dayton Daily News 2022)
Tim Butler: "When [the tour] came to a grinding halt, it really hurt. We had just released Made Of Rain and lost that huge opportunity to tour behind it, which is so important. But we're making up for it now—a year-and-a-half later." (GoodTimes 2022)
Tim Butler: "[Made Of Rain] sounds fresh. It doesn't sound like every song's been overplayed, because we only needed two or three takes to record each track." (GoodTimes 2022)
Tim Butler: "I think [Made Of Rain] is very current-sounding and intense, musically, which we always have been." (GoodTimes 2022)
Richard Butler: "[Made Of Rain] isn't any more personal than most other records I have made. The lyrics always have to ring true in some way, which often involves lots of rewrites." (GoodTimes 2022)
Tim Butler: "We'll keep [performing] until it doesn't interest us anymore or we get bored of it. But ever since we got back together, it's exciting and fun to play and take the audience with us. We had to wait so long through the pandemic that we were able to pick up where we left off and get out and play [Made Of Rain]. For now, the new album is still super fresh to us. So it's really exciting to play, and we have a whole different vibe now with a new drummer [Zachary Alford]. We're excited to play as long as the energy is still there." (GoodTimes 2022)
Rich Good: "Guitar has been a very comprehensively explored instrument, so anything that's sonically unusual or interesting is better than more of the same… I think that ethic is true on Made Of Rain – there's a lot of unique tone on that record – a lot of experimentation occurred in the studio. Credit to Richard Fortus for opening my eyes even further – he has an amazing collection of effects, and is always pursuing very musical sounds. I think we struck a nice balance of transformed oddity tones and musical parts…" (Pedal Of The Day 2022)
Rich Good (on his favorite amps): "My Satellite touring amp, and the Gibson Ranger I played through on the Made Of Rain album." (Pedal Of The Day 2022)
Rich Good: "[Covid] completely eradicated what was set to be the best year I'd had with the Furs – we'd not released a record for 29 years and this was the moment. I'd contributed everything I had to writing and recording this record and the rollout was to be pretty epic, with some landmark full-album shows to coincide with the release date, television appearances etc… It all went away. We're still going to play the scheduled London Royal Albert Hall and New York Apollo shows, but now they're two years later the grandeur has been somewhat dimmed… I'm still looking forward to it." (Pedal Of The Day 2022)
Rich Good: "We had some ideas floating around for years while we were touring… songs came and went but the last few years from 2017 we focused more. I think Paul and I pushed each other to write things and Tim and Richard already had some tunes up their sleeves. Because we all live in different places it was sort of disjointed. I'd send RB ideas and he'd add vocal melodies and ideas. But once we got in the studio it became something else – something more communal. And the songs became Furs songs. I think the biggest aesthetic choice was to make sure it was great – Tim and Richard were not interested in recreating anything from the past. I’m glad we didn't remake an old record. It's not pretend Furs…" (Post-Punk.com 2022)
Rich Good (on the development of the Furs Face guitar pedal): "It was important to respect [pedal designer] Ben [Milner's] original design because it's a great pedal as he designed it. We used many different fuzz/noise pedals on Made Of Rain so we tweaked the pedal to help me get some of those sounds out of one pedal. I'm a visual designer so it had to look good too – I borrowed heavily from Kevin [Grady's] album cover design." (Post-Punk.com 2022)
Tim Butler (on The Furs' long absence from the recording studio): "It just wasn't something we were interested in. We were concerned that [Made Of Rain] would be an outlier and not compare well to our previous albums. Happily, though, that wasn't the case. We were playing well as a band and thought we should try it and going by reviews and fan reaction, it all worked out better than we could have hoped." (The Maui News 2022)
Tim Butler: "Since we got back together in 2000, we've been talking about doing a new album, and we've been writing songs and passing them around with each other. We hadn't felt that we had songs good enough to be recorded and to put on an album – we were very worried about how they would stand up to our catalog. But we finally came to a decision after we had 16 songs – we thought, 'Hey, you know, these songs are big enough.'
"And the band was firing on all cylinders because we've been doing constant touring since we got back together, so we decided now's the time to go in and do it. And we did it really quickly, which is why I think the album sounds really fresh. All the songs are like two or three takes and it's raw, and you can tell there's nothing tired on there." (WITH 90.1 FM 2022)
Tim Butler: "[Rich Good and Paul Garisto] came up with some ideas and sent them around the internet, and then we would go into a rehearsal studio and jam around them. And if they seemed to click, we'd keep them; even if they didn't, we'd put them on the shelf for a different time. But it was really a lot easier than having the pressure on me and Richard to be the only ones coming in with ideas." (WITH 90.1 FM 2022)
Tim Butler: "We were really excited about the album coming out and being able to tour and play the new songs for the audience. And, of course, the coronavirus and the lockdown stymied our intentions. So now we're going out to make up for it. It's always been enjoyable ever since we got back together to reinvigorate the old Furs stuff, but now that we got the new stuff to play it's extra exciting for us every night." (WITH 90.1 FM 2022)
Tim Butler (on the Apollo and Royal Albert Hall shows being postponed after when COVID hit): "It was extra frustrating because, after all these years not having any new material, we were excited to play the new stuff. The pandemic came along and shut us down." (The Advocate 2023)
Tim Butler: "[Made Of Rain] got great reviews. It was up on to the best albums of 2020 in Mojo and those sorts of magazines." (The Advocate 2023)
Tim Butler (on performing at the Royal Albert Hall in 2022): "Awe-inspiring to be in such a famous building. And it was great to finally go out and play the new material. Especially in England, because we'd done a little bit of touring in the States (before the pandemic), but in England we hadn't." (The Advocate 2023)
Tim Butler (on Made Of Rain): "Because of our nerves about this or that song being good enough, we had lots of songs come and go. When we'd finally gotten an album's worth of songs which we thought were great, we recorded them really quickly. It's a Furs album, but it stands up alongside anything that's new, at the moment, on the rock side of things. We're not stuck in the '80s." (The Advocate 2023)
Tim Butler: "We're very pleased with it. It took us long enough to do it. It was like 30 years between albums, and when we got back together in 2000, we were planning on doing a record, but we were a bit nervous about whether, after the time off, we still had the inspiration to record an album that would be as good as our earlier work in the eighties. So when we started writing songs and sharing them with each other and finally got enough of what we thought were great songs together, we just went straight to the studio and recorded the album in 2 two week sessions and mixed it. It was mixed in a month. When it happened, it happened really quickly, which makes it not overproduced, and it stands up there with our work from the eighties and stands up there alongside newer bands that are around now." (Nuvo 2023)
Tim Butler: "We recorded it in two two-week sessions. We didn't over mix it. We didn't want it to get bogged down. I think we succeeded." (Tallahassee Democrat 2023)
Tim Butler: "When we finally went in to record we had newer members of the band contributing songs. Things came together fast. We recorded it in a month, with very few takes. That kept it fresh. I think that comes through on the record." (Tucson Sentinel 2023)
Interviewer: "It took another 20 years from reforming to putting out a new album, 2020's Made Of Rain, and you've talked about whether you could still record something that stood up with your best work from the 1980s. Does that 80s legacy weigh on you as songwriters?"
Tim Butler: "It did until we did Made Of Rain. I think up until then, my favorite album in the 80s was Forever Now but I think Made Of Rain stands up well alongside Forever Now." (The Collapse Board 2024)
Tim Butler: "When we got together in 2000, we all wanted to do another album, but as I've said before in interviews, we were a bit sort of gun-shy about how it would be accepted after over ten years. We were very, very, very pleasantly surprised by the reaction it got and the reviews and the audience reaction." (The Collapse Board 2024)
Tim Butler (on being asked if he regretted that Made Of Rain took so long): "Maybe a little bit. We could have had more confidence in our abilities to write songs but we had 10 years, or eight years, to do other things and just come back refreshed." (The Collapse Board 2024)
Tim Butler "It was a little bit stressful at first because, since we got back together in 2000, we'd been talking about you know doing another album, but we were sort of gun-shy about whether people would want to hear from us after ten years.
"So we started writing songs, and we weren't sure whether they'd be good enough to stand up against our early stuff, and we did it really quickly in two, two-week sessions. It's our inspiration to not overplay.
"[For our 1987 album] Midnight To Midnight we went into the studio for six months, and everything becomes stale if you go too much. So we were really happy [this time], and it got really good reviews all around the world. Most songs only took three takes. There was one song that only took one take to get the basics down. We captured the energy of the song really fast." (Scenestr 2024)
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| Photo: Reed Davis |
