Behind the Albums: Richard Butler

A selection of quotes from Richard Butler on his eponymous solo debut, released in 2006.

Richard Butler: "I think it was around the time of Forever Now when I first came up with the idea of wanting to do a solo album, and it just never sort of happened. And, this time, it sort of fell together quite…haphazardly, in a strange way. I'd written some songs, I didn't know what they were going to be for – whether they were going to be Psychedelic Furs songs or what they were going to be for – and I wanted to record different versions of them. So I started working with Jon Carin, who'd been a friend for years, and we started recording these songs, and he said, 'This should be a solo record.' And, then, we wrote a couple of songs ourselves, and they took off in a completely different direction, so we just sort of followed that direction and...there you have it." (Bullz-Eye 2006)

Richard Butler: "Basically, all the songs were written…well, pretty much exclusively…on acoustic guitar, believe it or not. And then we'd put an acoustic guitar version down, and then Jon would put a lot of ambient keyboards around it. As often as not, we'd pull out the acoustic guitar, but it's still in a lot of them, and we'd build a musical landscape around it." (Bullz-Eye 2006)

Richard Butler: "It sounds like a grown up record. My own thoughts, my own fears, they all surface." (Campus Circle 2006)

Richard Butler: "It reflects my life and how I feel at this point in it." (Campus Circle 2006)

Richard Butler: "The shock of somebody like a parent dying is not an incredible shock, you know what I mean? People get old and die all the time, you know it's going to happen. But the way it affects you is odd because they're kind of in-between you and your own death. It's like they're standing in the way. Whenever you think about death, you look at them and you think 'Well, they're still there, so I'm going to be around for awhile,' but once they're not there anymore, you think 'It’s my turn next.' I've always felt kind of bulletproof and that kind of put an end to that.

"A lot of the record is coming to terms with those kinds of ideas. What is love? Is it just an idea we're sold by somebody? I tend to think it is. But I don't think it's a miserable record. It's quite life affirming, life is a wonderful thing." (Campus Circle 2006)

Richard Butler: "For this one, I didn't know I was going to do a solo album when I started. At one point during the recording of it Jon said we should make this record so that the music (showcases) your voice. It was very personal, a lot of it. It seemed right that it was a solo record.

"It wasn't a conscious thing, really. It just sort of happened because of the way we structured and wrote the songs, so they were automatically more intimate. It gave rise to what I was going through at the time. It became more clear. If I was singing the lyrics against the rock band and singing a lot harder maybe it wouldn't be so intimate." (NewBeats 2006)

Richard Butler: "The way we wrote the songs were mainly with acoustic guitars. They weren't a lot of music to compete against and find a place for your vocals. So I was able to sing very quietly. And I enjoyed it." (NewBeats 2006)

Richard Butler: "A lot of [the songs] refer to loneliness, whether it's somebody mapping the stars up in space, somebody being the last person alive, or somebody sitting in a bar and not being able to sleep. It's just a series of pictures of loneliness asking whether it's all worth it." (NewBeats 2006)

Richard Butler: "There are a lot of acoustic guitars and a lot of electronics. Jon and I have written together over the years and started making a record a year and a half ago. Jon plays everything on it and we're both producing it.... It plays to both our strengths—he's very different as a composer from The Furs. We adjust what we do to accommodate each other's individual strengths." (Unknown source, 2006?)

Richard Butler: "I've experienced quite a bit the last few years, both good and bad. It's changed me tremendously, these songs reflect all of it. And because of that, they're some of the most personal and important songs I've ever done." (Unknown source, 2006?)

Richard Butler: "It was more thinking about what I was going through at the time: a parent dying, divorce, a family breaking up." (Bomb Magazine 2013)

Richard Butler (on the time when The Psychedelic Furs broke up): "It was time to go in and make another record, and I just realized I wasn't excited about it. I felt as if I already knew what it would sound like. We didn't want to do that again. And so, we just… quit. At that point it wasn't meant to be a hiatus, it was simply 'I quit!'

"I went on to make two Love Spit Love albums and a solo one." (Record Collector 2020)

Photo: Jimmy Bruch