Super Furry Animals released their first new music for seven years on Friday 13th May 2016, BING BONG, a communal disco anthem, sung in Welsh and described by the band as a ‘lunar howl’. Mark Millar had a chat with Super Furry Animals multi instrumentalist Cian Ciaran to find out more.
The new Super Furry Animals track ‘Bing Bong’ was written years ago. Why did you wait so long to release it?
Cian: We waited until Wales qualified because we haven’t qualified since 1958. So we waited 12 years from it was originally written. There is no mystery other than the Welsh team haven’t qualified until now. Putting a football song out when your team hasn’t qualified wouldn’t make much sense really. (Laughs)
It’s probably one of the best football songs I have heard since New Order’s World in Motion from 1990. Did you take inspiration from any other football songs when writing it?
Cian: That’s high praise. The whole process was weird because we wanted it to be a football song but we also wanted it to be a Furries song, and we weren’t sure when we started if the two could co-exist, but we persevered. As for drawing inspiration, I can’t say that we sat down and analysed songs from football campaigns gone by. We did play around with chants from the terraces and stuff. We tried to make it unique and accessible. It’s not hard to learn the words. All you have to learn is two words.
I read that the words were inspired by Buck Rogers. How was that?
Cian: Yeah from the robot ‘Twiki’ (laughs)
Bing Bong was released on Friday 13th; hopefully that’s a good omen for the Welsh team.
Cian: That’s my mum’s birthday as well; it has always been a lucky day for us.
Will there be a new Super Furry Animals album this year?
Cian: At the moment we are concentrating on getting the track out making our way to France for the first game and playing festivals over the summer and then we will take it from there. There has been no decisions made we just want to have a laugh while we can at the moment with no pressure.
Last year you started playing shows to celebrate Super Furry Animals 20th anniversary. How has that been going?
Cian: Good. Last year we started off with half a dozen shows and we ended up doing 3 times that. The reaction was good and the offers kept coming in, so it felt right to carry on and then it trickled into this year. It was hard to know what the feedback would be like but it has been received well so that spurred us to carry on into the rest of the year.
Dark Days/Light Years was your last album released in 2009 what were you up to between then and the shows in 2015?
Cian: It’s been kind of a blur really. Every member of the band has put out an album if not 2 out in that period so you have got six Furry albums for the price of one. We have all worked together on each other’s projects. We see each other constantly so it’s not like we all pissed off and didn’t speak to each other for six years. We kept working but not as Super Furry Animals.
Back in the day you were signed to Creation Records. What was that like?
Cian: I was 19 when we signed to Creation it was quite a dream-like state, it feels like another life looking back. Travelling and seeing the world doing what you love and getting paid for it was kind of like what it’s all about, I suppose.
What is next for the band?
Cian: We are playing a show in Swansea with the Manic Street Preachers at the end of May and then a festival in Tamworth the first week of June. Then I’m flying out to Bordeaux on the 9th for the Euros then we have a handful of festivals all the way up to September. So that will keep us busy.
Hopefully we will get a new SFA album along the way.
Cian: It would be a shame if we didn’t it would be nice to hit double figures.
Good luck with the new single and good luck to Wales in the Euros.
Cian: Thanks
Visit www.superfurry.com for the opportunity to invest in a BING BONG bundle including an mp3 download and t-shirt, designed by Pete Fowler using the single artwork. This is obtained, alongside updates, release and tour information.
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