Super Furry Animals And Howard Marks: Welsh Music’s Unlikely Duo
What do you get when you cross a psychedelia/techno band and one of the worlds most notorious drug smugglers? Your answer would be musical gold.
“There was quite a lot of folklore surrounding Howard, he represented a new context for Welsh culture. It broke with all the stereotypes. An antihero using the Welsh language not as a romantic language of mythology but as code with his Taffia gang to fool various government agencies.” That is how the frontman of the Super Furry Animals Gruff Rhys described the late Howard Marks in 2016. Following his release from a US penitentiary after seven years behind bars, Marks would become a good friend of the band and would have an impact on their image and even the sound of their music.
Rhys and Marks first crossed paths backstage at a gig in Pontypridd, with Marks also meeting actor and former SFA member Rhys Ifans who asked if one day he could play him in a film on his life. This came to fruition in 2010 with Ifans smashing his role as the smuggler in Mr Nice.
Both SFA and Marks challenged the dated stereotypes of Welsh culture, becoming prominent figures of the Cwl Cymru movement alongside other musical acts such as the Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. Films such as Human Traffic and Twin Town are just as influential, with the latter starring Rhys Ifans alongside brother Llyr with Super Furries track Bad Behaviour playing during the credits.
Before SFA and Mark’s had even met, they recorded Hangin’ With Howard Marks for their debut LP Fuzzy Logic. Coincidentally released on the same week as Marks’ autobiography Mr Nice, the album’s cover is a collage of various mugshots of Howard from his days as the world’s number one outlaw.
Following their first meeting, Marks invited the band to his Majorca home starting an iconic friendship and collaborative relationship. Howard produced a six-minute remix of The Man Don’t Give A Fuck and SFA recorded Smokin’ for a Channel Four documentary.
Howard Marks and cannabis went hand in hand, not many people don’t know that. A man who had authorities worldwide on the ropes as he smuggled tonnes of the stuff all across the globe and a campaigner for legalisation right up until his death, it’s no secret that the boy from Bridgend was partial to a puff. But even before Marks’ face donned the cover of Fuzzy Logic, SFA was subtly talking about green themselves. Prior to signing for Creation Records in 1995, the band released Moog Droog on Welsh label Amkst Records during the same year. The title is an anglicised spelling of Mwg Drwg (the Welsh word for cannabis with a literal translation meaning naughty smoke) and also a play on words referencing the Moog synthesizer.
Rhys described Marks’ nugs as stuff that “…would turn most humans to speechless rock.” Despite Marks himself smoking said cannabis then appearing on live television arguing his case for legalisation.
A true anti-hero and the face of Welsh counter-culture, Howard Marks passed away in April 2016 at 70 years old following a year fight against an inoperable form of colon cancer. Rhys said that “He was like an elder to us. He was always generous with his time and his advice, giving us tapes of records to listen to. He had time for everybody, whoever they were.” Both the Super Furry Animals and Howard Marks changed many perceptions of what it’s like to be Welsh, to speak the language and show the world that we’re a country with a small population containing so many characters.
