With a sound as beachy as their town of residence, Brighton indie quartet FUR’s music is comfortingly nostalgic. Their signature hazy tunes are buoyed by catchy melodies, earning them a legion of loyal fans ready to bop at one of their live shows.
With less than a month to go until the release of their debut album When You Walk Away, The Indiependent sat down with frontman and guitarist Will Murray to get the inside scoop on all things FUR, including when we can catch their next performance.
The Indiependent: How did FUR come together as a band?
Will: I moved to Brighton with some songs and the intention to start a band. Finding the rest of us happened through, often funny or strange, chance meetings and coincidences. A lot of bands tend to form through careful planning between friends but we very much fell together and just happened. We all have different influences but we all share a love for 60’s and 70’s songwriting as well as 90’s and early 2000’s bands that we grew up with.
The Indiependent: How would you describe your sound?
Will: It’s an amalgamation of our influencers from through the years both old and newer. From what I was raised on like the kinks to music I got into when I was a young teenager like the strokes.
The Indiependent: If you could go back in time to any musical era, which would it be and why?
Will: I’d probably stay right where we are at the moment, simply because all music from all eras is available all the time now, and there’s so much music I love from different eras that I’d miss out on if I went back 40 years.
The Indiependent: You released ‘If You Know That I’m Lonely’ back in 2017, what have you been up to since then?
Will: We’ve been maturing sonically and as people and while doing that, we’ve been lucky enough to have played across the world. We’ve started the album journey and released a self recorded mixtape during lockdown.
The Indiependent: Your debut album, When You Walk Away is set to drop November 5th, what can we expect from it?
Will: It’s a really refined intentional sound, that still holds all the charm of our early releases but with a really matured sound. It draws influence from lots of places but manages to feel really fresh and very us.
The Indiependent: What was the inspiration behind your latest single, ‘When You Walk Away’?
Will: When You Walk Away is about self-reflection on the coming of age period of your life where you move along and leave friendships, relationships and places behind and learn that it’s all part of a journey and that those experiences don’t define where you’ll end up.
The Indiependent: Why did that song become the title track of the upcoming record?
Will: It’s in two parts that bookend the album and the statement ‘when you walk away don’t turn back’ really encapsulates what the album is about and so it felt right to make it the title.
The Indiependent: Is there a particular sensation you want your audience to feel when listening to your music?
Will: Comfort, reassurance and nostalgia.
The Indiependent: You recently supported Boy Pablo on his UK tour, can you tell us more about that experience?
Will: It was absolutely amazing, we’re level mates now so it felt really special compared to others and we felt more like a family vibe which was great and we both admire each other so it was great.
The Indiependent: Do you have any plans for your own headline tour?
Will: Yes! We tour the album in November in the UK which will be so great to be out on the road playing new songs to new faces after such a long time since a headline show.
The Indiependent: Aside from When You Walk Away, what else lies on the horizon for the band?
Will: We head out to North America in March which will be amazing, we’ve had a lot of support over the years from across the pond and it will be such a rewarding feeling finally playing for and meeting everyone who has loved our music out there. Aside from that we’re gonna be in rehearsal rooms just playing music together and reconnecting and see where we’re going for album 2!
You can keep up to date with FUR’s antics and find links for gig tickets via their social media.
Words by Ella McLaren
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