Super Furry Animals

Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band who lean towards psychedelic rock and electronic experimentation. Since their formation in Cardiff, Wales in 1993, the band has consisted of Gruff Rhys (lead vocals, guitar), Huw Bunford (lead guitar, vocals), Guto Pryce (bass guitar), Cian Ciaran (keyboards, synthesisers, various electronics, occasional guitar, vocals) and Dafydd Ieuan (drums, vocals). Actor Rhys Ifans is also a former member. The band formed in Cardiff after being in various other Welsh bands and techno outfits in the area. Ifans, Ieuan and Pryce had been together since the early 1990s and had toured the north coast of France as a techno group. After Bunford and Ciaran (the latter Ieuan's younger brother) joined, they wrote some songs, and in 1995 signed to Ankst, the Welsh indie label. The band are considered to be part of the renaissance of Welsh music (and art, and literature) in the 1990s: other Welsh bands of the time include the Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia, and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The name of the band came from T-shirts being printed by Rhys' sister. She was making Super Furry Animals T-shirts for the fashion and music collective Acid Casuals (variants of whose name have appeared throughout SFA's career – for example, in their song "The Placid Casual", their record label Placid Casual). The band has also made reference to Blur, Elvis Costello, Collective Soul and Wynton Marsalis as major influences in their work.