Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals) reunites with Dylan Gochand and the team behind Gruff’s 2010 critically acclaimed film
Separado! to bring us a multisensory experience via numerous mediums as he follows the tale of John Evans from 1792 with
American Interior.
John Evans, a twenty-two-year-old farmhand from Snowdonia, Wales, travelled to America to discover whether there was, as widely believed, a Welsh-speaking Native American tribe - The Madogwys - still walking the Great Plains.
During the course of an extraordinary adventure, Evans wrestled the largest river reptiles ever seen in the Mississippi, hunted Bison with the Omaha tribe, defected to the Spanish in St Louis, discovered imaginary volcanoes in Missouri, annexed North Dakota from the British, and created the map that guided Lewis and Clark on their legendary expedition.
Over two hundred years later, in the summer of 2012, Gruff (a distant relative of Evans) journeys out and retraces the explorer’s route which took him through the heart of the continent by means of an “Investigative Concert Tour ™” in which he performed a series of solo gigs with little more than acoustic guitar, PowerPoint presentation and a three-foot high felt avatar of John Evans designed by artist and long-time collaborator Pete Fowler.
American Interior explores how wild fantasies interact with hard history; how myth-making can inspire humans to partake in crazy, vain pursuits of glory, including exploration, war and the creative arts.
Gruff’s adventures were documented across the four formats below....
AN ALBUM: Released on Turnstile, Gruff’s fourth solo LP features thirteen phenomenal new songs inspired by Evans’ original journey. Written in part on 2012’s “Investigative Concert Tour ™”, the record is a topographical rock’n’roll masterpiece.
A BOOK: A psychedelic historical travelogue in which Gruff traces Evans’ incredible journey from North Wales to New Spain, alongside the tale of his own strange American roadtrip following in Evans’ footsteps. This book is to be published in both hardback and eBook format by Hamish Hamilton.
A FILM: Funny, honest and inspiring, this visual document of Gruff’s 2012 tour sees fiction, fact, fantasy, myth and music documentary collide. Directed by Dylan Goch, produced by ie ie productions and commissioned by S4C in association with Film Agency for Wales.
AN APP: Developed by Storythings, the app consists of one hundred separate entries (including pieces of artwork, animations, prose, film clips and original music) and creates a unique, immersive version of the John Evans story.
American Interior is due for release in the UK by Soda Pictures on May 9th. If you’d like to find out more information and watch the trailer then wander over to
www.american-interior.com (or if you prefer the Welsh language website for the film go here:
www.igrombilcyfandirpell.com).
