Super Furry Animals liked the drug dealer-turned-bestseller so much they put his mugshots on the cover of their debut LP. After his death, the band’s singer pays tribute to the life – and counterculture swagger – of Mr Nice
The first time Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals met Howard Marks, the former drug dealer made a memorable entrance. Back in Wales after seven years in a US penitentiary, he turned up backstage at a concert in Pontypridd wearing leather trousers and a cape, accompanied by an entourage. “It was pretty dramatic,” Rhys remembers. “Rhys Ifans was with us and asked Howard if he could play him in a film of his life. At that point it was a completely far-fetched idea but it became a reality.”
Rhys had first heard about Marks – who died on Sunday – a few years earlier and become fascinated with this Welsh-speaking international outlaw. “There was quite a lot of folklore surrounding Howard,” says Rhys. “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.”
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