About Gruff Rhys
Gruffudd Maredudd Bowen Rhys .mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-smallWelsh pronunciation: ; born 18 July 1970) is a Welsh musician, composer, producer, filmmaker and author. He performs solo and with several bands, including Super Furry Animals, which obtained mainstream success in the 1990s. He formed the electro-pop outfit Neon Neon with Boom Bip. Their album Stainless Style was nominated for the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize. He won the 2011 Welsh Music Prize for his album Hotel Shampoo, which was followed up by American Interior in 2014, accompanied by a film, a book and a mobile app. His most recent album, Sadness Sets Me Free, was released in 2024. He is considered a figurehead of the era known as Cool Cymru.
Rhys was born 18 July 1970 in Haverfordwest, Wales. He has a brother and a sister; his father was Ioan Bowen Rees , a "poet, essayist, polemicist, mountaineer, internationalist ... and a White Robe Druid of the Gorsedd of Bards". Bowen Rees "campaigned all his life for Welsh rights, language and culture" although he did not believe in the narrow view of nationalism, glorifying one country over another, rather that the "battle for Wales is the battle for all small nations, all small communities, all individuals in the age of genocide". Rhys's mother, Margaret Wynn Meredith, shared his father's love of writing and was a poet.
Rhys was educated at Ysgol Dyffryn Ogwen, Bethesda, Gwynedd, North Wales and was awarded a degree in art at Manchester Metropolitan University.
As a teenager in 1985, Gruff Rhys played drums for the North Wales band, Machlud, appearing at the Pesda Roc festival in Bethesda. After playing drums for the band Emily, Rhys found fame in Wales as the front man of Ffa Coffi Pawb. Translated, the name means 'everyone's coffee beans', though if said quickly in Welsh, it can sound like 'fuck off everyone' in English and Welsh combined.
On signing to Ankstmusik, Ffa Coffi Pawb became one of the leading bands on the Welsh music scene during the Cool Cymru movement, and released three albums – Clymhalio, Dalec Peilon and Hei Vidal!.
Rhys plays the guitar in an unusual style. Although he is right-handed, he learned to play left-handed on his brother's left-handed guitar. Once his brother left home, Rhys only had access to a right-handed guitar. As he had already learned to play left-handed, and rather than invert the nut and re-string it, he taught himself to play the right-handed guitar upside down so the bass strings are on the bottom. Today, Rhys still plays left-handed on an upside down right-handed guitar.
Map & Directions To Venue
