Gruff Rhys American Interior (2025 Remastered Bonus Edition)

Words from Gruff Rhys on American Interior (2025 Remastered Bonus Edition) Revisiting American Interior 11 years later, feels very prescient. In following the unusual story of explorer John Evans (1770-1799), it becomes clear that faked narratives can have profound and unpredictable consequences in real life. His barely believable journey of verification in searching through continental scale wilderness for a [fictitious] Welsh speaking tribe believed to be living on the Great Plains of North America (an ancient folk tale perpetuated by the Elizabethan court following the subjugation of Wales, to make colonial claims on behalf of the British on the Americas) had a dramatic political effect on the fledgling USA and a devastating impact on himself and some of those who helped him on his way. I wrote an album of songs inspired by his life; American Interior, which also served as a soundtrack to a documentary film based on a book that detailed his journey, intertwined with my own investigative concert tour, all three of which I worked on simultaneously. It took me a while to process the whole experience and its lessons and feel I owe it to my former self to take these songs back on the road for a couple of months and re-tell the story for a new decade.