"I've experienced quite a bit in the last few years, both good and bad, and that's reflected in these songs," Richard Butler says of his self-titled debut solo album on KOCH Records.

"I think everybody reaches a point in their life where they begin to ask themselves certain questions. When you're young you feel like you're bulletproof, and being old seems a very long way away. But once you get to around 40, you begin to realize that you're not going to live forever, and you begin to think a bit more seriously about things like God and love and death."

As darkly magnetic front man and main songwriter of British alt-rock pioneers the Psychedelic Furs, Richard Butler established a compelling and uncompromising persona and built a seminal catalogue (including such iconic hits as "Pretty In Pink," "Love My Way," "Heaven" and "The Ghost In You") that's been described as the missing link between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana. In the '90s, he earned further esteem as leader of the similarly forceful Love Spit Love. But his new solo endeavor finds the veteran artist defying expectations to begin a stimulating new creative phase.

The eleven lyrically stirring, melodically striking compositions that comprise Richard Butler reveal startling new aspects of Butler's talents as a writer and performer, and demonstrate how an artist can say as much with a whisper as with a scream. Songs like "Breathe," "California," "Satellites" and "Good Days Bad Days" survey complex emotional and philosophical issues with haunting melodic understatement, as well as an unselfconscious sense of introspection that contrasts Butler's brash Psychedelic Furs persona.

"Singing softly and having the vocals out front felt very daring to me," Butler notes. "It can be very easy to hide behind a rock band, but allowing yourself to be vulnerable is a challenge. I never sang like that with the Furs, because it never fit the songs, but it felt appropriate for this album."

Butler's new compositions are the product of an emotionally wrenching period that saw the death of his father and the breakup of his marriage.

"These songs are personal to me, but I tried to present them in such a way that they're asking broader questions." he explains. "Okay, my relationship's falling apart, well, then, what is love? Is there such a thing as love? Does it mean anything? Is it real? Why do people get married? Music and art and poetry don't really provide answers, but they can help to frame the questions."

Another contributing factor to Richard Butler's intimate atmosphere was the album's homespun, organic birth process. Butler worked closely with co-producer/co-writer/multiinstrumentalist Jon Carin, whose resume includes work with Pink Floyd, Pete Townshend and Bryan Ferry as well as sessions with the Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love.

"Jon was an enormous influence on the direction of this album," Butler says of Carin, whose evocative soundscapes vividly manifest the songs' emotional gravity. "He's great at creating sounds and creating an ambience and what he came up with did a lot to inspire me to write honestly about the stuff I was feeling at the time."

Butler and Carin recorded the album at Carin's home studio in upstate New York, near Butler's own home. "I would go round to Jon's with bits of music and he'd pick up an acoustic guitar and start strumming, and we'd get some sounds on the keyboards, and then I'd take it away and work on the lyrics. It was inspiring working that way; it felt like it was our Music from Big Pink, but with better machines".

"We were working on our own, and we didn't even have a label yet, so we didn't have any restraints," Butler reports. "There was no deadline and no time limit, so we could experiment as much as we wanted and make the record we wanted to make. We didn't have to second-guess any market or think about the audience or the marketplace or getting on the radio. It was just about making the record as honest as possible."

Butler remains committed to his ongoing work with the Psychedelic Furs, who continue to tour extensively. But he's equally eager to continue exploring the solo direction he's established on Richard Butler.

"I'd like to go out on tour doing something more personal and intimate, with just Jon and me, or just me and one or two other musicians," he states. "I've never done that, and it would great to have that challenge, instead of having a loud rock band to take the pressure off me."

It's that sense of creative restlessness that's kept Richard Butler vital through nearly three decades as a recording artist.

"When you start out, a lot of your motivation is just wanting to be cool," he says. "But at this point in my life, I don't give a damn about being cool. When you get some experience, you start questioning what cool really means. To me, being cool is about knowing who you are and having the confidence to be yourself, and that's what I'm trying to do on this record."