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“We are the best band in the world”

 

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“We are the greatest”

 

 

The Verve are lauding themselves as the future of rock’n’roll – at the same time supporting this claim with two hits and the album “Urban Hymns”. During an interview in London, ME/Sounds asked band boss Richard Ashcroft about the “best band in the world’s” self-image.

 

By Arno Frank

 

Like some defective satellite, Richard Ashcroft was drifting through space and time over the last three years. Reeling and flashing, he was following his own co-ordinates  only – and still is a bit amazed about having finally arrived: in the headlines, on MTV and finally in this office of his record company in London. To talk about music. About art. About The Verve. He wears a worn black leather jacket above a grey t-shirt. St. Christopher, the patron saint of all mariners and drinkers, is dangling from a silver chain. “I’m Richard”,” he says. His handshake is soft, he sighs as he drops onto a sofa and stretches his legs. The table in front of him is groaning under the load of fruit, yoghurts, salads and bottles of French still mineral water. A bunch of colourful orchids is drowning in a vase, the ashtray is overflowing. The Drugs don’t work? This question only earns a weak smile from this man who goes hiding in the basement to have a laugh, “you just have to decide what’s important to you in life. The drugs don’t work is not really about drugs, but about love, passion, if you like. Of course drugs work. But I had to wait too long for our current success for this beautiful reality to slide away from me again”.

 

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“Without music I wouldn’t know where to put all that madness, that madness inside my head” Richard Ashcroft

 

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Richard Ashcroft (front) and guitarist Nick McCabe

 

Ashcroft sports the fingernails of a man having spent a lifetime chewing them. Like chewing on life. Down to the nail bed. Flashback: Five years ago, “A Storm in Heaven”, their debut album, was left on the shelves, when The Verve changed the tour that followed into a small private staging of what would go around the whole world some time later, now called Britpop. Their Oasis pals were their support. Looking at the headliners, a critic of the renowned English weekly New Musical Express was already crying it out back then - “Already immortal!” The Verve unearthed their melodies from the quarry of their native musical traditions now lying fallow; their driving psychedelic rock however came straight from their bellies. And then this front man, studying the wallpaper pattern during interview as if paralysed, and lecturing about the future success of his band. Ashcroft looked like a revenant of the lost Syd Barrett, his eyes bright red. He was infamously known as “Mad Richard” back then, a melancholy Peter Pan, stuck between delusions of grandeur and a druggy death. There followed “ No Come Down” (1994), an obscure collection of early singles and b sides, then the celebrated Album “A Northern Soul” one year later. But by the time congratulations on this album to the band were in order, they already no longer existed.

They’d argued, Ashcroft and his guitarist Nick McCabe, about some trivial thing. Their jubilant appearance during “T in the Park” on 6 August 1995 was also their farewell concert. And while Oasis went on to conquer the planet with “What’s the Story”, The Verve had missed their chance in July 1995. And looked after a train already left, having “BRITPOP! STARDOM! painted on its back in big letters. After their split, Ashcroft was sitting at home alone on his bed, the curtains drawn, his acoustic guitar on his knees. And composed. One day he played a few of the songs to a good friend. One of these good friends whose judgement you really can count on. He thought those songs were brilliant. Unbelievable. Great. But Richard kept digging deeper, insisted: “I don’t want to hear you think this stuff is great. I know that myself. I want to know whether this is the best you’ve ever heard in your life!” And when the friend regretfully said no, Ashcroft destroyed the whole of his material – and started over again. Convinced that one day not too far away, he would make music that “the world had never heard before”.

After some appearances as a solo artist and support for Oasis had shown him that he would hardly ever find his fortune as a solo entertainer, Richard eventually threw in his lot with the other band members again. With Simon Jones, his quiet alter ego, playing this unbelievably soft bass. With his school friend Simon Tong, adding Hammond organ, keyboards and guitar. And with drummer Pete Salisbury, whose ankle Ashcroft managed to break with a bad tackle playing football once, but who was providing The Verve’s songs with their pumping pulse nevertheless.

The missing piece - the exploring, stratospheric guitar by Nick McCabe. So Ashcroft swallowed his pride and got this unloved obstructionist back on board. “A big part of The Verve can only be created with Nick” he says without any regret, and pulls another Silk Cut from its box. Bass player Simon Jones provides him with ammunition. “Well the best band in the world is involved. It’s bitter, but The Verve are not complete without Nick McCabe.”

Whether they are aware of their responsibility? That they can now create a style and fashion and attitudes? That “Urban Hymns” could become the soundtrack of the fading 90s? Jones, now sitting cross-legged at Ashcroft’s feet, shakes his head defensively. “We really haven’t got any influence on that. What we’re doing now will still have to go out into the world and work. That’s where our songs leave their traces. That’s where we will meet again.” Ashcroft nods, “When I first heard “Bitter Sweet Symphony” on my car stereo, the song came on straight after that shitty “You give Love a bad name” by Bon Jovi. And suddenly it goes “damdamda, damdamda” – that’s got dignity. I would have loved to wind the window down and shout at the people in the street “Hey, that’s The Verve! The Verve have composed this divine thing!” Doesn’t it get boring to keep repeating that statement of the “fuckin best band in the world” all the time? Ashcroft shakes his head and launches into an explanation.

“No, I mean it exactly the way I say it. We are great, and we will be greater still soon. And do you know why? Because I just can’t be bothered to sit down here half-assed and tell you “well the album is quite nice, and maybe we’ll make it if we really make an effort!” That’s bullshit! We are the greatest, we know it and say it. That’s like Muhammad Ali. He was always shouting that he is the greatest – and put himself under pressure that way. He did have to prove it eventually. The whole thing is a method to set your own standards. That’s a bit like in the sports ground in the past, you know. Where you mutually encourage each other and spur each other on.” He makes a fist and shouts “Come on, we’ll make it, we are the fucking greatest!” That’s how you can control your fear, too. The fear of failing. So you think you can literally feel that the band knows exactly that they have basically already used up all of their lives.

 

There was this moment when we had finished the album and asked ourselves, “What if we are wrong? We could be? What if no-one wants to hear it?” Ashcroft remembers. “I tell you, that’s a horrible feeling. That’s worse than coming down off coke”. For hardcore fans of The Verve, it is horrible by now to get through a whole day without Urban Hymns. Then again, this album is choc-a-block with quotes from rock and pop history – from Led Zeppelin to the Stooges and the Small Faces back to Aphrodite’s Child. Mentioning this to Ashcroft, he just shrugs. “You know, it’s so unbelievably lazy to listen to our album with that kind of attitude. Such a bloody lazy way of handling your knowledge about rock history. People with such an attitude to music are cripples, psychological cripples. Because they are unable to open up to new things. If people like Puff Daddy work with samples, why can’t we?” Ashcroft asks, and then supplies the answer, “Sure we have Aphrodite’s Child on our album. And the Beatles, the Kinks, the Beach Boys. But you cannot deny we created our own thing from this. Art lives from serving itself from the supermarket of history – and putting new things together. What, I ask you, is original in the Beatles or Miles Davis? I am 26 today, other people were in the year 1967. With this distance in time, I am able to learn from mistakes of the 60s, from the hippies’ mistakes, from the punks’ mistakes”

Sure, Richard Ashcroft also has role models. Bill Withers for example - this young wild man would have loved to have written his evergreen “Ain’t no sunshine”. Or Led Zeppelin, whose song “Kashmir” is in Ashcroft’s Best Of list. And the groovy soul of Curtis Mayfield has also impressed him heavily, “Our music should have the same impact as if watching “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” at the cinema simultaneously. There is a limit in music, too, which can only be crossed by obsessives.” Ashcroft, no doubt, counts among those. What however does he think of peers like Radiohead or Ocean Colour Scene,

 

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trying their hand at intricate, epic suites by now? “I don’t think prog rock will come back. Thom Yorke of Radiohead is an intelligent guy. He knows what he’s doing. We are also a progressive band, but not in the sense of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or whatever their name is.” What, however, is “progressive” in Ashcroft’s eyes? “For instance importing dub, country or dance  into good old rock.” Gesticulating, the manic musician drops ash from his cigarette – directly onto the freshly vacuumed carpet. Continuing to talk, Richard wets his index finger, picks up the ash and puts it on a paper plate: “Take Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker for instance. That’s a little boy who unfortunately was pushed into the limelight before even noticing what was happening. He didn’t really have the balls yet to cope with it. Some people aren’t quite intelligent enough to even hear the difference between “Urban Hymns” and a shitty Kula Shaker album.” Not enough of scolding his peers that, though. “And what are Kula Shaker doing now? They are re-recording “Hush” by Deep Purple. I’m pissing myself laughing. There’s no character in bowing down to some type of legend in this way. Should I respect that?” Based on mutual respect and admiration however is the friendship between Ashcroft and Noel Gallagher. A certain bit of advice by Mr Gallagher, spoken before the meteoric rise of The Verve – was followed by Richard to the letter, “this time you’ll go through with it, and through with it in a professional manner.”

And what now? Maybe a large-scale attack on the American music market? Stretch limousines with darkened windows and sell-out baseball stadium for concerts? Bush being a British band who already demonstrated how to beat Seattle with its own weapons. “Bush are complete shit, man”, Ashcroft spits. “Much too bad to waste my time on them. But you need this shit to recognise the good stuff. I used to have nervous breakdowns because of this, but now I just don’t care. These people do their work for the wrong reasons. One day they will learn, but they don’t need me to do so. On our part, we’ll go to America to play a few very serious gigs and show those people over there what an English  band can really sound like. We will blow Bush from this whole damned continent.” The US business is no stranger to Ashcroft. New York, he says, had an effect on him like acid: “I went out onto the stage of Madison Square Garden and was high. If you are feeling really good, it doesn’t matter how long you play for. They always say of Bruce Springsteen he plays for three and a half hours and gives everything. I can go out there however and give everything in 45 minutes. That may be faster sex, but in no way worse sex. I need this kick, to stand up on stage each time and sing my shit to people, when the music is working behind me like a huge machine – like a machine made to create love. As in the end, it is love everything centres on in our songs.”

Richard Ashcroft likes being a pop star, “I am addicted to being recognised in public and then not to give any autographs to fans, out of some stupid arrogance. It is these moments my restless spirit finds peace. Those are the moments in my life I am in paradise.”  He leans back into the deep dark red cushions, crosses his legs and smiles as if he has just disclosed too much about himself. Still “If I hadn’t got this valve called music, enabling me to channel my anger, then I would probably be some amok sniper or something. Because then I wouldn’t know where to put all that madness anymore. That whole madness stuck in my head.”

The Verve will be touring live again soon. The upcoming tour, bass player Simon Jones explains, was drawn up thus “that we don’t kill ourselves with it.” Their concert tour will also lead the Verve to Germany, although Ashcroft has few kind words for it. “You had your krautrock, and that was it. There’s only just Fury in the Slaughterhouse nowadays. You should really be grateful for a band like The Verve. And if you think we’re just another guitar band from England “ – Ashcroft exhales and hoarsely speaks into a thick cloud of blue smoke, “then fuck you!”

 

(“On Stage” left side)

No wonder that The Verve’s first concert in London for two years has been completely sold out for weeks beforehand. And that at the “Hammersmith Palais”, one of the most legendary rock’n'roll venues in the world, holding a good 3,000 people.  14-year old girls with braces and a transfigured look on their faces could be found in the audience the same as 40 year old hippies with long beards. That’s because The Verve’s front man unites in one person the thing which is shared  between Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis: sex appeal  and creativity. No smile crosses Ashcroft’s serious expression, and when he dances, he reminds you of some raven with a broken wing. Still, this only 26 year old lad proves his charisma inside of barely 90 minutes he appears on stage. He is a magician, a seducer, a (yet) somewhat clumsy shaman. No matter how talented Ashcroft’s co-musicians are, no matter how powerful they are playing their instruments though -  all attention is centred on Ashcroft. He’s screaming and shouting, turning and spinning, and every now and then even falls down on his knees, almost as if he had simply collapsed under the enormous weight of his own potential. As The Verve’s current third album “Urban Hymns” had not been released at the time of this concert, most songs are taken from their second album, “ A Northern Soul”. Only more powerful, energetic, tighter than on record. Just the way The Verve are presenting themselves on their genius “Urban Hymns” . Just what the real new Britpop kings must sound like. After 70  minutes of regular playing time, these new British pop heroes are wallowing in an ecstatic white noise trash orgy a la Velvet Underground, leaving only a roaring guitar placed in front of the amps behind. And then the absolute liberation blow, the victory of good over evil – in the shape of “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, the most harmonious piece of pop for a long long time. A miracle has happened.

 

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“What are Kula Shaker doing now? They are covering Deep Purple. I’m pissing myself laughing.“ Richard Ashcroft

 

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“The times they are a-changing” – and The Verve with it. From the early days 1992 (centre) to the time of their temporary split 1995 (top), down to the matured pretenders to the throne of rock (right)

 

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Eyes to the heavens, feet not always on the ground

Richard Ashcroft