The Verve Live

Twilight Singers' 'Dynamite Steps' for $5

2012-01-25T11:07:00.005-05:00

Last year, former Verve guitarist Nick McCabe appeared on the Twilight Singers' 'Dynamite Steps' album, released February 14, 2011. It was the Twilight Singers' first album in five years, following 2006's 'Powder Burn.' McCabe lent his guitar skill to tracks on 'Dynamite Steps,' which is currently on sale for $5 in the Amazon MP3 store.

The Black Ships website officially offline

2011-12-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

As per the band update below:

...our website is unfortunately gone... price of DIY I suppose. Anyways, the good news is that we'll come up with a new and better one in the new year... promise! We are working on the music these days, mostly from a distance, although Nick, Dav and Si have seen each other in separate musical meetings, which were very fruitful indeed. About 20 or more songs on the horizon... Will keep you posted of course, we are still figuring out what to do, it's the weirdest time in music biz ever and we have to come up with something which would be sad if it was left to itself... maybe it will be anyways, but at least it will be done properly.

The Kurofune EP, released May 2011, can still be downloaded here.

Brian Cannon interview

2011-12-28T13:04:00.011-05:00

As Britpop shined its bright light in the 90's and England hit a cultural Renaissance through music, film and politics, no one came to capture the moments like Brian Cannon. Cannon, who photographed iconic album covers and sleeves for The Verve, Oasis, Groove Armada, Ash, Inspirational Carpets and many others, became the man with the "eye" for Britpop. His unique style of photography was like capturing the feeling of what it is like to be enhanced by heavy drugs and a state of euphoria.

This past year, Cannon had his work displayed at the British Music Experience at the O2 in London and was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Global Annual Design Awards this past November. Aside from his massive success as a music photographer, Cannon is also the owner of Microdot, a graphic design company that celebrated its 21 years in the business this past year.

We spoke with Cannon about his work and accolades, who he would still love to work with, and what he considers his favorite work. We also discussed his favorite music and seeing if there is any hope that Oasis or The Verve would ever reunite again...

Your iconic work will be featured as part of the British Music Experience at the O2, how excited and proud are you to have your work displayed?

I am honoured and flattered to have my work displayed alongside some of the all time greats, it really is a wonderful feeling to think people are interested in my creations.

Your company, Microdot has been going strong for 21 years now. How do you think you have managed to stay on top of your game and successful after all of these years?

The thing with me and Microdot is passion. I absolutely live for what I do and every job that leaves the studio is done to the absolute best of my ability, don’t forget, my name is on these works and some of them will be around forever so they have to be good.

Back to the O2 exhibit, was it difficult picking certain works to showcase? Did you leave something out that you felt was important but could not feature?

Everything I wanted to include was in there more or less so I was very happy with the presentation.

Like Annie Leibovitz photographed American rock and roll of the 70’s, you made your mark on Britpop of the 90’s. What was it like to be apart of that now infamous and notorious era?

It was a riot, looking back I’m amazed we actually got any work done let alone the calibre of stuff we were turning out. For about 3 years in the mid 90’s it seemed like one long party. I lived in Noel Gallagher’s old flat in Camden Town, North West London – it was like being at the eye of the hurricane, it was fantastic.

Do you ever feel Britpop will ever make a big comeback, or was that just a moment in time?

Britpop was just a label made up by the music press, in reality there were very few bands who were any good and with the exception of Oasis and The Verve, none of them really had much to do with each other. If it does make a ‘comeback’ it’ll be just another invention of the media.

Of all the sleeves you have done, which is your favorite?

Easily Verve’s first album, A Storm In Heaven.

Of all of your photos which one was the hardest to create?

Putting a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool for Oasis Be Here Now was no easy feat I can tell you!

Oasis and The Verve were two band’s you spent the most time photographing for. How much to do you miss them?

It’s not a case of missing them, that was then and this is now, I’m obviously grateful for the exposure it gave my work, but you have to move on.

Richard Ashcroft & Brian Cannon

How did you first get introduced to those bands?

I met both Richard [Ashcroft] and Noel [Gallagher] purely by chance six years apart, Richard at a party and Noel in an elevator! They liked what I was doing visually and invited me to work with their respective bands.

Who, of any bands of today would you like to work with?

Arctic Monkeys

Aside from the work that you have done, what is your favorite album sleeve that you wish you had done?

There’s two, Pink Floyd Ummagumma and Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols

Many of your images have your signature trademark of an item or person coming at your right in the foreground and smaller decreasing images in the background. Almost like a fish-eye or extreme wide angle. Was this done on purpose to make your mark?

Now you mention it – it’s the first time I’ve actually noticed that!

Aside from photographing and working with musicians, Microdot has done various ad campaigns for major companies. Are those just as fun and creative?

On the whole no – you have to deal with a team of people all trying to have their say – creative decision by committee just doesn’t work

What is next for you?

All sorts going on at the minute, working with bands, doing some lecturing in Universities, lots of overseas clients, many in the US – exciting times.

Source: Salvatore Bono at www.officiallyayuppie.com

Long player: Accomplished album reflects trials of Verve

2011-12-02T13:13:00.001-05:00

It's tough being in a rock band, especially a successful one, particularly if it's an all-male line-up. You see, men don't communicate as freely and honestly as might be good for their collective health. They generally prefer just to walk the walk, drink the drink and the drop the drugs.

But the drugs don't work. Neither does sweeping your various dysfunctions under the carpet in the hope that the music will mask the effects.

In the end, that's why the Verve could only manage one shining moment before imploding, re-forming and imploding once more.

Urban Hymns (1997) was very nearly not a Verve album at all. Having split up the band following the lukewarm reception to second album A Northern Soul (1995), vocalist Richard Ashcroft freed himself of the simmering tension with guitarist Nick McCabe and had begun work on a new project with bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury.

But he soon called McCabe back into the fold to work alongside new guitarist Simon Tong, unable to deny his addiction to the elements of the band's music that had convinced him something great was possible.

Lead single Bitter Sweet Symphony went gangbusters, reaching second spot on the UK singles chart and No 12 in the US. Follow-up The Drugs Don't Work went one better in the UK, providing the Verve with its sole career chart-topper and launched the band into a hectic schedule of US and European tours. One broken hand and bruised jaw later, Ashcroft and McCabe had once more parted company.

On-again off-again reunions have followed but the band is effectively dead.

What remains is an album that speaks more eloquently of all manner of personal trials and triumphs than anything else Ashcroft has produced.

From mesmeric psychedelic excursions to luscious, string-heavy ballads to hard-out rockers, Urban Hymns remains one of the most accomplished Britrock albums.

Source: Jeff Harford, Otago Daily Times (New Zealand)

Xfm 10th Birthday Podcasts

2011-10-22T03:23:00.001-04:00

In 2007, to celebrate their 10th birthday, Xfm produced a season of ten podcasts highlighting ten of the most influential and significant albums released in each of Xfm's ten years of broadcasting since its launch in 1997.

Each show takes listeners through the making of a classic album through the eyes of the band, producers and key figures in each record's history. Among them was The Verve's Urban Hymns. Tune in on iTunes.

Kudos: Ross

Win a day in the studio with Simon Jones and Peter Salisbury

2011-10-13T02:09:00.003-04:00

Simon Jones, Peter Salisbury and Jeff Wootton (Guitar, Beady Eye, Gorillaz) are volunteering their time to benefit the Neuroblastoma Children's Cancer Alliance UK.

The winner will spend a day in a recording studio with the musicians, record a track of their own, jam with the band, or if not a musician, simply hang out for the day and watch/see them record. The winner will come away with a CD of the recording/DVD film of the days events.

A recording studio, producer and engineer have been booked for Friday, October 21 from 10-6 PM at Milltown Studios, New Mills, Derbyshire.

Proceeds will benefit the Emma Hoolin Appeal. Check out the Ebay auction (ending in 6 days) here.

What's On - Interview with Richard Ashcroft

2011-10-08T00:56:00.000-04:00

Performing a special live acoustic set for Sandance, Richard Ashcroft’s first appearance in Dubai is something of a calming lull before the party starts in earnest. We grilled the former The Verve frontman on reunions, his friendship with Liam and Noel Gallagher, and his gangster alter ego…

Have you played an acoustic set at a dance festival before?

Not really. But in England, early raves were very eclectic. They weren’t necessarily all night dance events. People would throw on different things. I had a brief spell clubbing when I was younger. You’d dance to a certain beat for six hours then at the end all you really wanted [to listen to] was Bob Dylan or The Beatles. So long as you’re on at the right time and you’ve got the songs, it’s not a problem.

Will you be dusting off The Verve’s classic back catalogue?

I’ll be playing some of the best songs I’ve written – in my mind – over the last 20 years. I’m not sure if I’ll play The Drugs Don’t Work because, well… but probably Lucky Man, Sonnet, A Song For The Lovers, Break The Night With Colour. I’m not one of these guys who deny the audience the right to hear his best tunes.

Are you looking forward to any other acts at Sandance?

Example is doing very well. In England, success comes with a heavy price, and I’ve got a lot of time for anyone who breaks through and does something half interesting, especially in the pop world. It’s a tough game. And you’ve got to respect people who have been around a while, like Chicane. When I was younger, I probably threw out a few bad comments about people, but with time you learn to respect your peers. You realize how hard it is.

How familiar are you with Dubai?

This is my first visit, amazingly. I’m looking forward to checking it out. It looks psychedelic. Everyone has preconceived ideas of places. I try and keep an open mind, but I can imagine a lot of marble and air conditioning, some nice beaches with great water parks, and streets where keeping up with the Joneses means have you got the [Rolls-Royce] Phantom coupé or the drop top or only the four-door hard top. I’m sure there’s a bit of that goingbon. But if you see the photographs of Dubai merely 25 or 30 years ago it’s astonishing. It was like a little fishing village that’s mushroomed into something entirely different. It’s incredible. I’d be interested in what’s going to be created in Dubai over the next ten or 20 years. What’s going to be the sound of Dubai, in a place that’s relatively young but ancient at the same time?

Your old friend Liam Gallagher’s new band, Beady Eye, played the UAE recently. Will you ask his advice about the country?

[Laughs] I see him now and again. Whenever people are gunning for me, Liam turns up out the blue or he’ll give a call. And Noel [Gallagher] was very good to The Verve at the beginning. So my respect goes a long way, but I won’t be asking any advice because I don’t need anybody’s anymore. I tend to just do it and see how it goes.

You claim to have a slightly gangster alter ego, named after The Godfather character Michael Corleone. At what point does he come out to play?

Michael is something we were laughing about in the studio making my last album in New York. It’s a character we can all relate to. His whole life is spent walking between his very dark side and wanting to morally put himself back together again. Michael, my alter ego, can turn up. I’m not someone who turns into Michael at any given moment. [Laughs] Michael just makes sure other people don’t take the ****.

What are the chances of The Verve reforming again in the foreseeable future?

I really have no idea. You learn that sometimes things come to an end for a reason – very real reasons – and time doesn’t always heal. It’s highly unlikely we’ll ever make music together again. Life’s too short. No matter how much money’s on the table, it really isn’t worth it. I started losing belief in the concept of the band very early in life because it’s unreasonable to ask grown adults to live and breathe the same air in the same space for so long. We watch people crack up on Big Brother within five or six days. With the band, you’re talking ten years. It’s like Spinal Tap. I loved Spinal Tap as a kid, but it’s also a blueprint for all the things that you don’t want to get
involved with.

Is there another solo Richard Ashcroft album on the way?

I’m in the process of trying to write a set of songs to compete with the best I’ve written. For the last few albums I’ve been on a bit of a voyage, trying to discover different ways of recording, different styles. There’s a certain time when I think people recognized me as a great songwriter. If I’ve got any clarity about what I’m doing next it’s about reclaiming that, if I ever had it. So that’s what I’m heading for: that definitive album. I was 40 the other day, which suggests I’m in a different phase of my life. I think it’s time to relate to my people, the people who have grown up with me.

Source: Sandance.ae website
Kudos: Amanda

Richard Ashcroft in Dubai

2011-10-05T23:03:00.006-04:00

The British singer-songwriter and ex-Verve frontman tells Chris Anderson what fans can expect from his set

Sandance traditionally consists of big-name dance acts, so it’s a surprise to see 40-year-old Richard Ashcroft on the bill. Known as the writer of ’90s chart anthems ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ during his time with The Verve, Ashcroft believes it is these back-catalogue hits that ensure he sits well alongside the rest of the line-up.

‘One of the last things I did was a benefit for the disaster in Japan at London’s Brixton Academy,’ he explains. ‘I came on with my acoustic guitar and started singing “Lucky Man”, and the whole place sang it with me, and it was, like, “wow”. When your songs have literally gone into the pores of the country… that’s when someone like me can stand alongside a dance act and create that euphoric feeling.’

Fans at Nasimi can expect to hear a mix of well-known Verve classics; Ashcroft also plans to showcase some of his later solo material at the gig, which will mark his first visit to Dubai. ‘Has the crisis hit there yet?’ he asks. ‘Are the cranes still on the horizon?’ He jokes about his preconceptions. ‘I suppose “keeping up with the Joneses” there is a bit like, “Oh, you’ve got the Bugatti in silver? I’m going to get it in gold.”’

But for Ashcroft, the serious side to everything is always the music. ‘How is Dubai’s music scene going to grow?’ he muses. ‘Now that’s going to be interesting. What is it the kids are listening to? What are they making? What is Dubai getting ready to say to the rest of the world? That’s the kind of thing I think about when I see a city like Dubai and the way it’s grown.’

His visit will only span a few days before he heads back to the UK to continue working on new material, which looks set to tap back into the classic, timeless Urban Hymns he became famous for writing in the mid ’90s. ‘I’m the guy who turned up in the village, sat under a tree, the people gathered round and I sang some tunes,’ he says. ‘Then they dropped money in my cap and I moved on to the next place – that’s who I am and that’s what I’ll be doing in Dubai. I just won’t have a cap.’

Source: Chris Anderson, Time Out Dubai

19 years ago today

2011-10-05T01:11:00.005-04:00

"Gravity Grave" was released as the band's third single in the United Kingdom reaching number 78 on the UK Singles Chart.

The Black Ships in Echo Mag

2011-09-26T20:44:00.004-04:00

Kudos: Schumi
Photo credit: Bartolomy, Published August 5, 2011 at bartolomy.com

New York Times | Styled to a T | Richard Ashcroft

2011-09-13T23:50:00.001-04:00

The Trend

New jet set. Fur flourishes on the collars of Euro-savvy updated bombers and blazers, from brands as diverse as Dries Van Noten and Gucci.

The Guy

The former lead singer of The Verve, the English songwriter Richard Ashcroft recently toured to promote his album ‘‘United Nations of Sound.’’

The Look

Marc Jacobs Sergeant Pepper jacket in cashmere with a touch of sable to graze one’s jaw.

Source: New York Times Style Magazine

Dubai Confirmed

2011-08-29T16:05:00.003-04:00

Richard Ashcroft will be appearing at the Sandance Festival for a special acoustic set at sunset.

The five-star music festival will take place on Friday, October 14 at Atlantis, The Palm and will be the biggest beach festival the emirate has ever seen, according to organizers.

New Song "Screw You, Screw Me"

2011-08-29T15:37:00.000-04:00

Richard Ashcroft to perform in Dubai?

2011-07-27T18:09:00.001-04:00

Though currently unconfirmed, the Gulf News website is reporting:

Dubai: Former lead singer of English band The Verve, Richard Ashcroft, will be one of many big names performing at Sandance Dubai 2011.

The five-star music festival will take place on Friday, October 14 at Atlantis, and will be the biggest beach festival the emirate has ever seen, according to organizers.

Singer/songwriter Ashcroft was the frontman of popular band The Verve from their formation in 1990 until their split in 1999 when he became a successful artist in his own right, releasing three UK top three solo albums.

The Verve reformed in 2007 but had broken up again by the summer of 2009. Ashcroft, and his guitar, will perform an acoustic set on the beach at sunset. The Verve shot to fame after the release of album Urban Hymns, which featured singles Bittersweet Symphony, The Drugs Don't Work and Lucky Man.

The full Sandance 2011 line up will be released soon.

Source: Gulf News

Richard Ashcroft among celebrities taking part in Celtic Vs Manchester United charity match

2011-07-27T17:31:00.003-04:00

Oxfam's East Africa famine appeal has been announced as the main beneficiary of The Legends Celtic vs Manchester United charity match on August 9.

The drought in this area has already caused devastation and was officially declared a famine in two regions of Somalia by the United Nations on Wednesday 20th July 2011.

The Celtic Charity Fund has taken the decision to make Oxfam’s East Africa Famine Appeal the event’s main charitable beneficiary. With ITV broadcasting the match live from Celtic Park, stars from football and entertainment will be out in force at Celtic Park to back the campaign.

Judith Robertson, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said: "East Africa is facing the worst food crisis seen anywhere in the world for many years – almost 12 million people are at risk right now. Oxfam is there, and we’re already making a huge difference, but we need fans of Celtic, Manchester United and football fans across the world to rally together and help us to do even more.

“The Legends Celtic vs. Manchester United match is going to be an incredible night, and it’s fantastic to see so many players – past and present – and famous fans getting involved. Thanks to them, and the support of the fans, every minute of the match will help us raise money to save lives across Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.”

Legends of both clubs and the entertainment world will be taking part in the match. Already confirmed are players such as Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton, Dwight Yorke, Gordon Strachan, Patrick Kielty, Richard Ashcroft, Ricky Hatton, Nigel Benn, Angus Deayton, Ricky Whittle and Nicky Byrne. Billy Connolly, the Patron of the Celtic Foundation, will be at Celtic Park on the night, and a host of other confirmed as lending support to the event and the fundraising effort are Wayne Rooney, Rod Stewart, Eddie Jordan, Sharleen Spiteri, Dougray Scott and Paolo Nutini.

The line up has swelled further this week with the addition of Manchester United hero Roy Keane. For Keane – who made 326 appearances for Man U scoring 33 goals – the return to Celtic Park will bring back memories of his final season as a player. He returns to Celtic on the eve of his 40th birthday and will surely be looking for a victory to put the icing on his celebrations. The former Ireland international played 10 times for Celtic FC in the 2005/2006 season before retiring on medical grounds.

Truly deserving of his place in The Legends, Alex Ferguson has said of Keane: “Over the years when they start picking the best teams of all time, he will be in there.”

Exec producer Lester Holcombe said: “We’re absolutely delighted to have secured Roy to play. For many of the fans he’s the greatest midfielder that Man U ever had. He never took any prisoners and we’re fully expecting him to bring that same competitive edge to this game.”

Celtic manager Neil Lennon said: "This is a great cause and one we should all support. The charitable spirit and generosity of our supporters is well known and we’re sure our fans will once again lend their backing to support the many thousands of people in Africa who need our help.

“The images from Africa which we are seeing daily are heart-breaking and this is a cause everyone at the Club is fully behind. It’s fantastic that so many people are committing their time and support to this event. We’re sure the evening will be a great success and we look forward to welcoming as many supporters as possible.

Peter Lawwell, chief executive of the club, said: “We will be hoping to do all we can to raise as much as possible for this cause. We thank everyone involved taking part and all our fans for their support as we aim to make a difference.”

The match is the 9th game produced by the Legends for live broadcast in the UK and internationally. These matches have raised hundreds of thousands for charity and are watched by millions of people worldwide.

The match takes place on August 9 at Celtic Park in Glasgow. Tickets are now on general sale priced £10 Adult and £5 Concession. Call 0871 226 1888 or visit the Celtic Ticket Office.

Source: Oxfam

Interview - The Black Ships: In Pursuit Of Goose Pimples

2011-07-07T03:32:00.011-04:00

The Verve. Verve. Whichever you call them, long before Oasis were proclaiming themselves the biggest band in the world (yawn), music had another gobshite on the block. Teaching Liam everything he knows about how to trip over the delicate balance between egotism and self belief, one Mr Richard Ashcroft led the Verve through a tumultuous career defined by messy splits, reformations, more messy splits, another reformation. After getting back together one last time to headline Glastonbury and spew forth 'Forth', the members of the Verve once again acrimoniously parted ways, presumably never to speak to each other again.

Or did they? Because in a recording studio in South London, roughly half of The Verve are sat in front of us, laughing, drinking tea and munching jammy dodgers. Nick McCabe and Simon Jones, are sharing the couch with their not so new band mates, violinist Davide Rossi (Goldfrapp/Coldplay) and drummer Mig Schillace (Portishead/Goldfrapp). Together, they've quietly unleashed the part instrumental, mesmerising masterpiece that is their debut EP, 'Kurofune', some of the best twenty five minutes of music you'll hear this year.

So, you've all played and toured together before, when did you form The Black Ships?

Nick McCabe: The name came... maybe a year into us playing together, and when we started we knew that it was the four of us. So officially, we got together 2008, November was it?
Davide Rossi: December.
NMC: So we started playing in December, and some of what you've just heard came from sessions then. But the name came, maybe a year ago?
DR: I think it was March or April 2009. Around three, four, months afterwards.

And is it from the four ships that went to Japan?

DR: It became that...
Simon Jones: If we were pretentious we'd say, oh yeah, it's all about that...
DR: Basically we'd been looking for a name for a while and we were sending emails back and forth, and there was a time when we thought we'd found a name, and we were like, yeah, we're going to call ourselves that. But I'm the 'computer says no' person, and I send this email back, being Italian and not knowing how to spell very well, and it said 'sorry guys, I don't want to be the black sheep here but I think this is all a load of shit', but I spelt sheep 'ship'. So then we just googled to see if there were any bands called that, and there wasn't. There was a Black Ships, but it was without the 'The'. Which is very important! We know that! And then we googled and found the history of it, and it makes a lot of sense for us. Four ships, that were supposed to break the 200 year isolation of Japan, and there's a lot of art work from that period. The ones from the Americans, which is very holy image of these ships, the Christians giving the message to the uncivilised. And then there is the Japanese versions, where the ships are very evil, and I think it's so brilliant. Four ships, four of us. It's very true that lots of the things that take a deep meaning, sometimes it's not because you've been pondering about it, but they just come out of something silly. Something very sporadic, and suddenly they tell you what to do, and we've found a lot of things like that.
NMC: Everything we do seems to be intuition, but the sensibilities are there behind it, informing everything that we do. Between the four of us, the amount of conversation that happens, everything stems from that really. It's not like we've set out with a specific agenda with anything, but it kind of is this thing, that is the four of us. Sorry, that was very pretentious wasn't it. Shall I leave the room?
SJ: Keep digging!
NMC: Can someone take my spade?
SJ: He's been up all night rehearsing for this. He's got it all prepared, but now he's a bit tired.

But, if you've been working together since 2008…

SJ: 2009 really, because it was December.

…okay, we'll let you have that month for free…

SJ: Yeah, give us a month off!

Well, it was Christmas... so why's it taken so long to release the EP?

NMC: Everything goes through transformations all the time, so, the first track was 20 minutes originally, and then we reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce, until it resembles something completely different, a different entity.
SJ: We gave the songs to some singers and asked them if they could come back with something... and very little, if any, came back for a long time. So I decided to cut some of those jams into... cakes.
NMC: Oh, what a metaphor!
SJ: And then Amelia Tucker came back with a song that was so good, it was like, actually, that can happen. So we're still finding the format.
NMC: It was a bit weird, because you went away and did your thing, and came back with this batch of really beautiful songs that we didn't realise were hidden in the jams. And then we got back these songs, and we had to look at it again. We derailed ourselves a bit, then we realised that we had a kind of pop record, and we have to obey it. We've gone from being a soundtrack instrumental band, and suddenly we have to switch our mentality a little bit.
SJ: I still think it's growing.
Mig Schillace: For me personally, it's the first time it's happened like that. Usually you go in with bands with a set idea, and a set way of working, whereas this has been very...
SJ: Organic, to use that very cringy word.
NMC: Usually in a band, you get one guy who's written some songs on an acoustic guitar and then you all thrash it out and give it a treatment. And we've done that a few times, but what four people do together is always more interesting. Giving that freedom and seeing what comes back, it's bigger than what you can do by yourself. And then we've multiplied that by getting other people involved, because it changes your perception again. And it makes it richer all the time, and as a musician you're always looking to be fascinated by what you do. Part of what leads you to be a musician, I think, is having a very short attention span, and being dissatisfied with other people's music. And this keeps revealing different sides to itself all the time, and it's just so rewarding.
When I listen back, I'm taken back to where we were at that moment, the goose pimples. And it's a weird thing, that we've spent our lives... in pursuit of goose pimples.

So, you've released the EP, Kurofune, as a free download, and for me, the stand out track is Northern Rock. Who's the sample?

SJ: It's a guy called Ron Paul, he's a politician in America, he's been going on about how we devalue our currencies, how it's not pegged to anything stable, and he's been predicting this economic meltdown for the past 30 years. He's a bit of a hero to the people.
MS: We do believe in his politics, but it's just that what he was saying is quite relevant to what's going on at the moment on the planet.
SJ: Yeah, and the fact that you know, I wouldn't align myself to anyone's politics really, it's just that this guy's been saying this for such a long time. It's taken from 2006 maybe, but it just fascinates me, the bigger picture of who's in control of us, as people, who's running the shit. It's that aspect of it, he's enlightened people in politics via the internet, that he's such a product of our times, and not because he's got millions behind on some big presidential campaign, it's just because he talks sense, and people are understanding him because of that. What he says makes a lot of sense.
DR: At the same time, the reason we chose that lyric, we decided we'd like to try a dialogue - Si came up with that idea - and it fits, sometimes we just find that when things happen for us, it happens very quickly and that came quickly to us. And then the title came quickly, the dialogue, money and credit, money and credit. And then we were like, what started it, in America it was the Lehman Brothers, in England it was Northern Rock... oh. And things happen like that for us, it's also musical, but it also fits. But it has to be musical. Everything works somehow.
NMC: Serendipity only really works when your obsessions inform everything that you do. It's weird how things just all coalesces for us really, it's not like any of this happened by accident but it feels like it does for us, everything just feeds back into itself.

You've just played your first live gig, right? How did that go? Was it a logistical nightmare?

NMC: One of the things that we had to contemplate was all the singers not being in one place. And thinking visually about it, because you know, there's only really the four of us able to continue doing music for a living, whereas the singers have all got nine to fives. So we'd been looking at how we present this, and as it turns out, the night before, all the singers turned up to do it. Which was weird, because we've never had the four of them in the same room before, a couple a time, we've done sessions with, so we've not really paid the correct attention.
SJ: One thing about doing the gig was to see how it did work, learning what we were up against, these four people, how they come on the stage, how they leave the stage, it's thrown up a load of new things that's going to keep things moving forward, and to hone it. And that was really the point of doing the one off gig, because that's when it's going to come alive. So for me, it's been the most rewarding thing, doing the gig, in terms of how it's educating me as to what we're working to achieve.
NMC: It's almost like we'd been working towards an instrumental show, with projections and that kind of thing...
SJ: And all of a sudden we had loads of singers and we didn't know what to do with them!
DR: It was very important to give them the space to just do it. And now we know what works, what didn't work. Because we are planning to do more gigs. Still in this line of 'not being super promoted', so we can learn, how to be an instrumental band. An instrumental band with singers.

So you're not hitting up the festival circuit just yet?

NMC: It's a bit frustrating, because we want to be busier than we are, and then we have to have a word with ourselves and say this is the pace that it's meant to develop at. And it would be great to do festivals, I think that's the perfect forum for us. Because you're going to reach people that you wouldn't do otherwise, so I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity for us, we were hoping to be out this summer. There's a kind of, we're a bit sanguine about it, that we have to go at the pace that it demands. You can't rush things. Even though we'd like to rush things. Bands we've been in in the past, for whatever reason, be it time constraints, or release schedule, or got to go on tour, you never quite get it right, and this pondering and thinking it through properly, so when it does take off, we'll have something we'll be completely happy with. And that's quite rare, for a band, to be able to look back and say, d'you know what, I couldn't have done any better on this. That's what I'm aiming for, when it's launched and on the road, and it's fucking bang on, and it's something that I would want to see.

And do you have any plans to release a full album?

DR: We're about to finish one and start work on the second. The finishing is the easy bit, more complicated is to find the right place, the right home.
NMC: We've spent a large part of our lives doing music, it's a business, this is what we do for a living, so we have to make it commercially viable somehow. The music business has completely transformed since we started doing it, so we need to be smart, and work out a way of doing this that is long term, so we can continue doing what we love doing. Different ways of releasing the music, we've been investigating at the moment, working out how we proceed from here.
DR: The release of Kurofune was interesting, because we found that although it's nice to be able to give the fans something for free, there's also the risk that it can be lost into a void somehow.

So are you actively looking for a label?

SJ: I think, because we're free of it, we're going to end up with the truest thing. Instead of having someone saying, right, you've got to get this finished by this date, and out on the road by this date, we're free. In fact, we decided to release the EP with about six days notice. There's no rules at the moment. And we like it like that, right now. Obviously when the album comes out and we want that to reach as many people as possible. And hopefully by then it will have told us what we need to do, instead of us just bungling it. I love being in this band, there's no one to dilute it, there's no one to tell us what to do.
MS: We have got the freedom pretty much to do whatever we want. That's key. From a musician point of view, that's fantastic.
DR: We'd like to be free to release alongside the album some of the instrumental tracks, just the four of us together, whether that be under another name or under The Black Ships.
SJ: We've even toyed with the idea of having an alter ego to the band called Black Submarine or something, an outlet for the more instrumental, experimental stuff, the format isn't that rigid. We're a new band, we've just done our first gig, we're learning...
NMC: It's not formatted, if we want to do pop tunes, we can do some pop tunes. One of the ideas behind Kurofune was to keep the doors open, so if we do chuck in a curve ball, at least you'll be aware of what we're doing. We just don't want anyone to be horrified, you know, when we do a triple album of prog rock.
SJ: We won't be doing that, don't worry.
NMC: Oh dear...
SJ: I still don't think that we know what the album is until we start to sync and put tracks in order.
NMC: We're looking at different ways of doing it. As a record buyer myself, I miss having a big chunk of artwork to look at, and going home and immersing myself in the music...
MS: I think the artwork is quite important to us as well...
NMC: And I think the thing about the physical format is, people are a little more willing to sit down and listen to it from start to finish. MP3s are just files that you think, I'll come back to those later, you're not as committed to it. When I were a lad, I used to spend my last bit of cash on a record, and because you invested your time in it, your least favourite tracks became your favourite tracks, they were things to live with. I'd like to see music go back to that, disposable is good but we're making something to last. We want a relevant record, I think, for people to cherish. Like a beautiful flower.
SJ: That'll be the big headline!
NMC: Yeah, follow that!

Source: thisisfakediy.co.uk Website, interview by Simone Scott Warren
Kudos: Radiolab

TakLIBERTY Cancelled

2011-07-01T22:58:00.003-04:00

A little more than a week after announcing the inaugural WRXP TaKLIBERTY Testival at PNC Bank Arts Center, the radio station has scrapped the event. No reason was given beyond the dreaded "unforeseen circumstances."

Ticket sales couldn't have been the problem. Coldplay, one of the world's most popular rock bands, was scheduled to headline the September 18 event. Sets by Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft, U.K. hitmakers the Kooks, and NYC guitar-pop favorites the Pains of Being Pure at Heart had also been announced. The TaKLIBERTY Festival had promised a full day of music on two stages.

The news of the TaKLIBERTY cancellation comes on the heels of news of WRXP's sale to Merlin Media, a group headed by radio entrepreneur Randy Michaels. Whether Michaels intends to maintain the station's format has been a matter of recent speculation.

In the Daily News, David Hinckley quoted station Vice President Liz Aiello saying “this unique opportunity to craft something new in such an established industry is an exciting challenge.” Those words ought to elicit a gulp or two from area rock radio fans. WRXP is currently the only commercial alternative rock station in New York City.

Ticket refunds for the cancelled festival are available at points of purchase.

Richard Ashcroft's official website has stated the cancellation is due to the "new owners of ROCK 101.9 RXP radio station changing the format of the station."

Source: Tris McCall, The Star Ledger

Richard Ashcroft to perform at TaKLIBERTY Festival in New Jersey

2011-06-25T00:11:00.007-04:00

It has a cumbersome name, but the lineup is pretty slick. NYC radio station Rock 101.9 RXP's TaKLIBERTY (pronounced "take liberty") festival will bring Coldplay, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Richard Ashcroft, the Kooks, and other contemporary rock bands to the PNC Bank Arts Festival in Holmdel, New Jersey on September 18. There will be music on two stages, and the radio station promises that there will be more big names announced in coming weeks.

So far, TaKLIBERTY has a distinctly Glastonbury-like feel to it. Most of the bands committed to playing the festival are from the British Isles. Coldplay, the most popular of the TaKLIBERTY bands, will arrive in advance of its as-yet-unnamed fifth album; "Every Teardrop a Waterfall," the lead single, is currently climbing the American charts.

Richard Ashcroft was the frontman of The Verve, a Northern English group whose "Bittersweet Symphony" was an enormous, if mostly unacknowledged, influence on Coldplay's cinematic sound. The Kooks, a Brighton-born pop-rock band with catchy songs, have never had a big stateside hit, but they've reached the U.K. Top 20 five times. Graffiti6 is a London singing duo; Two Door Cinema Club is a talented electropop combo from Northern Ireland. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the one American act on the bill so far, plays music heavily informed by the New Music Express' much-venerated C86 compilation.

Source: Tris McCall, The Star Ledger
Tickets here.

Post-gig interview with The Black Ships

2011-06-10T11:47:00.001-04:00

Simon Jones (formerly of The Verve) and Charley Bickers from the Black Ships interviewed after their gig at King's College London Students' Union on June 2. Stream it here or download it here.

Kudos: Captain21

The Black Ships set sail in London

2011-06-05T18:30:00.008-04:00

Nick McCabe playing live with The Black Ships. Photo by Bartolomy.

Kicking off the summer with a debut show (June 2), The Black Ships, founded by guitarist Nick McCabe and bassist Si Jones (The Verve), string arranger and violinist Davide Rossi (Goldfrapp) and drummer Mig Schillace (Portishead), stormed the King’s College London SU – triumphantly arriving on a dark wave of pop experimentation, following a two year long hiatus after the unexpectedly sudden split-up of The Verve.

The combined forces of four heavyweight rock and pop instrumentalists make them a difficult to act to pinpoint and it will take time to work out where exactly on the map they are and which direction they are sailing towards. Sometimes going close to the borders of bleakness and exploring the colder polar territories of music, or occasionally verging near to the plains of the M.O.R. It’s music obsessed by the murky sound of Bristolian trip hop acts such as Tricky and Massive Attack, the mastery of the pop ballad and heavy, cinematic neo-classical film scores. There are dirty synthesizers, hushed vocals, planetary waves of guitar, gravitational bass lines, magnetic drum loops and minimalist shrills on the violin.

With the composure of veterans, the band strolled out onto the stage, which was flagged with square white sheets for visuals, and laid into a brooding instrumental piece. The presence of four untouched microphones at the front of stage suggested that the band were not there as an out and out instrumental outfit and as expected they were later joined on stage by four unknown guest vocalists. Amelia Tucker was the first to come out but her vocals were nearly submerged by the enormously loud soundscapes around her so it was hard to distinguish her voice in.Tucker was soon accompanied by Charley Bickers (who McCabe had previously collaborated with in acoustic outfit War Makes Heroes).

Both singers faced the tough job trying of to impress a room full of fans, many of which had been accustomed to the stage presence of Richard Ashcroft and Alison Goldfrapp over the years. Bickers, in particular, seemed to capitulate to the audience’s glare, appearing like a rabbit in the headlights – beset with nerves and not knowing what to do with himself on stage. With Bickers fumbling on lead vocals, the first track from the band’s newly released Kurofune EP, ‘Rain Down on Me’, came across as whiny and uninspired until it was later reprised in the set as an apocalyptic jam with only Tucker and Rossi singing. The composer’s occasional vocal duties, in a warm baritone, semi-spoken manner, between keeping the electric violin close to the limits of its endurance, seemed to work well, especially when backed by Tucker on their more melodic tracks.

The introduction of McCabe’s eighteen-year-old daughter, singer Elly McCabe, later in the show sent the audience into near delirium. Her voice had something of a young Charlotte Gainsbourg about it, and her cool, captivating presence was something that the other vocalists could do with learning from her in the future.

Another new face and another solo artist guesting with the band – David McKellar, had the movement, stature and voice that seemed to be exactly what the audience had been thirsting for. If some of their more nostalgic fans were after a singer to fit the mould of Ashcroft then they may have found it. His uncanny resemblance to The Verve frontman meant that during some parts of the set it was like watching the band that had brought them together.

Although the comparisons are unavoidable, whether it being an intentional ploy to replicate some of the formula of McCabe and Jones’ former group with an outfit packed with current vocal talent, the line-up stood out in its own right and the dynamic of having five vocalists on stage undoubtedly makes the band’s live presence incredibly powerful. With it being their first show together as a band, The Black Ships will undoubtedly use it to test the waters ahead of the release of their upcoming album (which according to Jones is 87% complete) and the group look poised to make a big leap onto the touring circuit in the coming years.

Source: Echo Magazine
Kudos: Steven

Interview with The Black Ships

2011-06-02T02:22:00.004-04:00

The Black Ships are a new band formed by Ex-The Verve members Nick McCabe and Simon Jones and also features violinist and string arranger Davide Rossi and drummer Mig Schillace.

Their first (free) EP is out now and their first gig is coming up this week. Red Rose chatted with them to see what lay ahead.

So how did you guys meet and how obvious was it to you that you should make music together?

Nick: Well I’ve known Simon since sixth form and we have been mates since then obviously. Davide sort of met us two when we were back recording Forth with for The Verve, you know he came into do some work with us and well we got on and so it went from there.

Me and Si had been doing some work together away from The Verve anyway so it fitted. Mig was a friend of a friend and then when the Verve sort of looked like it wasn’t going to carry on we decided to do something together.

How long have you been The Black Ships officially then actually working as a band?

Nick: Probably about a few months, Me and Si as you know were doing the Forth recording sessions and enjoying playing in The Verve again and the plan was originally to have Davide come in as the fifth, proper member of The Verve, I thought anyway but when that sort of appeared to have finished we decided to form this band properly.

As individual musicians who has influenced your careers the most, in terms of other artists?

Simon: That’s a difficult one, obviously we all have favourite bands and artists but the amount is so wide and far reaching it is difficult to say. Like growing up there was not one person that I saw and thought, I want to pick up a guitar and play.

Mig: Influences come from everywhere, you can be influenced by something you see everyday.

Simon: Exactly, like Mig says you can be influenced by something from..yesterday so it’s hard to say.

Davide: See for me being from Italy, I didn’t have the same music culture you have here, I grew up on classical music and I was brought up as a classical person so I can’t say other than classical and that sort of thing. Also, I would say we inspire each other we play things and do things that make us do other stuff or play things another way.

Have you ever been inspired by a lyric you have heard? Or even one you have been involved in writing?

Nick: Well I didn’t start actually listening to lyrics till about 5 years ago! (laughs) Well I mean they don’t really matter to me being an instrumentalist, I am more influenced by listening to the instruments and the sounds created.

Simon: As Nick said, for me it is more about the sounds, y’know stuff the Roses and bands like that were doing, stuff that was around me at the time as I was growing up and getting into music and that kind of thing.

The bands name if you research is relates to 16th century ships from America that arrived in Japan, is that where you chose it from?

Nick: (Laughs) Do you want the true story? Okay…well we spent months and months thinking of a name and were getting really frustrated and struggling to think of anything.

Davide: I was a bit of a "no" man within the band, computer says no! And someone had suggested ‘The Black Sheep’ and I was sending out an email to the others saying ‘I don’t want to be that!’ but because I sometimes make mistakes in English I spelt it ‘Ship’…

Nick: So we thought ‘The Black Ships’ sounded alright and we went with that and eventually looked into the background of it as a name and thought it fits and makes us look like we were deep about it. I mean the 4 vessels it relates to, also relates to us 4 and the whole idea of the Americans sending over symbol of Christianity yet the Japanese thought these ships were evil brought it together nicely.

So a mistake but then you thought actually the ideas behind it fit the band well?

Simon: Yeah we liked it and the ideas behind it the whole ships thing of Mississippi, Plymouth, Sararato and Christ I can’t even say it! But yeah..

The band has no vocalist and you worked with guest vocalists on the EP, how will this work from now? Will you be instrumental or with lots of different guests?

Nick: We decided on the E.P to one song with vocals and two without to give a bit of everything but then decided it would work as one large piece and yeah we will be working like this from now because it gives us the chance to work with lots of talented guest musicians and although it can cause new problems just logistically it works for us.

Davide: We worked with two vocalists on the EP they are Charley Baker and Amelia Tucker, two young musicians, who we think will have very successful careers.

You have your first gig on Thursday, are their plans to tour this year after the gig? Or are you doing this gig to assess how it goes first?

Simon: Well we have got to get the record done first then we can gig, I mean it is almost done so once we have got that finished we can do gigs. We are doing this gig just because we wanted to make it feel proper and real, and because we have no one to say ‘No, don’t do a gig!’ so we thought, yeah lets get one done.

The record is probably about…85% done, it is all recorded just needs putting together how we want it.

Nick: 87% done I would say (Laughs)

You have no record label, are there any plans to get one? Anything happening on that front?

Nick: We are not openly courting someone, just seeing how it goes and I think we all said that if we find the right person, we will know we have and it will just feel right. What we want to do more than anything is to make sure we get the album out in the best way rather than doing what we did with the EP which was to just stick it on the internet which is just a big void, that won’t be happening with the album.

You’re EP is mainly instrumental, will this sound be typical of the album or is their something more structured with actual songs?

Nick: I don’t think there is one uniform sound but erm certainly we have separate songs but we don’t know how it will be on the album, how it will be structured and how they will appear. I was actually surprised at how well received the EP was.

Why were you surprised at the EP’s successful reception?

Nick: Well when we were back doing The Verve the 8 or 9 minute singles were being called too long and people kept telling us this and having opinions on it, so for this to be received how it was is different to that.

Simon: Back in the days of The Verve though, we didn’t care about that we just did it because we were there to be doing what we wanted to do and the people saying ‘it is too long’ It didn’t matter, I didn’t feel guilty about that.

Nick: I did! When you have got someone whose job it is to go into radio stations with our single and people are saying ‘but it’s 9 minutes’ and they have to say, play it anyway! I felt guilty about that!

One last question…For me, as a massive Verve fan, is there likely to be another reunion?

Nick: I would have to say for me now, I mean there’s been three times now so I think probably no.

Simon: You will have to ask Mr. Ashcroft! (Laughs)

Source: Red Rose Music
Kudos: Schumi

The Black Ships - Kurofune EP

2011-05-25T12:24:00.003-04:00

Nick McCabe's introduction to the Kurofune EP:

You just know when things are right. The four of us met in various circumstances and each meeting was accompanied by this feeling of "we've absolutely got to do more together". And here we are. The joy of music: what does that really mean? Living and breathing it. Obsessing about detail whilst discovering the beauty in chance, and then doing what is necessary to give it life. All the peripheral activity, traditionally taken out of your hands in service of the big organisations of yore becomes a joy in service of the music. It is undoubtedly the hardest work we have collectively put into any band, but the satisfaction is already huge.

"Kurofune" was spawned/recorded in Noah's tiny "Best Kept Secret" studios in Copenhagen in one of the many feverish explorations of what we do as a unit. During the course of other work for earmarked album material, revisions and rethinks, extensions and reductions occurred at: my place in Walworth, South London, Davide's abode in Copenhagen, and Si's place in Chester.

"Rain Down On Me" was never going to make the album in it's original form, it is too much of its own man, it is only here that right and properly, it stands unmolested by the distraction of 'other songs'". "Dawn Till Dusk" exists in several versions, here, we give you a rain soaked soundscape to get lost in. "Northern Rock" is a lullaby to a fallen empire.

I mixed and did final edits over three days in May at my studio in South London and mastered it during rehearsals whilst at Si's in Chester.

This music is of and about the connections and disconnections of human life. It has its own will, and we are glad to obey it. It is a grand thing to be aboard The Black Ships. Welcome.

Nick McCabe and Simon Jones launch The Black Ships this summer

2011-04-13T12:23:00.001-04:00

The Verve guitarist Nick McCabe and bassist Simon Jones are to make their live debut as The Black Ships in London this June. The band will play London's King's College Students Union on June 2.

The Black Ships, who formed in 2009, also count drummer Mig Schillace and violinist Davide Rossi in their line up. Rossi, though never formally in The Verve, played on their 2008 album Forth and featured in the band's live line up frequently after that.

Tickets go on sale on Friday, April 15, at 9am (GMT). To check the availability of The Black Ships tickets, go to NME Tickets, or call 0871 230 1094 (UK). Also try the the Gigs and Tours website.

Join The Black Ships mailing list here.

Source: NME

Boston, New York City, and Sirius XM

2011-04-08T17:46:00.003-04:00

Richard Ashcroft's performance at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston on March 24 is now available on the Jim Bean website for a limited time only. Link here.

Also, on Friday, April 1, Richard Ashcroft was interviewed by Kristine Stone for The Spectrum on Sirius XM. He interviewed and also performed some songs, two of which were posted last week. The interview portion is now available here.

Last, check out this review of Richard Ashcroft's gig at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. An excellent review that gets off-to-a-good start. You'll know what I mean if you happen to come across the link with your speakers at full blast (like I did). Link here.

Verve rarities for sale

2011-04-08T17:08:00.004-04:00

Looking for some (very rare) Verve memorabilia? If you have some extra cash, head on over to the Amazon Marketplace.

Voyager 1 original blue-vinyl edition for $175.00. Seller in Illinois, USA. Link here.

Make It 'Til Monday (Live from Glastonbury 1993) in clear 7" Flexi-Disc for $55.99. Seller in California. Link here.

Richard Ashcroft on His 10-Day Album

2011-04-02T13:13:00.002-04:00

Richard Ashcroft's hair hasn't changed since he appeared in the "Bittersweet Symphony" music video that premiered in 1997—an amazing feat for any 40-year-old man. He doesn't seem to have aged at all, actually, since his appearances in magazines 14 years ago.

Ashcroft, the former lead singer/songwriter for The Verve, was in New York to perform in the US for the first time in three years. Promoting his first solo album in four years, Ashcroft performed at the Bowery Ballroom and was accompanied by The Roots on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On a very wet and rainy Monday, we caught up with him for breakfast at the Crosby Street Hotel, shot a few portraits, and discussed his perspective on the music business and the production of his latest record.

AARON STERN: You worked with producer No I.D. (Ernest Wilson) and composer Benjamin Wright on your new album, United Nations of Sound. How did the three of you come together?

RICHARD ASHCROFT: No I.D. was a name that kept cropping up. I had a good friend in New York, and I talked for a number of years about trying to find someone to bring a different flavor to what I do, and a number of names were mentioned, but his kept coming up. I was aware of his work with Common, and I knew Kanye (West) had name-dropped him quite a few times in songs as a big influence, and that was enough for me. The first time I met No I.D. was in the studio, and we went straight to work. We didn't have any bogus meetings or phone calls; we met in the workplace and got to it.

Benjamin, when I mentioned putting some strings on, was mentioned by a guy in the studio called Kevin. He thought Benjamin would be great for it, and it turned out he was. He is a fabulous person, incredibly talented, and I just feel very honored to have had that experience of recording strings at Capitol Studios [in] LA with Benjamin. It was an honor, I will never forget it.

STERN: I read somewhere it took only 10 days to record; that seems unusually fast.

ASHCROFT: The bulk of the album was recorded in 10 days. Then there was another seven or eight days in LA where we did some strings and extra overdubs. Then a few days in London—so in reality, we're talking a month. Essentially, though it was a fast process, it could have been quicker, as far as I'm concerned, and perhaps should have been; but that's just the logistics of having people with full diaries and on different sides of the planet. I was having 12 conversations about strings at four in the morning every other day, and then things became difficult when it came to mixing; but essentially, it was a quick record. I would love to record even quicker. I think it's what we have to do now; the business has changed. There is no camping out in a residential studio for a year pondering the snare sounds. [laughs]

No one cares anyway, you know, that's the thing. You can find the greatest sound of all time and someone's going to squash it down to a tiny little earphone anyway or play it through the computer, and that is a big thing people have to think about now. There will be a time when sound improves massively, in the way we consume it. I'm wondering, when that happens, are people going to be exposed? I do believe a lot of tracks have been made right now with the mindset, "You know no one listens to music properly anymore anyway, so who gives a shit?" I believe that is why hip-hop and R & B have been successful over the last x amount of years; it's one of those few sorts of genres that come across successfully through a computer or headphones because it is minimal within the track. You hear the kick, you hear the snare, you hear the bass, you got the vocal on the top, but if you are trying to do something complex, deep, or rich, then forget it. Most people don't even realize you have to get rid of a good portion of the track to get it into a file.

STERN: I was watching the Bruce Springsteen documentary The Promise, and he mentions that after he put out Born To Run, there was an immense amount of pressure to release a second or even third album within a year or you would be considered a "flash in the pan." That isn't the case now; artists like The Strokes, Band of Horses, and yourself all take four to five years in between records. What do you think has changed?

ASHCROFT: So much has changed, even pre-Bruce Springsteen. The pressure on The Beach Boys or The Beatles to come up with a hit, where every couple of months there would be a new single out, and most wouldn't be on albums. Even though it must have taken a toll on people's nervous systems to write new music, it propelled music forward at such a rate that we never actually repeated the move from, say, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to The White Album, was only like four, five, or six years... we have never seen music change so radically in such a short period of time since then.

What happened in the '70s was albums and concerts began making a hell of a lot more money, and then the suits got involved. Everyone should read Mansion On The Hill, which pretty much explains what happened to the music industry. A lot more was being wrung out of albums; it could have a duration of two years, at that point. The band would be off touring, making a hell of a lot of money, and the album could sell for a long time. That pretty much stayed till the late '90s.

I can't really explain why it takes too long, but I do believe the record companies have got something to answer for why certain artists take so long in between records. If I was a painter, I would have hundreds of finished and unfinished canvases in my studio, waiting for people to see, and it is the same with my music. I've got so many pieces of music and songs waiting to be heard. You can take the Prince approach and just put them out, but that sort of engulfs people and swamps them in your stuff... they can't cope.

As we know, attention spans worldwide now are decreasing by the day. I don't believe people listen to albums like we used to do. Albums were seen as one piece, and the whole thing would be played. Kids don't play the whole album anymore. Kids don't even play the whole track. You're lucky if your whole song is listened to before someone skips to something else. I think release dates for bands are definitely going to come back to once a year because the album is going to be the supporting tool for the tour, and they need something to hang that tour around. The tour hasn't been booked to promote a record that they are going to sell a few million copies of. They're going to make their living by playing live—because no one buys music anymore, folks. [laughs]

Source: Interview Magazine, interview by Aaron Stern

Richard Ashcroft "Are You Ready?" Live on SiriusXM

2011-04-01T03:15:00.000-04:00

Kudos: verve1995

Richard Ashcroft "Space and Time" Live on SiriusXM

2011-04-01T03:09:00.000-04:00

Richard Ashcroft on Sirius XM tomorrow

2011-03-31T16:29:00.000-04:00

Tune in to Richard Ashcroft's performance this Friday, April 1 at 12 PM Eastern Time

Channel – The Spectrum, Sirius channel 18, and XM channel 45

Ashcroft will be talking to Kristine Stone where they'll discuss everything from getting sued by the Rolling Stones, to the lifestyle of a rock star. He’s also bringing an acoustic guitar and will perform some new and old tunes.

There will be a rebroadcast on Saturday, April 2nd at 4 PM Eastern Time and Monday, April 4th at 1 PM Eastern Time

MTV 120 Seconds - Richard Ashcroft

2011-03-30T03:11:00.002-04:00

Richard Ashcroft

Kudos: Layne

Richard Ashcroft on The Adjustment Bureau Tracks

2011-03-30T02:27:00.000-04:00

If you were one of the millions of viewers who have watched Matt Damon’s sci-fi thriller, The Adjustment Bureau, during the past two weeks, you may have wondered where that massive, string-laden track during the end credits came from. The voice is instantly recognizable — ’90s Britpop icon Richard Ashcroft. But the track itself – “Are You Ready?” – turned out to be a launching pad for further incidental music for the film.

"It was another thing that turned up out of the blue really," Ashcroft told Spinner. "It came out of the director, George Nolfi, hearing “Are You Ready?” and wanting to use it as the outro of the film. Then he suggested we do something together for the start of the film.”

And so, Oscar-nominated composer Thomas Newman (The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, WALL-E) hopped a flight to London to collaborate with Ashcroft. The result was the synthy rocker, “Future’s Bright.”

"The guy flew over from L.A. to London and we went into a studio here. He had a Wurlitzer keyboard and I had a Vocoder, and we just did a tune. Then I got some of the guys from the United Nations of Sound band to put some guitar and drums on it in Australia, when we was on tour. It was finished in L.A. Yeah, it was all good."

Ashcroft’s United Nations of Sound album – which features “Are You Ready?” – was released in the U.S. March 22.

Source: Gibson website

US tour reviews & pictures across the net

2011-03-30T02:14:00.002-04:00

Bowery Ballroom, New York City, NY - March 23, 2011

Brooklyn Vegan review
Review at The-Music-FM
Photos @ live4ever
I Have 10 Voices review
Officially A Yuppie review (kudos Salvatore)

Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Boston, MA - March 24, 2011

Richard Ashcroft takes over RXP TONIGHT

2011-03-27T16:47:00.003-04:00

Tonight, Richard Ashcroft will be taking over Rock 101.9 RXP FM in New York City starting at 11 PM Eastern Time. He'll be playing his favorite music, giving his commentary, taking questions, etc. Stream it here or listen to it locally.

Richard Ashcroft rocks out with The Roots on Jimmy Fallon

2011-03-25T23:09:00.004-04:00

Last Tuesday, Richard Ashcroft was a guest on the Jimmy Fallon show. He appeared with Steve Wyreman, the guitarist featured on United Nations of Sound, and was backed by The Roots, who serve as the show's house band.

I was present in the audience and before recording began, the band played a warm up teaser. As The Roots were being introduced to the audience, the band's tuba player walks on stage playing a familiar bass line from a Verve gem on A Northern Soul. The other band members followed and when Richard Ashcroft appeared on stage, the band went straight into "Life's An Ocean." It was an interesting version, funky, well played, and definitely a surprise.

Below are two videos from Ashcroft's performance on the Jimmy Fallon show:

Richard Ashcroft in Boston - Jim Bean Live Music Series

2011-03-25T20:25:00.001-04:00

Richard Ashcroft's performance at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts on Thursday, March 24 was filmed as part of the Jim Beam Live Music Series. What is the live music series? The Jim Bean website says:

The best way to hear music? Live! That's when an artist steps into the spotlight and makes the bold moves that can define a career. And that's the spirit behind the Jim Beam Live Music Series featuring ten of today's best and brightest artists...ten unforgettable live concerts...exclusive live tracks...plus tracks from Emerging Artists hand-selected by Kid Rock, a hub on Pandora internet radio, exclusive artist interviews, videos from the concerts and more.

The Jim Beam Live Music Series is your ticket to extraordinary artists and live music you can't find anywhere else except at Jim Beam.

For starters, check out this interview with Richard Ashcroft on the Jim Beam website. The entire concert was filmed so it looks like we'll get to see Richard's Villa Victoria acoustic performance one day.

Former Verve Frontman Takes On a New Sound

2011-03-24T17:43:00.024-04:00

Though it's been out in the U.K. since July, this week Richard Ashcroft's "United Nations of Sound" (Razor & Tie) will finally be available in the U.S. When you listen to it, you'll wonder why it took so long to arrive. It's home to big, ambitious rock with sheets of guitars, and swirling strings under cryptic lyrics delivered by Mr. Ashcroft with throaty fervor, invoking his music with the Verve as well as his solo outings. In pursuit of urban grit, Mr. Ashcroft brought in as producer No I.D., who has worked with Common, Kanye West and Jay-Z. Thus the album also presents the 39-year-old Mr. Ashcroft singing in falsetto over synthesized beats and rapping with his voice buried deep in the mix.

United Nations of Sound - U.S. cover

If "United Nations of Sound" doesn't compare in quality to the Verve's best-seller, "Urban Hymns," it's at least an interesting effort by a musician who does what he wants, at the risk of having some U.K. fans and critics treat the disc as if it were Rod Stewart's latest. "What a waste," reported the Guardian. NME said, "You don't have to see one of the all-time rock 'n' roll greats fish for his mojo in a swamp." Oh my.

"This is my trip," Mr. Ashcroft said by phone recently. He was at home in Richmond, outside London. "I wasn't trying to placate anyone. I don't appease people."

To say Mr. Ashcroft is chatty or confident doesn't quite capture it. He's the ideal interview—one question and he's off. The harsh reviews mean nothing to him, he said, when reviewers live in the past. "You can get addicted to gossip and negativity, but I don't partake in that side of life. Many people foolishly believe it was me and me alone that disbanded a great band," he said of the Verve, which had two No. 1 albums and several hit singles in the U.K. He compared some reviewers to people who watch Formula One racing for the crashes.

On "United Nations of Sound," he said, "I was trying to come from a rootsy place. I wanted to be free to experiment with it." In the end, No I.D. proved to be the right partner for the project, though working with him "wasn't a complete bed of roses. It's not good for the nervous system." But the resulting music, he added, has "the real juice, the sauce. Something intangible happened.

"You stand there thinking, 'Wow. No one is going to get it. They're not going to get the trip I've been on—the context, the history, the tradition.' But I knew we were going to be all right. We had some massive tracks." Indeed, "United Nations of Sound" has a bottom-heavy heft that's new to Mr. Ashcroft's work. It's provided not only by No I.D.'s big beats, but also by layers of Steve Wyreman's wavy wah-wah guitars.

Longtime Ashcroft fans know American soul music is a wellspring of his sound. For the album's string arrangements, he recruited Benjamin Wright, who provided a similar service to Mary J. Blige, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, the Temptations and others. Just as Wil Malone's string arrangement gave wings to Mr. Ashcroft's compositions for the Verve, so does Mr. Wright's work for Mr. Ashcroft's new songs. When the singer exhorts listeners to respond to his buoyant messages, Mr. Wright's uplifting strings react first.

"Are You Ready?" and "Born Again," the opening tracks on "United Nations of Sound," find Mr. Ashcroft revisiting a recurring lyrical theme: faith, redemption and Christianity. But, he advised, don't imbue his words with meanings he may not have intended. "Born Again" isn't about religious renewal; it's about the joy he finds in making music his way: "When I feel a melody I get a righteous charge right through me," he sings. "Yeah I'm born again." As for "Are You Ready?" which can currently be heard with the closing credits of the sci-fi film "The Adjustment Bureau," Mr. Ashcroft said the song's narrator is "like a future figurehead. He's sucked up all the end time and conspiracy information."

"There are some moments that are about me," he said. But he described the first-person narrators on other tracks as "supercharacters" and "warriors" trying to find their way.

Mr. Ashcroft reveals his fondness for the past on this disc. He drops the title of a song by the Verve in one tune, quotes Jim Morrison in another, samples John Lee Hooker, the Bee Gees and producer David Axelrod, and builds "Royal Highness" on a riff from Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane." It's one thing to call the album "experimental," as he did during our conversation, but it's another to invite misunderstanding by claiming to be moving forward while looking back. Add in some heavy-handed lines about faith, the gospel—and end the album with the cry "Lord forgive me. Here I come"—and listeners, as well as mean-spirited reviewers, can be pardoned for their misinterpretations.

Mr. Ashcroft said any new music is subject to criticism these days. "Everything's so in a box. The industry isn't doing itself any favors. Stop trying to sell me a copy of a copy, a Xerox of a Xerox. If you can't feel something, forget it."

Source: The Wall Street Journal, article by Jim Fusilli

Richard Ashcroft digs America

2011-03-24T02:31:00.001-04:00

Quite a month for Brit-rock fans of a certain age, innit? Thus far, we've seen a new Radiohead disc, Liam Gallagher resurfacing with Beady Eye, and even a Primal Scream tour behind the 20th anniversary of Screamadelica (though only in the UK, sadly). Now comes ol' Mad Richard himself.

Ashcroft, who'll perform solo at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts tonight (March 24), arrives with the new United Nations of Sound (Razor & Tie). It's a "challenging" record that's befuddled many of the former Verve frontman's fans with its refusal to rehash the elegiac, sweeping beauty and maelstrom of guitar noise that characterized the Verve's classic material. Instead, it finds Ashcroft, like so many older, more-reflective UK songwriters, turning for inspiration to American shores. In some cases, that means a churning, beat-driven tale of globetrotting discovery like "America," an anthemic banger typical of Ashcroft at his best. Other tracks, like first single "Are You Ready?", are in the strings-driven hip-hop mold he embodied so well in his work with UNKLE.

With hip-hop guru No I.D. on board, that influence undergirds much of the album. On the best tracks, it insinuates itself well into Ashcroft's effective soul and Soul searching. Tapping I.D. and strings arranger Benjamin Wright (Gladys Knight, Barry White) was, it turns out, part of a musical-history lesson for Ashcroft. "Life Can Be So Beautiful," for instance, effects a séance for old '70s American funk and soul. "A lot of the record, for me, was about getting in touch with a couple of generations of American soul, and hip-hop," Ashcroft tells me over the phone from the UK. "That's what the record was about, discovery."

Discovery and defiance. "I was trying to blast the genres out of the water. I'm just so tired of needing to put everything in a little pigeonhole. There's a couple of generations now with such eclectic taste that it's become difficult for me to hear anything other than it all combined. I think hip-hop has helped to accentuate that. A lot of the modern-day records that have caught my attention have been made by Kanye, Lil Wayne. People get obsessed about the packaging of it, but on a musical level, I thought a lot of those guys were the few people making something fresh to my ears that's also very popular globally as well."

Whether fans are ready for it, as the song asks, remains to be seen. "It's supposed to challenge fans. I think it might be one of those records that people don't know how to gauge it. You go on a different journey, vibe-wise, on an album. People maybe like things like a cheeseburger — it's palatable and tastes the same around the world, and I can understand that. This is about exploration. If you were to play 'America' in a club where it sounds that big, you'd be amazed. That's another part of the record, finding someone brave enough to play it on stations that normally play me, but maybe there's a whole other audience that would appreciate it that would never get to hear me or read about me."

It would be a shame if they don't — at least on the best tracks here. Unfortunately, the production and songwriting on United Nations of Sound are occasionally undermined by platitudinous lyrical banner waving. The repetition that worked so well back on Urban Hymn's "This Time" gets overplayed on the redundant "Third Time." Still, Ashcroft sings with power and emotion, lyrics be damned. One listen to his voice cracking toward the end of "This Thing Called Life" is reminder enough of his canonical stature — and reason for the most part to forgive any missteps.

Source: The Boston Phoenix, written by Luke O'Neil

Richard Ashcroft Returns To New York

2011-03-23T17:36:00.000-04:00

The latest solo album from Verve singer Richard Ashcroft, United Nations of Sound, came out in the U.K last year, and reviews were not particularly kind in his home country. Last night at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC, making his first U.S. appearance in three years just a day after United was released in America, Ashcroft aimed to start fresh. "This is my favorite city in the world," he said, elaborating that he had made the album here, and "maybe you'll appreciate it."

For United, Ashcroft recruited hip-hop producer No I.D., best known for Jay-Z singles like "D.O.A." and "Run This Town." At its best, it kind of sounds like Big Audio Dynamite, and mixes up Jigga-worthy beats, noisy guitars, and cinematic strings courtesy of Barry White arranger Benjamin Wright.

That hip-hop ethos came through in New York, as Ashcroft -- wearing a hip-hop-appropriate puffed out, multi-pocketed jacket and backed by a crack outfit dubbed the United Nation of Sound -- uncorked the thick, rattling rhythms of new songs like "Are You Ready" and "Born Again" with excitement. Sometimes too much so, actually, as there were many instances of him making awkward b-boy hand gestures (aggressively pointing to the crowd, pointing to his eye, and then pointing up wards) while performing.

There were also some dodgy lyrics on the new songs to contend with, such as opening couplet of "Good Lovin'": "Good loving in the morning / Like butter through your fingers." Fortunately, Ashcroft's voice can make nearly anything soar, and some of the songs brought intriguing new dimensions to his classic sound. "America," which he dedicated to "Funkadelic and [spaghetti western composer] Sergio Leone," would work particularly well next time a music supervisor needs something to score a tense car chase.

WRXP DJ and music nerd hero Matt Pinfield introduced the show, between plugs for his radio show and MTV's newly returning 120 Minutes. Pinfield told us that he had been talking to Ashcroft and that he had been preparing "a special setlist for us." As always, Pinfield told the truth. Three songs in to his set Ashcroft performed a woozy rendition of "Lucky Man," a highlight from The Verve's classic album Urban Hymns, and later performed the just as lovely Hymn highlight "Sonnet." He also ran through solo catalogue selections like "Why Not Nothing" and "Music Is Power."

But Ashcroft kept the best deep cut for the end, dedicating a galaxy-sized rendition of chilly electro ballad "Lonely Soul," his collaboration from UNKLE's 1998 album Psyence Fiction, to "DJ Shadow, wherever he is." From one restless '90s survivor to another, and a fitting reminder that Ashcroft has always been up for anything.

Source: Spin, review by Michael Tedder, photos by Kyle Dean Reinford

Richard Ashcroft on His New Album & the Right Time to Play “Bittersweet Symphony”

2011-03-23T16:57:00.009-04:00

Musically speaking, there are two Richard Ashcrofts. There's the Messianic frontman of on-again, off-again Britpop champions The Verve, and then there's Richard Ashcroft the solo artist, a gifted singer-songwriter who has quietly amassed a more-than-respectable body of work.

His latest project falls somewhere in between. RPA & The United Nations of Sound is both the name of Ashcroft's new album, and of his new collective, a group of musicians who helped the 39-year-old singer compose and create an eclectic new record that contains elements of the melodic rock Ashcroft is known for, as well as notes of soul, blues, and even hip-hop.

Ashcroft’s most notable new collaborator, in both reputation and contribution, is the hip-hop producer No ID, who’s worked with Kanye West, Jay-Z, and Rihanna. The result of this worlds-colliding pairing is an instrumental rock album that relies heavily on programmed beats.

On Monday afternoon, Ashcroft showed up to the Sirius XM headquarters in midtown Manhattan, to play a set of his new songs—including the lead single ”Are You Ready”—with nothing but his acoustic guitar, a reminder that in his purest form, Ashcroft is a songer-songwriter in the most classical sense. We had the opportunity to sit down with Ashcroft after his set, and found that he loves to talk, able to go off on highly impassioned and opinionated tangents with just the slightest push. Here he is on the recording of his new album, why he prefers smaller shows to stadiums, and the right time to bust out his mega-hit, “Bittersweet Symphony.”

You’re either known as Richard Ashcroft from The Verve, or Richard Ashcroft, solo artist. This seems like something in between. Which one is it?

It’s both. It’s a solo project where, halfway through the making of it, the idea of the United Nations of Sound came into my mind, purely because it felt like the contribution from everyone, and what we were doing was so unique, that it needed a title. And whether it be the guitarist or the string arranger or the drummer—some of the stories they were telling me, about all the people they’ve played with, and the way they were treated—even though these guys are magnificent musicians—a lot of musicians out there are treated like crap. America’s got a tremendous wealth of talent, and you can kind of go, Okay, if you don’t want the gig, there’s another 400 guys who do. Also, there’s a lot of fear in the industry. Certainly Steve the guitarist, I think he was pretty scared of me at the beginning. But I think he really enjoyed that openness that I brought to the whole idea of recording. Because the industry has changed a lot. It’s very clean now. Everything is so fucking clean.

How so?

Well, everything. Whether it be the recording process, how people talk to you, how the guitarist, or the drummer, or the session players would communicate to someone like me. There’d be times when someone might go on tour for six weeks and never speak to the person they’re playing for.

Have you had that experience in the past?

I’ve never had it, because I’ve always been in charge of my ship, and I would never treat my crew like that.

Are the musicians who recorded the album with you the same ones you’ll be touring with?
Yeah, other than the drummer. I’ve got a different drummer, because the majority of the drums on the album are just beats from No ID.

This is the first time you’ve recorded without Peter Salisbury, the drummer from The Verve.

Yeah, you’re right.

Did that have anything to do with the fact that a lot of the drums on the record are programmed?

Yeah. But I made this decision, I went to No ID for beats more than for production. I don’t really need a producer. I just wanted someone to collaborate with, and essentially what he gave me were beats. I might have used Pete if I’d been in England. But it was interesting for me to see what was happening in the States, and what kinds of musicians there were. And I was shown things, like pictures on phones of lads playing the drums in church, who are six years old. And they’re phenomenal, and they’re all waiting for their spot in that church, and most of the guys who are playing with me on this record all come from that church background. It was interesting to see the wealth of talent this country’s got, it’s astonishing.

But where it gets them, and what they have to do to get a livelihood, it’s a lot to get to that point. Like I said, you could be treated like shit by the main people. As far as my guitarist Steve is concerned, something like “Are You Ready” is the first time he’s really let go on a record. What was interesting was that No ID had never met him, and it was such a mad few days in New York, that Steve now has been making records with No ID for the last 14 or 15 months since that week. Because when he played the guitar bit on “Are You Ready” in one go, he went to the toilet, and No ID went into the corridor and said, You’ve got to come to L.A. to make some records with me. So there was a lot of creativity that came out in that week. It powered different people off in different directions.

How did you hook up with No ID?

I’ve got a great guy in New York, and I talked to him about different people, but he kept coming back about No ID, so I just went for it. I met No ID in the control room of Chung King studio, he was really late. Someone had already lied about where he was on the phone. Some guy just made up some fucking tale about how his house had been robbed in Chicago. I said, He already arrived so you’re bullshitting me. So you can imagine, I’m like what the fuck is going on here? I don’t know you, and your house has been robbed in Chicago. And then it turns out you don’t even got a place in Chicago.

So you guys got off to a rocky start?

Yeah! Not rocky, but it got off with me like, What the fuck’s going on? There’s some fucking funny moments, man. Funny, funny moments. There’s a lot of shit that I’ll never really go into and that will never be talked about. You know, there was some shit that needed to be done. There’s the odd Michael Corleone moment.

Michael Corleone?

My alter-ego is Michael, yeah? When something needs to be sorted out, so there was the odd time when Michael reared his ugly head.

Was there a time when you were more Michael and less Richard?
(Laughs) That’s right! I try and keep Mr. Corleone as far away as possible. But you know, any basic driving through London can spark Michael. Michael can rear his ugly head out of nowhere. It’s a big part of me, but I try to control it, because I have got a temper.

When you play at the Bowery Ballroom, are you going to play “Bittersweet Symphony”? Is that something you still play?

It’s interesting. What’s really funny about this, is that we were doing the tour in Europe with the United Nations of Sound, and I hadn’t played it for the whole tour. And then DW the bass player, on the last show in London said, “Uh Richard, we’d love to play that song.” They love that song. And to be honest, from where DW is coming from, it’s probably my only song that he knew before he met me, definitely. And it’s the only song any of the hip-hop guys know, so they really want to play it. I’m like, Alright, we’ll play it, but I guarantee you there will be someone who says, “Oh Richard, you see that review about the gig, going on about how you’re playing your old shit?” I said, don’t worry about it, we’ll do it, and sure enough, it was great. Of course, two days later, I got in contact with DW and said, It happened, mate. The reviews are all like, “He’s living off former glories.” But that’s the innocence of what it’s about, really. You’re doing it because DW wants to play “Bittersweet.” So okay, man, we’ll do it. It ain’t about me going on there fearful of not playing that song. I’ve got songs that are equally as powerful, just not as well known.

You played it at Live 8 a few years ago, and I guess when you’re in front of 100,000 people, you have to play it.

Well, it’s great to have something like that in what I call my artillery, and certainly at a festival. I look at some bands who play festivals and think, You haven’t got the songs. You shouldn’t be in front of that many people, because you can’t create that complete united feeling that 100,000 people need to feel. So when you’ve got one of them in your back pocket, you’ve gotta use it, man. Because people gotta feel like they can sing that thing back to you, and I’ve never been one for shortchanging people.

My mum went to go see Neil Young years ago, and it was when he was in his vocoder period, and David Geffen sued him for not being “Neil Young” enough. And she just wants “The Needle and the Damage Done” and “Old Man,” and I remember her disappointment that he hadn’t played the songs she loved. But that tune itself carries so much of a story behind that, that it’s more than a song.

And as someone who has played in front of 100,000 people, how do you feel about playing these smaller shows? There’s Richard Ashcroft who has that legendary rockstar status, but here you are promoting this new album, playing smaller shows. Do you enjoy that?

I think any musician will say that when you can feel that front row near you, it’s great. You’ve got to understand that with most of these arena shows, most of the musicians are wearing fucking headphones. There’s no sound being emitted on stage—dead stages, dry stages. Most of their sets are based around the lighting guys’ decisions, yeah? It’s like Coldplay. I love Coldplay, I love Chris, he’s a good mate, but when they play “Yellow,” you better believe those yellow balls are going to fall at that point, every single night. And it’s great for the audience who didn’t go to Chicago the night before, and they can hit them yellow balls. But what it means as a musician, is that the idea of improvisation, and actually feeling free and loose and making every night a different night—because we’re human beings, we’re not robots. I might have had a shit day, and I don’t want to shit on the audience, but I want to communicate the feeling. And if you’re waiting for the yellow balls to fall from the roof, you can’t do that.

You sing about New York often, and clearly you have special affinity for the city. How often do you come?
Not often enough. I looked into trying to get somewhere here to love, but I thought London was expensive, shit! I can probably afford something along the Willy Loman line. But I’d love to come and live here at some point, when my kids are a bit older.

Your new album is filled with religious and spiritual imagery. Are you a spiritual person?

Yeah, definitely. I love the imagery, and I love the sense of being born again.

Is this something that’s developed in you?

It’s constantly developing. It’s a narrative for the rest of my life, what I can make a connection with. What I can decipher through these thousands of years of hearsay. What interests me about Christianity is how something so simple can be so abused, and can I draw out the root of that. So I end up reading the Nag Hammadi library, and things like that. I’m into all that, but I would never say I’ve got a fixed spot. I’m open. I love Charles Darwin and Jesus Christ, and I love Johnny Cash and Lil’ Wayne. We’re all one, and that’s the important thing.

Richard Ashcroft’s performance and interview will air on The Spectrum, Sirius channel 18 and XM channel 45, on Friday, April 1 at 12:00 pm ET and will be rebroadcast on Saturday, April 2 at 4:00 pm ET; and Monday, April 4 at 1:00 pm ET.

Source: Black Book, interview by Ben Barna
Kudos: checkthemeaning

Richard Ashcroft vists RXP in New York City

2011-03-22T18:08:00.000-04:00

Richard Ashcroft reminisces with Matt Pinfield and Leslie Fram of past performances at the Chelsea Hotel and currently working with the “greats" followed by an acoustic set: Lucky Man, This Thing Called Life, and Music is Power.

Watch the performance here.

Richard Ashcroft to appear at Japan tsunami benefit gig in London

2011-03-22T03:20:00.002-04:00

Beady Eye, Primal Scream and Paul Weller are among the acts set to play a London benefit show for the victims of the recent tsunami and earthquakes in Japan.

The gig, which will take place on April 3 at the O2 Academy Brixton, will also feature sets from Graham Coxon, The Coral and Richard Ashcroft.

All proceeds from the show will go to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal.

Source: NME

Q&A: Richard Ashcroft

2011-03-21T02:57:00.003-04:00

Richard Ashcroft, former lead singer of the Brit pop band The Verve, primarily recorded his forthcoming solo effort, "United Nations of Sound," in the United States.

"It was made in America, pretty much apart from a couple weeks in London," Ashcroft told SoundSpike via telephone from his English home. "Nearly everybody on it, apart from me, was American. So I think, in my mind, Americans will probably get it and understand where I'm coming from and understand the narrative, perhaps, and understand the history and everything else involved in it. But maybe they won't. I don't know. I hope so."

The album features 12 songs produced by noted hip-hop producer No I.D. (Kanye West, Jay-Z). No I.D. worked with Ashcroft to create a huge sound that makes use of live orchestration, big beats and his widest range of influences yet.

Ashcroft's first solo album in four years, "United Nations of Sound" will be released on March 22 through Razor & Tie. To celebrate the release, he will perform two shows in the U.S., March 23 at the Bowery Ballroom in New York and March 24 at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston -- marking his first performances in America since 2008.

Ashcroft's track "Are You Ready?" is featured in the closing credits to the new Matt Damon film, "The Adjustment Bureau." A second track, "Future's Bright," which was co-written by Ashcroft and 10-time Academy Award nominee Thomas Newman, is featured within the film as well.

Ashcroft spoke to SoundSpike about his reasons for recording the U.S., the meaning behind "United Nations of Sound" and if he intends to perform with The Verve again.

SoundSpike: Why did you decide to record in America?

Richard Ashcroft: 'Cause No I.D. works in America. I flew out to meet him in New York and do a few days work, which kicked off a little bit and we extended it. But he's very busy, as he had just done a tune on Jay-Z and it was all kicking off. His diary [calendar] was filling up. So, I had to try to do as much as I could in a short space of time, which led to not much sleep and me doing my thing, which I imagine for someone, a spectator, would seem a little bit close to madness. That's what happens when you ain't got much time and you're feeling quite creative, you're in New York and it's an Indian summer. That's the way it was. I came over with a few samples and a couple of tunes that I thought might work. We just set to work really. It was pretty crazy. Then we went to L.A. and had a few crazy sessions there. [We recorded] some strings with the legendary Benjamin Wright. The making of it was a story in itself and was an enjoyable journey. I met some good people. I had some pretty hairy moments. But I met some great people.

What do you think No I.D. brought out in you?

No I.D.'s main situation is really being the drummer. There's a certain side of me that's always enjoyed -- right from [The Verve's] "Bittersweet Symphony" -- sampling, looping things. I've enjoyed writing songs that stay on the same chord sequence but give the listener still a sense of a journey. That's something that rap and hip hop's been doing for a long time -- literally looping on a chord sequence, yet the delivery gives you the feeling that this thing's changing. With him coming out of a certain comfort zone and me coming out of a comfort zone as well, I think that's good. It's all a part of our time. I think the guy's got a lot of integrity. He's a similar age as me. What's interesting is how much we have in common, even though coming from what you would say are was different musical genres, backgrounds. There's a lot in common. There's a lot of influences in common as well. Songs I'd suggest about maybe looping up or sampling, they'd appear on No I.D.'s list of songs to do. These might be some crazy songs that no one's done yet. You're thinking, "Wow, that's great," leading on to working with Benjamin on the strings. The whole thing was pretty wild -- difficult to relate to people. Also, the conversation that was going on within it about genres, about the way music has been so divided. Everything's so divided. Everything's on a knife edge. America's on a knife edge even, though I think we're still basking in the glow of getting rid of what was there before because, as a tourist, I also feel I have an ear to what different parts of the world seemingly think of America, what America thinks of itself. In a way, touring America during the last government became very difficult. I tried to tour with my family. I had my young sons, so they were body searched almost at the airport. You think, "This is crazy. This is coming down from the top" while I was there and, at the same time, I'm still feeling like I'm living what perhaps we were all dreaming of -- a situation where different people can come together for something that Sly Stone was doing all them years ago. Lots of people have done before. But doing something and yet at the same time I'd be going back putting some God forsaken news channel on, seeing something about the Tea Party, watching some religious channel and then I'd fall asleep. It's all in there you know. That's what it's about in a way.

Tell me about the title "United Nations of Sound."

There's always been a massive debt to American music, certainly black American music without a shadow of a doubt. Even though Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitarist of all time, there's always been a thing about, "Can he rock 'n' roll? Is this right?" and all that kind of shit. When we play live, I think you're going to see people get what I'm all about. I'm all about English rock 'n' roll. My love of funkadelic, my love of soul, my love of all this. There's a way of taking away a lot of the cleanness and a lot of the fear away from the way music is presented and the way that kind of shit goes. A lot of the time, people's idea of soul and to have soul or to perform soul is just complete nonsense. A lot of people think soul singers just warble and should just go all over the place. Soul singers should just get to the point. Mavis Staples got to the point. She didn't mess around. She didn't do vocal gymnastics to show what a great singer she was. We chatted about all that stuff [in the studio]. New soul. All this crap. I'm thinking this record, it's not going to do really well because people ain't going to get it. But what it will do is it'll make it difficult for people. Whether they like it or not, it's not going to be easy. It takes you to different places.

It seems like it was very freeing to be able to do this record.

A lot of the vocals were done in the control room, very improvised. A song like "Royal Highness," it was about doing what I was actually doing at the time -- riding the wave of creativity when a lot of the city's asleep. It's an amazing place to be. I'm very fortunate to have felt what that feels like. That's rock 'n' roll when you're feeling the buzz from making music. I also know how stale studios can be and making music can get for bands and artists alike. That's when a lot of money's wasted and people's time's wasted.

Have you ruled out playing with the Verve again.

[Long pause] Um, I think so yeah. I think so. I really couldn't imagine it. We played. Nothing left to achieve.

Source: Soundspike

Richard Ashcroft Talks Scording Sci-Fi Thriller and Recording New Album Stateside

2011-03-21T02:39:00.011-04:00

The newly released sci-fi thriller 'The Adjustment Bureau' starring Matt Damon gave American audiences a preview of former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's fourth solo album, 'United Nations of Sound,' due out tomorrow.

The album's soul-fueled cut 'Are You Ready' plays during the credits for the movie, but there's the added bonus of a brand new piece of music that Ashcroft and the film's incidental music composer Thomas Newman wrote together.

"It was another thing that turned up out of the blue really," Ashcroft tells Spinner from his London studio. "It came out of the director, George Nolfi, hearing 'Are You Ready' and wanting to use it as the outro of the film. Then he suggested we do something together for the start of the film."

Instead of collaborating via email or Skype, as is commonplace, the two actually worked together in person. "Yeah, God bless him," says Ashcroft.

"The guy flew over from L.A. to London and we went into a studio here. He had a Wurlitzer keyboard and I had a Vocoder, and we just did a tune. Then I got some of the guys from the United Nations of Sound band to put some guitar and drums on it in Australia, when we was on tour. It was finished in L.A.. Yeah, it was all good."

Ashcroft recorded his album in America over ten days, working firstly in New York with producer No I.D. -- who has worked with music heavyweights like Jay-Z, Common, Kanye West and Rihanna in the past. "The work ethic, the amount of energy was immense. What was forged out of that was something really exciting. It got close, at times, to what I went out there for."

"When we did more of the recording in L.A., I was lucky enough to work with a guy called Benjamin Wright, who arranged the strings. Again, a fabulous guy, a great man, someone who'd been in the business for a long time," he says of Wright, who has most famously worked with Michael Jackson. "The process of making it was important to me. Unfortunately, there's probably only me who's going to take anything out of it, the good and the bad."

Recording stateside fired Ashcroft up and left him longing for more, too. "So many things were popping up while I was there. You're starting from way behind someone who is in L.A. or New York," he says of working in London. "You can try and capitalize on the amazing opportunities that there are, if you know the right people."

Source: Spinner

Richard Ashcroft talks on what's next, The Verve, and more with Billboard.com

2011-03-04T19:28:00.002-05:00

A desire to "just do some experimenting, musically" led Richard Ashcroft down the soulful path of "The United Nations of Sound," his first solo album in five years.

"This is a record made by, essentially, a rock 'n' roll artist from England with a hip-hop producer and R&B man from Chicago, in New York City, with string arrangements from a guy who worked with Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin," the Verve frontman tells Billboard.com. "So the pot was thick. I really wanted this thing to sound like a natural collision, not a forced kind of thing, and we managed to do that."

Ashcroft recorded "The United Nations of Sound" -- which comes out March 22 in the U.S. after being released overseas last summer -- with No I.D. (ne Earnest Wilson), who's worked with Jay-Z, Kanye West, Rihanna, Young Jeezy, Drake and others. The two "pretty much nearly finished the album" during an "energized" seven-day session during September 2009 in New York. The orchestrations were done later, in Los Angeles, with Benjamin Wright, who besides Jackson and Franklin lists Quincy Jones, Justin Timberlake, OutKast, Destiny's Child and more on his resume.

"There's a lot of joy in making something like this, no fear involved," Ashcroft explains. "What I listen to is so eclectic that I don't go into studios trying to make one particular record. Ultimately I'm making soul music, I think. Beyond that I don't know what I'm doing. Sometimes it's folk. Sometimes its' blues. There's a lot of hip-hop in there, and rock 'n' roll mixed in. There is no dividing line. That doesn't make it easy to sell, maybe, but it works."

The album's first single, "Are You Ready?," has already made a substantial impact via a Volkswagen Jetta ad campaign and in promotions for Major League Baseball and 2010 FIFA World Cup Finals broadcasts. The song is also featured in the end credits for the film "The Adjustment Bureau," while Ashcroft teamed with Academy Award winner Tom Newman to write another song, "Future's Bright." "Tom came over to London, and it was bizarre," Ashcroft recalls. "I could've had a guitar and he could've played piano, but he ended up on a Wurlitzer and I was playing a vocoder -- two keyboards writing a tune in different rooms. It was interesting."

Ashcroft and his United Nations of Sound Band will play a pair of U.S. shows -- March 23 at New York's Bowery Ballroom and March 24 at the Villa Victoria Center For the Arts in Boston -- and will perform with the Roots on March 22 on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." But mostly he's looking forward to getting back into the studio to make some more music.

"My aim is to get more stuff out," he says, "because there's so much more and I really wouldn't like to be judged on solely what I've done so far. I haven't even really scraped the surface of what I'd like to do. My goal for the next album is to step on and somewhere fresh from ('The United Nations of Sound'), perhaps as closed to stripped naked as possible. That's probably what interests me after this."

And he doesn't rule out working again with the Verve, which last reunited for 2008's "Forth" and select live dates. "It's pretty much an open-ended thing," Ashcroft says. "When we were recording ('Forth'), I don't think anybody was thinking we were going to do something else straightaway. From my angle, it didn't all go the way I would've wished, so that affects your decision about when you'd work together again. So with the future, who knows? I'm enjoying seeing whatever comes next, and I'm not necessarily making big plans or bold statements about the Verve or anything else. We'll just have to see what happens."

Source: Billboard
Kudos: jadams503

"Are You Ready?" gets a U.S. music video

2011-03-04T19:17:00.002-05:00

Also, check out Richard Ashcroft's Vevo channel

'The Adjustment Bureau' out today

2011-03-04T00:01:00.020-05:00

Planning to see it? Be sure to stick around for the film credits.

Click here to listen to "Future's Bright," a song written for the film by Academy Award Nominated Thomas Newman and Richard Ashcroft.

Jimmy Fallon update

2011-02-25T19:21:00.001-05:00

Richard Ashcroft is scheduled to perform "Are You Ready," on NBC-TV's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on March 22. He'll be backed by The Roots, who serve as the show's house band. He will also perform a yet-to-be-announced second track that will run exclusively on www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com.

U.S. release tracklist finalized for United Nations of Sound

2011-02-25T18:58:00.004-05:00

Release Date: 3/22/11
Label: Razor & Tie Music

Are You Ready?
Born Again
America
This Thing Called Life
Beatitudes
Good Lovin'
How Deep Is Your Man?
She Brings Me The Music
Third Eye *
Royal Highness
Glory
Life Can Be So Beautiful
Let My Soul Rest

* previously released as an RPA Club-only track

Richard Ashcroft thought "age would have mellowed us"

2011-02-25T18:02:00.000-05:00

In their The Things They Say column, Contact Music recently posted this quote from Richard Ashcroft regarding The Verve's reunion in 2008: "Put four people in a petri dish, stir them up, and the results will always be the same... I thought that perhaps age would have mellowed us, but I was wrong."

Source: Contact Music

Adjustment Bureau soundtrack details

2011-02-21T01:19:00.003-05:00

Relativity Music Group has announced a soundtrack album for the upcoming sci-fi romance thriller The Adjustment Bureau. The album includes Thomas Newman’s original score from the film, as well as the song The Future’s Bright, which was written for the film by Newman and singer/songwriter Richard Ashcroft (former frontman of The Verve). The album will be released on March 1, 2011. The Adjustment Bureau hits U.S. theaters on March 4, 2011.

Appearing on the soundtrack will be:

“FUTURE’S BRIGHT”

Written by Richard Ashcroft and Thomas Newman

Performed by Richard Ashcroft

“ARE YOU READY?”

Words and music by Richard Ashcroft and

Maurice Ernest Gibb

Performed by Richard Ashcroft and

the United Nations of Sound

License courtesy of Virgin Records Ltd./Richard Ashcroft

Contains a sample of “OUR TIME”

Performed by Bee Gees

Courtesy of Reprise Records

By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film

& TV Licensing

More U.S. dates?

2011-02-21T00:34:00.000-05:00

According to the British Music Guide, Richard Ashcroft is "expected to be adding more dates soon." Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but stay tuned.

New song on the Jimmy Fallon show?

2011-02-19T12:33:00.009-05:00

The Verve frontman returns to the States after a three-year absence for two shows on the East Coast.

Richard Ashcroft’s first solo album in four years – United Nation Of Sound – drops March 22 on Razor & Tie. In celebration of the new release, Ashcroft will appear on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” the evening of the album’s arrival. He’ll perform his new single, “Are You Ready?” with the show’s house band, The Roots, and a new song that will appear exclusively on the late night talk show.

Along with the TV appearance, Ashcroft has lined up a couple of East Coast gigs, playing New York City’s Bowery Ballroom March 23 followed by a performance at Boston’s Villa Victoria Center For The Arts March 24 as part of the Jim Beam Live Music Series. The dates mark the first time Ashcroft has performed in the United States since 2008.

Note: In regards to the Jimmy Fallon show performance, a new song could mean a song from the United Nations of Sound album (otherwise unknown to US audience per the album release that same day), a new song, or an older song. The Adjustment Bureau opens in March, so if it is a new song, perhaps "Future's Bright" could be performed.

Source: Pollstar

Live dates, album release, and "Future's Bright"

2011-02-18T15:37:00.001-05:00

United States album release

On March 22, Razor & Tie will release Richard Ashcroft's United Nations of Sound album in the United States.

US shows announced

That same night, Ashcroft will appear on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show in New York City performing "Are You Ready?" followed by a yet-to-be announced second track to appear exclusively on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show website. The Roots will appear as a backing band.

Following the US TV appearance:

March 23 - Bowery Ballroom, New York City, New York
March 24 - Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

The Adjustment Bureau

Ashcroft's track "Are You Ready?" will be featured in the closing credits to the upcoming Matt Damon film, The Adjustment Bureau, out in March. A second track, "Future's Bright," which is co-written by Ashcroft and ten-time Academy Award nominee Thomas Newman, will be featured within the film as well.

Richard Ashcroft heading for the US?

2011-02-15T22:55:00.001-05:00

The Bowery Ballroom in New York City has listed a Richard Ashcroft show for next month, March 23. Link here. Tickets are believed to go on sale Friday, February 18 at 12:00 PM. No official word yet but stay tuned. Thanks to Jesse for the heads up.

2/16: Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston, MA has been added for March 24 at 7 PM

'Love Is Noise' band interview

2011-02-12T16:18:00.000-05:00

This 2008 interview with The Verve sheds some light on their comeback single 'Love Is Noise,' which peaked at #4 and stayed in the UK charts for 12 weeks.

The Black Ships launch new website

2011-02-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

So here it is folks, the moment we've all been waiting for. Make sure to click the image and give the video some time to load.

Rehearsals for The Black Ships to happen soon

2011-01-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

Proof here, on Mig Schillace's twitter page.

Richard Ashcroft talks to Sky News about ‘A Concert for Killing Cancer’

2011-01-17T21:15:00.000-05:00

YouTube channel launched

2010-12-15T02:55:00.002-05:00

It's about time. Richard Ashcroft now has an official YouTube channel.

Free "Are You Ready?" radio edit download

2010-12-15T02:10:00.000-05:00

Richard Ashcroft thrills with acoustic set at Union Chapel

2010-12-08T17:41:00.002-05:00

Richard Ashcroft took to a cold stage last night in front of around 300 people at the Union Chapel to perform in front of a hardcore fanbase.

The gig was a mostly exclusive event for Ashcroft's fan club members but he generously donated 50 tickets to both War Child and Oxfam for the one-off intimate acoustic show at London's Islington Union Chapel on December 7, 2010.

Taking requests from the audience throughout, the set lasted over an hour and a half. He played all the classic tunes from throughout his career but notably absent was the Verve stalwort 'Bitter Sweet Symphony.'

The Wigan born singer-songwriter was well received, and when asked what he thought of the set, "a pleasure to play for a cool crowd near Christmas," Ashcroft said enthusiastically, "it felt great to see so many on this cold night."

Take a look at the nights closer 'C'Mon People (We're Making It Now)' below and the lovely Christmas tree by the stage.

Source: Music-News

UNOS set for March release in the United States

2010-12-07T17:11:00.004-05:00

Although 'United Nations of Sound' was released in the UK in July, Richard Ashcroft's album with his new band, RPA and the United Nations of Sound, will not be available in the US until March 8, 2011. The re-released version will include a previously unheard track, 'Third Eye,' and all-new artwork, including the cover above.

Source: Spinner

Win tickets to Union Chapel

2010-11-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

Win tickets to see Richard Ashcroft perform live at the intimate Union Chapel in London on December 7th.

Virgin.com has three pairs of tickets to see this one-off acoustic Richard Ashcroft show, where the former Verve frontman will showcase both new and old material.

Each winner of a pair of tickets will also get free membership to the RPA Club. To win, simply head to the Richard Ashcroft competition page and Like Virgin Red Room on Facebook.

Source: Virgin.com

Limited tickets available for intimate gig

2010-11-27T12:50:00.001-05:00

Richard Ashcroft is set to play a solo acoustic show at London's Union Chapel next month. Originally thought to be a fan club exclusive gig, a limited number of tickets are set to go on sale to raise money for the War Child Charity.

Fans await exclusive gig

2010-11-20T15:59:00.003-05:00

Richard Ashcroft will perform a special intimate gig for his website's RPA club at the Islington Union Chapel in central London on Tuesday December 7. An acoustic solo set including old and new material is expected. Members of the RPA Club have been notified via email concerning ticket details. The Union Chapel is a listed church and music venue said to have excellent acoustics resulting from a domed ceiling and stones walls. More on the venue can be found on this YouTube video.

Richard Ashcroft t-shirt sale

2010-11-13T01:33:00.000-05:00

The Richard Ashcroft store is having a t-shirt sale. Apparently they've "rooted around the archives" to find some classic Ashcroft tees (probably from the 'Keys to the World' tour). They're going for £5 (UK) and $7.67 (US) per shirt. Considering the price of concert t-shirts, this isn't bad. Shipping for US customers is around $12. The image above is the best logo around. More of these please?

Richard Ashcroft announces exclusive gig

2010-11-13T01:19:00.001-05:00

It has just been announced that Richard Ashcroft will be holding a special gig in central London on December 7th for his website's RPA Club. The venue hasn't been announced yet, but if you're not already a member and would like to purchase tickets for the event, club membership is required before Monday, November 15. Members will be notified when tickets go on sale and how to access them via email. Restrictions will apply. More information as it becomes available.

Richard Ashcroft to perform at Killing Cancer charity concert

2010-11-12T01:58:00.004-05:00

The Killing Cancer charity, set up six years ago to fund the development of a new style of non-invasive cancer treatments, has teamed up with Harvey Goldsmith and Bill Curbishley to present a rock concert in January that is designed to raise public awareness of PDT – and to raise significant funds for new PDT trials.

Rock pioneers The Who will perform on the same bill as guitar icon Jeff Beck, The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft, Bryan Adams, and Blondie legend Debbie Harry. Other high profile names will be announced in the coming weeks.

They will take center stage at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo on Thursday 13th January.

Says Bill Curbishley, manager of The Who and Robert Plant: “Robert and I had lived through the final months and days of close friends battling with cancer,” says Bill Curbishley, “but also fighting to overcome the effects of their treatments. Only later we discovered that PDT could perhaps have saved their lives – and certainly given them some dignity in their final weeks.”

Charity director, David Longman, has engaged the interest of a wide cross-section of celebrities and high profile business leaders to back his campaign to secure support for Photodynamic Therapy (PDT).

Concert details video here.

Source: Killing Cancer website
Kudos: SoulBro

"Are You Ready?" US cover

2010-11-02T18:03:00.000-04:00

Richard Ashcroft Signs With Razor & Tie

2010-11-01T18:32:00.000-04:00

Following the brief reunion of British alt-rockers The Verve in 2008, frontman Richard Ashcroft has signed with Razor & Tie for the North American release of "The United Nations of Sound," his fourth solo album produced by No I.D. (Jay-Z, Kanye West).

The singer has joined artists like Brand New, Joan Baez and Semi Precious Weapons on the label, which will issue the album in early 2011. "Sound," Ashcroft's first solo effort since 2006's "Keys to the World," was released overseas on Parlophone last July prior to the signing.

Razor & Tie VP of A&R Beka Tischker calls Ashcroft "one of the seminal figures of modern British rock music," adding that "it's an honor to work with someone as esteemed as Richard."

The album follows the 2009 break-up of "Bitter Sweet Symphony" auteurs The Verve after the group released fourth album "Forth" in 2008 and embarked on a world tour, including a headlining set at that year's Glastonbury Festival. "Sound"'s lead track "Are You Ready?" is featured in Volkswagon's latest Jetta TV spot and is now available on iTunes.

After spending last summer playing shows in Europe, Australia and Japan, Ashcroft has also announced plans to tour the U.S. next year after a six-year absence from the States.

Source: Billboard
Kudos: rolling person

Update on new song for "The Adjustment Bureau" film

2010-11-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

The forthcoming Matt Damon sci-fi flick The Adjustment Bureau will include a new song written and performed specifically for the film's opening by Richard Ashcroft and ten-time Oscar-nominated composer Tom Newman. The film will also feature "Are You Ready?" over the closing credits.

'Alone With Everybody' articles added

2010-10-27T01:17:00.000-04:00

Three news clips/articles have been added to The Verve Live's Alone With Everybody archive. In the archive, you'll also find updates from Ashcroft's then official website and also updates from the old VIN (Verve-Interactive-Network). Check them out here, here, and here or scroll down the left side link bar and click the year '2000' in the archives area.

"Are You Ready?" for Volkswagen?

2010-10-21T01:13:00.000-04:00

After four years of blood, sweat and tears, top Volkswagen designers and product engineers assembled from around the world are ready to soak in the glory of their creation -- or so they think. Set to the music of Richard Ashcroft's "Are You Ready?," check out this commercial for the new 2011 Volkswagen Jetta.

"Are You Ready?" US release

2010-10-21T00:44:00.000-04:00

"Are You Ready?" was released as a single on October 15 in the iTunes Music store. The song was also featured during the opening of Major League Baseball's National League playoff game between the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies on October 16.

Simon Tong's Erland and the Carnival announce US dates

2010-10-06T03:42:00.008-04:00

With Paul Weller singing their praises and a summer of festival performances under their belt, ex-Verve guitarist Simon Tong's new band Erland And The Carnival kicked off their latest tour in fine spirits in Leeds almost two weeks ago. Looks like they now have their eyes set on some US dates in New York City. If you're in the area, check them out.

Nov-02, New York, NY, Knitting Factory supporting Villagers
Nov-03, New York, NY, Mercury Lounge supporting Villagers
Nov-05, New York, NY, The Rock Shop
Nov-06, New York, NY, Apollo supporting Paul Weller
Nov-07, New York, NY, Nokia Theatre supporting Paul Weller

More information here. For more about the band, click here.

Nick McCabe to appear on Twilight Singers album

2010-10-06T03:11:00.003-04:00

With the start of his first-ever solo tour looming on Oct. 8, Greg Dulli has finished work on the fifth Twilight Singers album, the long-awaited follow-up to 2006's "Powder Burns," which is due out in early 2011.

Dulli says that Twilight watchers should be braced for some new sonic adventures this time out. "If you've ever liked me before, you're going to love half of this, and the other half of this you're gonna go, 'What the f**k?!' " Dulli tells Billboard.com. "But you may love that, too. That's the part I love the most, the 'What the f**k?!' part."

Dulli describes the album, which he recorded primarily in California -- Joshua Tree, Arcadia and Hollywood -- with some work in New Orleans, where he also resides, as "a trippy record. It's 43 minutes long and it's pieced together very painstakingly, and there's plenty of crossfades and headphone magic for your trouble. I allowed some influences in that I haven't exactly let in before." Dulli says he wrote "at least two hours or so" of music for the collection, though three of the 11 tracks "came at the last minute...I was still doing an edit in the mastering suite. It went right down to the last tick of the clock."

Dulli produced the album with a variety of his regular studio collaborators, while more than two dozen musicians play on the set -- including his Gutter Twins partner Mark Lanegan, Ani DiFranco, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden and the Verve's guitarist Nick McCabe. He plans to take the Twilight Singers on tour in February or March, but he's also worked up four of the album's songs to play on his An Evening with Greg Dulli tour, which kicks off in New Orleans and includes shows in the U.S. and Europe through mid-November.

Dulli says he and his accompanists -- Twilight Singers guitarist Dave Rosser and Polyphonic Spree multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson -- plan to work up 30-35 songs for the outing so they can "flip the set every night, which will be cool." He promises there will be "at least one song from every record I've made" and adds that many of them will be "songs I never played before, just for whatever reasons." He's keeping the specific choices secret for now, though; "No one needs to know 'til I play them in New Orleans that night -- and then they'll be on YouTube an hour later."

Dulli plans to film his shows on Oct. 20 in Philadelphia and Nov. 17 in San Francisco but isn't sure what he'll do with the footage yet. "I'm a fairly private dude," he explains, "so I love watching other people's stuff, but my own makes my skin crawl." Dulli's next project will likely be an instrumental album, and he'll also slated to guest on the next album by McCabe's band the Black Ships.

Source: Billboard
Kudos: Jadams

Pete Salisbury with The Charlatans

2010-10-02T17:17:00.002-04:00

The Charlatans played a BBC 6 live session recently along with Pete Salisbury filling in for Jon Brookes (of The Charlatans) on drums. Go to the BBC 6 Music website for pictures and live video of the performance.

Verve drummer Pete Salisbury to join Charlatans on tour

2010-09-29T12:12:00.000-04:00

The Verve's Pete Salisbury is to join The Charlatans on tour, replacing drummer Jon Brookes, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

A statement on the band's website said Salisbury "will complete the October UK tour at least", adding that Brookes would undergo an operation this week.

The group, whose hits include "One To Another," are due to start their European tour in Hatfield on 5 October.

Brookes's illness was diagnosed last week after he collapsed and briefly stopped breathing during a concert in Philadelphia.

The rest of the band's US tour was canceled as Brookes was flown to the UK for treatment.

A spokesperson for The Charlatans said: "The band and Jon would like to thank all well wishers for their kind messages of support."

Source: BBC

Update on Berns Salonger

2010-09-23T13:00:00.001-04:00

According to the entertainment manager at Berns Salonger, Richard Ashcroft's performance was planned for the 29th of November. However, the show was never confirmed and unfortunately will not happen. If a new date is set, it will be posted on their website.

Artist highlight: Exit Calm

2010-09-18T17:37:00.001-04:00

"with ragged vocals and swathes of widescreen guitar effects reminiscent of early Verve, South Yorkshire's four-piece Exit Calm have a penchant for all things epic" (Q MAGAZINE)

Fans of The Verve's pre-Urban Hymns output will be familiar with Exit Calm's style; cascades of dreamy, shimmering landscapes and wall of sound guitars full of reverb and waves of splashing cymbals. Hailing from Barnsley and basing themselves in Sheffield, Exit Calm find inspiration in the feedback-drenched phychedelic noise of early Verve. Their self-titled debut album is stunning. With The Verve in stasis and The Black Ships still at sea, Exit Calm are sure to fill the musical void. Sonic goodness at its best.

Below is the promotional video for "We're On Our Own" followed by the first and second promotional videos, "Hearts and Minds" and "Don't Look Down," from their eponymous debut (get it here).

Tour in the works?

2010-09-15T13:23:00.005-04:00

It appears Richard Ashcroft has been booked to play at Berns Salonger in Stockholm, Sweden on Monday, November 29. More information as it becomes available.

A picture is worth a thousand words

2010-09-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

13 years ago this month

2010-09-10T04:06:00.000-04:00

'Alone With Everybody' articles added

2010-09-09T00:07:00.014-04:00

Twenty-three news clips and articles from the Alone With Everybody era have been added to The Verve Live. They include updates from Ashcroft's then official website and also updates from the old VIN. Remember that?

Check them out here or scroll down the left side link bar and click the year '2000' in the archives area.

Richard Ashcroft's absent collaborators

2010-09-04T01:54:00.000-04:00

Richard Ashcroft claims many of the people he wanted to work with on new project United Nations of Sound were either ''in jail'' or too expensive.

Richard Ashcroft couldn't collaborate with the people he wanted to because many of them were in prison.

The former Verve frontman is currently working on a new venture, United Nations of Sound - in which he goes by his initials, RPA - and admits he ran into difficulties arranging guest vocalists because so many of them were unavailable.

He said: "Half the people I wanted on the record were either in prison or going there. I tried to get Lil Wayne on the end of 'America' because of his gravel, but he was about to start his sentence for gun possession so he was busy recording 15 videos and three albums...so they were either in prison or wanted £70,000."

Although the 'Lucky Man' star's latest project showcases a radically different sound, the singer - who has previously released three solo albums - insists it could have happened any time.

He added: "When I look at it, I could have attempted this in the Nineties. I could have been working with these guys then, it just took a long time to get there.

"The idea, if there was any idea, was carrying on the dream of still believing the roots of music can be drawn on as inspirations."

Source: Contact Music

Ricky Gervais inspired by rockers Richard Ashcroft and Liam Gallagher

2010-09-03T02:56:00.011-04:00

Richard Ashcroft & Liam Gallagher

Ricky Gervais has hailed rockers Liam Gallagher and Richard Ashcroft as the inspirations behind Cemetery Junction.

The funnyman and pal Stephen Merchant turned to the iconic duo when casting and scripting their superb coming-of-age comedy/drama set in early 70s Reading.

Ricky found that British actors are generally split into two categories, with half destined to play posh society types and the others primed for violent, wife-beating roles.

Hell bent on bucking the trend of gritty UK flicks, Ricky and Stephen got to work on making their characters rock star cool.

The Extras star revealed: "We didn't want it to be one those really gritty 'isn't England a bit depressing and crap and normal' films.

"We wanted it to be a bit more glorious and evoke those possibly false memories of every day being sunny and brilliant and fun. That's how I remember my childhood.

"We cast about a thousand people to try and find these Jimmy Deans and John Travoltas - half of them will be Mr Darcy one day, and the other half will be going, 'You f****** slags.'

"So we had to look to our rock stars like Richard Ashcroft and Liam Gallagher. That's where we rule the world." Stephen added: "This country's always been very good at making rock stars, and rock stars are unashamedly cool.

"But somehow British films are less like that. It's like we're a little bit more embarrassed to be like that. We need to be self-conscious and make things seem gloomier and grittier.

"But that wasn't my experience of growing up. Everything seemed very cool to me."

Source: The Sun
Cemetery Junction can be purchased at Amazon.co.uk on DVD and Blu-ray

Exclusive - RPA & The United Nations of Sound review

2010-08-26T00:12:00.000-04:00

A Critique of RPA & The United Nations of Sound
By J. Adams

Rock ‘N’ Roll shaman and former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft first gained the moniker “Mad Richard” for his space cadet persona and awkward habit of telling journalists he could fly. That was long ago, the title all but retired after a tepid but fitfully brilliant solo career, but the baffling release of his haphazard new album RPA & The United Nations of Sound suggests that Ashcroft has got some madness in him yet.

Following a brief and tempestuous reunion tour with The Verve, which yielded 2008’s solid-but-not-revelatory album Forth, Ashcroft reportedly considered retiring – not all that surprising considering clear signs of writers’ block on Forth and his previous solo LP. But a burst of inspiration last year led to an exploratory session with Hip-Hop producer NO ID, best known for work with Jay-Z and Kanye West. Ashcroft had long promised (threatened?) a “hip-hop soul” album, and ten days of recording with NO ID and a new session band formed the heart of this new record. With minor embellishment, it entered stores quickly, less than two years after the release of Forth.

In many ways, the virtues of this material are clear. Ashcroft’s previous solo projects were laden with limp, bloodless session musicians, but the ‘United Nations of Sound’ have the energy and chemistry of a real band. They can’t compete with The Verve, one of the great combos of modern rock and a perfect sonic fit for Ashcroft’s often grandiose ambitions, but succeed in giving his music a vitality mostly lacking in earlier solo material. Motown veteran Benjamin Wright contributes some lively string arrangements that are more memorable than past efforts, and producer No ID’s production is rich and bold. Songs like ‘Let My Soul Rest’ and ‘Life Can Be So Beautiful’ break new ground, while tracks like ‘Good Lovin’’ and ‘Royal Highness’ draw from familiar templates, but more dynamically than before. Ashcroft himself sounds passionate and energized – sometimes too much for his own good.

The sound is not perfect. Ashcroft suffered from Walking Pneumonia during the recording, which takes a toll on his voice if not his intensity. For the most part, his scratchy vocals fail to equal the impressive achievements of Forth. Guitarist Steve Wyreman is a capable soloist, but many of his passages outstay their welcome and verge on cheesy 80s hard rock. NO ID’s production is mostly effective, but multiple tracks are marred with an irritating R&B singer pseudo-rapping or repeating something ad infinitum in the background. And many of the songs are far too long. The Verve’s elastic and colorful sound could justify an extra few minutes, but several songs on this LP – particularly ‘Are You Ready,’ ‘Born Again,’ ‘America,’ and ‘Beatitudes’ – could use substantial editing.

Also in need of work are many of Ashcroft’s lyrics. The better tracks feature his trademark philosophical ramblings, inspirational sermonizing, and paeans to spiritual love, but several include at least one line cringe-worthy enough to hurt the song. It’s not encouraging for the man who wrote ‘Science of Silence’ to randomly name check Venus and Serena Williams in the middle of ‘Born Again,’ or for the talent behind ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ to refer to people “out there in The Matrix tonight” in ‘This Thing Called Life.’ Such lyrics are adequate for demos, but it’s somewhat shocking that someone who’s done as much multi-tracking as Ashcroft didn’t overdub something less awful for an album release – or at least leave the offending bit on the cutting room floor.

Ashcroft’s songs have frequently (perhaps usually) been somewhat underwritten – his material often boasts extraordinarily passionate singing, poetic lyrics, and beguiling choruses, but rarely does it all gel into truly great songs. The explanation is simple: early Verve’s evocative psychedelia did not require much in the way of elegant songcraft, and even as he became a formidable songwriter Ashcroft could rely on The Verve’s dynamism to flesh out the track. 1997’s Urban Hymns is probably his peak as a writer, and even there the band played an integral role in bringing his material to fruition. Subsequent solo albums featured a handful of developed gems, but mediocre production and listless performances left the records feeling incomplete.

More than one song on Forth had questionable lyrics, and many of his contributions felt like unfinished rough drafts. But some of the recordings’ flaws could be ascribed to fraying relationships within The Verve, and at any rate Richard’s accomplished singing and the band’s sheer chemistry more than compensated for those issues. On the new LP, though, many of Ashcroft’s lyrics and vocals are weaker than ever and the band sometimes amplifies songs’ flaws without mitigating them. Perhaps the rushed recording and release of Forth can be seen as a race against The Verve’s implosion, but the parallels on this record have no such excuse.

Ashcroft reportedly went over budget, and perhaps he simply ran out of money for his expensive collaborators. But he toured this album before its release, so the band could easily have rerecorded a few parts during rehearsals. Pretty much any sound engineer with Protools and a microphone could have tightened the over-long material and helped Ashcroft overdub a few fixes for the worst moments. These simple steps would have led to a leaner and more consistent LP – one that made the most of its basically strong material rather than let sloppy distractions undermine its impact. Instead, Mad Richard essentially released an unfinished album consisting mostly of professionally-produced demos.

The irony is that NO ID and the “United Nations of Sound” are the best collaborators Ashcroft has yet found for his solo work. They provide enough vigor to energize and enhance his music. With live renditions of older tracks that easily eclipse earlier versions, they certainly would have enhanced his earlier solo albums and tours. But, unfortunately, Ashcroft’s best collaborators got saddled with his worst batch of songs and could not quite redeem this weakest LP of his career.

For all of the album’s many flaws, though, it’s still a Richard Ashcroft record – a musical postcard from one of modern rock’s greatest voices. Even his weakest material has more soul than most, and there are a number of excellent tracks on the new LP. ‘Let My Soul Rest,’ a stunning confessional that builds to a euphoric catharsis, is one of the best songs Ashcroft has ever written. ‘Royal Highness’ cheekily nicks riffs from The Velvet Underground and The Who to offer infectious and joyous summertime pop. The mostly acoustic ‘Glory’ is an affecting ode of devotion to his wife. And while the falsetto-filled Curtis Mayfield pastiche ‘Life Can Be So Beautiful' is initially hard to swallow, careful attention to Ashcroft’s captivating call and response reveals one of his deepest and most sensual love songs.

Considering Richard Ashcroft’s past accomplishments and immense potential, RPA & The United Nations of Sound is a frustrating and frequently disappointing album. It should not have been released in this form, and it’s not likely to win many new converts. But fans of Ashcroft, accustomed to sifting through his spotty solo material, will nonetheless find much to appreciate – and some to treasure – on this LP. From a talent like Ashcroft, even some of the weaker material is more than enough to warrant fans’ attention, and the best is excellent. Here’s to the dimming hope that, next time, he’s finally able to sustain a whole album worthy of his talents.
Grade: B-

RPA & The United Nations of Sound Track by Track

- Opener and preview track ‘Are You Ready’ gets things off to a solid if not spectacular start, channeling Oasis with a pumped-up anthem about preparing for the rapture. It’s a mostly well-written song that’s perfect for the gym, and Ashcroft sounds authoritative, but the refrain becomes repetitive and the concluding guitar solo seems to last forever.

- First single ‘Born Again’ gets the sound and energy right for Ashcroft’s latest rock ’n’ roll pep talk, but unfortunately falls short with some weak lyrics and an overwrought sing-along outro that feels a bit canned. He tries valiantly and it’s a decent song, but it’s one of the weaker singles he’s released and not unsurprisingly a commercial flop.

- ‘America,’ despite some promisingly adventurous production that evokes spaghetti westerns, is the worst song on the album. Ashcroft’s lyrics are vague, the chorus uninspired, and the track mind-numbingly repetitive. There’s some potential to a few elements, but it all goes sadly unfulfilled.

- ‘This Thing Called Life’ is a mess that’s embarrassing and inspiring in equal measure. It starts beautifully, with striking keys and sighing background vocals, and then lurches into some overwrought lyrics delivered with melodramatic overkill. The chorus is one Ashcroft’s best and most stirring, and solo acoustic renditions prove the song’s potential, but too much of this version sounds like an ungainly Frankenstein assembled from several incompatible takes.

- ‘Beatitudes’ starts unpromisingly with an annoying rap from the album’s needless R&B singer, but builds into a relentless glam-inflected groove that sounds like a distant cousin of A Northern Soul’s title track. That the vocals serve more as counterpoint to the groove sort of excuse some of the weak lyrics, but unfortunately the R&B woman returns to conclude matters. Still, it’s a fresh approach – though it feels more like a b-side.

- ‘Good Lovin’ is among the most archetypically Ashcroft material on the album, seeming to hover somewhere between ‘Music Is Power’ and ‘I See Houses.’ With intriguing lyrics, stately strings, and a regal stomp, the song marks the point where the album at last hits its stride.

- Despite its eyebrow-raising title, ‘How Deep Is Your Man’ is a fresh and loose John Lee Hooker tribute like nothing else Ashcroft has done. It’s a cool one-off, and one place where the unfinished quality of the album works to its advantage.

- ‘She Brings Me The Music’ is pretty for what it is, but something of a missed opportunity. It’s a passionately intense love song with a beautiful chorus, but it never quite goes anywhere. Eventually it breaks into a storming bridge that seems poised for a triumphant Coldplay-esque return of the chorus, but it builds and builds and… just ends.

- ‘Royal Highness,’ built on the famous riff from the Velvet Underground’s ‘Royal Highness,’ is an upbeat and soulful celebration of the creative process. The production is a bit too clean, but the song’s got an irresistible chorus and a cool bridge borrowed from The Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly.’ Excellent summertime pop.

- ‘Glory’ is a stirring and passionate love song that could fit on anything Ashcroft’s done since Urban Hymns. It’s well-written and Richard sounds great – the only weakness is the R&B singer incessantly repeating “glory” in the back of the mix.

- Though currently one of Ashcroft’s most mocked songs, ‘Life Can Be So Beautiful’ is a definite highlight of the album and his entire solo career. Finally realizing the sound Ashcroft aimed for on ‘Check The Meaning,’ it's ambition and scope recall the earlier song as well. Ashcroft’s falsetto and spoken word go back and forth in an engrossing call & response that meditates on love, sex, evolution, and God. No one but Richard Ashcroft could pull this off.

- ‘Let My Soul Rest’ concludes an inconsistent album on a brilliant note. An epic plea for redemption, the song finds joy in the cathartic release of the soaring emotion Ashcroft and very few others can evoke. Again, no one but Ashcroft could pull this off.

- ‘Third Eye (Columbus Circle),’ released as a fan club exclusive, is the most hip-hop inflected song released from these sessions, and closer than most of the album to what fans were expecting from the LP. As on other tracks, the lyrics are weak, but it’s an intriguing new direction and Ashcroft sounds great riding the groove.

- ‘Captain Rock,’ an iTunes bonus track, is uncharacteristically intimate and low-key for Ashcroft. With a slacker vibe reminiscent of 90s Beck or Pavement, it seems to address the depression Ashcroft has discussed in interviews. It’s a little long, with some pointless profanity and a few dodgy lyrics, but overall a unique song with a certain gawky charm.

J. Adams is a music critic and avid poster on the Northern Souls forum.

World Cup 2010 trailer

2010-08-24T22:23:00.005-04:00

The World Cup is over and done. Spain's victorious World Cup squad returned to Madrid amid scenes of joyous celebration in the capital city. As a follow-up to a previous post, here's the World Cup international football trailer featuring Richard Ashcroft's 'Are You Ready.' Presumably it aired several times throughout the cup, but for those who weren't able to catch it, enjoy!

Early Verve picture

2010-08-24T21:46:00.002-04:00

Not sure when this was taken but holy cow.

UNOS article in Hot Press magazine

2010-08-24T21:35:00.002-04:00

Kudos: Dan

"Born Again" (alternate video)

2010-08-11T11:43:00.000-04:00

Kudos: melodyshine, uploaded by Feirrur

Richard Ashcroft :: Rankin

2010-08-11T04:27:00.000-04:00

Though old news to some, I recently discovered this picture of Richard Ashcroft photographed by Rankin, the in-demand fashion photographer who's shot everyone from supermodels to politicians. Rankin established himself as the king of Cool Britannia in the 1990s when he launched the magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack, and since then, Hollywood stars, rock stars, royalty, presidents and prime ministers have lined up to be photographed by him. More photos of his work can be found at the Daily Telegraph and also on his website portfolio.

Richard Ashcroft gets a call from Liam Gallagher at Summer Sonic Tokyo

2010-08-11T03:57:00.000-04:00

Kudos: checkthemeaning

'Meet the expert' Nick McCabe

2010-08-09T02:37:00.002-04:00

Good news for guitarists: Nick McCabe is contributing to Total Guitar, a monthly magazine based in the United Kingdom. When contributing, you can find Nick's commentary in the expert gear reviews section that looks at the latest in guitar equipment including guitars, amplifiers, pedals and accessories.

Summer Sonic 2010

2010-08-09T00:19:00.000-04:00

This past weekend Richard Ashcroft wrapped up the Japanese leg of his tour at the Summer Sonic Festivals in Tokyo and Osaka. He shared the Mountain stage with numerous other bands including The Smashing Pumpkins, one of the first bands the Verve supported in their early days. Picture courtesy of Richard Ashcroft's website.

Splendour in the Grass pictures

2010-08-06T01:46:00.006-04:00

More images can be found at the Life magazine website.

Kudos: Wayne Griggs

Get well soon

2010-08-03T22:58:00.008-04:00

British singer Richard Ashcroft has been told to keep his mouth shut - by a doctor - after storming off stage just halfway through the first song of his Splendour In The Grass set.

The former Verve frontman appears to have strained his vocal cords after performing three gigs in two days before heading to the Woodford festival site on Sunday.

A doctor recommended he stay silent for 72 hours with Ashcroft's manager Jazz Summers also hooking the singer up with a throat specialist in Brisbane late yesterday afternoon.

"I am concerned about him continuing on to play Summersonic in Japan this weekend," Summers told music editor Kathy McCabe.

Ashcroft sang at the Million Dollar Lunch in Melbourne on Friday before performing for almost two hours later that night at his first Australian concert.

He played Sydney's Enmore Theatre on Saturday night for more than 120 minutes and conducted a slate of promotional interviews on both days.

After complaining of a sore throat on Saturday night, Summers canceled all his scheduled interviews at the Splendour gig on Sunday.

But when he got in front of the mic on the G.W. McLennan stage as one of the festival's closing acts, his voice was almost gone.

Midway through the first song Are You Ready, Ashcroft threw his mic stand and stormed off stage, frustrated he couldn't sing.

Summers denied that Ashcroft was angry at the size of the crowd in the tent or that the majority of fans had gone to see The Pixies.

The setlist for the show (above) reveals that he was planning to close the festival with the Verve classic Bittersweet Symphony.

Source: news.au.com

Paul Eastman: Keyboard Tech/Programmer during The Verve's comeback tour

2010-08-02T23:01:00.002-04:00

An article written December 2008, top keyboard tech Paul Eastman chats about touring with The Verve on their comeback tour, triggering their live playbacks on the road, and also how his unique software solution is making things easier for a slew of leading live acts. Read the interesting article here.

The Irish Times interviews Richard Ashcroft

2010-08-02T22:48:00.002-04:00

Richard Ashcroft can talk you under the table on anything from psychology to Cubism to football. But he does so with charm. Life is calmer now, says the 39-year-old, more peaceful

‘Richard Ashcroft's going to kill you for what you wrote about him – seriously, he’s really angry. He’s up for a fight,” says the journalist in before me. The walk from the bar to the bedroom (where he awaits) in a VIP hotel in South Kensington isn’t that long but time enough to realize, yes, chickens do come home to roost and if push comes to shove (quite literally in this case), here is as glamorous a place as any for a punch-up with an indie icon.

Our eyes lock in the bedroom. He’s sitting at a table – zero body fat, prominent cheekbones – chain smoking. Behind him is an unmade bed; in front of him is a list with my name underlined – twice. The offending article – written back when The Verve headlined Slane in 1998 – had it that “the Verve are a second-rate band . . . Urban Hymns is a humorless drudge of an album . . . Ashcroft’s lyrics are comically pretentious and his harsh, nasal voice is profoundly ugly . . . There’s far more artistic value in a tuneful Spice Girls song.” Not much “taken out of context” wiggle room there. Except that a colleague wrote the piece, not me.

“Hi Richard, good to see you again.” I smile disarmingly. God comes to the rescue. Or rather God’s nemesis: Richard Dawkins. Ashcroft is eager to impart some information from the get-go: “I saw Dawkins speak at the Hay Literary festival – all these people there, it was like a religious revival! I’m very interested in theology and the spiritual [the word “gnosis” appears on the new album] and that spiritual search, but I’m also very interested in Darwinism – always have been.”

To illustrate his point he slowly recites the lyrics of The Verve’s biggest hit, Bittersweet Symphony: “What I wrote was: ‘It’s a bittersweet symphony this life, Trying to make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die. No change, I can’t change, I can’t change, I can’t change.’ You see what I mean: it’s religion against Darwinism, or to put it better: nature versus nurture. That’s the message of the album for you.”

Said album, United Nations Of Sound , is his fourth solo album since The Verve imploded in 1999 due to “internal conflicts” – and even that was a euphemism for the fear and loathing between band members. While the previous three solo efforts, all top 10 hits, were a continuation, in a way, of The Verve’s trademark indie anthem sound, this is very different. Produced by Chicago hip-hop figure No ID (who has worked with Jay-Z and Kanye West), with string arrangements from the man who worked on Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall , and engineered by a Motown legend, Reggie Dozier, it’s a homage of sorts to black American music.

“I wanted an American album because as much as I read Noam Chomsky, there’s also the clear realization that so much of our culture comes from there. The source material is just so vast,” he says. “So if you imagine me as a musical immigrant just

arriving at the Statue of Liberty with an empty hard drive and I want to fill that up with American sounds, that’s how I went about writing and recording this.”

Having toured extensively there both with The Verve and as a solo artist, he knows the country well but is still perplexed by it. “I remember being there with The Verve when I was 21. You’d get on the tour bus after a gig and there’d be a 17-hour drive to the next night’s gig. You’d look out the window of the bus early on and there would be nothing, it would be desolate. You’d go to sleep for eight hours, wake up and look out the window again and there’d still be nothing. It was the vastness of it for a guy from Wigan like me.

“And what Chomsky writes about the country is so real. We had this coach driver, somewhere in Texas, and he took a detour once and brought us to the place where he lived on a ranch. Honestly, we met people there who actually believed that the US dollar was the world’s currency – they couldn’t get their head around the fact that there were different currencies in the rest of the world.”

He got the whole album down in a remarkable 10 days in New York last autumn. “There was an Indian summer in New York and I clearly remember every day walking to the studio and from every shop window you could hear Jay-Z’s Empire State Of Mind blasting out; this was before it was really well known. It just felt perfect. And then working with a hip-hop guy such as No ID was a big change for me. The story there is that his mother and Kanye West’s mother are both teachers and very good friends. When Kanye was just starting music, No ID’s mother told him to look out for Kanye and help him along, and you see how well that turned out,” he says.

A charmingly knowledgeable and eccentric presence, the 39-year-old can talk you under the table on subjects as diverse as the interface between behavioral and cognitive psychology, Cubism and football. He’s quick to draw out a pen and write down the title of a book he thinks sounds interesting.

Like all good frontmen (John Lydon, Ian Brown, etc) he exudes a surfeit of self-confidence but is quick with a self-deprecating quip. Best friends with Chris Martin and Noel Gallagher (the latter wrote Oasis’s Cast No Shadow about him), he’s good value for money.

There have been battles with crippling depression but he’s reluctant to elaborate too much for fear he may be seen as promoting an album on the back of a “my depression hell” headline. He’s off the Prozac now, saying life in a semi-rural setting just outside London does the trick instead.

“Who was that artist – was it Constable or Turner? – that used to tie himself to the mast of a ship and go out during a storm just to get inspiration for their paintings? That’s what I feel I’ve been through – getting right into the centre of that storm. I think it’s a very good thing that someone such as Stephen Fry can go public with their depression – it was a great thing to do for him and for people like myself who have suffered. It’s something that’s far more prevalent than people think. But tell me, what is a well person? Is there such a thing as a well person?

“There is an air of calm and peace in my life now. But you remember The Drugs Don’t Work? Whenever we played that live there would be rows of grown men crying. It was almost like these guys couldn’t cry when they needed to cry, but that song operated like a pressure valve for them and it was okay for them to cry at a big rock concert. That song is so misunderstood [It’s not about drug use:Ashcroft wrote it about his dying father and the medication used to try to keep him alive] and when I won an Ivor Novello award for it, I was walking up to the stage – and really you would expect better from a serious music award such as the Ivor Novello – there were all these pictures of hypodermic needles all around the stage. Bloody irresponsible.

“But this all gets back to the power and imagery of rock music,” he says. “I really believe it to be one of the most powerful art forms in that you can have a good melody like Bittersweet Symphony or The Drugs Don’t Work which can suck people in and then when you have them, you can talk about genetics, inevitability or whatever.”

A text comes in to his phone which prompts a story about his teenage daughter. “She was listening to her iPod the other day and I asked her what she was listening to. She just gave me this pitying look of disgust and said ‘It’s on shuffle’, as if I had asked a really obvious question,” he says. “And that’s the problem, it’s all shuffle for this generation because there’s this tsunami of music out there now. It comes preloaded on your mobile phone; it’s given away with a newspaper. There are people who have never actually touched a physical piece of music – even a CD. “I don’t want to be doing the ‘when I were a lad’ thing, but we used to be like hunter-gatherers when it came to music. You had to go to a record shop, find something you wanted and physically bring it back with you.”

As I get up to leave, I realize the elephant in the room (the offending article about The Verve’s shortcomings) never made its presence felt – he didn’t bring up the subject but there’s still a steely look in his eye when he calls down the corridor after me: “Don’t make me sound too spacey”.

Source: The Irish Times, written by Dan Boyd

UNOS album reviews and more

2010-08-02T22:09:00.000-04:00

London Evening Standard (thumbs down)
Planet ill - (2/5)
Shout4Music - (5/10)
God is in the TV - (3/5)
The Music Fix - (5/10)
Hot Press - Ashcroft will "never say never" to Verve reunion

In other news, the video for 'Bittersweet Symphony' has recently achieved the ultimate 21st century accolade by getting its own Facebook page: Richard Ashcroft walked into me and it was rude (203 members).