THE VERVE have split the voters ever since they appeared in '92 as The Band Most Likely To after Suede. Some loved their experimental prog-rock noise, others thought it was hippy, trippy bollocks. Now, they have more fans than detractors and, with their new album, 'A Northern Soul', they are receiving favourable comparisons to the All Time Greats. But it has been one long, mad struggle. DAVE SIMPSON speaks to The Verve about the record described as 'a diary of disaster, a symphony of pain'. Crazyheads: TOM SHEEHAN
'This is a tale of a Northern soul
Trying to find his way back home
SOMETHING terrible has happened to The Verve. You can still recognize the wide-eyed, cocksure, romantic , experience hungry youths of '92 and '93, but there's a look about them now which brings to mind the numb expressions of those returning from the Vietnam war. When I first meet Richard Ashcroft, he's wearing a green bobble hat pulled so far over his face it looks as though he's hiding from the world. Bassist Simon Jones is a sunken-cheeked apparition of his former self. When he speaks, it's in a near inaudible croak.
What the hell has happened to them?
"We've been through a lot of turmoil and had some great moments," begins Ashcroft, high up on the beacon overlooking Wigan where he and school pal Simon first dreamed up The Verve. "You can go through a lot in two years, especially if you're fortunate enough to travel and see a lot of places like we are. You're gonna get in some scrapes. You're gonna go through some extreme emotions. My brain is definitely a different brain from that of two years ago. Whether or not I've been tainted by that I don't know."
I do, and he has. And then some.
