Exclaim! Magazine - The Verve

Under the blistering heat of the first day of August, The Verve's singer, Richard Ashcroft, and bassist, Simon Jones, are primping and posing for an assortment of local photographers. Crammed into a telephone booth outside Toronto's MuchMusic, Ashcroft and Jones are mugging for the cameras like the rock stars they are. "Hello, conscience?" Ashcroft speaks into the receiver. "It's me." Everyone laughs, and the spindly, pale Brits trundle off to do live TV.

In town to promote their second batch of recordings, A Northern Soul, The Verve's presence here is cause for celebration. Though the album was, at first, described by the British press as "trad and sensible," further inspection into the four Northern souls (Ashcroft, Jones, guitarist Nick McCabe and drummer Pete Salisbury) uncovers more glorious adjectives than "brilliant" would allow in any thesaurus. So when the soft-faced, thick-accented bassist, Simon Jones, explains - over a bowl of tomato soup at a nearby restaurant - how his band is set to take over the world, you have to believe him. Not because he's selling you a line, but because "trad and sensible" comes nowhere close to describing the brand of lilting, soaring rock melodies that The Verve offer.

Barely into their mid-twenties, the foursome from Wigan (a remote northern town) have undertaken several world tours, withstood a Lollapalooza sidestage experience, made a few videos, and been given a new lease on life. The recording for A Northern Soul set the band straight. Where The Verve's 1993 debut, A Storm in Heaven, ambled down its own path of stoned epics, the new album is a testament that the boys have grown up, if only a little.

"On our first album, we were just taking ounces and ounces of has," explains Jones into his soup. "All I remember about that part of me life is living in a fucking haze. Making this record, we smoked less pot and started living real life. Nick had a kid, I got married, and Richard came out of a six-year relationship.

"Richard went away on a sort of lost weekend when it all kicked off at home, and so we were writing all the music without him, and when he came back he was so blown away, 'cause all the lyrics he'd written fit so well with the music. I think we all grew up. I was 19 when we did the first record, I'm 23 now. We had a serious reality crisis."

Though Ashcroft's lyrics are indicative of a man in search of his self - in "So It Goes," he sings: "So it goes, you come in on your own in this life, you know you're gonna leave on your own" - A Northern Soul seems to rise like a phoenix. (Appropriately, the band would play later that night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto.) This comes with thanks, in part, to Ashcroft's impassioned vocals. Ringing with sincerity and raw emotion, Ashcroft's voice flies the highest during the band's skin-tight live gigs.

"I take my hat off to him," says Jones, looking across the table at Ashcroft, "'cause I remember being a school boy of 14 years and me asking him, 'What yer gonna do when school is done?,' like you do to your mate, and he's like, 'Oh, I'm gonna be a singer in a band," and I'm going 'Yeah, yeah yeah.' We couldn't even fucking play a note, but he's always thought like that. I've just got a lot of respect for him."

Introspection, however, wasn't the only ingredient that accounted for the artistic success of A Northern Soul. Focus also did. After the spinning, wasted affair that was the Storm in Heaven recording sessions, Jones was dead set against working in that kind of fog. "[For Storm in Heaven] we had all of three songs written and walked in and made the rest of it up," he says. "I mean, we fucking deserve a medal, because it was the hardest thing I've ever done in me life, to go and do a record when you have three songs. So I was like, 'I'm not going through that again. We are writing these songs before we even step through the doors.' As an artist makes better paintings, we're getting better at making songs. We're just gifted. I don't wanna blow me own trumpet, but we're pretty damn gifted people."

Still, Jones finds a little time to ground himself in the reality of what's currently popular, and how the band is perceived.

"They don't understand, I'm telling yeh. The British press don't understand us. They never have since day one. The British press is so up their own ass with this three-minute pop thing at the moment, it's gonna ruin music. For 14 and 15-year-olds, that's all they know. Their attention span is so short. How the fuck are they gonna get their heads around a band like us? They're scared of rock music. The only reason Oasis has gotten away with it is 'cause they write rock/pop songs."

Finding time to come down from his tirade, Jones does admit (with no surprise) that his dream is for The Verve to be BIG. Very BIG. Already, this North American tour has proven that that goal is not so far away. Sold-out gigs and a core, flower-bearing following push The Verve that much closer to BIGNESS.

"I want it to go up to a level way beyond where it is now," Jones pontificates. "There's no point in doing it if I'm not going to be huge. I want to give it back to the people who listen to us. I've got a responsibility to them. I want to make great fucking music for them as much as I was making it for myself originally. It's exciting. It's not scary anymore. People are scared of British music becoming pompous or something, but I want to be U2. I want to be that big. I don't want to make cheesy music, but I want to be in a ROCK band."

And how would Jones deal with it if The Verve did become THAT HUGE? "Oh, I'll have a chip on me shoulder about that big," he says, spreading his arms wide, "but I'll be a better man."

• Source: Exclaim! Magazine, September 1995
• By: Mikala Folb

Press release: The Verve break-up

"History" - It's Official The Verve have split up, with vocalist Richard Ashcroft deciding to leave the group immediately after their triumphant T-in the Park performance on Sunday 6th of August.

It seems perverse timing - especially given that in their last ever interview the band are described as "the most important band in Britain, and potentially the most thrilling group of the '90s" - but then The Verve's career has always been characterized by choices made out of conviction rather than commercially. Ashcroft himself seems unwilling to explain his reasoning other than to say "it no longer felt right."

The Verve have recently been perceived as being on the verge of breaking through to real chart success. The second album, A Northern Soul, has sold more copies in one month than its predecessor, "A Storm in Heaven", has in two years. The group also had three and a half months of touring lined up for the Autumn, including both the British and American Oasis supports, plus their own European, Japanese and US tours.

It is known that Richard had returned from their recent sell-out tour of North America feeling strangely underwhelmed by the rapturous reception the band had received, and it is also believed that the famously fever-pitch recording of "A Northern Soul" (with Oasis producer Owen Morris) had taken its toll. 

What this now means is that the group's forthcoming single, the appropriately titled "History", will become their swansong. Already scheduled for September 18th release when the split was announced - and already named "the song of the Summer" by The Face magazine - the single will go ahead as planned, swathed in its strangely prophetic artwork.

Available on two CD formats, one sleeve features the group standing in front of a Times Square cinema bearing the legend "All Farewells Should Be Sudden," while a second NYC movie house states "Life Is Not A Rehearsal." Together these two slogans seem weirdly appropriate under the circumstances.

The formats of "History" will be:

1. History (Radio Edit); Back On My Feet Again; On Your Own (Acoustic Version); Monkey Magic (Brainstorm Mix).
2. History (Full Version); Grey Skies; Life's Not A Rehearsal.

"Monkey Magic" (Brainstorm Mix) and "Life's Not A Rehearsal" are reworkings of "Brainstorm Interlude" and "Life's An Ocean" from "A Northern Soul" as reconstructed by guitarist Nick McCabe.

"Grey Skies" and "Back On My Feet Again" are both brand new songs otherwise unavailable. There will also be a cassette featuring "History" (Radio Edit) and "Back On My Feet Again."

There are no known plans for the immediate future for any of the band members.

A Sudden Farewell from The Verve

The Verve have split after singer Richard Ashcroft quit the band. In a shock move last week, Ashcroft told manager John Best that he no longer wanted to continue with the band.

The Verve's latest album A Northern Soul was very well received critically and the band were felt to be on the brink of major commercial success, both in this country and in the US. As NME went to press, Ashcroft had made himself unavailable for comment and was camping somewhere in the West Country.

"I don't think there is any one reason why he left," Best told NME.

"Richard is very tempestuous and I think that has a lot to do with his sense of conviction. He can't fake it if he doesn't feel it."

The other members are extremely unhappy about the band's demise.

"In retrospect, I suppose you could see it coming," said Best. "The band split up in the sense that they all live in different towns. They all started out together in Wigan but gradually drifted apart."

The band were originally a tightly-knit unit but had experienced problems during the recording of A Northern Soul. At one point, Ashcroft disappeared for five days without telling anyone where he was going. The band's American tour compounded the problems.

"There won't be a band called The Verve any more and they won't be working together again," Best told NME. "But although he [Ashcroft] wasn't happy and had obviously been thinking about this, he's happy now. I wish it hadn't happened this way but he's only 23 and he'll do something amazing again."

The Verve's new single, "History," will be released as planned on September 18. The cover features a picture of the band in New York in front of a Cinema with the legend "All farewells should be sudden" outside.

Alternative Press - The Verve

Broken bones, broken relationships, and heat exhaustion can't dampen the spirit of the Verve. The follow-up to their classic A Storm In Heaven debut album should win them even more disciples.

"America freaks me out," confides Richard Ashcroft, the Verve's charismatic frontman, amidst the hubbub of a trendy Manhattan diner in the meat-packing district. "New York brings out the best in me. It brings out the devil in me."

After a plate of mussels and countless vodka and oranges served by a staff of multiracial transvestites, Richard, quiet bassist Simon Jones, and an entourage head cross-town to an East Village bar to meet Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Mar and to keep the good times rolling. Meanwhile, drummer Peter Salisbury and guitarist Nick McCabe are in LA., where the band will shoot a video directed by Jake Scott, Blade Runner hauteur Ridley's son.

At the bar, Richard commandeers the jukebox, selecting several American soul classics, some Dusty Springfield, some Gram Parsons. "We don't listen to anything but the cream of music," Richard states, stressing the importance of bands knowing musical history. Although animated and earnest when discussing the artists he respects-Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, John Lennon, Neil Young, Sly Stone, George Clinton and many more-Richard will often assume various amusing personas throughout the night. By about 3 a.m. Richard is dancing to T. Rex with a senior citizen wearing a "#1 Grand- father" T-shirt.

The next day, he reports groggily that things a bit homoerotic. Apparently the geezer had no idea he was cavorting with the singer of a band with designs on being the biggest in the world. The Verve have experienced some heavy shit over the last two years, stuff that would cripple less driven groups. Salisbury broke his foot, McCabe had his hand broken by a bouncer in Paris, Ashcroft collapsed from excessive heat and alcohol in Kansas City during 1994's Lollapalooza. Members got married, became parents, fell in love, orgied in suburban Detroit. And Richard's long-term relationship ended. The latter seems to have influenced much of the new LP A Northern Soul (Vernon Yard), although he says he's completely over it now.

"Each song is a northern soul going through different emotions," Richard says. His band hails from Wigan, located between Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England. "I hear this character all the way through the record; pretty pained, then elated, then arrogant. All facets of that personality are a northern soul. That's what I am."

The events of the last two years lend A Northern Soul "a far greater sense of reality," Richard admits at Vernon Yard HQ between bites of a cheese sandwich that "could give Homer Simpson a cardiac." "There's nothing like a few lessons in life to make whatever you do in art that much more substantial."

A Storm In Heaven featured lyrics rooted in mysticism and escapism. In contrast, the new album's songs bear a more personal stamp. "It was a very big escape from when we first formed the group," Richard recalls. "Now it's a kind of melting pot for overt emotions, which makes recording sometimes scary and a lot of times exhilarating. When someone's singing straight to the point about what's going on, if the guy means every word, people are gonna connect with it and it will become more accessible. I want the Verve to be the biggest band in the world because rock and roll will will be dangerous again if we are."

When the band emerged in 1992, they gave people a dose of psychedelia that could move mountains and emotions. Even when the Verve rocked they did so with exquisite grace. Songs like "Man Called Sun," "Gravity Grave," "Feel," "Butterfly," and "Slide Away" have been some of the most thrilling conduits to bliss this decade. Bathed in a mystical sheen not unlike Spiritualized's sacred psych, the Verve's music has a more visceral, organic feel than their British counterparts.

The Verve recently moved to Manchester but most of their existence has been spent in Wigan. Richard contends that their isolation has proved beneficial. "Practising in a dungeon in Wigan for this record that we just made, you're devoid of any kind of fashion or thought of 'This is what we should be doing.' I've got so much respect for a band that goes into a studio and plays the music they hear in their heads rather than what they read in a magazine."

Ashcroft decries formula in music, lambasting groups that mimic "MTV bollocks. We're ruled by chaos anyway," he pronounces, "so how can such a fine art be done to a formula?

• Source: Alternative Press, written by Dave Segal