Los Angeles Times - He Wants to be a Star

Richard Ashcroft of the Verve isn't part of rock music's big-is-bad crowd. "I don't see popularity as something to be afraid of," he says. And he's willing to do what it takes to get there. Sell one of its songs for a commercial? The Verve wasn't crazy about the idea, but it's one of the moves that's put the band on the road to the top of the charts.

LONDON- The Verve's Richard Ashcroft, British rock's man of the moment, appears drained as he steps into a backstage room at the Brixton Academy concert hall on what should be a night of triumph.

It's two hours before the Brit Awards, the English equivalent of the Grammy's, start across town at the London Docklands Arena, and the Verve is the odds-on favorite to win best band and best album honors over such heralded rivals as Oasis, Radiohead and Prodigy.

Sure enough, they took home both trophies, climaxing a remarkable comeback year in which the Verve's "Urban Hymns" album sold 5 million copies world-wide, thanks largely to the melancholy hit "Bittersweet Symphony." The haunting single was featured in a high profile Nike commercial in the U.S. and has subsequently leaped into the Top 20.

Yet Ashcroft, 26, is anything but joyful at the Academy, from which one of the songs in the band's concert that night will be shown live on the Brit Awards telecast. He is fried from months of non-stop touring and faces the prospect of yet another whirlwind trek to the U.S. before any possible break. On top of that, the day's sound check ran an hour late and there was a hassle with the TV technicians over the lighting.

Not noticing a reporter sitting behind him, Ashcroft complains to a tour aide, "On top of everything, I've got to do some [expletive] interview."

It's an awkward moment as the aide diplomatically points out the reporter's presence.

Spinning around, an embarrassed Ashcroft says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything personal. It's just that there's too much going on at the moment. It's been non-stop for months, and now we're supposed to go back to America for some more shows. It's just insane."

Total Guitar Magazine: The genius of Ashcroft & McCabe

Richard Ashcroft and friends Simon Jones (bass) and Pete Salisbury (drums) had already played together in various Wigan bands(sometimes with guitarist/keyboardist Simon Tong, who returned to the fold for Urban Hymns) when in 1989, they heard of the quiet guitar "genius" who would really complete their lineup. If Richard Ashcroft was pilot of The Verve, Nick McCabe was to become the band's bombadier. Ashcroft had first heard the guitarist play in a college practice room and described McCabe's sound even then as "a whole other universe."

From the very beginning, Verve's onstage focus was the rolling eyeball antics of Ashcroft - yet much of that musical dynamic came fron the fingers and feet of Nick McCabe. Total Guitar Magazine first met Ashcroft and McCabe - polar opposites of motor-mouth self confidence and quiet introspection - in 1993, on the eve of A Storm In Heaven's release. In this early interview, none of which has been published before, they reflect on their music and ambition.

"This album is us just jamming in the studio, same as we've always done," said Ashcroft. We've got the freedom to do what we want, and I think that gives us the best results 'cos we're not scared - we're not scared to run on "too long", not scared to try new things. It's less contrived and packaged than a lot of music over the last few years."

The notion that Verve's elliptical approach to songwriting would yield a hit seemed fanciful in those early days - but Ashcroft and McCabe's enthusiasm for their idiosyncratic path remained unwavering. The band McCabe concurred, were "totally selfish, totally self-centred and self-indulgent - just the way it should be."

Accusations of being psychedelic hippies - hardly the sharpest of stances in the early days of so-called mod-esque Britpop - failed to bother the band. "Psychedelic bands, to me, are horrible, plastic dayglo bands - we're certainly not like that," McCabe grumbled to Total Guitar Magazine. But we can be psychedelic on one level, emotional on another. The music can work on loads of different levels.

Select Magazine - Follow the Yellow Brick Road

The Verve's astonishing eight-year pilgrimage has been littered with drugs, dehydration, mental breakdown and six-month lasagne binges. Now, somewhere over the rainbow, the world belongs to them. For the first time, the full frank tale of their journey from trauma to triumph.

Picture this. You're young, anything but dumb, and full of promise. You've realized your initial dream - forming a band that you truly believe is turning into the best in the world. You've won a deal, escaped the confines of your home town., and things are starting to fly. Literally, in fact, as you find yourself on a plane to New York City. The occasion is the annual CMJ convention, a showcase and workshop for alternative music, with myriad gigs around the city, including three of your own.

The American wing of your record company has booked you into the Chelsea Hotel, where star-sailors like Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin drank, and Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend. Your friends have flown over with you to share the laugh. And there, waiting outside, is a flatbed truck with your equipment on it, ready to transport you around the city while a film crew follow behind.

"For all of us, it was the height of everything," recalls Dave Halliwell, one of The Verve's closest friends and their manager through those early years. "Can you imagine what it was like? A blast. Hilarious. They got on the truck and played 'A Man Called Sun' for over two hours - a 45 minute version, then a half-hour version. All of a sudden, it just seemed real. You're in a band and you can actually do things. And someone is paying you."