The Verve's 'Forth' Revealed (Part 2)

 

In this second part of the interview, taken by Steve Lamacq in London in July 2008, THE VERVE go in medias res and share the genesis of and their thoughts about every song on ‘Forth’. THE VERVE ‘FORTH’ CUES - The following audio (18 tracks, means 18 questions) comes from an interview with Steve Lamacq and all four members of the Verve (Richard [R], Simon [S], Pete [P] and Nick [N]), in London in July 2008.

Question: ‘Sit and Wonder’ opens the album. Richard?

Richard Ashcroft (R): ‘Sit and Wonder’, looking back I believe it starts from a guitar loop of Nick’s. He’s like the king of the guitar loop. He’s got this way of doing his guitar. You could build a symphony out of his guitars and it’s almost like he’s not playing anything. I haven’t discussed it with the others but to me when it kicks in it’s almost like Dick Dale meets God knows what, you know, Led Zeppelin. It’s got a kind of groove to it that’s almost like The Rolling People from Urban Hymns. It’s got this darkness, and lyrically it’s like a rite of passage song, it’s a song where, you know, someone’s literally searching for the light, searching for salvation. The section at the end is just amazing, the guitars are just, I mean, the amount of different influences slightly that you can hear from some of the greats is amazing. It could be Peter Green one minute, it’s like Tom Verlaine the next, then it’s Neil Young.

Nick McCabe (N): Sit and Wonder was kind of birthed if you like, second or third day I think it was of the first week we got together. It was like a strange little loop going maybe ten minutes later, Si had got this almighty sort of crushing groove going. One of the signature guitar lines is actually me checking that the guitar’s working, the bit at the beginning with a duff note. ‘Diddly ding’. I was like, ‘Is it on?’ So, but it’s like serendipity again and I think, you know, recognising that is something that we’ve become very adept at and suddenly ideas are getting generated and one of Richard’s best vocals, I think, as well. I dunno where he pulled it from. The lyrics are really heavy and again it was one of these, quite a lot of the tracks on the album we forgot what the key sort of moments were and when we came to edit at the start of this year we realised we had something resembling a song in there; what we didn’t realise was that there was something resembling a pop song in there and as it’s developed over time, you know, technology being what it is now, you know that later on you can re-visit what you’ve done.  I mean, it’s a ‘can’ ethic really. Don’t worry about that really awful bit that you just played there because later on down the line something great’s going to happen and it’s almost sort of giving yourself a free rein.

Simon Jones (S): It was one of the first things we did, wasn’t it?

Peter Salisbury (P): In the first three days, yeah. Made up on the spot, most of it, as well, wasn’t it?

S: And, yeah, like you say, I don’t know if you’ve heard the one that it was born from, because it’s kind of edited, like a jam that’s been edited, but, yeah, you can actually hear the riff coming together and everyone getting their parts together and it kind of just, kind of fuses all together instantly and it was one of the first things, if not the first thing, that we played in whatever, ten years or whatever.

N: That’s a classic for me, I think, probably one of my favourite things and playing it live is just, there are bits that sort of stumped you really, to play that live, you know.

Question: ‘Love Is Noise’ is next.

R: Yeah, Love is Noise, which given a few days in the studio, I was working a lot with a vocoder, an old vocoder I had in the studio and created the vocal loop and as soon as I had that vocal loop that was it. I mean, there has been a few times in my career, or whatever you want to call it, where you know, you just know, that this is universal, this is like, given the chance, you know, if the world could hear it the world would get into it, and that’s so rare I think when something within a few seconds can grab people. Really, you know, lyrically in a way I think if you look at it as a sort of the first few lines a kind of re-make of Jerusalem by William Blake rather than will those ‘feet in ancient times’ it’s the feet in modern times. It’s ‘bright prosaic malls’ instead of ‘dark Satanic mills’, and again I think it goes back to that internal struggle of my own, you know, that search for the love and it’s what we’re all searching for, I think. That internal battle is the battle that I will always have lyrically perhaps or with my songs.  It’s about, perhaps, my own internal battle.

N: Love is Noise was kind of eleventh hour, a segment of a greater whole, Columbo, which was two days of jamming and then at some point Richard re-visited the disco section and put a hard kick drum on it and did the high vocal line that you hear on it now and then we started stacking stuff on it.

P: It comes from a jam that we, again, same thing that we tried and like. It’s taken from a four bar loop of that, and er, yeah, Richard took a four bar loop, didn’t he?

S: That’s right, kind of like a futuristic, sci-fi sort of jam that keeps evolving and evolving and the way we play with a natural ebb and flow it reached a certain point and a certain tempo.  Richard picked out this really good loop from it, like Pete said, a four bar loop, and we kind of, Richard took that away and wrote the melody on top, put some keyboards on it and we took it back and put live bass and drums

P: We played it live for a bit in America and all.

S: We played it live, that’s right.

P: We played it live in America and then went back and re-did all the stuff on it.

S: On an American tour played it.

P: Just to give it more of a live feel.

S: Yeah, so, that’s typical Verve, I suppose.  It was like, you know, a really good jam, choosing a really good bit, working on that bit and creating a song out of it er, you know, Richard seems to have a gift for being able to create choruses over what’s a verse and, you know, make these big lifts, which he’s done before on Bittersweet Symphony etc. it works really well, you know, people singing (sings) ‘Uh, hoo, hoo’ vocal hook straight away, you know, so you knew that, you know, that we were onto something with it, you know.

Rolling Stone reviews 'Forth' 4/5

Two of the best psychedelic rock shows I've ever seen were by this British band, in London and New York, in the summer of 1993, and most of the Verve's fourth record — their first after a decade apart — is a return to that whirlpool-guitar, shaman-song form.

"Sit and Wonder" is what they meant by their 1993 album title A Storm in Heaven: the trancelike gallop of bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury; guitarist Nick McCabe's creamy distortion and ascending rings of tremolo and feedback; singer Richard Ashcroft's drawling incantation, like Liam Gallagher in Lizard King leather.

The songs skirt standard verse-chorus form; the best of them are just chord patterns that swirl and mutate with slow assurance. In "Judas," McCabe fires bird-cry bursts of twang and threads long, humming lines through Ashcroft's R&B whoops. "Love Is Noise" is smart acid-dance candy notched with a laughing-choir vocal hook. But "Appalachian Springs" gives the best afterglow. Built on the ballad-prayer model of "The Drugs Don't Work" (on 1997's Urban Hymns) and coated in McCabe's melting guitars and Ashcroft's higher-than-you bleating, it is Forth's final track — and most complete trip.

Source: Rolling Stone, David Fricke

4Music Presents The Verve

An exclusive 4Music appearance from the band will be shown this coming Sunday the 24th. The 5 song performance will be shown at 6pm on the 4music Channel.

Sonnet
Love Is Noise
Sit and Wonder
This Is Music
Rather Be

Verve to continue on after 'Forth' and Richard Ashcroft to record at least one more solo record

The Verve considers its forthcoming album "Forth," the reunited British group's first new set in 11 years, to be the beginning of its new era -- and the continuation of a career that's been interrupted by two previous break-ups.

"This definitely is an ongoing concern; it's not something that we're all just gonna chuck away again," bassist Simon Jones tells Billboard.com. "Looking back I don't think we had to be so blunt and, 'Alright, we're splitting up!' really. We should've just chilled out for a bit and taken some time out, to be honest.

"But obviously we all had a deep yearning inside to get back to do this or it wouldn't have happened. I just hope we don't split up again, now ... 'cause it becomes a bit silly, doesn't it?' "

Since reuniting in 2007, the Verve has played dates in Great Britain, Europe and the U.S., and Jones says the quartet is chomping at the bit to get back to North America once "Forth" comes out on Tuesday.

"It's gonna be towards the end of this year or the beginning of the new one," he notes. "We've got such a good fan base over there. We did so much touring early on and did Lollapalooza (in 1994). We did six dates earlier this year, and it wasn't enough. I want to visit all those places we've been where we know we've got fans and breathe life into these new songs from ('Forth'). That's definitely on our list of things to do."

Jones confirms that Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft is contractually obligated to record another solo album, but says it will not interfere with whatever is next for the band.

"I don't think us being back together means we have to do a record every year," Jones says. "We'll do it on our own terms and at our own pace. But, definitely, all of us want to pursue this. It's something that means a lot to all of us. It's a bit of a shock to be doing it again, but a very nice shock, really."

Source: Billboard, Gary Graff, Detroit

The Verve's 'Forth' Revealed (Part 1)

Question: So, the band were back together. How did the call re the recall, as it were, actually happen? Anyone remember?

Nick McCabe (N): It kind of came via Pete really. I got an invite to play with a certain band that had lost their guitarist over the summer and they were doing festivals and stuff and, I think, that kind of reintegrated me and Pete talking regularly. I mean, we talked quite a lot over the years anyway.

We’ve always remained friends. I think through that Richard might have got wind of Pete being in discussion with me about various things and I got the call one day. ‘Are you sitting down, Nick?’ ‘Yeah, what’s happened? Nothing bad, is it?’ ‘Richard wants to get the band back together. What do you think?’ And I kind of had a moment of hesitation and, ‘Yeah.’ At that point I’d kind of rationalised a lot of, you know, all of us have grown up, had a lot of time to think about things.

Hopefully, we’re older and wiser and it just seemed…. I mean, I’ve put a huge chunk of my life into this and there is no way that I would turn my back on it if there was ever a chance of it working again. It’s really not for, you know, money’s nice. If you get paid to be in a band there is nothing better really, going to different countries and, you know, getting paid to play in front of thousands of people.

What’s wrong with that, you know? So, yeah, it was at a point where I’d kind of made my peace with it and come to understand a lot of things that were quite silly at the time really and I think me and Si, because we’re probably the closest out of the lot of us, and we sort of arrived at the same point at the same time, I think really, so it just seemed a very natural thing to do.

Peter Salisbury (P): Yeah, definitely.

Simon Jones (S): Yeah, absolutely amazing experience.

(P): Long time thinking it would never happen, earlier on, or like last ten years so to actually get another album and especially of that quality is brilliant, you know what I mean? Keep you the rest of your life.

Richard Ashcroft (R): I can’t quite put a precise date on it because it seems, now it seems like a long time ago but it was just a series of phone calls. It was quite a sunny day in the garden and suddenly this shocking brainwave arrived in my mind to see what they thought about… You know, maybe the time was right and maybe the climate was right or maybe we were old enough to be able to deal with it and just make a noise was the primary motive, I think, for getting the band back together was putting those individuals in a room and creating a sound.

I think we’re at a good age. We’re not particularly old, we’re not past it. I think we’ve still got our musical sensibilities so really that was the primary motive. Obviously there’s baggage and things like that you’ve got to sift through.

There always will be. It’s no bed of roses. It’s not some Mills & Boon scene running down the beach, you know, with the sunset. It’s none of that. It’s a case that these four people make a pretty unique sound together. ‘Are you up for it?’ ‘Yeah.’ So, first day in the studio: I guess everyone must have been a little bit nervous. Pete, were you?

P: I was there first, so I went in, took my drums in, set up and then I sat waiting for everyone to come in individually, but yeah, I was a little bit, but we went in and started playing, it was great.

S: It was quite easy. Richard picked me up from the station in his mini, and brought us down to the studio, had a bit of a coffee and a chat for an hour and after that we were playing music. It was like old times, really, you know.

P: You can hear it on the record, all the excitement of our actually being in a room together playing.

S: And I think, you know, what was amazing is to know after all that time to still have that chemistry and not really have to like discuss much about it. It’s just like, ‘Right, this is what we do and it sounds amazing.’ It was instantly so satisfying to be able to pick up your instruments and do that, because the first time we all met was actually in the studio and all our gear was set up so, you know, that was a thrill in itself, just being able to do that, and the first week we recorded the majority of the album really, in the first couple of weeks to be honest.

It was that quick. Having not played together for such a long you have a backlog of like riffs and ideas and things and they’ll come in, you know, maybe subconsciously, and obviously Richard brings completed songs to the table or songs that have maybe got a verse and they’ll be jammed and, different processes for different songs really, but a lot of what we do is from jamming, because that’s how we learned to play together really when we were sixteen in Wigan.

It was just a matter of locking ourselves in a little, dingy room, not, just like this actually but with black curtains, for days on end, coming out in the daylight, you know, from the age of sixteen really, seventeen. 

Question: It’s been said in the past that this band does better under stress. Richard, does THE VERVE thrive on tension?

R: Probably not, no. I mean, I can function in a studio without tension and I actually think the history of this band’s proved that the tension is not necessarily in the making of the music. It’s probably what goes on beyond that. It’s nothing to do with the act of creativity. The music making side of it isn’t driven by friction actually. It’s driven by unity.

The only place that we can find a single voice or a true understanding of each other is probably when we’re actually making music anyway, so, you know, and I think we’re old enough now to take it as it comes, you know. We’re not going to go out, tour the world twice over. We’re not going to put ourselves in any of those positions. We’re not going to burn the name The Verve out in one big bang, you know.

We’ve made this record and we’re going to play some gigs and, you know, in a way we’re almost approaching it in a much clearer way, I think, and a way that can keep the name of The Verve alive because another motivation was I couldn’t quite get in my head why on earth The Verve should be considered to be something that isn’t alive when the songs live every day on the radio still.

Some songs that are ten years old sound very fresh today and very contemporary, lyrically because they’re dealing with quite basic human emotions, they’ll never go out of time so, if we want to make a record in five years’ time we’ll make it. If we don’t, we won’t but we’ll never, I hope, condemn the band to a sort of elephant’s graveyard of rock n roll.

On the charts

"Love is Noise" after two weeks on the charts:

• Last week #5
• This week #4

Simon Jones discusses “Noise Epic”

Bassist Simon Jones details the ethereal, Britpop-reviving track off the reunited lads' forthcoming full-length, Forth, out stateside Aug. 26 

Since the Verve officially split in 1999, the band’s — and not just frontman Richard Ashcroft’s — Shaman-like, transcendent qualities have been noticeably absent from the contemporary rock scene. And while “Love Is Noise,” the first leak from the psyched-out Brit quartet’s forthcoming reunion disc Forth showed a nu-rave-tinged sonic, “Noise Epic” returns to the Verve to their, well, epic and mind-boggling guitar-centric sound.

“The great thing about ‘Noise Epic’ is how organic and spontaneous the recording was,” bassist Simon Jones tells SPIN.com. “It was one of those magic moments when everything comes together all at once.”

Indeed: With a beautiful chaos of screeching guitars, thudding bass, and fluxing background fuzz riding alongside Ashcroft’s inter-mingling, talk-speak reveries, “Noise Epic” is an apt title, but the blissful clamor is just the tip of the iceberg. “I got spirit / You got it in for you, I got in for me / I got spirit / Wake up / Wake up / Wake up!” Ashcroft busts during the song’s closing implosion, sliding into his characteristic religious role as the band set ablaze the altar behind him.

“The first two sections were edited together from a 45-minute jam and it just kinda revealed itself during the editing process,” Jones said of the tune’s birth. “The end section was from another jam on another day and Nick had a clear vision of how the jigsaw should fit. This is what the Verve is all about — capturing those magic moments and then creating something special.”

• Source: William Goodman, SPIN

Live session coming up (UK)

There will be a session on the 21st of August on UK TV Channel 4 music from 8 to 8:30 in the evening.

V Festival: Verve defy cancellation rumours and rain

Band provide euphoric close to first night at Staffordshire site

The Verve have closed the first night (August 16) of the 2088 V Festival, defying rumours they were on the verge of cancelling their appearance.

Taking to the V Stage at the Staffordshire leg of the event, the band braved torrential rain as they mixed crowd favourites with songs from new album 'Forth'.

Joined for most of the set by a violinist, the four-piece introduced new song 'Sit And Wonder' – which has featured in their set all summer – by referencing the atrocious conditions.

"Shake off the rain with me," frontman Richard Ashcroft commanded the crowd before the song, "shake off the pain with me."

Playing a series of songs from 1995 album 'A Northern Soul', including an epic version of 'Life's An Ocean', the band then enjoyed a series of loud sing-a-longs from the fans who stuck with them through the heavy rain.

'The Drugs Don't Work' and 'Lucky Man' were bellowed back, before the band reached their climax mixing 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' with recent top five comeback single 'Love Is Noise'.

"Thank you from the heart," freestyled Ashcroft as the songs merged, "it's always been the same."

The Verve played:

'This Is Music'
'Sonnet'
'Space And Time'
'Sit And Wonder'
'History'
'Life's An Ocean'
'Velvet Morning'
'The Rolling People'
'The Drugs Don't Work'
'Lucky Man'
'Bitter Sweet Symphony'
'Love Is Noise'

Source: NME

iTunes UK

If you pre-order the album at the UK iTunes Store, there's a soundboard recording of "A New Decade" (live from Glasgow) included as an extra track. "Lucky Man" at Coachella will be available as an exclusive too.

Additionally, Judas is now available for purchase on UK iTunes. Hopefully this will become global soon.

Verve's comeback chart success

The highest new entry in the UK Top 40 this week was "Love is Noise" by Wigan band The Verve, which debuted at number five. Article here.

Second single announced?

According to the UK iTunes store, the dreamy "Judas," arguably one of the most beautiful songs the band has yet penned, is going to be the second single from the upcoming album 'Forth.' More news as it becomes available.

The Verve score Top Five entry on UK singles chart

The Verve have scored a UK Top Five hit with their comeback single 'Love Is Noise' tonight (August 10). The band's first single in ten years is the first track to be taken from the group's new album 'Forth', out on August 25.

"Chic Dub" snippet

From the "Love is Noise" single. Audio here plus single front and back covers.

'Forth' on facebook

All the songs can be previewed here.

The Verve in session at Maida Vale

Hot off the back of their stunning headline performances at Glastonbury and T in the Park, The Verve performed a stunning intimate performance at Maida Vale for Radio 1.

The Verve's Richard Ashcroft: 'I'm going solo again'

The Verve's Richard Ashcroft has said that he plans to return to recording solo material, despite his reformed band headlining festivals and releasing their first album in 11 years.

Ashcroft told Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 that he had no plans to ditch his solo career, but reformed The Verve because he thought it would be "a shame" to leave the band dormant after they split for the second time in 1999.

"I will continue my solo stuff," he confirmed. "But it seemed a shame to leave this thing dormant when there is so much talent there."

The singer went on to compare Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis to Gerald Ratner – the British businessman who famously described the jewelry products his own company were producing as "total crap" in 1991.

"Even though Mr Eavis was acting like Gerald Ratner a month or two before [the festival], about his product, about his headliners [The Verve, who closed the Pyramid Stage bill on the final night], I still think it turned out really well," he said.

Ashcroft thanked co-organiser Emily Eavis from the stage during The Verve's Glastonbury performance this year but suggested her dad Michael Eavis had been trying to book Keane instead, something the festival later denied.

The singer added: "[For] some bands it fits like a glove. I think [fellow headliner] Jay-Z pulled it [Glastonbury] off massively.

"I've never done a bungee jump because I don't need to do one, because that's what performance is all about. It's about jumping out of the aeroplane. And that's the biggest jump I've done in a long time, so the afterglow was pretty long after Glastonbury."

The Verve's new album 'Forth' is released on August 25.

Source: NME

The Helio Sequence: A Two-Man Wall of Sound

The Helio Sequence is Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel from Portland, Oregon. They are literally a two-man wall of sound.

I came across their music by chance when I saw their name listed at a local venue's upcoming events calendar in April. I checked them out on MySpace to get a feel for their sound and have been actively listening ever since.

When it comes to music that should be heard, this band has been slept on so hard it’s ridiculous. They put on such a great show and their music is so powerful and full of energy that it amazes me that they don’t sell out clubs every time they play. Their music is catchy, intelligent, and highly innovative. I seriously haven't heard such an innovative band in a long time. Seldom do I find myself consistently listening to an album a few months after picking it up.

Also, Benjamin Weikel is far and away the most entertaining drummer I've ever seen. He’s like a muppet playing drums. Mouth hanging open in a big smile. Eyes all huge and wide. You can tell he’s genuinely excited to be playing the songs.

I've seen the band twice this year and their latest release, Keep Your Eyes Ahead, is by far a top contender for 2008's Album of the Year in my books. Below I've added a link to their MySpace page, a live session from National Public Radio, and four song downloads courtesy of Sub Pop Records. Music Saves.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theheliosequence

NPR Music: Interview and live performance session download (will pop up)

Songs: right-click and select "save link as" or click to play in another page

-Can't Say No (mp3)
-Keep Your Eyes Ahead (mp3)
-Everyone Knows Everyone (mp3)
-Blood Bleeds (mp3)

Verve in session next Tuesday

Hot off their stunning headline performances at Glastonbury and T in the Park, The Verve will be making a welcome return to Maida Vale on Tuesday night (Aug 5th).

The band will perform brand new tunes from their forthcoming album Forth, and hopefully some classic tracks live from the legendary studios. You'll also be able to hear an interview between Zane and Richard Ashcroft.

Tune into Zane’s show on BBC Radio 1 from 7pm on Tuesday August 5th to hear this amazing event, and check out Zane's website for the video of the session.

The Verve Storms Back On Fourth Album

The Verve roars back to life after an 11-year hiatus between new albums with "Forth," a bracing blend of the experimentalism of the group's early work and the more structured songwriting of its last two efforts.

The set is due Aug. 25 in the U.K. via Parlophone and the following day in North America on the band's On Our Own label, with distribution by RED/Megaforce.

Only one song is less than five minutes long on "Forth," which begins with the seven-minute jam "Sit and Wonder." Atop a big bass groove and foreboding atmospherics, frontman Richard Ashcroft pleads, "Lord, give me the light," setting the table for the single "Love Is Noise," the most electronic track of the Verve's career.

The cut's sampled "woo-hoo" vocal and synths stake out new territory, but rarely have Ashcroft's vocals sounded as raw and angrily passionate. "Love Is Noise" will be released in the U.K. Aug. 4 digitally and Aug. 11 in physical form.

"Forth" is further highlighted by the dreamy "Judas," arguably one of the most beautiful songs the band has yet penned, and the anthemic ballad "Valium Skies," a sure-fire future concert staple which is reminiscent of the hit "Lucky Man" from 1997's "Urban Hymns." "I See Houses" muses on Ashcroft's everyday surroundings while pivoting between the eerie vibes of 1995's "A Northern Soul" and the elegant emoting of "Urban Hymns."

Elsewhere, the Verve stretches out in ways it hasn't since the early 1990s. The eight-minute "Noise Jam" is a propulsive rocker with references to Mother Mary, Steve McQueen and the Rapture, finishing in an explosion of pounding downstrokes, while "Columbo" barrels through several different motifs (slinky, Can-inspired bass lines; early Verve ambience) over the course of seven-and-a-half minutes.

The Verve plays Japan's Summer Sonic festival Aug. 9-10 and the U.K.'s V Festival the following weekend. Fall tour plans have yet to be announced.

Here is the track list for "Forth":

"Sit and Wonder"
"Love Is Noise"
"Rather Be"
"Judas"
"Numbness"
"I See Houses"
"Noise Epic"
"Valium Skies"
"Columbo"
"Appalachian Springs"

Source: Billboard, Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.