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| Richard Ashcroft at V Festival, 2008 |
He remains one of Britain's greatest rock'n'roll stars. Call him what you will – Richard Ashcroft, the shaman, Mad Richard – he was the guy who wasn't supposed to survive Britpop.
Too many drugs, too much hard living, a ceaseless observance of wild times, the Hedonist In Chief could have checked out long ago.
"I feel lucky I got out alive," he says. "People wanted me to become this clichéd Keith Richards, Iggy Pop character. I wasn't expected to marry a beautiful wife and have kids."
And yet that's precisely what he did. After forming The Verve with guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury, he created the megalithic
Urban Hymns. It spawned "The Drugs Don't Work," "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and "Lucky Man" as it won a BRIT Award and sold more than 10 million copies, becoming the 18th best-selling album in UK chart history.
The band crashed and burned. There were fall-outs and bust-ups, breakdowns and dust-ups. And Richard, described by Coldplay's Chris Martin as being 'the best singer in the world', went his own way.
His debut solo album,
Alone with Everybody, was a number one while his next two albums achieved gold and platinum discs. And while the underwhelming 2010 album
United Nations of Sound stalled, he roared back in May last year with a fifth album, the storming
These People. It matched the bombast of his best work, mixing soulful balladeering with epic rock tunes.
He has no regrets about taking such a long time out. He lost two close friends, his guitar tech, Rex, and manager, Jazz Summers, and felt no need to put out a record while they were dying. The passage of time, however, led him back to the studio and Richard will bring
These People, songs from his solo albums and classic Verve tracks to Birmingham next week. He's on the road with four arena dates, including the Barclaycard Arena on Thursday. It's time to celebrate, to tap into the joyousness of live music.
Richard's proud of
These People. It was no small achievement to return to former glories after so long away. After all, he has had a longer climb back up the mountain than most. "In a way, I've made records in an old school sense where I write album for other people. There's a unifying soul to it, a unifying line."
These People kicked off with "Out Of My Body," a plush, electro-pop groover that fused disco and house and talked about being out of it, without actually doing it.
"I started that tune before Daft Punk did Get Lucky with Pharrell. I was working on that quite a while back, then Daft Punk did that sort of house-Chic thing. I remember thinking 'I've already done that'. I was working with this French electro guy and he sent me the Johnny Cash bit."
Richard was keen to break down preconceptions and do something new. He wanted to challenge people expecting a solo version of
Urban Hymns. And he succeeded.
