Richard Ashcroft praises Manchester's 'power of love' after arena attack

The former Verve frontman kicks off the Sounds of the City festival at Castlefield Bowl this weekend

Richard Ashcroft, as a young boy growing up in Wigan, always struggled to believe the city of Manchester was a close neighbour.

As a passionate Manchester United fan, with dreams of becoming a footballer like his hero George Best, the young Ashcroft would regularly attend home matches at Old Trafford. The journey from Wigan to Manchester, however, was far from straightforward.

“We would stop at loads of service stations on the way,” Ashcroft, now 45, chuckles.

“Travelling on the coach, back in those days, it seemed to take hours to get from Wigan to Manchester. So as a kid, I always had it in my head that Manchester was miles away. It felt like we were making his epic journey to some faraway place every time we came to Manchester.”

These days, of course, the former Verve singer-turned-solo artist is on much more familiar terms with our beloved city. Both as frontman in The Verve and, latterly, as a solo artist, Manchester has been the destination for some milestone gigs for the Wigan-born singer.

Back in the early 90s, The Verve were supported by a bunch of unknown Manc scallywags by the name of Oasis at Manchester University (cementing a deep friendship which endures to this day – more of which later).

Fast forward in time, to 2006, and Old Trafford Cricket Ground was the location for what was the biggest show of Ashcroft’s solo career, a defiant riposte to all those critics who didn’t believe he could prosper without his Verve bandmates.

This weekend’s appearance, at Castlefield Bowl, promises to be another one of those epochal occasions. Kicking off the annual season of Sounds of the City shows (this year including gigs from James, Blossoms and the Hacienda Classical), Ashcroft will headline the impressive Castlefield amphitheatre to perform a career-spanning greatest hits set including many of those famous Verve numbers.

For Ashcroft, the significance of playing Manchester was already huge; now, one month on from those horrifying events at Manchester Arena, this weekend’s show takes on an even greater profundity.

“It was so life-affirming to see how Manchester came together,” Ashcroft says.

“It was the power of love; it was very, very moving to watch. Real strength. You don’t ever want events like that to mark a place, and that’s what Manchester proved. Manchester has done it before, like after the IRA bomb.

"As a musician, I don’t wanna put out political soundbites. All I can do is put on the greatest show I possibly can; eight, nine thousand of us together in Manchester city centre. I want to entertain and inspire.”

He’s never been short of confidence, but Richard Ashcroft, of late, has been in even more defiant mood than usual. After a six-year hiatus, the former Verve singer returned in triumphant fashion with last year’s These People album (Top 3 in the UK) and series of sold-out UK shows.

There was, he believes, a sense of “vindication” in returning to a UK music scene which has seemingly undervalued his musical exploits post-Verve. Not that he’s in any way bitter. For Ashcroft, the voices of the public – as we’ll witness at Castlefield Bowl on Friday – will always roar loader than the dismissive sneers of the music press or Radio 1 playlist compilers.

“Not everyone can disappear for six years and get a reaction like I did,” he beams. “The people who come up to me on the streets, the ones who tell me how much 'Lucky Man' or 'Drugs Don’t Work' means to them, saying how those songs have helped them through hard times; that’s what matters.

"I’ve always felt like an outsider in this industry, but that sense of community, that sense of belonging with your fans; it’s an amazing feeling and it’s really inspiring.”

Speaking of unfiltered northern rock stars who’ve confounded the critics, Ashcroft has been watching his close friend Liam’s Gallagher’s recent re-emergence with great interest. The music industry, he believes, desperately needs a good blast of that infamous Gallagher swagger.

“The music industry wants safe rock stars, people who are totally homogenised,” he rants. “And Liam’s the opposite of that. I remember back in the day, when I first met Liam, I thought 'Wow, I can’t wait for this guy to do his first Radio 1 interview!’

"Everything seems so synthetic right now. I think the public are yearning for something real. That’s why Liam sticks out so much.”

As a friend of both Gallagher brothers, does Ashcroft feel a real sadness at their acrimonious – and very public - falling out?

“It’s a family affair,” he reasons. “That’s just life. Not many people have families where everything is smooth. For now, the fans have got two great solo careers to enjoy. But yeah, it would be nice if they did get back together. Let’s just hope they don’t burn all their bridges before that happens.”

• Source: Manchester Evening News, by David Sue

Noel Gallagher reveals Richard Ashcroft provided the inspiration behind ‘Sally’ in "Don’t Look Back In Anger"

Noel Gallagher has revealed who came up with the ‘Sally’ line in "Don’t Look Back In Anger."

Speaking at a Q&A event at Glastonbury Festival, Gallagher revealed that The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft actually provided the inspiration behind for the song.

“About a year ago I was doing a gig with Richard Ashcroft. I always thought it was Liam that came up with Sally, but Richard said ‘it was me'” Gallagher said.

“Richard Ashcroft claims he came up with the name,” he added. “But I got all the swimming pools and fucking massive TVs.”

Noel was introducing a screening of Supersonic at William’s Green. During the 10-minute talk he spoke about how his era of bands partied so hard, they might have ruined it for the new crop of rockstars.

“I think bands like Oasis, Primal Scream and The Verve – we might have ruined it. Because if your share price depends on us… well, then you can fuck off. Harry Styles isn’t going to be fucking coked up at Glastonbury. So we might have ruined it for the next generation.”

He also discussed the response from Manchester following May’s terror attack, and how ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ became an anthem for the city. “I gotta say, I was sat at home watching the minute’s silence when they starting singing, and for the first time in my life I was fucking speechless,” Gallagher said.

“I was honestly taken aback. Even now, I still don’t know what to say. The fact that people rallied around this song.”

Noel also iterated that he wasn’t playing the festival this summer – but that a new album is coming out later this year.

• Source: NME, by Thomas Smith

Spiritualized, The Verve, and 1997’s Biggest Secret Love Triangle

Twenty years ago, two of the UK's biggest acts were quiet rivals, and the result is one of the most important albums of that year.

June 16, 1997 will forever be immortalized in music history as the day Radiohead welcomed their third and most influential album, OK Computer, into the world. But its long shadow often covers the release of another great album by a different innovative UK rock band: Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating In Space. And while these two 20-year-old albums might have enough in common to seem like natural counterparts (i.e. Spiritualized supported Radiohead on their 1998 North American tour), Ladies and Gentlemen has a far deeper connection with another album that also turns 20 this year: The Verve's Urban Hymns.

From their beginnings, Spiritualized and The Verve were celestial brethren. Both bands formed in 1990, undoubtedly with a mutual love for Pink Floyd's The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and an appetite for drug-taking: Jason "J Spaceman" Pierce founded Spiritualized from the ashes of his previous band, heroin-championing trance rockers Spacemen 3, while Verve (then without a "The"), led by the charismatic Richard "Mad Dick" Ashcroft, was a gang of teenagers that enjoyed trippin' balls on LSD. They each jammed eternal, though with distinct styles: Pierce favored extended, pedal-heavy drones, while Verve conceived loose, reverb-soaked grooves. Following the release of Spiritualized's debut album, Lazer Guided Melodies, and Verve's debut single, "All In The Mind," in 1992, the two bands toured the UK together. For the next couple of years, the bands seemed to follow a similar path, on course for cult worship.

Spiritualized has always been and forever will be Jason Pierce. The gaunt, straggly-haired Spaceman as he was called, formed the band in 1990 as Spacemen 3 was crumbling from the result of his acrimonious relationship with paper-thin bandmate Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, a 24/7 shades wearer with a bowl cut. A lot of it had to do with two songwriters going in different directions and likely drugs, but the presence of Pierce's then-girlfriend, the Calvin Klein-modelesque Kate Radley, was also to blame. According to Kember, Radley put a strain on band relations by following the band around wherever they played, be it the studio, rehearsal, or gigs. Once the band imploded, Pierce recruited the remaining S3 members, sans Kember, for his new band, Spiritualized. After the release of their debut single, "Anyway That You Want Me," Radley joined the band on keyboards, adding a face to Pierce's muse for songs like "I Want You" and "If I Were With Her Now." After joining in 1991, Radley became as synonymous with Spiritualized as Pierce, appearing in all press photos, sometimes just the two of them. They appeared as a match made in the heaven he so often referred to in his music.

 In 1995, Spiritualized added "Electric Mainline" to their name for some reason and released the magnificent Pure Phase, an album of transcendental, cosmic R&B designed to "play loud 'n' drive fast." Verve, meanwhile, was forced to add "The" to their name, thanks to a lawsuit by the record label of the same name. Unlike Spiritualized Electric Mainline, The Verve would stick. They too released an album, A Northern Soul, which followed up their 1993 debut, A Storm In Heaven. Moving on from their early cavernous psych-rock, A Northern Soul was a game-changer. Led by Ashcroft's emotive voice, Nick McCabe's virtuosic guitar work, and Oasis producer Owen Morris' larger-than-life production, The Verve moved into a whole new stratosphere: the mainstream. Although the album is carried by a spirit that is equal parts Floyd and Zeppelin (see the rumbling low-end vibes of "Life's An Ocean" or the ecstatic rave-up "This Is Music"), it was the ballads, "On Your Own" and "History," that helped them crack the Top 30 and reveal Ashcroft, now referred to by Noel Gallagher as "Captain Rock," as one of the UK's most compelling songwriters.