Richard Paul Ashcroft (born September 11 1971 in
Billinge Maternity Hospital, Billinge Higher End,
Lancashire) is an English singer-songwriter. He is the lead singer of The Verve, an English
rock band that he helped form in 1989.
The Verve suffered huge ups and downs in its first 10 years of existence, from great disappointment and lack of critical and
commercial success on the band's first 2 albums (although they are now hailed by the music press and believed to be underrated)
to and impressive popularity in the late 90's with the release of Urban Hymns in
1997. in 2000, after their second break-up, Ashcroft embarked on a successful solo career. Ashcroft released three solo albums,
the last being 2006's Keys to the World.
The Verve has broken up three times before, but announced a reunion with a short tour in November 2007 and an album to
follow.
Biography
Early Life: 1971-1989
Ashcroft grew up in Skelmersdale, Lancashire. His
father died when Richard was 11. Ashcroft soon fell under the influence of his stepfather, who belonged to the Rosicrucians.
While in Skelmersdale, Ashcroft was an avid football player, and he still closely
follows his favourite team, Manchester United. He has also admitted to cheering
for Wigan Athletic, since he actually played for the youth team when he was
young.
The Verve years: 1989-1999
Ashcroft formed The Verve (although until 1994 it was named simply Verve) in 1989 with his high school friends. The band
members shared a collective liking for the Beatles, Pink
Floyd, The Raspberries, Funkadelic, and
Krautrock, as well as a near-legendary appetite for psychedelic drugs. They were signed to Hut
Records and became a critical hit soon after.
The band released the Verve EP in December 1992 before their first full-length album,
A Storm in Heaven, came out in mid-1993. It was a critical smash and extremely
popular in the underground public, but it failed to match that kind of success in the mainstream. Around this time the band
changed their name to The Verve due to legal reasons. Afterwards they released an album with outtakes and b-sides entitled
No Come Down in 1994. 1995 saw the release of the awaited album A Northern Soul. Here the band departed from the neo-psychedelic sounds of A Storm in Heaven
and focused more on conventional alternative rock, although signs of their early sound are still present in the record. During
this time the band was named as a member of the popular Britpop movement, mostly due to the band's friendship with Oasis rather
than their music. However, this second album, and more significantly the third, contained signs of influence from other Britpop
bands. Popularity increased, but album sales were somehow a disappointment for the band (although it outsold the previous record)
and Ashcrodt disbanded the band for a few weeks. When he tried to re-group them, he found an unwilling Nick McCabe. So a new guitarist was needed and after months of uncertainty, Simon Tong, a friend of the band, filled in.
From autumn '96 to spring '97 the band worked on the third album. In 1997 McCabe returned, a little over a year after his
departure. The five members finished Urban Hymns and the release was in September
1997. With the release of the first single off the album the band saw never-imagined popularity. The song Bitter Sweet Symphony turned out to be one of the greatest songs of the decade and the album, a
commercial and critical hit in both sides of the Atlantic. The album is regarded as a highlight in the timeline of Britpop and
rock music from the 90's, maybe being the last commercial success from alternative British acts in the US market, until the
arrival of artists like Coldplay, James Blunt and others,
at least 5 years later. The band toured all over the world in the period 1997-8. But Nick McCabe suddenly pulled out of the tour,
being his last gig with the band in their hometown Wigan in front of 40,000 fans in 1998. The band continued several months later
without Nick, until April '99, when the band decided to announce their split.
Solo Career: 1999-2007
Alone with Everybody
Richard Ashcroft had already been working in solo material as early as 1996 when The Verve was in hiatus after he had left
after the failure of A Northern Soul. Some of his work intended for his solo
career were later found in the band's next album Urban Hymns. But it was not until
after the dissolution of The Verve in 1999 that he dedicated entirely to his new career.
In early 2000 he released his first single as a solo artist. "A Song for the
Lovers" peaked at #3 in the UK charts in April. The song and its video were admired by the critics. The new album was
named Alone with Everybody and received mixed reviews, although most
positive, and it gained incredible responses from the public. A few weeks before the release, the single "Money To Burn" was out and entered the UK Top 20 at number 17. Alone with Everybody was released in
June and reached number 1 and received Platinum status in the United Kingdom. In September a third single was released.
"C'mon People (We're Making It Now)" entered the charts just one
position away from the Top 20.
Human Conditions
Richard started working on his next album in 2002. The new album Human
Conditions counted with the collaboration of Beach Boys founder, Brian Wilson in the last track, Nature is the
Law and explored very much the same sound that Richard's first record. The single "Check
the Meaning" was released just a few weeks prior to the release the LP and it peaked at #11. The second single,
"Science of Silence" was released in January 2003 and charted at #14.
"Buy It in Bottles" was released afterwards and missed the Top 20, charting at #26.
Generally the critics considered the album as a big failure for Ashcroft compared to Alone with Everybody. Most of the criticized aspects of the record were its lyrical content and
overproduction, for example the extensive use of strings in most of the songs. Commercial success did not match the previous
record standards and the album received very little promotion or airplay outside the UK. The album is commonly referred as an
underrated album for many rock critics.
Live 8 and Keys to the World
In July 2005 Richard returned to the public after months away from the media. He took part in the Live 8 concert in London
where he sang along Coldplay his song "Bitter Sweet
Symphony". Chris Martin introduced him as "the best singer in the world" when he
performed the song (which Martin called "probably the best song ever written"). This made the press turn their attention back to
him after years.
Ashcroft's third solo album, Keys to the World, was recorded with the
co-operation of the London Metropolitan Orchestra, and released on
January 23, 2006, by Parlophone. The first single from the album, "Break the Night
with Colour", was released on January 9, 2006, and
entered the UK Singles Chart at number 3. Around the time of the album's release,
Ashcroft announced his largest UK tour for years for May 2006, culminating in three nights at London's Brixton Academy. He opened for the second half of Coldplay's tour, starting March 14, 2006, in Ottawa. The second single
released was "Music Is Power", which charted at number 20.
In 18 April he recorded a the Live from London
EP, the ninth in a a series of EPs released exclusively as digital downloads from Apple's iTunes Store. The EP was
released just 6 days later on the 24th. Richard hinted a probable release of a new version of the song "C'mon People (We're
Making It Now)" to coincide with England's participation in the 2006 Football World
Cup. The single (entitled C'mon England by Richard in an interview in May) never materialized. Instead, the next
single was "Words Just Get in the Way", which charted lower than the previous,
barely making it into the Top 40 at the number 40 position after receiving barely any promotion or airplay. In December the
double a-side single "Why Not Nothing" / "Sweet Brother
Malcolm" was released in limited size editions.
He recorded a live performance for Live From Abbey Road on 11 December 2006. The episode that he shared with Norah Jones and John Mayer was aired in the UK on Channel 4 in March 2007 and
in the USA on the Sundance Channel in June 2007.
The Verve reunion: 2007-present
It was announced on Richard's official site that after 8 years since their acrimonious split, The Verve have reformed. They
are to release an album which will coincide with a tour in November 2007. The tour starts in Glasgow on the 2 November, and will include 6 performances across the UK, at The Glasgow Academy, The Empress Ballroom and
the London Roundhouse. In a statement the band said they were "getting back together for the joy of the music". The six shows
sold out in an impressive 20 minute record.
Personal life
Ashcroft is married to Kate Radley, the former keyboard player for British
shoegaze band Spiritualized. Together, they have two
sons: Sonny, born in 2000, and Cassius, born in 2004.
He is good friends with Oasis' Noel Gallagher
and Coldplay's Chris Martin (whom Ashcroft once thanked
for "letting me be myself again"), and occasionally plays as support at Oasis and Coldplay concerts, including the European and
second UK legs of Coldplay's 'Twisted Logic Tour'. He recently described himself as "the best support act you'll ever see." The
Gallagher brothers for a long time have expressed the greatest of respect to Ashcroft and the Oasis track "Cast No Shadow", included in the successful album 1995 (What's the Story) Morning Glory? is dedicated to him, and it is believed that
Ashcroft dedicated The Verve's 1995 song "A Northern Soul" to Gallagher as a
response.
Controversy
On more than one occasion, Ashcroft and his bandmates have run into trouble by borrowing words and ideas from other artists.
The most notable of these conflicts spawned from The Verve's biggest hit, "Bitter Sweet Symphony", which uses a sample of
Andrew Oldham Orchestra's recording of The Rolling Stones' 1965 song "The Last Time". In a
well-publicized legal decision, the Rolling Stones' record company was awarded 100 percent
of the royalties from "Bitter Sweet Symphony", and Mick
Jagger and Keith Richards were given songwriting credits along with Ashcroft.
Legal ownership of the song created further controversy when Jagger and Richards gave Nike,
Inc. license to use the song in one of its TV commercials, against The Verve's wishes. Another of Ashcroft's more
well-known adaptations is found in the song "History". The first two verses of
"History" are closely based on the first two stanzas of William Blake's poem
"London".
Ashcroft is also known for his problems regarding drugs. These were evidenced several times since the 1990s. Some examples of
this are his 1994 summer tour collapses due to ecstasy overdose. He and the band were
known for their heavy drug use, especially in the early and mid 90's.
In 2006, Ashcroft confessed to taking Prozac to help him with clinical depression, but said that they didn't help, referring to the pills as "very, very
synthetic." Ashcroft has said that he's always been "a depressive, someone who suffers from depression", and that music and
creativity help him cope with his illness.[1]
In 2006 he was arrested in Wiltshire after coming into a youth centre and asking to work
with the teenagers present at the club. He refused to leave and employees called the police, resulting in Ashcroft being arrested
and fined £80 for disorderly conduct.[2]
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
From Alone With Everybody
From Human Conditions
From Keys to the World
EPs
Cameos
Trivia
- Ashcroft was nicknamed "Mad Richard" by the UK press.
External links
- ^ http://www.londonnet.co.uk/entertainment/2006/Jan/883_20060117.html
- ^ http://www.nme.com/news/richard-ashcroft/23405
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