Jacket by Alpha Industries; sunglasses by Ray-Ban. Photographs Dean Chalkley Styling Mark Anthony Bradley Words Andy Thomas Photographic Assistants Charlie Beerling and Gideon Marshall Styling Assistant Bradley Stainton Production Amy Foster and Anna Gibson at Lo and Behold loandbeholdproductions.com Runner Michaela Efford Equipment Three Four Snap threefoursnap.com On the release of These People, his first solo album in six years, Richard Ashcroft discusses digital versus analogue, insanity and psychedelia, and making music in his basement. J&N 73 Richard Ashcroft The backdrop to Richard Ashcroft’s latest Ashcroft ‘Captain Rock’ before dedicating If I turned the radio on, I would solo album, These People, was, he felt, the song ‘Cast No Shadow’ to him, from the hear ‘Lucky Man’ or I’d meet decidedly turbulent. He has described it album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? someone on the street and they’d I started to think, is it enough in 2016 to just have four or five as a time of contentious wars, grassroots The Verve’s most critically acclaimed LP say, “Nice one Richard, thanks movements turning into semi-revolutions, Urban Hymns from 1997 spawned the huge for that tune.” And that keeps guys churning out stuff that essentially you could have seen such as the events in Tahrir Square, people hit singles ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, ‘The you in the present every day. So divided and a sense that everything was Drugs Don’t Work’, and ‘Lucky Man’. during any gap I take I’m always in 1972? falling to pieces across the world. It was to be the band’s last LP (until they feeding off the fact that I wrote “ It is also Ashcroft’s first release since reformed eight years ago for the album tunes that people loved and still we are already on a loser. Your 2010 under the pseudonym RPA and the Forth) before the lead singer set out on his love. But no matter who you are Jacket by Belstaff; jeans by Lee; sunglasses by Ray-Ban. components for your art are really United Nations of Sound. On the single solo career. Released in 2000, Ashcroft’s you can get in a kind of rut. Then limited if you just come at it from ‘Born Again’, from the album United Alone with Everybody included the single about a year and half ago my the old angle. But even going Nations of Sound, Ashcroft sang: “Now ‘A Song for the Lovers’ with a video by momentum changed and I’ve back to ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, I’m a man who ain’t afraid, I’ve destroyed Sexy Beast and Under the Skin director been working every day to take I was always looking at different my ego just to make the space, cause I’m Jonathan Glazer. Ashcroft followed the LP it to the next level. ways of writing through sampling born again. When I feel a melody, I get a with Human Conditions, his most personal a three-chord thing and building righteous charge right through me.” And release to date. “When I’m low, and I’m You began this LP in your on it. In a way, I’ve come back to it is his unbridled belief in the power of weak, and I’m lost I don’t know who I can basement studio. How important a reality in the music world that music to both heal and agitate that has trust. Paranoia, the destroyer, comes was that time? is tailor-made for me, in that made him one of the most misunderstood knocking on my door. You know the pain Very important, that was the genres are breaking down. rock stars of his generation. drifts to days, turns to nights, but it slowly amazing for me. Most interviews With the rise of electronic music It’s been that way since Ashcroft and will subside,” sang Ashcroft on the lead I have done in my life have ended the doors have opened for a a group of friends from Wigan in the north single ‘Check the Meaning’. And he has up not talking about music. songwriter. The game is on now of England formed the Verve and signed subsequently spoken of his struggles with Because I was a pretty face or – Jimi Hendrix died a long time to Hut Records in 1990. “I believe you can depression. “Without music and creativity, I was this or that there was this ago and there are not many of fly and I believe in astral travel, because, I’d need other forms of therapy,” he told idea that I was not as valid as a those virtuoso guitar guys who if I thought I was just going to walk around The Daily Telegraph. “But for me, the life Wire magazine guy or whatever. can come up with something in this place for the next 50 years, I don’t process is the process of healing yourself.” But I am there in my basement those first few bars that can blow think I could exist,” he proclaimed in 1992 It was four years before Ashcroft trying to work out Linn’s new your mind. There are only so prior to the release of their acid-drenched returned with his next LP, Keys to the drum machine, I am working on many places you can go with single ‘All in the Mind’. The group’s love of World, after he took time out to bring Moog’s new bass thing. I’m trying a basic instrument, but when psychedelia resulted in their debut album up his two kids with Kate Radley, former to work on an old synth that I’ve you start with the sounds from A Storm in Heaven, which can now be seen keyboardist with Spiritualized. And it has never used before and trying to computers it can just engulf as a link between the album H.P. Lovecraft been an even longer break between United find my way around it in the you because the possibilities are II by American psychedelic rock band Nations of Sound and These People. The language of that machine. insane. But at the same time, H. P. Lovecraft in 1968 and Sun Structures new LP sees him working again with Wil And also looking at how those it doesn’t matter how many by Temples in 2014. Brian Cannon, who Malone, strings arranger for the Verve’s machines can be incorporated plug-ins you use it doesn’t sound would later create iconic sleeves for Urban Hymns, and French electronic into the classic nature of what like the real thing. It’s been a real Oasis, designed the cover. And it was producer Mirwais on what could well I do. So all those creative things transition for me using both Noel Gallagher who nicknamed Richard be his best solo album yet. that were in my head were digital and analogue. thrashed around in my cellar, It’s been six years since your last LP, why which gave me lots of freedom. When was the transition from the gap? your basement to London’s There were lots of different reasons. But the Did you have any of that creative Sugar Cane Studios and what thing is people are coming to this with the space prior to any of your happened in that process. concept that time away from making music other LPs? I took it to other studios first. I is either time wasted or redundant time. So I had a bit of preparation before had what I thought was a finished it’s their concept of time. I believe being away Human Conditions, but this is album. But I came to the from that pressure on time is the best time the first time since Urban Hymns conclusion that it wasn’t clear spent. What are we working for and what are that I’ve really had the full time enough. There were great we rushing through life for? But in a way it to refine things and also to reject moments of musicality but I felt was a novel experience and an unusual thing, shit and hone things down. like I needed to reconnect again as musicians usually get on that gravy train with songs that communicate and they can’t get off. Listening to the LP it sounds like something that is very real and the mix of analogue and digital basic. Then songs like ‘Black Is that because the music industry expects has been really important. Lines’ and ‘These People’ came the artist to have an album out every couple I really started to dwell on the and there started to be a theme. It of years? way we are going and what is was like I was fighting for my own Yes, exactly, and also the star thing and rock’n’roll. Is it enough in 2016 space and freedom so there was maintaining a level of celebrity influences to just have four or five guys an internal battle for that. And the whole of this. The industry can’t imagine churning out stuff that essentially then at the same time, over the not posting something on social media from you could have seen in 1972? years of making this record, there one hour to the next, never mind a number of Plus, you are competing against had been outbreaks of resistance years. But the thing was that during this gap, electronic music and hip-hop. in various parts of the world. You my music from the past was still being played.