INTERVIEW - Richard Ashcroft by Nadia Jaynes (Pictures - Nina Jaynes)

Richard Ashcroft is one of the few musicians in this country that can actually claim to be a legend in his own lifetime. How could we ever forget the former Verve front-man who brought us anthems like Bitter Sweet Symphony and The Drugs Don’t Work? Things went a bit quiet on the Mad Richard front after his first solo album Human Conditions was given a luke-warm reception by critics and family commitments beckoned. But the world wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Mr Ashcroft and he was given a heroes welcome when he joined Chris Martin on stage at Live 8 to sing Bitter Sweet Symphony. His latest album Keys To The World stormed in at number two and has gone platinum already and he’s been touring the USA playing to crowds of 20,000 a night supporting Coldplay. I caught up with the man himself as he prepares to play his biggest ever solo gig at Lancashire Cricket Ground in Old Trafford on the 17th June. Try as I might to edit this down, there were just too many good bits, so I have left this interview as it occurred with Richard leaping from one subject to another, the ramblings of a madman? – definitely not, but you people better be listening, this guy's got a lot to say.

Q - Is it important to you that you have such a loyal fan base in the North? Are you excited about playing Lancashire Cricket Ground?

A - It’s very important to me, I probably sell more records in Piccadilly Records than anywhere in the world. When I first played here with Oasis, it was quite difficult because it’s hard to do such a large scale gig in what could be called a corporate atmosphere and make people still feel relaxed, but at Old Trafford, because it’s not a football shaped pitch it allows people to find a corner and sit down and relax a little. Many concerts and festivals have become so corporate that we all walk around thinking that we’re free – but then there’s cash-points there and we’re all walking around desiring things as we do every day anyway. So if you want to play a gig this size I just think this is a good location, but you also have to have the songs to do it, I mean from day one Oasis have had the right songs and I have to thank them for being an inspiration. That gig with Oasis was quite a turning point, it’s probably why I’m here today because originally I was going to play in Wigan but there was a lot of red tape and bureaucracy. In the end I just thought I wanna do a big gig in the North West and Manchester’s not too far from Wigan or Liverpool or even Scotland if people want to come down and Manchester’s buzzing at the moment. I’ve got a massive connection with the city, not only through football but also through travelling as a kid from Wigan on the bus and the train to go and buy records. So to cut a long story short there were a lot of reasons other than being able to pack 30,000 people into here.

Q - When you release a new album do you have any idea how the songs are going to come over in a venue as big as this?

A - I’ve been very lucky in my career in that once I started writing real songs with real blues and real pain then as long as I had a strong enough melody it shouldn’t matter if you play to twenty people or twenty thousand it comes across. I’ve just come of a tour in the States with Coldplay playing to 20,000 people a night and even as a support act I had a packed out house applauding on their feet. I’m not afraid of playing to a bigger crowd I actually prefer it. I like the fact that this is our church it’s our chance to celebrate life and all this love, this pain and this misery and everything else in between, concerts have always been about that. When I saw The Stone Roses in Warrington, it changed my life and I’ve got them to thank, I’ve got Joy Division to thank I’ve got The Smiths to thank I’ve got so many people from this area to thank for turning me on and changing my life. I think if you write music from the heart and the right place then you will always connect to the guy on the street but it’s whether the guy on the street is given the chance to connect with your music and that’s down to the radio pluggers. If people had played my last album it would have connected with people on the street but at that period we were obsessed with bands form New York and we considered a guy who was thirty to be over the hill. It’s like we can’t put him on the cover of NME or The Face cos the guys thirty. But I’m very fortunate that I’ve managed to write a few songs that will outlive me and outlive any of my critics and I’m very lucky that I’m an artist who has been loved and discovered in his own lifetime rather than waiting to die to be a box set and everyone realise or pretend that they were into me. I’m also very lucky that the medium I work in is music not oil painting, because a painting is put in one mans room or a gallery whereas music is universal and music now is free if you want it to be. If I look back at when we played a gig at Wigan, the amount of dreams that were conjured up that day, you then get to a realisation about what this is, it’s not just about me playing a big gig it’s about kids being in the crowd and perhaps going to the same school as me or being born in the same hospital as me or being on the same bus as me and growing up with the same dreams and seeing a guy who in one way has fulfilled something that they want to do. That’s why football and cricket and the Ashes are so incredible because when it’s done in its purest form sport and music purify a world that is crazy. They should give us hope and an idea that we can overcome whatever’s going on. That’s why I enjoy the link between sport and music, I’m proud to play here. The Ashes helped the country to overcome home grown terrorism without that Ashes series we’d have been pretty hopeless. The government should be looking at that they should invest massively in playing fields, football and music and understand that without the investment into the grass roots of this country we will never run together we’ll always be divided as a community. That’s why music and football are so powerful, they can do things that politicians can only dream about because they’re so short sighted. I mean people who run record companies these days work in the stock market and they expect a report every few months on how the labels doing, so if you’re trying to have a career amongst this it’s very difficult if you haven’t had a top ten hit. But new technology that’s coming along to enable people to open their own record companies like The Arctic Monkeys did is showing that you don’t have to rely on the man to create your own industry or your own vibe or identity. That’s why my last single was Music Is Power, not because it’s catchy witty little remark it’s because I believe in it and I believe that if you have a gift you shouldn’t throw it away, you should try and show as many people as you can and turn them on and enjoy your time on this planet. You probably don’t even have to ask me another question because in that one monologue is the whole reason that I’m here today.

Q - How important is it for you to have Pete Salisbury with you who’s been there from the start? I noticed on your album sleeve you said a big thank you to him

A - It’s very important. I’ve just been to America with him and for a lot of bands it’s when you get to America or when you’re in America or just after you get back that things tend to go wrong, so it was very cathartic for us to realise that we can be musicians, we can tour and things can go alright. I think there’s always a relationship between a singer/songwriter and the drummer because a lot of the time in the studio you’ll go and nail a track just with the drummer, and a drummer knows when a vocalist is stop or when I’m gonna got to a different place. But these things take a long time and a lot of work before you don’t have to think. An essential part of what I do is to have Pete around, because take away the drum and he’s just a lovely human being who makes life a lot brighter for me and easier to deal with when I’m on the road.

Q - Who’s your favourite of the new crop of indie bands?

A - I like a guy from America called Joseph Arthur, he released an album last year called Our Shadows Will Remain. Then like everyone else I’ll say The Arctic Monkeys, I’m excited and I’m worried. I mean whatever their story is will be, but he’s a very young guy and you’d be surprised how when you’re like honey there can be millions of bees all buzzing round and everyone wants their little bit. But as long as he has a tight knit community around him that can deflect a lot of that pressure, then he’s got a tremendously bright future because he’s whizzing with his lyrics and also their music is odd. I can’t nail it I don’t know what it is, and I don’t think they do and I love bands that don’t know what they’re doing. The Happy Mondays didn’t know what they were playing but they created such a wonderful sound because they listened to the cream of music and they weren’t musical snobs. They just knew what was right whether it was funkadelic or New Order or Acid House whatever, it was all in there. I mean there’s millions of people who haven’t even come out yet and you don’t wanna make life too easy for people. I mean we sold demo’s to our mates to get money to got to London, but we’re in a different age now. There’s all this rhetoric and middle management and talk about redevelopment of inner city’s but they still don’t appreciate the power of music and creativity. If you show a kid a paintbrush and some paint or a brick you’ll be surprised that they’ll pick the paint up every time and start creating, but we just don’t have the facility for it. I know that from being a kid of 15 or 16 trying to find anywhere to make music in a loud way that wasn’t going to bring the council down. It was very difficult then and it remains difficult. If I had the time or the facilities I’d create a Motown label or something like that and find the real talent in this country, not the kinds who get up on stage only to be told by three nobodies that they can’t sing, I’m talking about the real talent. That’s the culture we live in at the moment there’s someone like me and there’s someone like Louis and we’re on a crash course, but ultimately it will be my records that they all listen to in fifty years time none of the pop idols. Not one of them that’s come out of that fake situation, not one of those records that they’ve spent millions on from those TV shows will be listened to in twenty years time. The only thing it does culturally for us is to make us realise how strong the power of advertising really is.

Q - What’s been the influence of Chris Martin on your recent career? He’s championed you and put you back on the stage in front of millions of people.

A - I think the biggest influence was standing up for my last album when most of my peers were too fearful because they thought I wasn’t cool. Cool is a concept that doesn’t exist in my language anyway. I hate the word cool I think it’s constricting. Cool is the kind of thing that stops you listening to The Carpenters and thinking that Karen Carpenter had one of the greatest voices of all time, cool is the thing that’s stops you listening to ABBA, cool is the thing that had loads of punks not listening to Jimmy Hendrix. Cool doesn’t exist and I think if there’s anything that Chris has got is it doesn’t exist in his dictionary as well for many reasons. He was positive about me at a time when other people weren’t, so I respect that. Chris Martin is a great guy but he isn’t Merlin he isn’t someone who turns a shit singer into a great singer he’s just someone who respects what I’ve done. I mean just because I’m not re-branded as McAshcroft or Nike Ashcroft I’m still the same guy that turned on the world with Bitter Sweet Symphony and The Drugs Don’t Work.

Q - Do you feel that the focus of your song-writing has changed much over the years?

A - I feel that I’ve changed, I don’t feel that my focus has changed. I cried for the first time on stage a few months ago and I don’t cry much. I cried to The Drugs Don’t Work it was like the first time I’d ever actually felt it or listened to the lyric almost. I’ve been stopped many times by people who’ve been affected by that song, maybe I wrote it but I’ve never really been affected by it. So it isn’t the song-writing that’s changed, it’s me that’s changed. I’m appreciating the words and lyrics and melodies that I’m able to write. Sometimes it’s like the songs and the words are bigger than me because they’re timeless. I’ve never outgrown my songs and that’s why I can still play a concert like this eight or nine years after those songs were written. Pretty much most of the southern press have tried to nail me and bury me as a solo artist. On my last album if The Times Culture Magazine could have called my album a pile of dog-shit they would have done. I remember thinking I love the Sunday Times I don’t mind I’ll buy it next week and Gareth Gates album was reviewed a week later and in the parting shot was this album shows great promise and I thought I see where we’re going. People didn’t hear from me for five years because I thought if that’s where we’re going culturally as a country then great, but you ain’t a part of my life. I mean what I put into songs it’s private it’s personal there’s things about my songs that I’ll never tell people and once you start writing music for a crowd it’s a slippery slope. Once you’ve written a song you don’t own it any more and that goes back to Live 8 the biggest eye-opener for me was how much I didn’t own Bitter Sweet Symphony at all, in any way never mind financially. As a song we all own Bitter Sweet Symphony. We all live it every day it’s good to give it up and realise that once you’ve written an album forget the idea that you have any kind of ownership.

Q - What next for you?

A - In the next few days I’m gonna try and do an alternative football song and I want the proceeds to go directly to a cancer charity. I’m also doing an England v Germany football match and I’m giving my earning to the teenage cancer trust. I’ve squandered a lot of time and I need to make up for lost time. It’s not to be negative about Embrace's song at all, or be in competition with them. I’m doing one because I like to be the alternative. People are worried that if the Arctic Monkeys hadn’t released their album I’d have been number one, but I’m happy to be number two. Don’t think I have this burning ambition to be number one. I’ve got an album that’s still in the top fifty that was released nine years ago, that’s eight times platinum. It’s a different game plan. I think I’m gonna do Come On People but call it Come On England. I want to do an album with people doing my covers. It’s rubbish that the best songs have already been written they haven’t. I’m looking forward to expanding what I do and my next English tour.