Originally published in Uncut’s January 2007 issue (Take 116). Interview: Stephen Troussé Richard Ashcroft seems to have been definitively caught in the public imagination by the iconic video for The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony”: the swaggering, leather-jacketed loner, striding determine...
What do you think of today’s young bands?
Liz D, Roehampton
I think it’s easy today for people to become very stylised, whereas a lot of great music comes from people who don’t really know what they’re doing. I said it years back, that we had a Xerox culture, where you could take one record from your record collection and base a whole album on that. And the same will happen when people start sounding like Blur or Oasis or Verve or Radiohead. But history is there to be learned from, and there will always be magpies. The Beatles were the biggest magpies in the history of rock’n’roll!
Has your family become your religion?
Doris Csida, via email
My family’s my family, you know. You’ve got to answer some big questions when they’re growing up, so there’s always going to be a pursuit for a truth for yourself. It’s been a mind-blowing experience. But at the same time as experiencing an immense wave of love you feel a sense of mortality as well. Your nihilistic sense of time completely changes because you’re not living for the next morning. You’ve got to think about life differently. To say it’s a religion is not true, but as far as completely altering how you look at yourself and life, definitely.
Do your kids realise who you are?
Daniel O’Rourke, Dublin
They know that I make music. Some of their friends know my songs. One of my son’s friends at school, he’s obsessed with a couple of tracks and conducts it from the stereo. I caught them singing “Break The Night With Colour” the other day. Both of them singing together in the playroom and it’s just a beautiful thing. It’s great! And hopefully I can leave some kind of legacy they can be proud of when they’re older.
