Steve Henderson
03/21/07, 04:44 PM
Ash Interview - 1.28.07
By: Robert Carlson
Absolutepunk.net: What was it like working with Owen Morris on 1977?
Ash: Owen is amazing, as a producer a true genius of his trade. He's also extremely unstable and likely to be in tears or chasing you with a rifle so you gotta be careful. He's a vibe merchant which you can really hear in his productions. He has the loudest laugh you'll ever hear and being in his company creates a manic atmosphere, He likes to dress you in drag, get you drunk then make you crash his car, pillage you with whatever chemicals are at hand and only then get you into the studio to start recording. No other person we've worked with comes close to him. He's very good with helping get precise 'pop' arrangements and if he thinks something sucks he'll tell you to your face and say do better! He's a maniac but a lovely person with a good heart and has always been and still is a dear friend.
AP: What was your reaction like when you received that call from Bono asking you to publicly campaign for the "Yes" vote in Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement referendum?
Ash: We were pretty stunned to get the call personally from Bono. The referendum was a huge deal for us to get involved in. The conversation resulted in us playing a part in the single most important event we have been involved in. Publicly campaigning for the "Yes" vote in Northern Ireland’s "Good Friday Agreement" referendum.
Growing up during the troubles meant becoming nothing but apathetic to the political stalemate and after years of violence we didn’t think twice before backing the option for peace. Most parties from across the political divide were united and a real new hope for Northern Ireland to move forward was on the table. The "No" campaigners were out to wreck it and looked to be getting their way in the polls. John Hume, leader of the SDLP, had talked to Bono and asked for his help to turn the tide, to make the press focus on the positive and stage a huge media event.
We felt that we had no option but to take part; this was history in the making. A historic concert at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall took place, Hume and ‘rival’ politician UUP leader David Trimble met on stage with Bono and shook hands. Ash and U2 performed together to a packed crowd of young voters and hoards of local and international press. The following week the papers were full of it and the positive publicity helped to pass the referendum.
Today the ceasefire still holds, the peace process is as always difficult but progresses, and Belfast prospers under investment not seen during the conflict. We might have only been used as pawns to an end but we were very humbled to have been involved at a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Since that show we have supported U2 on legs of their following 2 stadium tours.
AP: What was your first US headlining tour like?
Ash: Our first US headlining tour was back in 1996 after 1977 was released. We toured with geordie punk trio China Drum and had a great time. The shows were far from sold out, in some places we only played to a handful of people but we made the most of it and it was healthy to be brought down to earth after things were blowing up in Europe. We had a Vietnam veteran who was deaf driving our bus and he got us lost on a number of occasions. We broke down a lot and the bus was raided by heavy handed customs officers in the desert on the Mexican border. After that tour ended we were battle hardened and jumped on support tours with Stabbing Westward and Weezer. It was nice to play in front of packed crowds again and the Pinkerton tour was an honor to have been apart of.
AP: Will the new album be a departure from any of your previous records?
Ash: We've always tried to change it up with each record we make. Our new one is no different, after taking a harder direction on Meltdown with a slick west-coast 'rock' production we're trying something a bit rawer and for the most part more live sounding. In the new album (as yet untitled) you can hear elements from all of our previous work but we've been pushing ourselves as musicians and haven't been under any pressure to make it sound in any particular way, our label, Warners, has really just left us to it and let us do what we want. Having moved to New York and leased our own studio in Manhattan has been great too, we've had time to experiment with stuff and as it's the first time we've produced ourselves. The overall sound of the music is probably a bit more punk in attitude and less heavy than Meltdown was. As ever the songs have all gotta have strong melodies going on.
AP: What would you say is the best thing to happen to the band thus far?
Ash: The greatest thing for us is that we're still making albums and are able to tour the world 12 years after we left school to go full-time. None of us have ever had a 'proper' job and to be able to have a long career in music is extremely rare and hard to maintain in this day and age. We think the trick is to not try and follow any current trend or scene and just make whatever we feel like at the time. If you're never in fashion then it's hard to go out of fashion so we're happy to just keep doing our own thing and so far we've managed to make it work. Of-course there's ups and downs but we just feel grateful and lucky to still be around and are as hungry as ever to impress. Personal highlights have been going to No. 1 in the UK album charts twice. Taking part in the historical Northern-Irish Good Friday Peace Referendum show with U2, many amazing shows at huge festivals like Reading and Glastonbury, and getting to play with personal heros like Iggy Pop, Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters and David Bowie to name a few.
AP: What was your favorite tour to have been a part of?
Ash: We've had so many great tours over the years, had a lot of fun and made friends with so many people! It's hard to pick out favorites but we had an especially great time on tour with Saves The Day and Circle And Square when we toured across the States in 2002. Once we got to know each other it was so much fun, I remember a full on mosh-pit during a party on our bus one night including 'stage' diving off the buses tables as we speeded down the Interstate. They liked to play pranks on us while we were on stage by leaving polaroid pics of a character called Milton who'd be dressed in our clothes performing various 'acts'! We got them back on the last night when we invaded their stage dressed in full-on gimp outfits. Here's some pics that have never been seen before:
NOT SAFE FOR WORK:
Milton strikes! (http://i14.tinypic.com/2gtc5kj.jpg)
Milton the foot fetishist. (http://i5.tinypic.com/450xwkn.jpg)
Milton licks Charlottes boots. (http://i12.tinypic.com/4e0v8ns.jpg)
Milton on the can. (http://i10.tinypic.com/44buiom.jpg)
Attack Of The Gimps! (http://i5.tinypic.com/2l8aqdy.jpg)
The Big Day Out touring festival in Australia is an amazing tour, we took part on it in 1999 and had a fantastic time, more recently we toured the States with NY fashion punks The Bravery who turned out to be lovely guys. We all got on so well we ended up stark naked in some very uncompromising pictures that'll hopefully never see the light of day!
AP: How did your first album do in the US? Was it well received?
Ash: There's some confusion to what was our first real US album! Trailer (1995) was originally released as a 7 song mini-album in the UK but it had extra tracks added in the US and it technically counts as a full length album. We came over and did our first US tours then. We were only 17 signed to Reprise (the home of Green Day, around the time of Dookie), it was all our first times in the States and we did an eye-opening tour with Babes In Toyland and Minneapolis death metalers Dumpster Juice. Those guys' music was a lot harder than what we were playing but that didn't bother us. We'd just go on stage and bash out out sets and the crowds were very welcoming even though we weren't old enough to be in half the places we were playing. The whole drinking culture is so different here with the age limit higher and bars are so strict about ID-ing people that we had our label get us fake ones. There was no way we were going on tour and not party! "Jack Names The Planets" got picked up for the Angus soundtrack which was nice and Jackie Chan asked for "Kung Fu" to be used in Rumble In The Bronx.
1977 (1996) was really our official debut and after it exploded in Europe going to No. 1 in the UK, selling platinum there was quite a push for us by Reprise in the States. We had a big budget video made for "Girl From Mars" and we toured extensively doing our own shows. Everything looked to be going well as the album sold 60,000 pretty quickly but then we fucked the whole thing up! We were to have a back patting dinner session with MTV brass and the label. We ended up getting trashed and being rather rude which didn't impress anyone... The next day we turned up late for interviews at their studio, hung-over and vomiting in the green room etc... MTV decided we were losers and didn't add the video (they used to play music videos you know!) almost instantly the label pulled the plug. We really blew it big time but we were young kids who knew no better...
AP: What influences you guys nowadays? Are they mostly the same as when you guys first started?
Ash: We're always listening to new and old music, as far as main influences go we're well known for being big Nirvana, Pixies and Weezer fans, on the pop side of things we've always had big love for anything out of Motown, The Beach Boys and even Abba! Classic metal and rock influences can be heard from Thin Lizzy, Sabbath and The Stooges. You're always gonna pick up subconsciously on what you hear around you and it's good to be in New York and be surrounded by loads of different stuff to what's going on in the UK or London where we were based for over 8 years.
AP: Will you ever release a live CD or DVD?
Ash: We released a live version of our last album, Meltdown (2004)as a bonus CD on the initial limited edition UK release. It was the entire album recorded during a tour we did before release. A lot of fans tell us they prefer the live album to the studio one because it's more raw and energetic without all the studio gloss. We also released a live album around the time of 1977 called Live At The Wireless (1996) that was recorded at an Australian radio session and we also released a live DVD called Tokyo Blitz (2001) after the Free All Angels tour. We'll most definitely continue to record live shows in the future and plan to make the gigs available to download from our website.
We have a great fansite called The Ash Files which has loads of recordings and bootlegs that you can download. Check it out here (http://www.ashfiles.com).
You can watch Tokyo Blitz here (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=7561668&blogID=131838141&Mytoken=0C3282BF-22B3-4853-9424D63C78C22AA322637740).
AP: How many songs do you usually write before you enter the studio?
Ash: We usually demo a lot of songs up front before we start recording the album. With the current one we've demoed 30 songs and there were also loads of idea's that never got developed too far. After that process we picked out our favorites and recorded 14 for the album. We may try to record a few more but we're really happy with what we've got going on at the moment. It's always good to have a large pool of songs and idea's to choose from. We went into the studio to make Nu-Clear Sounds (1998)with very few songs completed, in hindsight we were rushed in too soon by the label, but they understandably wanted to capitalize on the success of 1977 and keep the momentum going.
AP: Where did you come up with the idea to shoot a short abstract film?
Ash: We shot this weird fucked-up Art movie called Love and Destruction at the start of 2003. It was the idea of a some French directors called Rojo who wanted to do an in-depth psycho analysis the band. We were up for it and filmed the whole thing over a few days in London. It got shown on domestic UK television and even had a screening at a theatre in London! It's got hypnotic regression, psychic healing, lyrical deconstruction, physical submission and a pretty experimental soundtrack that Tim put together. It could easily be called pretentious but that was the vibe the directors we're going for and we were happy to play along. the whole experience was very interesting for each of us and it's an abstract insight to our different personalities.
Love & Destruction runs at about 25 mins and you can watch it here (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individua l&videoID=1138955817).
AP: Were you overwhelemed by everything that happened over the first few years?
Ash: Well yeah, looking back on it we were. At the time we'd probably have said we were fine but we all lost the plot at various times as it got quite mental. Saying that it was an amazing experience, we toured the world for 18 months. 1977 sold a million albums by the age of 18 and we were out of our minds the entire time. We were kinda thrown in the deep end and burnt ourselves out emotionally and physically. By the time we were due to record the follow up album Nu-Clear Sounds we were a wreck. That album was a difficult time but we learnt a lot from it and managed to bounce back with the next album Free All Angels.
AP: What are your future tour plans?
Ash: We're gonna start touring again in February in the UK, the dates are currently being finalized. We'll start off doing a tour of universities and then tour again around the album's release in May/June. We'll also be doing lots in Ireland, Europe, Japan, Australia and the US and hopefully a bunch of festivals across Europe in the summer. It really depends on how successful the album is, if it's huge then they'll be more of a demand for us to keep touring and if that happens we're ready! We all love traveling and getting to do it for a living is amazing. (This first tour is all ready announced and sold out)
AP: How far along in the recording process are you?
Ash: We got almost all of the recording finished (as of Dec 8th). All the guitars, bass, drums are nailed. Tim's about half way through the main vocals. There's bits and pieces of things to do like synths which we've been experimenting with and we're getting strings recorded on 2 of the songs which is happening in a week or so. We're also now at the point we're we're finishing off potential singles and it's pretty exciting to hear things getting close to how they'll finally sound. We're mixing the whole album in New York in January and that'll hopefully raise the bar another few notches.
For a sneak peak there's a bunch of video from the studio that you can hear bits and pieces from on our MySpace Blog (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=7561668&MyToken=9b6e7cb7-2b94-4f15-a8f7-f3551f3ec04aML).
AP: When can we expect the new album?
Ash: Well as I said we haven't got a title yet but the album's due to be released on Warners in late May or early June '07. We're also trying to give ourselves time to release two singles beforehand, along with a load of touring and promotion. We got a lot of ground to cover and in a way need to reintroduce ourselves to people. We've been locked up in a dark studio for most of 2006 so we're eager to get out and get the ball rolling!
By: Robert Carlson
Absolutepunk.net: What was it like working with Owen Morris on 1977?
Ash: Owen is amazing, as a producer a true genius of his trade. He's also extremely unstable and likely to be in tears or chasing you with a rifle so you gotta be careful. He's a vibe merchant which you can really hear in his productions. He has the loudest laugh you'll ever hear and being in his company creates a manic atmosphere, He likes to dress you in drag, get you drunk then make you crash his car, pillage you with whatever chemicals are at hand and only then get you into the studio to start recording. No other person we've worked with comes close to him. He's very good with helping get precise 'pop' arrangements and if he thinks something sucks he'll tell you to your face and say do better! He's a maniac but a lovely person with a good heart and has always been and still is a dear friend.
AP: What was your reaction like when you received that call from Bono asking you to publicly campaign for the "Yes" vote in Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement referendum?
Ash: We were pretty stunned to get the call personally from Bono. The referendum was a huge deal for us to get involved in. The conversation resulted in us playing a part in the single most important event we have been involved in. Publicly campaigning for the "Yes" vote in Northern Ireland’s "Good Friday Agreement" referendum.
Growing up during the troubles meant becoming nothing but apathetic to the political stalemate and after years of violence we didn’t think twice before backing the option for peace. Most parties from across the political divide were united and a real new hope for Northern Ireland to move forward was on the table. The "No" campaigners were out to wreck it and looked to be getting their way in the polls. John Hume, leader of the SDLP, had talked to Bono and asked for his help to turn the tide, to make the press focus on the positive and stage a huge media event.
We felt that we had no option but to take part; this was history in the making. A historic concert at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall took place, Hume and ‘rival’ politician UUP leader David Trimble met on stage with Bono and shook hands. Ash and U2 performed together to a packed crowd of young voters and hoards of local and international press. The following week the papers were full of it and the positive publicity helped to pass the referendum.
Today the ceasefire still holds, the peace process is as always difficult but progresses, and Belfast prospers under investment not seen during the conflict. We might have only been used as pawns to an end but we were very humbled to have been involved at a pivotal moment in our country’s history. Since that show we have supported U2 on legs of their following 2 stadium tours.
AP: What was your first US headlining tour like?
Ash: Our first US headlining tour was back in 1996 after 1977 was released. We toured with geordie punk trio China Drum and had a great time. The shows were far from sold out, in some places we only played to a handful of people but we made the most of it and it was healthy to be brought down to earth after things were blowing up in Europe. We had a Vietnam veteran who was deaf driving our bus and he got us lost on a number of occasions. We broke down a lot and the bus was raided by heavy handed customs officers in the desert on the Mexican border. After that tour ended we were battle hardened and jumped on support tours with Stabbing Westward and Weezer. It was nice to play in front of packed crowds again and the Pinkerton tour was an honor to have been apart of.
AP: Will the new album be a departure from any of your previous records?
Ash: We've always tried to change it up with each record we make. Our new one is no different, after taking a harder direction on Meltdown with a slick west-coast 'rock' production we're trying something a bit rawer and for the most part more live sounding. In the new album (as yet untitled) you can hear elements from all of our previous work but we've been pushing ourselves as musicians and haven't been under any pressure to make it sound in any particular way, our label, Warners, has really just left us to it and let us do what we want. Having moved to New York and leased our own studio in Manhattan has been great too, we've had time to experiment with stuff and as it's the first time we've produced ourselves. The overall sound of the music is probably a bit more punk in attitude and less heavy than Meltdown was. As ever the songs have all gotta have strong melodies going on.
AP: What would you say is the best thing to happen to the band thus far?
Ash: The greatest thing for us is that we're still making albums and are able to tour the world 12 years after we left school to go full-time. None of us have ever had a 'proper' job and to be able to have a long career in music is extremely rare and hard to maintain in this day and age. We think the trick is to not try and follow any current trend or scene and just make whatever we feel like at the time. If you're never in fashion then it's hard to go out of fashion so we're happy to just keep doing our own thing and so far we've managed to make it work. Of-course there's ups and downs but we just feel grateful and lucky to still be around and are as hungry as ever to impress. Personal highlights have been going to No. 1 in the UK album charts twice. Taking part in the historical Northern-Irish Good Friday Peace Referendum show with U2, many amazing shows at huge festivals like Reading and Glastonbury, and getting to play with personal heros like Iggy Pop, Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters and David Bowie to name a few.
AP: What was your favorite tour to have been a part of?
Ash: We've had so many great tours over the years, had a lot of fun and made friends with so many people! It's hard to pick out favorites but we had an especially great time on tour with Saves The Day and Circle And Square when we toured across the States in 2002. Once we got to know each other it was so much fun, I remember a full on mosh-pit during a party on our bus one night including 'stage' diving off the buses tables as we speeded down the Interstate. They liked to play pranks on us while we were on stage by leaving polaroid pics of a character called Milton who'd be dressed in our clothes performing various 'acts'! We got them back on the last night when we invaded their stage dressed in full-on gimp outfits. Here's some pics that have never been seen before:
NOT SAFE FOR WORK:
Milton strikes! (http://i14.tinypic.com/2gtc5kj.jpg)
Milton the foot fetishist. (http://i5.tinypic.com/450xwkn.jpg)
Milton licks Charlottes boots. (http://i12.tinypic.com/4e0v8ns.jpg)
Milton on the can. (http://i10.tinypic.com/44buiom.jpg)
Attack Of The Gimps! (http://i5.tinypic.com/2l8aqdy.jpg)
The Big Day Out touring festival in Australia is an amazing tour, we took part on it in 1999 and had a fantastic time, more recently we toured the States with NY fashion punks The Bravery who turned out to be lovely guys. We all got on so well we ended up stark naked in some very uncompromising pictures that'll hopefully never see the light of day!
AP: How did your first album do in the US? Was it well received?
Ash: There's some confusion to what was our first real US album! Trailer (1995) was originally released as a 7 song mini-album in the UK but it had extra tracks added in the US and it technically counts as a full length album. We came over and did our first US tours then. We were only 17 signed to Reprise (the home of Green Day, around the time of Dookie), it was all our first times in the States and we did an eye-opening tour with Babes In Toyland and Minneapolis death metalers Dumpster Juice. Those guys' music was a lot harder than what we were playing but that didn't bother us. We'd just go on stage and bash out out sets and the crowds were very welcoming even though we weren't old enough to be in half the places we were playing. The whole drinking culture is so different here with the age limit higher and bars are so strict about ID-ing people that we had our label get us fake ones. There was no way we were going on tour and not party! "Jack Names The Planets" got picked up for the Angus soundtrack which was nice and Jackie Chan asked for "Kung Fu" to be used in Rumble In The Bronx.
1977 (1996) was really our official debut and after it exploded in Europe going to No. 1 in the UK, selling platinum there was quite a push for us by Reprise in the States. We had a big budget video made for "Girl From Mars" and we toured extensively doing our own shows. Everything looked to be going well as the album sold 60,000 pretty quickly but then we fucked the whole thing up! We were to have a back patting dinner session with MTV brass and the label. We ended up getting trashed and being rather rude which didn't impress anyone... The next day we turned up late for interviews at their studio, hung-over and vomiting in the green room etc... MTV decided we were losers and didn't add the video (they used to play music videos you know!) almost instantly the label pulled the plug. We really blew it big time but we were young kids who knew no better...
AP: What influences you guys nowadays? Are they mostly the same as when you guys first started?
Ash: We're always listening to new and old music, as far as main influences go we're well known for being big Nirvana, Pixies and Weezer fans, on the pop side of things we've always had big love for anything out of Motown, The Beach Boys and even Abba! Classic metal and rock influences can be heard from Thin Lizzy, Sabbath and The Stooges. You're always gonna pick up subconsciously on what you hear around you and it's good to be in New York and be surrounded by loads of different stuff to what's going on in the UK or London where we were based for over 8 years.
AP: Will you ever release a live CD or DVD?
Ash: We released a live version of our last album, Meltdown (2004)as a bonus CD on the initial limited edition UK release. It was the entire album recorded during a tour we did before release. A lot of fans tell us they prefer the live album to the studio one because it's more raw and energetic without all the studio gloss. We also released a live album around the time of 1977 called Live At The Wireless (1996) that was recorded at an Australian radio session and we also released a live DVD called Tokyo Blitz (2001) after the Free All Angels tour. We'll most definitely continue to record live shows in the future and plan to make the gigs available to download from our website.
We have a great fansite called The Ash Files which has loads of recordings and bootlegs that you can download. Check it out here (http://www.ashfiles.com).
You can watch Tokyo Blitz here (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=7561668&blogID=131838141&Mytoken=0C3282BF-22B3-4853-9424D63C78C22AA322637740).
AP: How many songs do you usually write before you enter the studio?
Ash: We usually demo a lot of songs up front before we start recording the album. With the current one we've demoed 30 songs and there were also loads of idea's that never got developed too far. After that process we picked out our favorites and recorded 14 for the album. We may try to record a few more but we're really happy with what we've got going on at the moment. It's always good to have a large pool of songs and idea's to choose from. We went into the studio to make Nu-Clear Sounds (1998)with very few songs completed, in hindsight we were rushed in too soon by the label, but they understandably wanted to capitalize on the success of 1977 and keep the momentum going.
AP: Where did you come up with the idea to shoot a short abstract film?
Ash: We shot this weird fucked-up Art movie called Love and Destruction at the start of 2003. It was the idea of a some French directors called Rojo who wanted to do an in-depth psycho analysis the band. We were up for it and filmed the whole thing over a few days in London. It got shown on domestic UK television and even had a screening at a theatre in London! It's got hypnotic regression, psychic healing, lyrical deconstruction, physical submission and a pretty experimental soundtrack that Tim put together. It could easily be called pretentious but that was the vibe the directors we're going for and we were happy to play along. the whole experience was very interesting for each of us and it's an abstract insight to our different personalities.
Love & Destruction runs at about 25 mins and you can watch it here (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individua l&videoID=1138955817).
AP: Were you overwhelemed by everything that happened over the first few years?
Ash: Well yeah, looking back on it we were. At the time we'd probably have said we were fine but we all lost the plot at various times as it got quite mental. Saying that it was an amazing experience, we toured the world for 18 months. 1977 sold a million albums by the age of 18 and we were out of our minds the entire time. We were kinda thrown in the deep end and burnt ourselves out emotionally and physically. By the time we were due to record the follow up album Nu-Clear Sounds we were a wreck. That album was a difficult time but we learnt a lot from it and managed to bounce back with the next album Free All Angels.
AP: What are your future tour plans?
Ash: We're gonna start touring again in February in the UK, the dates are currently being finalized. We'll start off doing a tour of universities and then tour again around the album's release in May/June. We'll also be doing lots in Ireland, Europe, Japan, Australia and the US and hopefully a bunch of festivals across Europe in the summer. It really depends on how successful the album is, if it's huge then they'll be more of a demand for us to keep touring and if that happens we're ready! We all love traveling and getting to do it for a living is amazing. (This first tour is all ready announced and sold out)
AP: How far along in the recording process are you?
Ash: We got almost all of the recording finished (as of Dec 8th). All the guitars, bass, drums are nailed. Tim's about half way through the main vocals. There's bits and pieces of things to do like synths which we've been experimenting with and we're getting strings recorded on 2 of the songs which is happening in a week or so. We're also now at the point we're we're finishing off potential singles and it's pretty exciting to hear things getting close to how they'll finally sound. We're mixing the whole album in New York in January and that'll hopefully raise the bar another few notches.
For a sneak peak there's a bunch of video from the studio that you can hear bits and pieces from on our MySpace Blog (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=7561668&MyToken=9b6e7cb7-2b94-4f15-a8f7-f3551f3ec04aML).
AP: When can we expect the new album?
Ash: Well as I said we haven't got a title yet but the album's due to be released on Warners in late May or early June '07. We're also trying to give ourselves time to release two singles beforehand, along with a load of touring and promotion. We got a lot of ground to cover and in a way need to reintroduce ourselves to people. We've been locked up in a dark studio for most of 2006 so we're eager to get out and get the ball rolling!