The Verve by Adrian Gregory Glover
The story of The Verve is like a roller coaster ride. They came out of the chute speeding along with their debut album A Storm In Heaven in 1993. They were on the lips of people who praised them for their unabashed attitude and shifty song writing.
1995 saw the band's creative ebb surge with their second LP A Northern Soul. Again the scene was watching as they climbed the tracks of a commercial peak, only to come crashing down into near oblivion a few months after the record saw the light of day. That near miss was an extended hiatus that threatened the existence of the unit.
The band stepped back for 18 months and pulled it all back together again. The result of that effort is another record that is not just another record. Urban Hymns is one of those records that comes out once every 10 years or so.
From Urban Hymns sprouted the single "Bittersweet Symphony." The song has
ushered them into the mass mind set with a vengeance. Right out of the gate,
heavy rotation on MTV and radio were a given. The symphonic piece has become
such a staple that Nike has adopted the rights to use the song to hock sneakers,
in their ever present television ad campaign. Without it, Richard Ashcroft's mug
may not have graced a recent cover of Rolling Stone magazine. For every positive
there is a negative. The fallout from the origins of the dramatic number has
been brutal. A minor bit of sampling of an old Rolling Stones tune "The Last
Time", took greed to new heights. Ex Stones manager Allen Klein owns the rights
to the tune, so he stirred up enough shit to capture 100% of the band's
royalties from the single.
Vocalist Richard Ashcroft and bassist Simon Jones were kind enough to lend
us their opinions on most of the above.
InsideCx: Why don't we start with the hiatus in 1995. Why then when
the single 'History' seemed to draw further attention to you?
R.A: Basically, I've said it before in the press,there is no answer
that is going to explain it to anyone that we don't want it explained to. So,
the band split up for reasons that we can't go into but after 'History', what
happened was, we put the single out and every member of the band was told what
was going to happen and we all went into a period of mourning. I went off on a
holiday and, as I said before I heard 'History' on the radio two days after we
split up the band. When I heard it the first time on the radio I was looking at
the ocean in Cornwall and that was a moving experience. Basically, from then on,
as I said many times before we went on and I gave them phone calls to write some
songs. (I said) let's keep doing some things, just to fill the time, and it
would be great if... there is no point in stopping dead'. Because there is no
way you can stop dead, you know. That is an impossibility actually, so .. the
reason things happen is because they had to happen that way. I had to write
songs, we had to go in and make music because we don't know how to do anything
else. We are terrible at doing anything else, basically.
S.J.: We've never done anything else.
InsideCx: What did you get out of that period?
R.A: You've got to learn empathy for other people. I think to be in
a band you've gotta learn to basically have empathy with people. Basically, I
became older in (a) two year period, and I became basically whatever a man is. I
definitely made a transition from late teens, early 20's, to 25, being through a
lot of shit. I think I experienced a lot of things. It gave me the mind set to
have a hindsight to look back and say that in this situation I could have done
this and that,or whatever.
But the main thing for me was to have the whole feeling when your band is
working and doing it, being out there. I realized how much I actually missed it
and how much I needed to do that.
S.J.: For me personally, no matter how traumatic it was breaking up
and actually recording all the solo (material) and touring after that , I
wouldn't change a thing. I definitely feel older through the experience and
without that experience we wouldn't have gotten back. If we carried on we
wouldn't have got the feeling that we've got now. Everyone is totally into what
we are doing. We came to a point which wasn't 100 per-cent and we weren't
holding high about what we were doing. I think that without trauma and without
(the) band splitting up, without releasing (that) it was such a difficult time
to go through basically,... without going through what we've been through we
wouldn't have what we have now, which is special. We lost something along the
way. Being older now we can look back and think we won't let that happen again'.
You know what I mean?
InsideCx: So I am assuming Alan Klein is not one of your favorite
people?
R.A: How do I feel about him? Hmm, he is a fucking prick,isn't he?
It's almost like The Rutles, it's almost Rutie-like. It's like a bit Monty
Python, some weird twist that we are involved in,with the most famous/infamous
manager, you know, ever. It's got nothing to do with being a amazing musician.
You meet him at the crossroads and he robs you of a lot of money! The whole
thing was fucking ridiculous. I don't give a fuck about Alllen Klein, I don't
give him a second thought.
InsideCx: You only nabbed a minute (of the Stones track) or so. That
Œs pretty weird how it happened.
R.A: Exactly, something went wrong with that.
S.J.: I think we should have paid for the sample and that would have
been it. 50/50 should have been okay. I would have pissed off, but it's rock and
roll.
R.A: But, in a day, he's gonna be dead soon, he needs a big coffin.
S.J.: It didn't have to be like that.
R.A: The sad thing about it is that basically we all are drawing
from a similar source. The Stones have drawn an incredible amount (of material
from other artists).We know how much that they have taken.I think that if it
were down to them, I don't think that it would have been their decision. I don't
know, but it is down to working with the tightest,weirdest,set of fuckers in the
world.
S.J.: He doesn't need to give away parts of The Rolling Stones to
anyone. He does not need to (do that). It's not like it is an obscure track.
Yes, it was an obscure track, it is a cover version of the Stones track...
R.A: In half time...
S.J.: It's not even the time signature as the original. All that
said , at the end of the day, it is like...
R.A: You win some and you fucking lose some. 'Bittersweet Symphony'
is in the title and it is a little story in itself.And that's it...at the end of
the day I'll go on to to make the (next Verve) record,the next record after that
and then we'll build the biggest symphony in the fucking world. And there won't
be any Mr. Kleins at the other end trying to take checks.