Richard's biography by Anna S.

Richard Paul Ashcroft was born on 11th September 1971, in the Wigan suburb of Billinge in Lancashire. He had two younger sisters, Victoria and Laura. During his first ten years, the only real drama came with Richard’s constant visits to the family doctor with a variety of minor ailments because of his painfully thin body. At the age of 11, Richard lost his father. It was an event that had enormous and long-lasting effects on Richard’s formative years. The immediate effect was to make him an overly serious child. He says: “Other kids were playing with their Action Men and I was questioning life and society”. He saw how short life can be and thought “I’m gonna make something special of myself.” After his father’s death, Richard became a loud and outspoken boy at Upholland Comprehensive School. His general uninterest in academia made him an unpopular pupil with the teachers.

Richard found his escape from school in football. By the age of thirteen, he was one of the best in the school team. When he was fifteen, Richard attended the Bobby Charlton Soccer School. Unfortunately, Richard had a mouth to match his expanding ego, which resulted in a four times broken nose. As Richard was losing enthusiasm for soccer and was suffering from painful knees, sport was replaced by another obsession: music. He decided, the first move was to tell his careers teacher, who listened with resignation before he sent him to the local swimming baths to work as a lifeguard for a couple of weeks. But instead of saving lives, Richard had to clean the toilets. This work experience only made him more wanting to make music, though he couldn’t even play a note at this time. He revelled into a pseudo-pop star personality, having a new haircut every few weeks, as a result of his mother being a hairdresser. The more Richard loved music, the less he wanted to attend school. Once when the class was writing an exam in Philosophy and Religion, Richard got bored with the exam paper and simply walked out because of the sunny weather outside. He didn’t reappear for hours so the teachers suggested him to visit the psychiatrist.
By that time, Richard fell under the influence of his stepfather, a member of the ancient secular order of the Rosicrucians, who regularly performed experiments in mind expansion and the healing arts. Also taking the mentioned Philosophy and Religion exam were two of Richard’s school friends, Simon Jones and Pete Salisbury. Inspired by Richard’s brazen arrogance and his enthusiasm for music, Jones started playing guitar. In 1989 they formed the band Verve along with Nick McCabe and Simon Tong, who had taught Jones and Ashcroft their first guitar chords in their teenage years. Their debut album A Storm In Heaven was released in 1993. At this point, Richard’s life consisted largely of waking up late in the day, getting stoned and then going back to bed. During the America tour to support the LP, Richard was hospitalized after suffering from severe dehydration because of drug abuse previous to a concert. In the same year, the band was also forced to change its name after a legal battle with an American label also called Verve. They became The Verve. After the in 1995 released album A northern soul, which was recorded under the influence of a massive intake of Ecstasy, Richard married Kate Radley in secret. They kept the marriage quiet for another two years. The following America tour was a great success, but a few weeks after their return to Britain with a few concerts, there were shocking news: the band had split up. At the centre of the split was Richard Ashcroft. In the music scene, it was widely known, that Richard had returned of their final American tour with more than physical problems. He had never had time to take stock of the many things that had changed since the start of his band-career at the age of 19.
	To many people’s surprise, only three weeks after the split, he had teamed up again with Salisbury and Jones and also recruited Simon Tong for keyboard duties. At first Nick McCabe didn’t rejoin The Verve because of several conflicts with Richard, who felt that The Verve without Nick wasn’t the band he loved. Though the two hadn’t spoken a word since the split, Nick rejoined The Verve and the band started recording new songs. In June 1997, just two days before the new track Bittersweet Symphony was going to be released and when the tour was starting, Richard fell ill. So the tour was rescheduled for August. The Verve achieved international success with Urban Hymns, scoring three top ten hits including Bittersweet Symphony, The Drugs Don’t Work, and Lucky Man. They all were Ashcroft compositions. The period the album was being recorded, was his greatest time with The Verve when he thinks back, claims Richard. But in April 1999, The Verve had their final split, after guitarist Nick McCabe left the band because of a heavy dispute with Richard. At this time, the band had drifted apart again. Richard said: 'I have always given everything to the band and would have continued to do so if circumstances had not made it impossible. I would like to thank the fans for their loyal support and their phenomenal response to Urban Hymns. I feel more positive now a decision has been made - being in limbo isn't good for the soul.'

Ashcroft’s solo debut Alone with everybody, on which Pete Salisbury played the drums, followed in June 2000, three months after Kate had given birth to their son who is called Sonny. The album hit charts at number 1 and the single A Song For The Lovers went to place 3. Some people think, Alone with everybody is an open-end love letter to Richard’s wife Kate. In I get my beat, he sings: “I get my beat with you / When we see things through / And I think about you all the time” or in another song: “I got you on my mind in my sleep”. Two years later, Richard contributed the track The Test to one of the Chemical Brother’s albums. The song was later released as a single. In October of 2002, Richard’s second solo album Human Conditions was released. The singles Check The Meaning and Science Of Silence were a great success. Human Conditions seems to be a spiritual travel around the world, while Richard is questioning god and thinking about life. When he talks about his influences, Richard mentions The Stooges, Led Zeppelin, Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys and John Lennon. Brian Wilson appeared on Human Conditions on the track Nature is the law. Richard says, with Wilson’s appearance, one of his biggest dreams came true. Richard Ashcroft is now working on his third album, which is going to be released next year.