From the 'insane' days of Girl from Mars, Glastonbury and Japan, to writer's block and too much booze – drummer Rick McMurray takes LAUREN MURPHYthrough 19 years of Ash
NOSTALGIA.
It can give turbulent or taxing experiences a certain rose-tinted gleam. Add to that a self-confessed shaky memory and a conversation conducted on approximately two hours’ sleep (Rick McMurray has just become a father for the first time), and the potted history of one of Ireland’s most successful rock bands may end up slightly askew. Nonetheless, ahead of their Indiependence set, the Ash drummer divulges his personal recollections of their 19 years together.
IN THE BEGINNING: DOWNPATRICK, 1992
"I remember when me and Tim met. We were doing a school play called The Suicides; I played a drunken detective, he was a gypsy guitar player. I told him that I played guitar and drums, and he invited me around to his house to have a jam with him and Mark.
“We were pretty ambitious, but we didn’t have any plan of action. We recorded a few demos and one of those early songs was Jack Names the Planets. We definitely knew there was something different about that song; it had this big pop feel... And sure enough, that was the song that our manager first picked up on, so we released it as our first single.”
1994-1995: FIRST RELEASES
"I think when Kung Fucame out in '95 and went into the top 50 in the proper charts – not just the indie charts – it was like, wow, this is going somewhere else. And we still knew at that point that we had Girl from Marsup our sleeve, too. When that came out, it was seriously mind-blowing. I think Tim had finished his A-Levels on one Friday, and the next weekend he was doing Glastonbury. And we were playing Top of the Pops with a top 20 single the week after that. It was insane. And of course, that led on to us doing our first world tour."
1996: ROCKSTARDOM
“From that point on, things got really weird. Going from having a top 20 single and playing big festivals, to Japan, where hundreds of people were waiting outside our hotel … It was bonkers.”
1997: A GIRL FROM LONDON
"After 1977, it felt like the right time to bring an extra guitarist in. But I think it's been pretty well documented that Nu-Clear Soundswas a pretty difficult album for us, so it must have been really bizarre for Charlotte to come in at that point. At the same time, it was a very similar situation for her; she'd just left school, and it felt like she was going through what we'd already gone through a couple of years before."
1998: WRITER’S BLOCK
“We locked ourselves away in this medieval farmhouse just outside London to do the follow-up. Tim had writer’s block, so we just sat around and got drunk all the time, not really doing anything... we ended up having to sack the producer [Chris Kimsey] once we got to the mixing stage, and went back to Owen [Morris], who did a salvage job on what we’d done. So it felt very disjointed.”
2001: ANGELIC REDEMPTION
"Up to that point, everything we'd released just seemed to get bigger and bigger, and so when Nu-Clear Soundsdidn't do as well, it was a bit of a kick in the teeth, a bit of a reality check. Tim did a lot of writing for the next album [Free All Angels] back in Downpatrick to get a bit of headspace. The record company had agreed to put out another album, but we kind of knew that if we had another Nu-Clear Soundson our hands, that it'd be game over, really. So we knew we had to step up to the plate and make a big statement, a big pop album.
"The minute Tim played Shining Lightto me and Mark, we knew it was a comeback single, but the record company unfortunately didn't. We ended having to spend our last bit of cash by going into the studio and paying for it ourselves. Then we delivered it to them, and they said 'OK, you were right' and they bought it off us."
2004-2006: MELTDOWN
"I think at that point, we'd already gone through the ups and downs with Nu-Clear Sounds, so [the fact that Meltdowndidn't do as well as Free All Angels] didn't have a huge effect on us. We're really proud of that album; it was a bit of a dream project, in a way. It was recorded in the same studio that Nevermind was recorded in, and personally, I feel like it's got some of my best drumming on it. Charlotte left during that period. It was amicable; we never really had any big falling out, or anything. The bizarre thing is that everyone seems to think it was her decision to leave the band, but it was actually us that decided to part company. A lot of business stuff got into it, and things became difficult. ... We're still close, we always keep an eye on what she's doing, career-wise."
2007: WE’LL NEVER MAKE ANOTHER ALBUM
"I guess back in the album's heyday, people put them out quite quickly and there'd be an album every year... After Twilight of the Innocents,we wanted to do something more instant, which is why we pitched the A-Z Singles concept... It was a pretty monumental challenge. Tim basically lived in the studio for 18 months. I'm really proud that we managed to do it, but whether we'd do it again or not… I don't know!"
WHAT NOW?
“Tim and Mark live in New York now and I’m in Edinburgh, but we still wait ’til we’re together to write; there’s no e-mailing tracks, or anything like that. The chemistry between us is so good at this point that we don’t have to do too much talking, we can knock a song into shape pretty quickly ... There’s no way we could have done that back in ’96! We all have our own family thing going on, but we’ve been playing together for 19 years now, so we are like a second family to each other, too... I guess it’s good that we have a bit of space and time apart, having something else to focus on. But Ash is still a huge part of each of our lives. It’s really hard to imagine life without it.”
Ash play the Indiependence Music Arts Festival tomorrow
INDIEPENDENCE: THE BEST OF THE REST
EditorsTheir fourth album won't be released until January 2012, but the Brummie band are road-testing their new material at various festivals this summer.
Sacred AnimalsThis Dublin trio have garnered comparisons to Radioheads more off-kilter ruminations, but Darragh Nolans haunting vocals take precedence over the bands experimental soundtracks.
EnemiesThese instrumentalists plough a slightly more melodic furrow than the muscular brawn of contemporaries like ASIWYFA, but that doesn't mean they can't rock out – your eardrums are just a little safer.
Not SquaresThis Belfast quartet's crash-bang-wallop approach to music making is a joy to behold live. Tightly-wound electro-punk with a dash of danceable disco.
The Frank and WaltersThings have been quiet since their seasonal singles project last year, but with a back catalogue that stretches back two decades, The Franks' have plenty of crowd-pleasers.
