Hallelujah! A Sermon from Rev. Richard Ashcroft
Containing certain verses from the Gospel According to St Richard, in which Ashcroft outlines The Meaning of Music, and more besides.
| 12 Nov 2006
Everyone has an opinion on Richard Ashcroft. The former front-man for the Verve, now a successful solo artist, Ashcroft has given anyone who takes much interest in British pop music the chance to form some judgement of him, whether as singer, Northerner, or icon (this latter a role he has never shied away from). Ashcroft's opinions of himself – they are stratospherically high – are also well known, to the extent that he has even been linked to the secretive and elitist order of the Rosicrucians (a cabal of divine 'adepts' dating back to the seventeenth century).
The Skinny tried to find out what this influential, controversial figure would have to say for himself on creative issues, but what we got was more like a sermon.
"I'm not a robot. The world's very synthetic now; we live staring at screens. We communicate – rightly or wrongly – through computers. I think that's one reason why live music has had such a resurgence; because we do still have this intrinsic need to feel a communion with another human being, about the human condition and life itself - the joys and the blues and everything else.
"Lyrics that move people come from the subconscious. I don't edit anything really. I try to be as close to the bone as possible.
"The opening song from this album ['Keys to the World'] is called Why Not Nothing? It's not some sort of hippy statement about doing nothing; to me it offered all these possibilities about what we have filled the void with. I have this – probably eternal – internal dialogue about the search for peace of mind: searching the existential world and trying to marry that with science. I believe the two will one day come together.
"For me it is like 'breaking into heaven': getting close to something that is unattainable. I think it's about communal tendencies. Whatever problems you've got, leave them behind and let's celebrate.
"People have this idea about pain. I've always thought that pain is there to be celebrated. A lot of my favourite records are very dark but, if you're feeling in that mood, there is a cathartic thing. I use this reference to tinnitus: the way of curing it is by playing the same tone in the ear. I think that's what it's like when you play melancholic music. When you're feeling melancholic it has this healing effect, when someone would naturally think 'if I'm feeling depressed I won't put that record on'. To me, the last line of The Drugs Don't Work – 'I know I'll see your face again': that could be sung in a church by a gospel group. Hopefully a lot of my songs have a sense of hope about them.
"We are labelled and branded at an early age, and it's all about keeping you from questioning the bigger things in life. Life is the miracle to me."
The Skinny tried to find out what this influential, controversial figure would have to say for himself on creative issues, but what we got was more like a sermon.
"I'm not a robot. The world's very synthetic now; we live staring at screens. We communicate – rightly or wrongly – through computers. I think that's one reason why live music has had such a resurgence; because we do still have this intrinsic need to feel a communion with another human being, about the human condition and life itself - the joys and the blues and everything else.
"Lyrics that move people come from the subconscious. I don't edit anything really. I try to be as close to the bone as possible.
"The opening song from this album ['Keys to the World'] is called Why Not Nothing? It's not some sort of hippy statement about doing nothing; to me it offered all these possibilities about what we have filled the void with. I have this – probably eternal – internal dialogue about the search for peace of mind: searching the existential world and trying to marry that with science. I believe the two will one day come together.
"For me it is like 'breaking into heaven': getting close to something that is unattainable. I think it's about communal tendencies. Whatever problems you've got, leave them behind and let's celebrate.
"People have this idea about pain. I've always thought that pain is there to be celebrated. A lot of my favourite records are very dark but, if you're feeling in that mood, there is a cathartic thing. I use this reference to tinnitus: the way of curing it is by playing the same tone in the ear. I think that's what it's like when you play melancholic music. When you're feeling melancholic it has this healing effect, when someone would naturally think 'if I'm feeling depressed I won't put that record on'. To me, the last line of The Drugs Don't Work – 'I know I'll see your face again': that could be sung in a church by a gospel group. Hopefully a lot of my songs have a sense of hope about them.
"We are labelled and branded at an early age, and it's all about keeping you from questioning the bigger things in life. Life is the miracle to me."
Richard Ashcroft plays SECC, Glasgow on November 29
http://www.richardashcroft.com