Richard Ashcroft

Richard Ashcroft live in Cologne (June 2005)

Richard Paul Ashcroft (born September 11, 1971 in Wigan , England ) is a British singer-songwriter who became known as the front man of Verve (later renamed The Verve ).

Life

Richard Ashcroft was born in 1971 in Wigan, an English city between Liverpool and Manchester . His childhood was shaped by the early death of his father. In 2005, he publicly admitted that he had bipolar disorder and was taking drugs such as Prozac . At school, he played on the football team and initially dreamed of becoming a professional at Manchester United . In 1989 he formed the band The Verve with three friends . This broke up despite (or perhaps because of) great successes in 1999, whereupon Ashcroft concentrated on his solo career.

In 1995, Ashcroft married his manager , ex- spiritualized keyboardist Kate Radley. In March 2000 his first son Sonny was born, four years later his second, Cassius.

"You could be a star or you could be a fool - it's all in the mind [...]"

- Richard Ashcroft : All In The Mind , Verve, 1992

Career

The Verve

With his band The Verve Ashcroft recorded a total of three albums and several EPs by 1998 . The band's early music was characterized by improvisational song structures. Since the recordings for The Verve's second album A Northern Soul , Ashcroft also practiced songwriting and composed two songs for this record. The Gallagher brothers immediately pay tribute to him with a song on the second Oasis album : “ Cast No Shadow is dedicated to the genius of Richard Ashcroft ”.

After breaking up with The Verve for the first time in the summer of 1995, Ashcroft made a first attempt at a solo career, performing live as a solo pre-act for Oasis .

"I just can't make it alone [...]"

- Richard Ashcroft : Space and Time , Urban Hymns / The Verve, 1997

Little happy with the solo artist's existence, he joined a Rolling Stones - cover band and finally drove a reunion of The Verve ahead. The following recordings for the Urban Hymns are shaped by his first solo plans and the now matured songwriting Ashcrofts. The final separation of the band on April 28, 1999 led to a second and resounding attempt at his solo career.

Solo career

His solo debut album Alone with Everybody , released in 2000, is largely based on demo songs for the last The Verve album (especially A Song for the Lovers , New York , C'Mon People ) and thus shows more parallels to the last music by The Verve as Human Conditions , released in 2002 . Both albums show influences from soul music and country and offer pop music at a high level. He received support from his wife Kate (keyboards), ex-The Verve drummer Peter Salisbury and Wil Malone , who previously produced Iron Maiden and later (as on Ashcroft's albums) arranged string passages for groups such as Massive Attack and Oasis . Richard Ashcroft fulfilled a dream for his second long player : he recorded the song Nature Is the Law with ex- Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson .

In the summer of 2005 Ashcroft reported back when he appeared in the opening act for the Twisted Logic tour of the British band Coldplay , where he presented pieces from his two solo works. Together with Coldplay he then also appeared at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park , London, where Coldplay played the Verve hit Bitter Sweet Symphony with him . Ashcroft's third solo album Keys to the World was released in early 2006. The pre-release single Break the Night with Color climbed to number 3 in the UK charts and was also a popular radio station in Germany.

Comeback as a band musician

In the summer of 2007, The Verve was revived with its original line-up including Richard Ashcroft. They released the album Forth , released two singles and played at several festivals. Ashcroft emphasized, however, that he will continue to be active as a solo musician.

So in 2009 he started preparing for a new album. On his website in the summer, he let his fans vote on his best B-sides and collaborations. In December 2009 he released the song The Journey , which is the title track of Richard Jobson 's short film of the same name . The proceeds from the film and soundtrack will be donated to the Helen Bamber Foundation, which campaigns against trafficking in women.

In early 2010 he published the song Are You Ready - initially as an exclusive download on the NME website . In order to highlight the importance of his followers, the publication takes place under the name RPA & The United Nations of Sound . The use of his initials should reduce the public pressure on his family. The accompanying album entitled United Nations of Sound was released in June 2010. In addition, the project gave some concerts in Europe in June 2010. In the USA, the album was released under his solo artist name Richard Ashcroft for marketing reasons . They contributed the title Future's Bright to the film Der Plan (original title: The Adjustment Bureau ) , for which the film producer George Nolfi also composed the music video.

Continuation of the solo career

Ashcroft has been working on his fifth solo album since the end of 2011, which was originally due to be released in late 2012. According to Ashcroft, it's again increasingly song-oriented . Support him u. a. Verve drummer Peter Salisbury , guitarist Steve Wyreman (United Nations of Sound), bassist Damon Minchella and Kate Radley and Anthony Gorry on keyboards.

However, due to the change to the Righteous Phonographic Association and the label Cooking Vinyl , there were delays. At the end of 2015 he appeared again live for the first time at acoustic concerts in Zurich, Mexico City and Bilbao. The pre-release This Is How It Feels has been available for download since February 23, 2016. The album These People , produced by Chris Potter , was released on May 20, 2016.

Discography

See also : The Verve

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2000	Alone with Everybody	DE10 (15 weeks) DE	AT18 (7 weeks) AT	CH39 (14 weeks) CH	UK1 platinum (27 weeks)UK	US127 (1 week) US	First published: June 26, 2000
2002	Human Conditions	DE14 (4 weeks) DE	AT48 (2 weeks) AT	CH51 (3 weeks) CH	UK3 gold (11 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 21, 2002
2006	Keys to the World	DE6 (9 weeks) DE	AT7 (9 weeks) AT	CH7 (8 weeks) CH	UK2 platinum (19 weeks)UK	-	First published: January 23, 2006
2010	United Nations of Sound	DE49 (2 weeks) DE	AT63 (1 week) AT	CH50 (1 week) CH	UK20 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 19, 2010 as RPA & The United Nations of Sound
2016	These People	DE51 (1 week) DE	AT70 (1 week) AT	CH32 (1 week) CH	UK3 silver (10 weeks)UK	-	First published: May 20, 2016
2018	Natural rebel	DE82 (1 week) DE	AT71 (1 week) AT	CH47 (1 week) CH	UK4 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 19, 2018

EPs

year	title	Remarks
2006	Live from London	First published: April 24, 2006

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2000	A Song for the Lovers Alone with Everybody	DE82 (4 weeks) DE	-	CH78 (1 week) CH	UK3 silver (13 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 3, 2000
	Money to Burn Alone with Everybody	-	-	-	UK17 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: June 12, 2000
	C'mon People (We're Making It Now) Alone with Everybody	DE82 (6 weeks) DE	-	-	UK21 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: September 11, 2000
2002	Check the Meaning Human Conditions	DE94 (1 week) DE	-	-	UK11 (9 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 7, 2002
2003	Science of Silence Human Conditions	-	-	-	UK14 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: January 6, 2003
	Buy It in Bottles Human Conditions	-	-	-	UK26 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: April 7, 2003
2006	Break the Night with Color Keys to the World	DE45 (9 weeks) DE	AT17 (9 weeks) AT	CH55 (15 weeks) CH	UK3 (13 weeks) UK	-	First published: January 9, 2006
	Music Is Power Keys to the World	-	-	-	UK20 (6 weeks) UK	-	First published: April 17, 2006
	Words Just Get in the Way Keys to the World	-	-	-	UK40 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 10, 2006

More singles

• 2006: Why Not Nothing / Sweet Brother Malcolm
• 2009: The Journey
• 2010: Are You Ready
• 2010: Born Again
• 2011: Future's Bright
• 2016: This Is How It Feels
• 2016: Hold On ( Mirwais Remix)
• 2016: They Don't Own Me

Collaborations with other artists:

• 1998: UNKLE feat. Richard Ashcroft - Lonely Soul (published on Psyence Fiction )
• 2000: The Chemical Brothers feat. Richard Ashcroft - The Test (released on Come With Us )
• 2005: Coldplay feat. Richard Ashcroft - Bitter Sweet Symphony (live) (released on the compilation Live 8 - One Day One Concert One World )

swell

1. ↑ The Verve Readies First Album Since 1997 . In: Billboard Magazine , June 23, 2008
2. ^ The Verve's Richard Ashcroft: 'I'm going solo again' . In: New Musical Express , August 6, 2008
3. ↑ Richard Ashcroft - theme song for "The Journey". In: Visions , December 21, 2009
4. ^ Richard Ashcroft website. ( Memento of the original from June 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. June 3, 2010 
5. ↑ Richard Ashcroft: New Album to be “Song Orientated” . ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Xfm London 104.9, June 6th 2012 
6. ^ Richard Ashcroft announces solo album 'These People' . In: New Musical Express , February 23, 2016
7. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
8. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK

Web links

Commons : Richard Ashcroft  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Richard Ashcroft's website (English)
• Richard Ashcroft on MusicBrainz (English)
• Richard Ashcroft in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Richard Ashcroft at laut.de
• Richard Ashcroft at Discogs (English)