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pretend that I'm your eight year old son that wants daddy to tell him the story of how Richard Ashcroft saved Hut Records with Urban Hymns and later destroyed it with Alone with Everybody.
That is possibly the most bizarre way anyone has asked me a question on here yet!
In August 1995 'Mad' Richard Ashcroft (as he was known by the press) or Captain Rock (as he was called by Noel Gallagher who wrote 'Cast No Shadow' as a nod to the mercurial front man) was on a train bound for Cornwall following the split of his four piece band The Verve after a ragged T In the Park Festival appearance. In a hotel room in the Southern most county of England he recalled hearing the third and final single on Radio One with the introduction "The Verve are history and this is their final single History" and feeling choked.
A few weeks later though he was back in the studios with bassist Simon Jones, Drummer Peter Salisbury and old school friend Simon Tong who played guitar and keyboards and who had taught Richard and Simon to play guitar, but minus the brilliant guitarist Nick McCabe. The session tapes were simply marked 'Richard Ashcroft', with plans for a solo album in the works.
A brief acoustic solo support slot comprising of three songs with Oasis in March 1996 at The Paramount, New York playing 'The Drugs Don't Work', 'Sonnet' and 'Space and Time' (
ASIH Timeline ) to a largely bemused audience convinced Richard that he in fact was not a solo artist. IIRC the album was at one point slated to be called 'Richard Ashcroft's Urban Hymns' but after the NY appearance he began the idea of working as The Verve again in earnest.
At an Eddie Izzard party he approached John Squire but was politely turned down as the latter was in the throes of putting together what would become The Seahorses. His management then suggested erstwhile Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, with bassist Simon Jones reportedly keen but Richard having to be talked around into meeting him. Rehearsals at Bernard's house initially had Richard believing he would be perfect, but within a week he realised that Bernard had his own songs as well and there would inevitably be clashes between the two men of the kind between him and McCabe that had initially broken The Verve up. (
The Face Sep 1997 via musicsaves . org )
Richard Ashcroft in the same interview was recalled as 'apologising' in his own unique way by calling Nick McCabe with the memorable line that he was "quitting music forever" if Nick did not rejoin "the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band". Nick had his own memorable response of "'I ought to tell you to fuck off but I'm glad to hear from you."
The Verve completed work at Olympic Studios in early 1997 with Nick McCabe contributing parts to recordings of Richard Ashcroft compositions, as well as returning to the jam based song writing for songs such as 'The Rolling People', 'Catching the Butterfly' and 'Come On'. The band announced their comeback in May 1997 as a five piece and released their new single 'Bittersweet Symphony' on June 16th to near universal positive reviews and a UK #2 chart position.
The comeback feelings of triumph were to be short lived however. The sampling of an orchestral version of The Rolling Stones 'The Last Time' meant the band had to deal with notorious manager Allen Klein, who controlled the early Stones rights via ABKCO (Allen and Betty Klein Company) which he had established by taking over successful publicly traded rock n'n roll era label Cameo-Parkway.
When The Verve's manager Jazz Summers contacted Allen's office before the release Klein's longtime assistant Iris informed him that an EMI representative had already approached them with a low offer of 15% of the publishing and her blunt response was “I’ve told him to f— off, Jazz, we don’t like people stealing our music. I’ve spoken to Allen. We’re not going to agree to this.”
Allen Klein in general was against sampling as he saw it as a dilution of original work, and also saw The Verve as chancers who had recorded a song without clearance and then tried retroactively to negotiate.
Ken Berry, EMI's head at the time, then approached Allen Klein in New York and played him the album explaining that the song was an obvious lead single, that the company were expecting strong LP sales and it could be lucrative. Klein's response was to the point- There’s no sampling of our music,” he said. “We just don’t believe in it.”
He let EMI Stew for a couple of days before offering to make an exception to his rule based on some strict conditions, namely ABKCO would become the sole publisher and Richard Ashcroft would sell his rights to the lyrics for a thousand dollars.
The deal was made and ABKCO went to town licensing the song for Nike, Opel/Vauxhall cars and other endorsements including a ready made crowd pleaser at sports venues. When The Verve complained that the song was being overexposed and declined to licence the original recording ABKCO simply had new instrumental versions recorded and continued to licence, with the song by far and away one of ABKCO's biggest earners in it's catalogue. Ironically the sample sounded nothing like the original and was taken from an Andrew Loog Oldham version and the arranger David Whitaker who wrote the riff wasn't even listed as a composer. As a side note Mick Jagger and Keith Richards also enjoyed a payday and Grammy nomination for 'Song of the Year', which was impressive for a composition that they had nothing to do with and sounded nothing like their original song-
How Allen Klein made the Rolling Stones millions from Bittersweet SymphonyThe Verve did recover from this blow by releasing a second classic song in 'The Drugs Don't Work' on 1st September in the immediate wake of the death of Princess Diana the day before, inadvertently capturing the feeling of a certain section of the British public and reaching #1. The album 'Urban Hymns' followed at the end of the month, going on to break 3,167,875 in the UK by June 2009 (
BPI Top 40 Best Selling Albums 1956-2009 pdf ) combined with worldwide sales meaning it reputedly broke the 10,000,000 barrier.
Richard Ashcroft this time around though had become the star to the industry, the media, a sizeable section of the fan base and perhaps even himself. In June 1998 amid reports of issues arising once again and Nick McCabe quitting touring for the rest of the year the NME quoted a friend of the band as saying
Inevitably a split occurred the following year, with the announcement perhaps hastened by NME discovering Ashcroft and wife Kate had booked into a South London studio for what initially his management claimed were "demos" but later transpired to be work on the album, with Jazz Summers stating he was unsure if Richard had recorded one, two or twenty songs at that point-
NME April 1999Richard Ashcroft had a solo deal with Hut Recordings triggered as part of his band deal for a reputed £10,000,000 (
Daily Telegraph 2006 ) although court battles with Jazz Summers resulted in Richard paying out what he called a "vast amount of money".
'Song for Lovers' was released in April 2000 followed by 'Money to Burn' in June, with the album 'Alone With Everybody' being released that month as well. The album was certified platinum for 300,000 in October 2000 by the BPI but Richard Ashcroft would never again scale the heights he did with The Verve, despite Gold (100,000) for 'Human Conditions' and another platinum award for 'Keys to the World'.
VC Records Ltd t/a Hut ceased trading in 2004 and remains a dormant company based at the EMI label offices, with the artist roster either dropped or transferred to other EMI labels. 'Alone With Everybody' was the last hurrah in terms of attention and sales for a label set up under the auspices of former Rough Trade label manager and Virgin retail assistant Dave Boyd, who had conceived the label with Virgin pre their sale to EMI in 1992 for £560,000,000 as a means of obtaining independent distribution and therefore independent chart eligibility for British bands Moose and Revolver during the early 1990's indie vs major NME led war and the subsequent underhanded efforts to ensure major backed bands could make indie charts and gain coverage. The label had other notable acts in Gomez and Embrace, with the latter initially seen as successors to The Verve by some industry figures, but ultimately was unable to recreate the success of The Verve even with it's erstwhile front man as a solo artist.
Hopefully that's a) told the story and b) proven how useless I would be with kids!
I am a massive fan of The Verve and also enjoy Richard's solo output, although I do think whatever Liam Gallagher does as a solo record he will have been beaten to the John Lennon "comfortable domesticity" sounds of Double Fantasy ( (c)
Ultimate Classic Rock ) by Richard Ashcroft and 'Alone With Everybody'.
EDIT- theyknowwhatimean to give you an idea of the ridiculousness of the Diana hysteria at the time I managed to track down a Daily Wail article from 1st September 1997 (the day after her death and also the release of 'The Drugs Don't Work') in which writer Jeff Powell lambasts teams across all sports barring football for continuing to play under the heading
Shame on the Sports Stars That Kept Playing .
A lovely quote from the aforementioned histrionics regarding football was
Note the use by the notorious 'voice of middle class England' of the word 'soccer'
As a side note from that article I do remember where I was when news broke she had died, as I was in bed and awoken by a drunk housemate who had staggered in and switched on the box with the programme interrupted by a breaking news segment. I wasn't overly affected I have to be honest but little did I know what was to come in terms of Blair, media and public responses.....
Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5
Nov 4, 2024 5:04:30 GMT -5