Richard Ashcroft swears that he doesn't go searching for mind-blowing spiritual epiphanies. They somehow seem to find the brainy Brit — on a basis so frequent it could spook the Dalai Lama himself.
One such memorable moment occurred in 1997, when the singer decided to re-christen his pending "Urban Hymns" solo set with the working title of his old band, the Verve. Thanks to operatic hits like "Bittersweet Symphony" and "The Drugs Don't Work," the album went on to sell a career-making 7 million copies.
That fatherly frustration manifests itself on Ashcroft's just-issued third effort, "Keys to the World," which debuted at No. 2 on the UK charts, only held in check by the overseas phenomenon of the Arctic Monkeys. Coldplay's Chris Martin — who recently invited Ashcroft to open his stateside stadium tour — has called his chum "the best singer in the world." But when Ashcroft finally did fly alone on 2000's musically inventive "Alone With Everybody," he says, "I lost 6 million people because I was no longer the Verve, so I lived through the fact that — on a professional and artistic level — we really just deal in trade names. But it was my decision, and I've lived with that, with 6 million people ignoring me on my next album."
The next eye-opener came on Ashcroft's 30th birthday, in 2001. The place: His mother-in-law's house in the south of France. The date: Sept. 11, unfortunately.
Mid-celebration with his wife and year-old son, he switched on the television and watched in horror as the the World Trade Center came crashing down. "I saw the pain and the confusion happening to a city that — when I was a young man, traveling as a musician — I drew so much energy from," he recalls. "And when I actually imagined how that energy could be turned into paranoia and fear, it put me into a very depressed state for quite a long time. Because I suddenly realized that the decisions that were going to be made by the administrations in America and England were not only going to affect my life, they were going to affect my son's son's life, and his son's as well."
Ashcroft's deep, warble wafts gently over self-questioning ballads like "Why Do Lovers?" and "Words Just Get in the Way," grows uplifting in anthems like "World Keeps Turning" and "Break the Night With Colour," then growls with socio-political rage in the title track and the anti-religious-right rocker "Why Not Nothing?"
Well-studied in mysticism thanks to a Rosicrucian stepfather, Ashcroft says he's run the full gamut of religious beliefs. And as a kid, he studied the play "Death of a Salesman" and understood that humans, just like Willy Loman, are rats perpetually caught in a soul-crushing race.
He isn't exactly agnostic, he says, "because I believe that there have been many enlightened people who've walked this planet. But Jesus Christ for the past 2,000 years has been used and abused by this ragtag bunch of power-hungry people. And now you've got a lot of people trying to say that they've seen the light, that their God is literally all our God, that the president's God is my God. And that is freakish beyond belief, but we have to let that go."
Letting go is one of Ashcroft's latest revelations.
Over the course of a nearly hourlong chat, he speaks of zenlike subjects: the loneliness of the astronauts who landed on the moon, as described in the book "Moon Dust"; the new tribal nature of post-9/11 society, the importance of disappearing into his Gloucestershire estate with his wife Kate and two sons; the English songbird who follows him on walks through his property flitting from tree to tree. There also are conspiracy theories, like the one that neoconservatives orchestrated the Twin Towers destruction with inside detonations. Again, he says, let go.
"People are getting so hooked on conspiracy theories that they miss the fact that we're on a rock in infinity," he says. "We don't need conspiracies — forget them. Forget the lizards, the UFOs, the Masons, forget all that."
That's why he composed the heartwearmer "Music Is Power" for the new album.
He says, "For anyone out there who believes in the music like I do, let go of those conspiracies because the whole thing is bigger than we ever, ever can imagine. And we can never truly penetrate the powers that be, so let that go and start dealing with the day-to-day, the people around you. And if you've got a tribe of people that you love, look after your tribe and respect other people. Because it is a crazy world out there, but everyone can take their place in it. And that's what my album is all about."
Will the meek really inherit the Earth? Ashcroft hopes so. With his co-producer-arranger Chris Potter, he's spent his post-Verve years chasing his own muse, and crafting some of the most texturally-lush folk-rock around.
But it's at a cost. When fans demanded the swirling, shoegazing guitar squall of the Verve, he unhooked the amplifiers and shambled down Burt Bacharach/Noel Coward sidestreets, exploring the hushed potential beauty of standard-serious craftsmanship.
No matter that a fraction of earlier acolytes get it, Ashcroft says. "What I'm talking about is living with your decisions and feeling comfortable with where you're at at the time. Which sounds like a cliche, but cliches are there for a reason."
So the man is at peace this morning, as he watches from his hotel window as the early-spring snow drifts delicately over Central Park. His wife and kids are asleep in the next room, and he's still feeling the buzz from his first solo show in years at New York's Webster Hall.
"I'm moving now, I've got the momentum, and you've really got to embrace that when it comes," he declares.
It also helps to keep your eyes and heart open to those little epihanies, as well. On the flight over from London, he chose to sit next to a woman "who seemed like she had a good soul. and we got to chatting, and she told how she'd been involved with somebody who was a polygamist who then shot himself and blamed her in the suicide note. So I put her on the guest list and I hope she made it to the show."
Ashcroft can cite countless reasons to stay secluded in his English mansion, quietly enjoying the family life.
But, he says, "I'm not here to lock myself away. I'm here to hear the stories and have a toast with someone I've never met before in the back of a plane. And that's what I'm singing about."
And what would he change if he had "Keys to the World"?
He can't stifle a kooky laugh. He says, "Ah, that's the question, isn't it? But it's up to you. The question can scare you for two weeks straight if you really want to think about it, but after that, it's up to you."
Source: insidebayarea.com
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