There's commotion in the background, and Richard Ashcroft sounds distracted.
There are, he explains over the phone, "about 40 planes with little propellers" that are giving him a hard time.
In years past, perhaps when he was struggling to deal with the international success of Bittersweet Symphony, one might have thought the former Verve frontman meant he was on a very bad trip. Today, though, he's just talking about his kids' toys.
Now more Dad Richard than Mad Richard -- the moniker handed to him by the British press during his '90s heyday -- Ashcroft is comfortably immersed in domestic life.
And while it led to a long break leading up to his third post-Verve solo album, this year's underrated Keys to the World, the Britrock icon -- opening for Coldplay tonight and tomorrow at Air Canada Centre -- claims fatherhood as a source of creative inspiration rather than stagnation.
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