Ash in Dallas

After not playing Texas for five years, Ash has been through four times within the last six months. First for a Kinetic records showcase gig at South by Southwest, next supporting Our Lady Peace (“Old Lady Piss”, Charlotte has called them), then their own gig, and most recently touring the opening slot for emo-kids Saves the Day. In between all that they’ve even done a full US tour with Coldplay. And now there’s rumours of two more US tours next year! These guys are out of control! But you can bet that no matter how many times they play here, their fans will still be at every gig (as the support band or the headliner), soaking up the band’s infectious brand of rock ’n’ roll.

After their gig with Saves the Day at Emo’s in Austin, Texas, they kindly signed everything that every fan wanted to get the band’s autograph on. And then I finally got to chance to sit down with Ash’s songwriter Tim Wheeler.

DMG: First off, thanks for following through on your promise to spend 6 months in America. Like Muse said they were going to spend a year here, but the album didn’t even end up being released here.

Tim: Yeah, it’s stupid that they didn’t, I think Muse could be big here, considering they’re kinda similar to Radiohead, and Radiohead are massive here. I think the other thing is, British bands are good enough, it’s just a matter of hearing ’em. The trouble is British bands do two tours in the UK, and then they kinda explode overnight. And they think it’s gonna be like that all around the world. That’s never gonna be the case here. We’re just giving it a shot. We’re having fun doing it, that’s the main thing. It’s refreshing for us cause we’ve done the rounds, the rest of the world, for like the last seven years.

DMG: Is there any truth the rumour of touring with the Foo Fighters in February?

Tim: Well, I can’t really say.

DMG: Would that be the UK or the US?

Tim: It would be the US The thing is that Dave personally asked us if we’d do it, but it hasn’t been confirmed. I don’t wanna piss on them by announcing it. So we might be or we might not be.

DMG: After Nu-Clear Sounds, which was not as commercially successful, not as well received, was it easier or harder to write an album like Free All Angels, which was lighter and happier.

Tim: I think it kinda gave us the impetus to really try hard again. Nu-Clear Sounds we kinda thought anybody would like it. But if we would have kept ploughing further we would have been dropped by our label and everything. But we weren’t thinking commercially with this record, we just kinda went away, got back to our roots, and just spent a year and a half writing. Just wanted to make a really really strong album. I think we delivered the goods.

DMG: When you do the next album are you gonna maybe use the success of Free All Angels to experiment more?

Tim: I really don’t know. I’m messing around with a lot of computer stuff at the moment. But I don’t know if that will influence the record or not. At the end of the day it’s more important for us to just have good songs. I’ll probably write them on a guitar. It might change sonically, I don’t know.

DMG: How come you guys don’t play “Envy” when you play here?

Tim: It’s kinda like it’s not released here, and we got 45 minutes to play, we gotta play like the old stuff people know, and a lot of the new album as well. When we do our own bigger tours we definitely will. We played it once in Anaheim about a week ago, it was pretty cool. And we’ll play it tomorrow in Dallas.

DMG: Any chance you’ll play “Projects” or “Petrol”?

Tim: I’m sure we’ll do “Petrol”, “Projects” maybe.

DMG: Regardless of sales, or chart positions, what’s the song you’ve written that you’re most proud of?

Tim: I think “Goldfinger” or “Shining Light”. I love the chord changes in “Goldfinger”, they’re really quite crazy.

DMG: Is there a song someone else has written that you think “Damn, I wish I wrote that”?

Tim: Oh lots, yeah. That’s kinda the thing that spurs me on, keeps me writing and trying harder. When I hearing something and I just go ‘ah, shit, that’s amazing, wish I’d done that.’

DMG: You cover so many bands, is there anyone you think ‘wow, I wish they’d cover us’

Tim: Well I tell ya what, recently we had a competition for bands to do a cover of our music, to be on a B-side of a single with us. And it was really the most eclectic versions, like the weirder stuff that you didn’t think would work, that was best. So it’d probably get someone weird like Bjork to do it. Someone you would not expect to do an Ash song.

DMG: You did the song with Coldplay, that B-side of theirs. Was there anything else you did together, or was it just that one song?

Tim: It was just that one song, earlier in the year, Chris said he had a song he wanted me to play on. I just went in the studio and did it. I don’t know, we’re like friends, so you never know what might happen in the future.

DMG: Didn’t you come out at some of the gigs and play on…

Tim: “The Scientist”, I played it in Chicago, yeah. Just once. I played with U2 as well.

DMG: Really, when was that?

Tim: Belfast, in ’97. Yeah, I’m up there with, whatcha call that old blues dude that played who did “When Loves Comes to Town”?

DMG: Oh, BB King.

Tim: Yeah, I’m up there with him.

DMG: What song did you play on?

Tim: I played on “One”.

DMG: People always ask, ‘who did you like growing up’, but I’m wondering, is there anyone affecting your songwriting right now?

Tim: I listen to a lot more kind of black music, Sly and the Family Stone, Curtis Mayfield and lots of reggae. We always listen to very diverse music and we still make Ash records. So don’t expect us to sound funk all of a sudden.

DMG: So you’re not gonna be like Tim Burgess of the Charlatans and start singing in a falsetto all the time?

Tim: Nah, I don’t think so, my falsetto isn’t all that good.

DMG: The Slashed movie, are you still grabbing stuff any time you have time?

Tim: We haven’t done much for a couple of months. It’s kinda got hyped out of proportion. I’d be reticent to say anything until we actually get finished.

DMG: So it was just meant to be like the stuff on the B-sides, and people started to make it out like it was gonna be a whole real movie.

Tim: Yeah, I think it was just cause of all the famous people we roped into being in it.

DMG: Wasn’t there a funny story about how Moby came to be in it? I read that he saw your tour bus on the side of the road, and he thought you might be broken down or something, so he pulled over and saw a bunch of people running around with knives.

Tim: Yeah, we were running around in the desert. And then he appeared in the movie after that. He’s game for a laugh, he’s really cool.

DMG: In the day to day touring is there any difference between touring here and in the rest of the world?

Tim: We’ve actually graduated to a bus here, again. It gives us a bit more time to write songs. I guess it shows that we are still a punk rock band, cause even if we’ve got number one albums in the UK, we’ll still get in a van and travel around America. We’ve been doing that for the last four or five months.

DMG: Most bands would be like ‘no, we’re big stars now’

Tim: Yeah, we don’t have an attitude.

DMG: So there you stay in nice hotels, but here you stay in Motel 6.

Tim: Yeah, yeah, Super 8’s, we live in Super 8’s, it’s all you need.

DMG: What’s your most memorable and forgettable moment touring in the states?

Tim: (Laughs) Well how am I gonna remember the most forgettable one? But once in ’96, no ’95, we played in Salt Lake City on a Sunday night, in an over 21 club, to like 6 people, and I think 3 of them were in support bands. That was very depressing. San Francisco is always great for us, we get played on the radio there. Playing there with Coldplay was one of the best. But I don’t know, every week we have a memorable gig.

DMG: I’m curious on how you write songs, which comes first, the lyrics, the music or the melody first?

Tim: Melody, and chords. That sort of like starts me off. And I try to write it all, the main like verses and chorus really quickly. I try and do that in like 10 minutes, and then I kinda leave it for two weeks. Go back and listen to it, and if it sounds interesting I’ll finish it, and write words and stuff.

DMG: Are there any songs that you can’t play live because of strings or whatever, you just can’t get it right?

Tim: Not really, no. We’ve never played “Someday”. I guess it would sound a bit strange.

DMG: “There’s a Star”?

Tim: We play that in the UK. Coming up to Christmas, when we did our last UK tour, we had this great like foam machine, we had them all around the venues, one the roof, so it looked like it was snowing inside the venue, during that song, it was amazing.

DMG: Did you ever have a keyboardist live, to do the string sounds?

Tim: Charlotte plays Vander Rhodes, which is more like electric piano sounds. We used a tape for the string intro.

DMG: Do you see Ash staying together for the next 10 years, or do you see yourself maybe calling it quits?

Tim: I think five years. I think once I maybe hit 30. I think maybe I’ll start doing something different. There will come a time when I’ve got to get a normal life someday. Ever since I was 17, we got signed, we’ve been on tour since I was 18. Yeah, one day I’m gonna just have to like, stay in one place for a year. That’ll be nice, one day. But not yet, we’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Interviewed by Torr Leonard and Tim Jansen