Petrol
The “Petrol” video is a DIY, low-budget performance clip that is typical of Ash’s earliest visual output, reflecting both the band’s youth and the modest resources available to them at the time. Shot in stark black and white, the video centres on raw live-performance footage of the band playing the song, capturing their energy and immediacy rather than attempting a polished or narrative-driven concept.
Intercut with these performance moments are a series of seemingly unstructured images — including family-style shots, abstract flashes of flames, and fleeting images of cars — giving the video a collage-like quality. This loose, almost home-assembled approach reinforces the sense that the video was pieced together intuitively, prioritising mood and momentum over coherence or storytelling.
Tim Wheeler is shown playing a black Gibson Les Paul, a guitar closely associated with his sound and stage presence during this period and used frequently by him throughout the mid-to-late 1990s.
Little concrete information has survived regarding the video’s production, and no definitive director or production credits are widely documented.
On November 26th 2019, Ash released a remastered version of the video to promote the Teenage Wildlife compilation album, which mixed new footage with clips from this original video.
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