Winstanley
Richard Paul Ashcroft was born on 11 September 1971 in Billinge, a village between Wigan and St Helens. His father, a keen music lover, died when Richard was 11. The loss haunted him and threaded itself through his songwriting for years. He grew up in a household shaped by grief and music in equal measure.
At Winstanley Sixth Form College in Wigan, Ashcroft met guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones, and drummer Peter Salisbury. McCabe was a quiet, intensely gifted musician whose guitar playing drew on shoegaze, psychedelia, and jazz. He was the sonic architect. Ashcroft was the visionary, the frontman, the one who walked on stage like he was leading a congregation. The tension between McCabe's introspective complexity and Ashcroft's messianic confidence would define the band.
They formed Verve in 1990. The name was simple, elegant, and already taken. A legal dispute with Verve Records, the American jazz label, forced them to add "The" in 1994. It was a minor inconvenience that became a permanent irritation. They were The Verve from then on, and the "The" never stopped feeling like it had been bolted on by a solicitor.
A Storm in Heaven
Their debut album, A Storm in Heaven, was released on Hut Records in June 1993. It was a vast, swirling, psychedelic record that owed more to spacious Krautrock and shoegaze than to anything happening on the Britpop scene. McCabe's guitar was drenched in effects, creating landscapes of sound that seemed to stretch for miles. Ashcroft's vocals floated over the top, part sermon, part dream.
The album reached number 27 in the UK charts. It wasn't a commercial blockbuster, but it established The Verve as a band of enormous ambition. They were building cathedrals while everyone else was building terraced houses. The live shows were legendary: extended, improvised, transcendent. Ashcroft stalked the stage with his arms outstretched, eyes closed, lost in the music. He looked like a man having a religious experience, and half the audience believed he was.
Touring took its toll. The band's internal dynamics were volatile. Ashcroft and McCabe clashed repeatedly over direction and control. In 1995, after a difficult period that included cancelled tours and growing personal tensions, the band split for the first time. It lasted less than a year.
A Northern Soul
Their second album, A Northern Soul, was released on 3 July 1995, just weeks before the band's first split in September of that year. It stands as one of the most intense and emotionally raw British guitar albums of the decade. Produced by Owen Morris, who had just finished Definitely Maybe for Oasis, it was louder, more aggressive, and more focused than their debut.
"History" was the standout single, a sweeping, epic track that built from a whisper to a roar. The album reached number 13 in the UK charts. Critics were enthusiastic, but commercial success remained modest. The Verve were the band that everyone in the music industry admired but the wider public hadn't quite caught up with yet.
The tension between Ashcroft and McCabe continued to simmer. Ashcroft wanted to push towards bigger, more accessible songs. McCabe wanted to maintain the sonic experimentation that made the band unique. Both were right. The compromise between those two instincts would produce their masterpiece.
"After more than twenty years, Ashcroft was finally recognised as the writer of his own song."
- Richard Ashcroft
Urban Hymns
Urban Hymns was released on 29 September 1997. It entered the UK chart at number one and stayed on the chart for over two years. It has sold over 10 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling British albums of all time.
"Bitter Sweet Symphony" was the song that changed everything. Built around a sample from an orchestral recording of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time," arranged by Andrew Loog Oldham, it was a towering, string-driven anthem that sounded like nothing else on the radio. The band had cleared the sample through ABKCO Records, Allen Klein's company, which managed the Stones' pre-1970 catalogue. But ABKCO claimed the band had used more of the sample than the agreement allowed. The resulting legal action transferred 100% of the songwriting royalties to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, despite the fact that neither of them had written the orchestral arrangement the sample was taken from.
The song reached number two in the UK and number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The music video, directed by Walter Stern, showed Ashcroft walking in a straight line down Hoxton Street in London, shouldering past pedestrians without breaking stride. It became one of the most iconic music videos of the 1990s.
"The Drugs Don't Work" followed and reached number one in the UK in September 1997. It was a devastating ballad about loss, written by Ashcroft, drawing on personal loss and his own reflections on the futility of escape. "Lucky Man" and "Sonnet" were also released as singles. The album was a masterpiece from start to finish, the sound of a band at the absolute peak of their powers.
The End, and Justice
The Verve split again in April 1999. The internal tensions that had defined the band from the beginning finally proved insurmountable. Ashcroft launched a solo career, releasing Alone with Everybody in 2000, which debuted at number one in the UK. McCabe retreated from public life. Jones and Salisbury pursued other projects.
They reunited once more in 2007, releasing Forth in August 2008. It reached number one in the UK. They toured, they played festivals, and for a while it looked like The Verve might sustain a third act. It didn't last. They split again in 2009, and this time it felt permanent. Ashcroft has since said he would never rule out another reunion, but the relationship with McCabe appears to have run its course.
Then, in May 2019, something remarkable happened. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and ABKCO agreed to transfer the songwriting credits and publishing royalties for "Bitter Sweet Symphony" back to Richard Ashcroft. After more than 20 years, Ashcroft was finally recognised as the writer of his own song. He announced it at the Ivor Novello Awards, thanking Jagger and Richards "for acknowledging me as the writer of a fucking masterpiece."
A band from Wigan who made music that sounded like the sky opening up. A frontman who walked through the world like it was going to get out of his way. A guitarist who painted with sound. And a song so good that it took 22 years to get his name back on it. That's The Verve. That's Greater Manchester.