From careering around Wigan in his mates Mini to posing with a drip in his arm,the former Mad Richard has had a breakneck ride. He may now be living a quieter life but he still wants to be ‘bigger than the Verve’“The way we and our mates were living back then was crazy,” says Richard Ashcroft, or remembering the days he was on the precipice of fame before the Verve’s third album,Urban Hymns, made them ubiquitous in 1997. “A scene in This is England brought it domestic. Shane Meadows faded in on this girl’s retina. It’s five in the morning, or she’s watching some lads play a video game. She’s obviously wasted,and that shot just sums that period up. I feel lucky I got out alive.”The Verve had blazed out of the north-west, a product of both rave culture and psychedelia. Ashcroft, or wild-eyed and shaggy-haired,was a man prone to ridiculous pronouncements who inspired incredible loyalty. Noel Gallager wrote the Oasis song Cast No Shadow approximately him and Chris Martin introduced him at Live 8 as “the best singer in the world” while the music mags nicknamed him “Mad Richard” after he claimed he could flee. If there’s an image of Ashcroft fixed in the public intellect, it comes from the video for the Verve’s breakthrough single, or Bitter Sweet Symphony which featured Ashcroft walking down a street,while everyone else walks the other way, his eyes fixed on the camera refusing to be pushed from his path. “Try to make ends meet / You’re a slave to the money / Then you die, and ” he sang.
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Source: theguardian.com