The Verve
Alternative / Rock
othing so distinguishes a band than the sense that they are making history: the recognition of past achievements mixed with a heady anticipation of the new. Prior to their return to the charts in June this year, The Verve had already left a pervasive imprint on modern music, with two albums of magnificent ambition and complete certainty. And yet, even after the release of their most accomplished long player to date, Urban Hymns, there is still the sensation that The Verve are only at the start of a widescreen adventure, a band embarking on an epic roll.
The Verve have always known how good they could be. In 1993, for instance, Richard Ashcroft let it be known that "History has a place for us. It may take us three albums, but we will be there". Four years on,it would seem this prediction has the momentum of absolute conviction.
The Verve, from Wigan in Lancashire, were formed in 1990.The band's line-up was originally Richard Ashcroft (vocals, guitar), Nick McCabe (guitar), Simon Jones (bass) and Peter Salisbury (drums). At the tail-end of 1995, Simon Tong, an old school friend joined the band to play guitar and keyboards.
Richard, Simon and Pete knew each other from Upholland High School and recruited Nick from Winstanley College. Whatever went through their minds and into their mouths in the months that followed can only be guessed at, but whatever it was, it worked. Nurtured by great music and Social Security and with eyes fixed firmly on the horizon they started making a sound that reached far higher than it had a right to. Early gigs led writers to describe them as "Gigantic" and "Already immortal" before they had released a record. Those that saw them saw something potentially disconcerting, something inspiring. In a music scene that was waiting for anything to happen, down came Verve. Like beggars in a Bentley these boys were reaching for the stars, doing something that belied their age and roots. And people began to respond.
The band, who signed to Hut Recordings in September 1991, were described as: "the liquid essence of rock 'n' roll", and easily met everyone's initial expectations when their first three singles in 1992 - All In The Mind, She's A Superstar, and Gravity Grave - all reached the top of the Independent Charts. The songs, the sleeves and even the B-sides were something to behold. Together they demonstrated a vision that was absent from many of their peers. But it was a vision that wouldn't bend for anyone. Live shows saw them literally unplugged by Philistines and, occasionally, simply stopping if they felt that things weren't right. Capricious arrogance perhaps, but if you're sure you're right, where's the sense in going wrong?
They went on to support The Black Crowes, play their first dates in the U.S.A. and release another single, Blue, in May '93. In June of the same year, the band's stylish debut album, A Storm In Heaven was released. It was a truly ambitious LP, perhaps even a nineties' psychedelic classic, that fulfilled the claims that both the band and the media had been making. Most of the songs were generated in the studio (Sawmills in Cornwall) with John Leckie and it proved a risk worth taking. For all Verve's charisma, however, they proved too elusive and, quite rightly, engrossed in their own ideals to be caught up in the music business fame machine. As Richard said at the time: "I don't think we're ever going to achieve what we want to achieve. It would be impossible, but that's the point, to aim further."
|