Returning with a banging new album, ‘Ad Astra’, the ever-excellent Ash are on a creative roll – thanks, in part, to the critical success of their previous record, ‘Race the Night’. Recent single ‘Give Me Back My World’ highlights a band full of confidence and momentum. Damian Robinson caught up with drummer Rick McMurray ahead of the album’s release and their upcoming show at Newcastle’s Boiler Shop in November.
I saw you at The Mayfair back in 1996. You must almost have the full bingo set of North East venues by now?
Wow, yeah! There were a lot of bands and mates saying we needed to play The Mayfair because it had a really special atmosphere – and I’m glad we did. I know it wasn’t around much longer after ’96, which feels like a real shame. We played City Hall with The Darkness earlier this year too, so yeah, we’ve definitely played a lot of North East venues. It’s always a great night up there.
Congratulations on ‘Ad Astra’, it’s excellent. Are you excited for it to be released?
We really are, yeah. Our last album was received really well, so it’s great to carry on that momentum. In a way, this feels like part two of a trilogy, which is exciting and creatively interesting.
There was a strong visual and sonic identity to ‘Race the Night’, including the live show backdrops. With ‘Ad Astra’, there seems to be another complete theme across both the songs and the visuals. Is this part of the trilogy you’re talking about?
In a way, yes. We’re working with the same artist again, which helps keep that visual continuity. ‘Ad Astra’ is very space-themed, so there’s a definite callback to the last album, as well as to earlier tracks like ‘Girl from Mars’, which are quite spacey and interplanetary. Tim wrote a load of songs during lockdown and hasn’t really stopped since, so we’re trying to group the tracks by feel and by instrumentation. We’re in a really good place creatively – with songs already out and others still to come.
That’s great – and really impressive, considering you’ve been going strong for over 30 years…
Thank you. What really helps is working with other artists and bouncing ideas around. For example, we collaborated with Graham Coxon on a couple of tracks for this album. We got to know him in the ’90s and he’s always been incredibly kind to us. ‘Fun People’, in particular, is a great track with some brilliant input from Graham. Collaborations like that can really energise you and keep you wanting to push things forward.
In terms of the upcoming tour, do you have a sense of what the setlist will be?
We’ve not quite nailed the setlist yet – it gets trickier the more albums and songs you have to choose from. What worked really well with ‘Race the Night’ was striking a balance between the newer material and the older classics. It’s unlikely we’d ever skip playing songs like ‘Girl from Mars’, but with a new album, there’s always that feeling that if you don’t play some of those tracks now, they might never get played live. We’ll choose wisely, I’m sure.
‘Ad Astra’ is released this month. Ash play The Boiler Shop in Newcastle this November. Tickets, priced at £27.00 in advance, are available from boilershop.net.
