In honor of Ash playing Texas for the first time in seven years, I had a nice long talk with drummer Rick McMurray. The band kicks off their U.S. tour in Dallas at the House of Blues' Cambridge Room tomorrow, March 12th.
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| Shanna Fisher |
First of all, I gotta
say that I’m very happy that you guys are coming back to Dallas. It’s been quite a while . . .
Yeah, it’s been a long time since we’ve been there.
Can you remember the
last few times that you’ve been through Dallas?
Anything pop out about the shows?
I think the last time we were there, it was with the
Bravery. That was a pretty Jägermeister-fueled tour. Uh, yeah. [laughs] My memories aren’t really good
about that time, so not just Dallas.
We’ve always had great shows in Dallas
throughout the years. In particular, I remember supporting Weezer back in ’96.
We played with them on the Pinkerton
tour. It was such a blast. It was a really intense tour. I think Dallas was one of the
best nights. It was in a hot/sweaty club. I think it was that night that I
ended up freaking out on stage because I drank, like, seven espressos
beforehand and one coffee as well. It was one of those things, “Do not operate
heavy machinery” and stuff like that.
So you toured here
when Weezer was touring off a not-very-popular record.
Yeah, yeah!
At the time!
It was a weird experience, but really great shows, actually.
I think Weezer was in this weird positions. Things weren’t going so well.
Things were quite tense amongst them, but they seemed to enjoy themselves
onstage. The audience was there, but it was small clubs. They were kinda
packed-out, so it was kinda like punk rock shows.
I remember that time.
I was in high school and I remember the day that a friend of mine, who was in
the Weezer fan club, got Pinkerton and
came up to me and said, “It sucks!” And it was also around the time that you
guys were starting take off with 1977
and he was really into the band. Where I’m going with this, for a lot of people
my age, a lot of people cite the Angus
soundtrack as how they got into Ash. For me, I saw 1977 at the Tower Records in Picadilly Circus on a family holiday.
I thought the record looked cool. When I listened to it the first time, I heard
the TIE fighter, I knew things were going to go real well.
[laughs] Yeah!
Long-winded question,
but with now, how do you hear about American fans getting into Ash?
Yeah, I think you’re right touching on the Angus soundtrack. We got that show, we
were kinda young. It was one of our first releases, “Jack Names the Planets,” on
there. And “Kung Fu” is used on there as well. It was kinda weird ’cause that
film wasn’t really known over here. I think it had a cult following in the
States. A lot of fans come up and cite that soundtrack. But, yeah, it’s
different things throughout the years. The first track on 1977 was used on a, oh, I can’t even remember the name of the game.
[Editor’s Note: It was Gran Turismo] It was on a computer
game and a lot of people got into us as well. I’m not a massive gamer. I think
I bought a Nintendo Wii about four years ago and have used it twice.
You guys are playing
SXSW to promote the A-Z Series
finally being “officially” released in America.
Yeah, we had all these records and put them out on vinyl and
the download’s available with that as well. It’s good to be getting back out
there. We did an East Coast tour last year. It was great to get back. It’s been
seven years since we played, apart from New
York, where the other two guys are based. It was nice
to see there’s a lot of love there for us. We’re going to try to spread them
across before we start recording any new material. This will be our Midwest thing. We’re doing Chicago
after we do SXSW and then Minneapolis, Detroit, and working our way back to New York after that. Hopefully later in the
year we could spread that over to the West Coast, but no firm plans for that
yet.
I think why a lot of
people like Ash in Dallas
is because of Josh Venable and The
Adventure Club. Would you agree?
Yeah, yeah! He’s been one of our biggest supporters through
the years, and it would be great to get back and catch up.
You know he’s the
lead singer of a Smiths’ cover band now, for fun?
Oh great! We actually played with Johnny Marr last year. Tim
[Wheeler, Ash vocalist/guitarist] had a duet project with his sometime
girlfriend. They did a Christmas album a couple of years ago and he asked me to
drum on some tracks. Just before Christmas, we played in Manchester and we got Johnny Marr to play
guitar with us. That was a buzz.
I’m curious: With all
the cover songs Ash has done over the years, have you ever heard from the band
that you covered? More specifically, I’m curious if Carly Simon ever heard your
version of “Coming Around Again.”
I’m not sure. It would be interesting! We’ve not heard if
she has. That cover version was kind of weird. We did it back in 1993, just a
year after we’d started, for a radio station in Ireland. We thought it was a really
great song, but we didn’t do it justice. So we came up with the idea about four
or five years ago just to drag it out. It turned out that version was so good.
It’s something we should rehearse for a live show. It’s pretty full-on. The
production’s really great.
Have two more
questions for you and they’re about Star
Wars.
Oh, OK! [laughs]
Knowing how much you
guys are fans of it, I’m curious what you hope J.J. Abrams can do with the next
Star Wars movie.
Um, I dunno. I’m not going to have any expectations of it,
but at the same time, after the three prequels, the legacy of Star Wars is a little bit tainted by
George [Lucas] himself. I think it’s kinda cool. It’s exciting to see what somebody
else can do with it, restore what we loved about it when we first got into it.
Let’s see!
What’s interesting to
me is with people I’ve known who have children under the age of ten. It’s like A New Hope is still the gateway movie
for them. So, knowing that you have a young child, what would be the first Star Wars movie you’d like to show your
child?
Oh yeah, A New Hope.
Definitely. I guess there’s an argument there to start with the first three
[prequels], get the bad ones out of the way. That way, you can be blown away. I
can say, “Oh, this gets better!” I remember being 14 years old and seeing A New Hope for the first time and I was
consumed by it. I think the whole storyline of A New Hope is so simple, a little kid could understand what’s going
on there. I mean, talking about politics and taxation in [the prequels], it’s
like, “What? Really?” This is what you’re basing it on? Whatever?
There’s always hope
because it’s amazing to me seeing kids get into Star Wars. It’s not just the movies; it’s the action figures, they
want to play the video games, they want to watch The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network. I’m hearing you on the prequels,
but I don’t think the prequels are that, but I’m totally sounding like Daisy
from Spaced just now.
[laughs]
But I can understand
why someone like Simon Pegg would be upset about those movies.
Yeah! It’s been so long since I’ve watched any of them. It’s
probably been ten years, to be honest.
Yeah! That’s kind of
the same situation with me. I watched Empire and Jedi for the first time since
college and I still like them, but New
Hope is still my favorite.
Yeah! It’s kinda part of your DNA. If you’re of a certain
age, you probably watched the movie a hundred times and can recite every line
before it’s said.
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