Not content with being more Pop! and Rock! simultaneously than any other band of the last twenty years, Ash are about to embark on an adventure of fantastically cavalier foolhardiness: releasing a single a fortnight for the next twelve months and accompanying it with a tour that goes in strict alphabetical order. Before they get lost in that whirlpool of new tunes, Clash caught up with frontman Tim Wheeler to discuss a few of his favourite things.
Film
“I’ve been watching this Norman Mailer film from the ’80s called Tough Guys Don’t Dance – it’s so bad it’s amazing, basically Murder She Wrote on acid. I think it won an award for the worst piece of screenwriting ever, and it’s got my new favourite actor in it. Wings Hauser! He had to be an actor with that name.”
Book
“Right now I’m reading The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross. It’s about the decline of classical music into atonal dissonance after its golden age, and it draws all these ties between portraits of famous composers and historical events. I’m only about a third of the way through it, but it’s really inspiring, it’s got me to run off and download loads of stuff.”
Album
“Hmm, Can I come back to you?”
Track
“I really like ‘Whirling’ by The Joy Formidable. They make a really huge sound for a three-piece. They remind me of a lot of stuff that Ash were listening to when we first started out, but they still sound really modern and original too.”
TV
“I fucking hate TV! I might have it on for the football if Arsenal are playing.”
Holiday
“I actually really like going back to Donegal, where my parents live. Although the last time I was there was slightly marred by the fact that my dad’s got a Jag, so I was driving that around, shades on, and someone shouts out ‘Hey, James!’ Thought I was James Blunt, the fucker.”
Live Act
“I was with a friend from Chicago recently and we found ourselves in this rehearsal room with a rectangle of two hundred electric guitarists. They’d been put together by Rhys Chatham – apparently he was a pianist in the ’60s, but then he saw The Ramones at CBGBs and it totally changed his life, he got really into the physics of music. Anyway, we went and saw him performing the following day, and it was so intense. Can I have his ‘The Crimson Grail’ for my album? Incredible stuff. Kind of makes me think Ash should get another ninety-nine guitarists!”
Words by Iain Moffat.
The single ‘True Love 1980’ is out on October 12th.
