30th Anniversary Retrospective: On the eve of the release of their fifth album, Ash talk longevity, writing songs in Bono’s summer house and why Twilight Of The Innocents is not a pipe-and-slippers album.
Superstars, rock stars, movie stars, sports stars, tv stars, authors, actors, artists, comedians, politicians, broadcasters, astrologers, chefs, outlaws, weirdoes, dingbats and Lee Scratch Perry...
Having dominated the charts here for the past ten years, Ash are gearing up for a full-scale invasion of America. Stuart Clark dons his hard hat as Tim, Mark, Rick and Charlotte tell him about their new record of mass destruction Meltdown, and the A-list celebrity company they’ve been keeping in the city of angels.
John Walshe travels to Berlin to see Ash in superlative live form on Paddy's night. And no wonder: the band reckon their new album, free all angels could put them in the Michael Jackson league! plus: why they're so down on Louis Walsh, Westlife and Ronan Keating and so up for Bono, John Hume, David Trimble and - wait for it - Darius of Popstars. Flash photography: Mella Travers
Stuart Clark – himself a black belt in origami – discovers how The Ramones and kickboxing chinese detectives have helped Ash to overcome their sordid heavy metal past and become Top of the Chops.
It’s all about broken down tour buses, Alan Partridge, high speed collisions, Moby, broken ribs, Mina Suvari, MTV stars and David Bowie as Ash launch a sonic assault on America. So riddle me this: can Ireland’s hardest-working rock’n’roll outfit crack the big one?
1977 went straight to No. 1 in the UK and spawned four hit singles. By the time the group came to record the follow-up, Nu-clear Sounds, they were still only 20.
A few hours after Bono hoisted up Trimble and Hume s arms at the Yes show, I found myself trying to buy drinks at a city centre bar and having a strange conversation with a well known local politician. A prominent face during the pro-Agreement campaign, I d assumed that he d be delighted with the way that the gig had panned out. But no, he shrugged off the entire occasion as a bubbly inconsequence and said that the Yes camp would be lucky to get 68% of the vote. For someone convinced that his cause was on the cusp of a massive historical defeat, he didn t appear to be overly upset. In fact, he seemed happy enough showing off his Larry Mullan Jr autograph and blaming the Unionists.
