GA: Ash burst onto the scene in the mid 90s finding success with album 1977 with Girl from Mars and Goldfinger. Guitar based music was huge in the 90s with Britpop, Grunge, alternative rock and hard rock in their heyday. How did Ash fit into that era?
TW: I guess we were across a couple of scenes with grunge and post grunge. We were big Nirvana fans but we were poppy enough to fall into Britpop and get big around the time Oasis and Blur were big.
GA: What bands were your greatest influences?
TW: At the beginning Nirvana, Pixies Dinosaur Jr and Mudhoney. Then we got heavily into Beach Boys and Ramones, kinda looked backwards. Before grunge we were really into metal and I still put on metal records. Guitar music could be really broad at the time (heavy and soft), like the Smashing Pumpkins.
GA: I bought the Wild Surf single from Nu-Clear Sounds. The song had a huge hook but you guys weren’t the new kids on the block anymore. Do you feel commercially and artistically you plateaued at that point?
TW: I think we were trying to put the brakes on. We were getting big and into magazines and hadn’t intended to be in that place. We wanted to make a darker record and slow things down. But I liked Nu-Clear sound as a record. When that failed it was hard to take – I think it was kinda what we needed.
GA: With Charlotte joining for Free All Angels you had a new lease on life with Shining Light and Burn Baby Burn showing an extra level of sophistication and maturity in songwriting. How were you developing mentally as an artist?
TW: I guess we’d grown up around the time, I was 22 or 23 and I was thinking deeper about the lyrics. Nu-Clear’s sounds was a comparative failure and we wanted to make a strong record and not get dropped from our record label. We spent a lot of time writing it and we had a great time.
GA: With electronic music and hip hop much bigger today rock has a lot more competition. Has that impacted your capacity to win new fans and is it harder now for young Northern Irish bands?
TW: Yeah I think it’s tied in with the record industry collapse. It’s definitely harder to reach as far as you used to, I guess. I think the process of making music is still the same. I guess in some ways it’s freeing as we don’t care about being commercial anymore at all. We can really do whatever we want these days with our established fan base. I’d say it must be tricky for younger bands. But the cream always rises to the top.
GA: When people think of Northern Ireland it’s hard not to think of Sinn Fein, the IRA etc. Do you think the music and arts culture of that region gets glossed over by the international press?
TW: It’s really a very small country and a lot of music and art has come out of it. I think it has punched above its weight, despite the trouble it has been in really. I’m thinking of Van Morrison, Stiff Little fingers, Snow Patrol and actors like Liam Neeson.
GA: Talk us through your new record, KABLAMMO and the sound you were going for.
TW: It’s the first album since 2007 and we thought that would be the end of albums so just did a range of singles. Since then streaming got big and vinyl had a comeback and we realised albums hadn’t really died. We looked back to when we started and tried to remember what it was like to do an Ash album. In 2013 we toured 1977 in full and realised people still liked the old stuff. We wanted to make something that would really stand out and looked at songs that sounded great in rehearsal. The new stuff fits in with the old stuff and is a real pleasure to play live. Melodic songs are natural for me to write and are the foundation of a good album.
GA: What is your set list going to feature on your Adelaide show?
TW: Six tracks from the new album and the rest will be a lot of the hits people want to hear. People seem to be leaving really happy. We’re not a band that’s afraid to play what people want to hear. We love to get a reaction, that’s always great to see.
Ash play the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel on Friday 18 March. Tickets are available here.
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