Richard Ashcroft has ruled out the possibility of The Verve playing live again in the future, and has instead criticised the current culture of nostalgia, which he believes is ‘suffocating’ the prospects of new bands.
“It’s not happening,” he stated in an interview with Lauren Laverne on BBC 6Music on any Verve reunion. “You have to be real in life and I’m proud that we went in and recorded new material. The whole nostalgia thing is getting suffocating and it’s difficult for younger acts, especially at festivals.”
“If you look at some of the line-ups, I’m not ageist by any means, but it’s dominated by nostalgia. We need the youth to create their own version of what may potentially become nostalgic but if they haven’t got a place to do that because they’re dominated by these big monster dinosaur acts, mopping up all the money.”
Later, Ashcroft discussed the progress of his new United Nations Of Sound album – the first fruits of which could see the light of day this September.
“I’ve just been working for the past six, seven months in my cellar,” he continued. “I’m really excited, we should get the first potential tune in September. I’m just putting everything into it at the moment.”
