Richard has a fear of rats, which caused problems during the writing sessions for ‘A Storm In Heaven’ in a house in Wales, owned by a musician called Dr Phibes – the house was riddled with the furry little bastards. Richard lasted only a few days before fleeing; the rest of the band stayed and wrote for a month.
The Verve In Concert – V-98
After recording their debut single ‘All In The Mind’ the band decided to listen to it on acid, hated it, scrapped the whole session and re-recorded the song in two days.
When touring ‘A Storm In Heaven’, The Verve played several gigs with a formative Oasis as support. Ashcroft and the Gallaghers became close friends, Noel eventually writing ‘Cast No Shadow’ about the Verve frontman.
Ashcroft claims he wrote the entire Verve album ‘Urban Hymns’ on his own and planned to release it under his own name before “bottling it at the end”.
