Ash - Pop melodies, Northern Irish style

To mark the release of the new album "Islands", we had the chance to speak on the phone with Tim Wheeler, voice, guitar and songwriter for the band. His answers give us privileged insight into the whole process behind making the band's songs, from writing to selection to work on the sound.

I find this new album to be the most varied you've ever made. Ash have gone through several different phases stylistically and sonically, and on this album you've done new things while also folding in everything you've done across your entire career.

First of all, for me a song has to be good in its basic elements, I mean the melody and the lyrics. After that, I think the variety on this record comes from the fact that I wrote a lot, I'd write things like ten songs in ten hours and I'd do that once a week, and because of all that writing, I ended up experimenting a lot. I'm able to juggle different styles when I write.

Talking about what I think is new for Ash on this record, I mean first of all a song like “Did Your Love Burn Out”, which goes back and forth between a quiet moment and a loud one, and then, in the last two songs, you used keyboards in a way I've never heard from Ash before.

“Did Your Love Burn Out” is really something fresh for us – that bluesy, funky feel – while I was working on it I kept wondering if maybe I was going too far, but I think it works really well. Rick, then, is very versatile, he's always working on new styles, I once heard that the Clash said they could play anything because their drummer was able to play anything, and I think this record is so good because Rick can juggle different styles so well. As for the keyboards, I have a collection of vintage keyboards, but it was hard to fit that into Ash's music, and now I'm glad we managed to do it in the last two songs on this record, to fold them into that wall of reverb — the songs are built around the keyboard, which for us is a bit of a new thing.

You said you wrote a lot, but how does the song selection process work? Can Mark and Rick say “we like this one, not that one”?

Yes, this is where I really need them, because I can probably tell on my own whether a song is good or not, but I need them to agree, and sometimes they'll like a song that I only think is just okay, sometimes they give very convinced answers and when they say “this one's really good”, we play it together. I need their perspective, and that's one of the really great things about being together in a band.

On playing different styles, at what point do you decide which style to attach to a song? Do you decide it right from the start, or do you just write the basic melody and lyrics and then work as a band on the sound?

I think the style is already there in the song when I write it, but once we start playing it, it takes its own shape and can evolve. We choose which song to work on mainly because we think it's strong melodically and the lyrics are good, and then we start playing it and we tell ourselves “hey, this is a different style than we thought it was, okay, let's go with it this way”. We always try to find a balance between sounding like Ash and sounding fresh and exciting at the same time. Either way, we don't do different versions of the same song, we play it once and see what shape it takes, and if it works, we stick with that.

The lyrics on this record are about the end of a relationship. Is this the first time the lyrics on an Ash record deal with such a specific event? You did it on your solo record, which is about your father's death, but had you ever done it before on an Ash record?

I think other albums touch on the end of a relationship and falling in love again, I think “Free All Angels” has some of that in its songs, “Burn Baby Burn” was a song about the end of a relationship, “Shining Light” was about a new love, but I think this is the first Ash record where I wrote all the lyrics around a single feeling — there were traces of it on other records, but I think you're right, I wanted this record to have a unified sense to it, a concept running through it.

You, Mark and Rick are also credited as producers, and then there's another person. Did you need what's called an “outside ear”?

He helped us as an engineer in our studio and mixed the whole record, so I wanted to give him credit for that. He's good at shaping the sound during recording and mixing.

Every time I read press releases or reviews about you, I think the element that gets the least praise is your voice. I always read about your melodies, your sound and your lyrics, but rarely anything specific about your voice. Do you feel a bit underrated as a singer?

I don't know, it's a lot of things put together: a guitarist, a songwriter and a singer. I think my voice has improved, but I've never thought of myself as a great singer. I have my own way of doing it, my own style and personality, and I think I've gained more and more confidence. I'm not bothered about not getting recognition for it, my voice is just one of the vehicles I use to bring my songs to people, but it would be nice to be told my voice is good, especially in Italy, land of great singers!

What can we expect from your upcoming shows? Something different from the past, or still just the three of you playing?

I don't think we'll take a very different approach live, it's always exciting to have a new set of songs, and a lot of these have been thrilling to play in rehearsal. I can't wait, I think it'll be fast and powerful and loud.

You did shows for the anniversaries of “Free All Angels” and “1977”, does that mean they're your favourite records, or did you choose them because you thought it would be more interesting for the fans?

They're our most successful records, so they're definitely the ones that make us feel most in touch with our fans. I'd love to do the same for the other albums too, but it would be an awful lot of work…

Can you pick a favourite album, or is it like asking a parent to name their favourite child?

I'm still very attached to "1977", and it was fantastic to play it again at the recent anniversary shows.

My favourite Ash song is "A Life Less Ordinary", because it doesn't appear on any album, only on the film soundtrack?

Because it was written only for that soundtrack. We got a commission to write the song, and it was right after the "1977" tour ended - I hadn't written any songs in a year and a half. I later wanted to include it on "Nu-Clear Sounds" too, but we didn't start recording until the beginning of the following year, I think, so it ended up as a song caught between the two albums. I do regret that it's not on "Nu-Clear Sounds", it would have been great there, and besides, it's definitely one of our fans' favourite songs.

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