Downpatrick, Northern Ireland · alternative rock · power pop

Ash

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Northern Irish power-pop with an absurd hit rate in the late 90s and no interest in slowing the tempo since.

Ash formed in Downpatrick, County Down, while its members, guitarist and vocalist Tim Wheeler, bassist Mark Hamilton and drummer Rick McMurray, were still at school, taking their name from the first word they liked in the dictionary. Before that, Wheeler and Hamilton had played together in an Iron Maiden cover band called Vietnam. Early demo tapes recorded locally led manager Stephen Taverner to press a limited run of the single "Jack Names the Planets" in 1994, the same year the band released its debut mini-album, Trailer, on Infectious Records.

The band left school in 1995 on the back of breakthrough singles "Kung Fu," used over the closing credits of Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx, "Girl from Mars" and "Angel Interceptor." Their 1996 debut album, 1977, arrived amid the Britpop years and produced further singles including "Oh Yeah," pairing punk tempos with pop melodies; it was later named by NME as one of the greatest albums ever made, though the band was uneasy with the Britpop tag given the sectarian overtones of stressing Britishness in Northern Ireland.

Charlotte Hatherley joined on guitar for 1998's Nu-Clear Sounds. After narrowly avoiding bankruptcy, the band returned with Free All Angels in 2001, containing "Shining Light" and "Burn Baby Burn," part of a run that has produced one silver, two gold and two platinum UK-chart-topping releases and eighteen top-40 singles. Hatherley left in 2006, returning Ash to a three-piece.

As a trio the band later abandoned the conventional album format altogether, releasing twenty-six singles at a rate of one every two weeks in 2009 under the title A-Z Series, a project that stood apart from the five studio albums that came before it. Live, Ash still lean on speed, distortion and short songs.

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alternative rockpower pop