ASH will be releasing their latest album in October, it is called Ad Astra and is to be a gentler, more pop and acoustic follow up to 2023's more traditional Ash sounding Race The Night. There are many highlights on the new album plus a Record Store Tour around the UK to hear it Live.

I was lucky enough to speak to Mark Hamilton, starting with Ash's amazing longevity....

Return To Sound: “Going back through the history of Ash you haven’t had any prolonged breaks as other bands seemed to, who have broken up and reformed a couple of times in the same time span?

Mark Hamilton: “Yeah, we've to some degree been under the radar through a long period but we've still been putting out sometimes self releases or very low-key independent albums. The last album, Race of the Night, was back on Fierce Panda and that was getting back in the top 20. That was the first time in maybe over a decade or so. It was maybe longer than that, a lot longer. But that was good. We never took a long hiatus”.

“I think the longest break was probably the pandemic itself over two years and we were just completely lost. Around that time Tim's dad died we took a bit of a year and a half off because he did a solo album which was very much based on his dad so it didn't feel right to do an Ash album. Also, both me and Rick had young children around that same time so we were still working festivals in the summer times and there was a bit of a gap, probably between the A to Z stuff and then we said that we'd never release an album again, then there was a little bit of a gap till we came back with the Kablammo! then a gap till Islands which was the first one when back with BMG”. and I can't remember the exact years.

RTS: “But what you can take away, is it's quite incredible that you three guys stuck through thick and thin, ups and downs. Like you say you're flying under the radar quite a bit sometimes but you must have a lot of belief in Ash and yourselves to keep on keeping on?”

MH: “There's still this kind of self belief that we never really fully saw our potential or were really fully appreciated. It was kind of like we still felt we had a lot to prove and that's always been a driving force for us even from when we were maybe 15 years old and our first band me and Tim were in, we were like the laughing stock of the town. In a weird way it was a really bad band but because we were quite publicly laughed at and mocked it gave us this real drive to prove everyone wrong and I think to some extent that never went away. Different eras of music come and you're always trying to get a bit of momentum behind an album and you go away for three years and it's like the entire landscape's changed and you have to reintroduce yourself all over again”.

“The whole plan with Race The Night and then Ad Astra and then the third album which we've actually got mostly finished is to try and get a bit of momentum and maintain it. Yeah, keep them coming thick and fast”

RTS: “Don't be forgotten, which is really true in the modern music world. Does that sound correct?”

MH: “I think you're right and also the spotlight moves very quickly so some new hot thing which can be big for like four weeks and then it's very quickly on to the next”

Mark Hamilton Live on Stage

RTS: “You're probably best as you are, gliding along nicely and just doing what you do?

MH: “I mean if you were to ask yourself if you wanted to have a number one single or to sustain a long career you'd probably always go for your career”. 

RTS: “That's an interesting question you've asked yourself there haha”

MH: “Yeah, that's true. I think for us being able to potentially put out new music is very important for us to keep ourselves interested and passionate. If we were stuck in the cycle of only ever doing “look back” shows that would get tired very quickly. I think on tour we were doing 7 or 8 new songs mixed in with all the old hits. That's kind of the way we approach live stuff”.

RTS: ”I've listened a couple of times to the new album. A lot of melody and variety”.

MH: “Did you hear the stuff from Graham Coxon?”

RTS: “Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I'm a huge Blur fan. Track 2 is “Fun People” It's a pretty wacky song. It really sounds like Graham Coxon straight away”.

MH: “So at one point when the song was being mixed there was a version where Graham was more buried. I was like what's the point in having Graham Coxon if you're going to bury him? Stick it up wide in your face and let everyone know it's him”. 

RTS: “Were you all involved in playing with Graham?”

MH “We had recorded the rest of the song already and then there was the call and response bit and the Fun People line which keeps repeating and we were just trying to think of different ways of doing it. Should it be a female voice or who would be good? I mean Graham's always been a fan of us and periodically he would show up backstage at shows so I think Tim knew he was in London, he just reached out to him and said hey Graham I've got a couple songs for you, would you be up for guesting on them?”

“He seemed to be very enthusiastic about being part of it and I think what he did, the guitar work and the vocal stuff is brilliant. On “Ad Astra”  the last song it's like Tim and Graham are doing a duelling solo and we actually videoed it in the studio so you can see Tim'll play four bars solo and then Graham comes back.” 

“Well I mean a big part of it is just from being in the industry for years you kind of get to meet a lot of people especially at festivals, so many other bands that you otherwise wouldn't. Then if you meet a second or a third time you end up mates or whatever”.

RTS: “Isn’t that life in general? You meet people and you just pick up connections don't you? 

MH: ”There's something within a few minutes of meeting someone, you know if you get along well with them. And then those people you end up becoming mates with for years, I think  because we recorded those songs, there's definitely potential for Graham doing stuff live and I think the friendship is only going to grow even more”.

Mark Hamilton

RTS: “The album's still a little way from release October isn't it? I was looking at the theme for Ad Astra and it appears to be a bit interstellar and the video looks like fun for “Give Me Back My World?” What was that like to do?”

MH: “Those astronaut suits were extremely warm and we shot that on a pretty hot day in the middle of a field with no shelter and it was boiling hot. Yeah it was pretty rough in the suits”. 

RTS: “And was the theme your idea?”

MH: “Well we worked with a director called Anthony he made the “Jump the Line” video, he made the “Crashed Out Wasted” video, this was his third one and actually next weekend we're going to be shooting a video for “Which One Do You Want”, he's just a really, really good creative director. Video budgets are very, very low compared to what they used to be, basically you're making a video for YouTube these days, as MTV doesn't really exist. He can make it look expensive even though it's not”.

RTS: “What is the story behind the song “Give me back my World”

MH: “Tim wrote it during the pandemic and we obviously didn't really even function as a band for two years but we still welcomed each other and Tim recorded a bunch of demo songs just on acoustic guitar, that was one of them and when it came to the time when we were recording Race The Night that was one of the songs that we recorded and you have to sort of whittle it down and it was one that just got left off, not quite finished because we picked the 12 songs that we wanted to do. When we came back to it we changed it from being quite an acoustic song. You can still hear the elements, we rocked it up a bit, just a tad not too hard, I think it sounds more like The La’s or something.”

RTS: “Yes, definitely. A lot of the songs are different from each other, there are not many you would call stereotypical Ash songs?”

MH: “Usually most of the songs originate over acoustic or piano, then once we get into the rehearsal room together, that's when we'll decide on a path to go down with it. We just start playing it and if it feels right in a certain way we'll keep going that way, if it doesn't we'll try something different and then we all just kind of know when it’s the right way to go”.

Tim Wheeler

RTS: So who was the producer on this album, was that Tim?”

MH: “Yeah, just self produced, he's done a great job”.

RTS: “ I was just going to ask about some of the songs that were interesting particularly to me, I have only listened through a couple of times and one I really liked straight away was “Which One Do You Want” I thought straight away, The Smiths?” 

MH: “That was again another song which as a lot of these songs were written at the start of the pandemic. So we actually finished the album completely mixed handed it over and our manager was like this is a really kind of schizophrenic album. You've got almost two different directions here, you've got a guitar-y sort of rock album one half, and you've got a very pop production-like synth-y album. He went why don't you go away and write another six or seven songs that are more guitar-based make that one album and make it a rock album so that's what happened, that became Race the Night - the rock album so then we had the bones of a complete synth album finished and so then having worked on that for about another year to completely finish it. We then did The Darkness tour that we did earlier this year and we were like, well this is not the time to put out a synth album when we're going to go on tour with The Darkness so the manager said, why don't you kick this synth album down the road. It's getting pushed back a little bit, it will probably be about 8 years by the time those songs ever get released”.

“So then we actually went back and finished another seven songs to make Ad Astra and so some of those songs were songs that didn't get finished for Race the Night and that album was supposed to come out in May around the The Darkness tour but it just didn't make it in time so we just thought you can't rush it so that's why we put out “Jump the Line” earlier this year, to just have something out on that tour”. We still have this synth album which is almost complete. It's like 90% finished”.

Tim Wheeler

RTS: “So that is the 3rd album you were mentioning at the start is it? a trilogy?”

MH: “We call it the Fierce Panda trilogy because all the music will come out on Fierce Panda Records”.

RTS: “When you say synth how deeply synth is it going to be?”

MH: “When I say synth, it's more pop production, there's more keyboards on it than Ad Astra, there's a bit here and there isn't there on Ad Astra”.

RTS: “Keep Dreaming” that's another one that's got little stabs of synth in, that and the guitars, this reminds me a bit of an 80s production?”

MH: “We leaned into the 80s on that, it's more like The Cars, a little bit of subtle synth and little stabby piano-y bits yeah”.

“With these albums it’s going to be interesting I think, if you look at the three albums together, we're doing things like keeping the one logo across all three, we're keeping the same illustrator guy, it's going to look like a collection of works yeah”.

RTS: “As the bass player are there any tracks that you've really self-indulged in on this album that you've enjoyed more than maybe the others?”

MH: “There's some fun little bits in “My favourite Ghost” which is the slower ballad one, I’d add “Ad Astra” itself, it's a chord sequence which sort of cycles but there's a lot of layers to it and a lot of movement and variation in that cycle and I think the bass on that one is probably my favourite. We haven't played it live yet, we're going to be doing it in the Scala shows. On the last album “Crashed Out Wasted” was by far my favourite, and I think well, “Fun People” is going to be great live, quite raucous, isn't it. I think “Ad Astra” is going to be a good one live as well yeah”.

RTS: “Getting near the end now, can I ask you who inspires you now, musically, it could be an artist or could be a bass player who would you pick out?”

MH: “Shit a band that I saw this year which blew me away at Glastonbury was Amyl and the Sniffers, I had heard things about them in Australia, because we were down there last year and I guess, I didn't really know what to expect I knew they were going to be a punk band but they came out and took no prisoners yeah, definitely fantastic”

Mark Hamilton

RTS: “Next year it's the anniversary of 1977 are there any plans yet?”

MH: “We did a bunch of shows around 10 years and we did a bunch of shows around 20 years so we go again yeah for sure!”

Interview by Dan Reddick

Pre-order Ad Astra HERE

OCTOBER Tour of Record Stores

Fri 03 Brighton Resident Records (Instore)

Sat 04 London Rough Trade East Records (Instore)

Sun 05 Leicester 2 Funky Café (Truck Records Outstore)

Tue 07 Nottingham Rough Trade Records (Instore)

Wed 08 Kingston Circuit (Banquet Records Outstore)

Thu 09 Liverpool Baltic Jacaranda Records (Instore)

Fri 10 Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (Assai Records Outstore)