Jordan talks to Tim from Ash about their new Album and more.

“Kablammo” is ASH’s 6^th album which comes eight years after “Twilight Of The Innocents,” the album Ash vowed would be their last. However, the trio returned with renewed enthusiasm for playing together which is writ large over the album’s 12 tracks and the ‘in your face’ quality which has made ASH one of the UK’s best -loved bands. A little bit of Brit pop, a little bit of punk rock, a little bit of grunge, and a whole lot of exhilarating fun. Known worldwide for their incredibly fun and energetic live shows, Ash continue to dominate at every venue they play, nearly 25 years into their career. Fans still continue to mosh like there’s no tomorrow at their shows, and Ash simply show no signs of slowing down.

Jordan had the chance to talk with Tim from Ash just before they went on stage at one of the shows on their Australian tour. Jen was meant to have the chat but got sick and lost her voice so Jordan stepped in to help out.

Jordan asked Tim how the Corner Hotel gig the night before and it seemed that Tim enjoyed playing in Melbourne.

“That was a blast, it went really good, Melbourne fans are always pretty crazy.”

How many times have you been here now? You have a really solid fan base over here.

I think it is like 10 tours over the years maybe. It’s certainly a good amount! We have had some great times, like playing The Big Day Out tour. We have done quite a lot about own club tours as well.  Pretty much every album we have come out here.

The fans love you over here so that is a good thing! You guys have a great sense of humor on your Facebook page, it was a pleasure to read, I do like the post about the purple shirts.

That is cool, I will tell Rick (laughing) He put that up, it was actually quite a nice accident. Wicked!

You called it quits 8 years ago but now have returned enthusiastic and ready to kill it over here.

We never actually quit, it might of looked that way  over 8 years since we did an album before Kablammo so it would of looked like that.We have always been together and touring a lot.

Do you think the break and the time spent maturing as a person has affected your passion and quality of work for this album?

Yeah I guess, we stepped away from doing albums for a little while, we just did singles,  so we had to learn how to make an album again, we have done some tours like doing a complete album for a gig. Going back to the albums we were measuring ourselves against some of our old classics, the stuff that fans love the most. We set a benchmark where we wanted to reach again. We worked really hard and it is cool because this new album is great live. We wanted to make an album that rejuvenated the live set as well. We worked until we had a whole album with songs that we were excited about.

So your set list… will it be a mix of old and new? 

Yes, we are doing about six songs from our new album, and people come to our shows hoping that will play some old songs, we play everything that people want to hear along with a bunch of new stuff. I always hear very nice comments from people there are hearing our new fresh stuff but also their old favorites.

How has your new music been received by crowds so far? I have read some reviews that give you high praise!

It is really great,  the stuff that we actually recorded for the album, I mean we wrote a lot of material and the songs that we chose to work on was the songs that was really good in the rehearsal hall, with the three of us playing, so we worked on the songs that did not need a lot of studio embellishment and sounded really good.The songs that worked really well live and had great dynamics as well as had different moods. Songs that take you to different places.

I have once done a photoshoot with powder paint and had so much fun, was yours enjoyable to do then take ages cleaning it out of your hair and clothes as I had to do?

Omg yes, it was more out of my nostrils! I had stuff coming out of them that was black for a few days! It was crazy!  We could not believe that the studio led us to that as well! The place was just trashed and the photographer had one of these lenses ruined as well. It was so much fun.

Yes at least you had fun!

You used Pledge Music to assist in your releasing of Kablammo, I have been involved in a few Pledges, yours offered fans tees to signed CD’s and a meet and greet at RAK studios, how was your Pledge experience?

It was cool, what a lot of people liked was getting credit in the sleeve of the album and a lot of it was quite simple but it meant a lot to our fans. It was a great support for us. It meant that we could make the record and then go and find a label. So we could do it on our own terms. I think it is a really good way of making a record these days when record deals aren’t what they used to be. We did stuff like a day in the studio and a show that pledge people could come and see us. It was good to connect to the fans in that way. There is a bit of pressure when you haven’t finished an album and you know that a tonne of people are waiting for it! When they have already paid for it, it puts the pressure on but it is a quite positive pressure. 

I really love your logo with the butterfly, that you used on Pledge. who designed that?

Cheers, our friend Pedro who did the album cover as well, he is from Brazil. As the first song that we were releasing was ‘Cocoon’ he came up with the butterfly design. We should use that logo a bit more.

You released Kablammo late August,

Love the first track Cocoon, the lyrics

“The lowest that I have known

I’ve never felt so alone

Vague memories of the light

I dream of taking flight”

Are super powerful and many people have related to them as I read the comments on your you tube channel..  Do you ever sit down and read peoples comments or use as a judge of how you are going?

Cheers, not that much, as it only takes one person to write something mean and it ruins all the nice comments that people have said. It always means a lot when you meet fans and they tell you  things like, their kids were born while they listened to our songs or people fell in love listening to our songs. Or they got married and played some of our songs,  there is amazing. it is interesting to read how people interpret the lyrics as there are so many different ways and I don’t want to ruin that for  people.

Do you ever find yourself with a mindset with your lyrics and that your fans come at it with a different point of view?

Yeah I guess, the song Shining Light has quite a lot of religious imagery in it but I am not religious person but it is funny when I hear people’s take on it, it is not what I intended, but I don’t want to ruin the song for them by taking it away from them.

I know it is hard to choose just one but which song do you have the most connection with off Kablammo?

There are a bunch but I think ‘Free’ is a very emotional thing for me, it is about a breakup, is the song that I wrote four or five years ago that I remembered one day and it sounded like something really fresh for us and I love to sing that song it is a really great outlet, it gets to me every time.

I love the music video to Cocoon. Right up to the last minute asking about getting the cheque. Did you as a band decide the concepts and make your own video or was it a production company?   

My buddy Eric directed that one and he just came to me one day for Cocoon, and I like it as it is like nothing is happening but weird shit happening in the background and it was one of the easiest videos we  have ever done, it took about half an hour and all we had to do was three different takes of me eating sushi. It is cool to collaborate with people on videos, I never really think about how I want to portray the songs visually. when I write the song is impossible to translate the imagery into something visual so I often ask a director to work with me. They are never really close to what I imagine the song being about unless it is quite simple. I let it go out of my hands and trust my crazy friends.  (laughing)

Well it definitely turned out for the best.

It really confuses people that video, which I think is a really good thing!

I will let you get back to it now, thanks for taking the time off to chat.

My pleasure, it was great to chat with you.

Interview written by Jen, and done by Jordan.