Look To The Stars

As the pop-punk soundtrack to many a breakup, makeup, teenage fantasy and adventure – primarily their own – Ash's debut record 1977 holds a dear place in the hearts of many who grew up in the '90s. Rick McMurray thinks back to the creation of an album that spawned five Top 20 hits – Kung Fu, Girl From Mars, Angel Interceptor, Goldfinger and Oh Yeah – and describes the sensory overload that came with revisiting 1977 as Ash prepare to visit Australia.

“As you play it, it's just like an absolute flood of memories coming back for the brain to process,” he reflects. “I guess we were just sort of getting used to being a band, and [working in a] professional studio recording properly – it was a steep learning curve. I think there was a lot of madness goin' on as well – I think half the record was written in the studio. We'd never do that now; in a thousand pound studio a day and we're sitting around tryin' to write songs! It was pretty crazy but we were workin' with Owen Morris and it's been well documented how crazy a producer he is. He taught us a lot about songwriting, production and recording, but he also taught us a lot about partying as well.”

Fresh out of school, the trio had recorded a couple of 1977's key singles before embarking on their debut world tour and returning to the studio. They were fast learners when it came to creating rock'n'roll memories.

“For some reason everyone sort of got into cross-dressing,” McMurray recalls. “We'd go down to like a charity shop and buy awful women's clothing and we'd just get dressed and record wearing that – there were so many weird things happening. A lot of them I can't remember, but pretty much every day we'd get up in the morning and go straight down to the pub – that's where work would start; we'd have a couple of drinks and then sort of go back to the studio, do a little bit of work then we'd keep drinking,” he chuckles. “I'm sure we gave the record company quite a few headaches… A maniac producer plus three teenage boys let loose in the studio with loads of alcohol and drugs and it was like, 'Okay, are you going go and make a record now guys?'”

In a time when secret album tracks were a common though thrilling discovery, 1977 offered Sick Party, a non-musical track featuring a whole lot of vomiting and giggling.

“I think all of us are kind of on there in some shape or form. I think most of the actual being sick is Mark [Hamilton] our bass player,” says McMurray, drawing out his words carefully as though deciding whether to admit the next insight into the making of 1977. “We were on acid; half of us were on acid and Mark was just drunk and feeling a bit weird and he was like, 'Right let's record this'. We listened back to it the next day and then somehow it ended up on the record. We were doing this concept piece called The Scream which is just ten minutes of us going from this quiet hum and then into this hellish screaming which is something we used to do in the band a lot – it seemed to help with the hangovers… That was just gonna be another layer to it that was going to be overdubbed on it but we ended up just not mixing the screams in.”

Jokes aside, McMurray explains how it felt to have great success at such a young age.

“We were kind of naïve – 'We've got a number one record, we've made it now' – but we didn't realise that that was just the start of another sort of wave of media attention and touring around the world.”

With a bond strong enough to see three Northern Irish school lads endure 21 years in the music industry together after such whirlwind beginnings, Ash are stronger than ever. McMurray is clearly enjoying the nostalgia trip, never cringing for a moment, even when it's suggested that Sick Party must feature in the live show if 1977 is to be played properly in its entirety during Ash's Australian visit.

“I think when we first started doing these 1977 shows Mark had sort of threatened to throw up on stage but I think his wife's also threatened divorcin' him if he did it. I think he decided against it but I dunno if she's gonna be in Australia so you never know. Hang around the venue for like twenty minutes afterwards,” McMurray laughs,