Biography

September 11, 1971 · Billinge, Lancashire, England, UK

1.80 m

Leather Jacket

Defined cheekbones

Became famous in the 1990s as the lead singer and songwriter of British rock band, The Verve, whose album "Urban Hymns" was one of the most successful of the decade. It later won the 2007 Q Classic Album Award.

First child, Sonny Ashcroft, born March 23 2000 with Radley.

Second son, Cassius, born in 2004.

Noel Gallagher wrote the Oasis song "Cast No Shadow" about him.

As a writer I like to write about the personal but also I can't ignore the wider world.

I think a lot of music out there, a lot of lyrics, a lot of stuff we hear, it doesn't seem to relate to me, it doesn't seem to mirror the world that I'm living in. Now, pure escapism is fantastic, part and parcel of the entertainment industry is to escape, but not all the time. You don't want to escape to the point where you're deluded about the planet we're on right now. I think it's part of my journey as a writer, titles like The Drugs Don't Work, Bittersweet Symphony. Bittersweet Symphony says "You're a slave to money then you die" in the first line, yet I can have 80,000 people smiling and singing it. So it's a very powerful art form music, pop music, rock music, whatever you want to call it and it's often undervalued in a way as a way of communicating.

We live in an age where people have an anxiety attack if their phone battery's on the way out.

We live in an age where if you've not posted something on social media in an hour, you potentially feel that your fame or your place and position is already dwindling.