The Verve's Urban Hymns celebrates its 20th anniversary on September 27th, marking the milestone with an expanded reissue of the acclaimed album on September 1st. In promotion of the release, guitarist Nick McCabe, who reunited and performed with ex-bandmate Pete Salisbury last month, sat down with Drowned In Sound and offered up fascinating insight into the inner-workings of The Verve.
The interview is highly recommended for Verve fans -- not only did McCabe discuss Urban Hymns, he scoffed at the notion that Richard Ashcroft was the sole songwriter of their third album, revealing that everyone in the band developed and constructed the songs. He also spoke about The Verve's various break-ups, recounting the "explosive" moment that led to the Verve's second breakup in 1998:
"Basically, I had glandular fever and was advised by our management to visit a private GP who said I should take two months off. Then somehow I got coerced into going on tour anyway despite me saying it's the least wise thing I can do at this moment in time. Because I was so ill I was also self-medicating; by the time of the tour I was an absolute wreck and we only got one date into it anyway. I was a mess all day but managed to play this blinding gig and made a flippant comment when we came off stage. "Well amazingly that was a really good gig." Richard exploded and threw a beer bottle at my head so it all kicked off and that was the end of the band from that moment really."
Though The Verve were well established before Oasis, McCabe admitted to DIS that their association with Oasis introduced The Verve's music to a larger audience:
"They were our support band in the early days. I heard their tape and decided we were going to take them on tour with us. But very very quickly they just eclipsed us so it went from them being our mates to them dropping our names. Had that not happened there'd have been less of an audience for Urban Hymns."
Read the full fascinating interview with McCabe over at Drowned In Sound.
Urban Hymns will be reissued on September 1st as a 2CD deluxe edition, 6 LP super deluxe set, and 5CD/1DVD super deluxe boxset. All three expanded editions come with bonus material, including b-sides and live material. Pre-order here or through Amazon.
Published August 29th, 2017