‘To be a rebel today is to try and bring people together’

Former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's Oasis-tinged summer is being followed by a new solo album and arena tour of his own. Time to bury the hatchet with Mark Beaumont and reflect on his extraordinary, rebellious career so far

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Richard Ashcroft shoulders his way onto my computer screen like it’s another irritating obstacle on his cocksure swagger through life.

“Who put a gun to your head to have to do this interview?” he asks, his tone one of combative nonchalance, his background one of sitting-room chandeliers and classically curtained windows. I've caught him “languishing in my well-worn ballad rut”, he says, wryly paraphrasing my two-star review of his 2018 album Natural Rebel, which prompted the characteristically defiant former Verve singer to set fire to a copy of our last interview for NME in a video shared to Instagram.

“It actually stimulated a beautiful piece of art,” he says. “It was a statement, in the sense of there’s a delusion with some people that they have an influence over my [life].”

By the time I’ve picked up the scent of beef, the 54-year-old has already talked himself round to a more amiable position. “I do like that about us as well, though,” he says. “There’s still a bit of freedom of opinion, and I think that’s a good thing.” He claims he’s barely done any interviews since vowing never to speak to NME again in the wake of the review. “So I thank you for that,” he says, now beaming. “You gave me six years off!”

It’s understandable that this totemic indie-rock figurehead - a living symbol of the Nineties scene’s brash attitude and hedonistic abandon in his years as The Verve’s frontman and chief songwriter on 1997’s 10 million-selling, decade-defining