After releasing six records and a large singles discography, Northern Irish legends Ash have decided to do without the album format and only release singles via digital and vinyl.
To follow up this bold endeavor the band have established their own record label called Atomic Hearts Records (based in New York City) and their latest project: The A-Z Series. This features the band releasing a single every two weeks for an entire year (the process beginning last October). To go along with this process the band ventured into a conceptualized tour called The A-Z Tour, which not only had them take on our good friends Panama Kings as support, but also touring small/unknown towns and venues all across the UK starting in Aldershot and ending in Zennor.
The band are about to release a compliation CD of the first half of the series. If you get the CD/DVD version you also get bonus tracks and a tour documentary called A Is For Ash, filmed by the bands good mate and ally Josh Kletzkin.
A couple weeks ago I sat down with band bassist Mark Hamilton and director Josh Kletzkin (via Skype from Portland) in Atomic Hearts Studios to discuss The A-Z Tour and what fans can expect from the documentary.
Panic Dots: When the concept of A-Z start, did the idea of a tour symbolizing that quickly follow? Or develop later on?
Mark Hamilton: The idea came right after we nailed the idea of releasing the singles. It was a true light bulb moment because we knew we wanted to release singles regularly proceed with a smaller off the beaten path tour but didn’t know they’re would be a concept behind it because for every album we would try to do something different. For Free All Angels we let fans on the internet vote for where we’d play and for Meltdown we did a small venues tour. To us it’s always a good idea to play in different markets before the albums even released so by the time it is the momentum is already built up. We know that’s worked in the past and wanted to do something similar yet different, so when we came up with The A-Z Series we knew the tour had to be a similar novelty to it. It was a great way to promote the series because it created a talking point, and when you’ve been in the industry as long as us you know that talking points are essential.
Josh Kletzkin: A lot of the initial press questions were “Why would you go to a crazy place like Zennor?!?!?”
Mark Hamilton: If we had just put together a regular 26 date tour and announced it as “Ash Tour!” there would be nothing exciting or different about it to get people talking so we knew we’d need something. So when we came up with the concept for the tour people would ask “where are you gonna go for X?” or “Where the hell are you going to play for Z?” so it created a nice buzz around the whole thing and at the end of the day that’s what you want.
Josh Kletzkin: A very funny thing was that when you guys would talk to reporters, most of them wouldn’t even know where the places you were going to play were! (Laughs) I mean hearing you guys explain stuff like “oh this is in Wales! And this is in Cornwall!” was pretty funny.
Taken @ Bradford by Danny Payne
Panic Dots: So to imitate those press people, what did inspire you guys to play such small/unknown venues? “The craze of “oh my god! A band is coming to my town” must have gone rampant throughout the locals you played.
Mark Hamilton: Well some of the places we went to, such as East Grange in Scotland was a farm and about five hundred people turned up and I would say about four hundred and fifty of those people definitely never heard of us before and came to see what the fuss was. We think its good to go out and play in different markets to broaden our appeal. You got to open yourself up to a new crowd and create a buzz in new areas. For example; in Zennor the population was only two hundred and half of the population were at that gig.
Josh Kletzkin: It was dangerous!
Mark Hamilton: It was great! It was one of my favorite shows ever.
Josh Kletzkin: That one was definitely my favorite one.
Panic Dots: What obstacles did you guys face while playing/filming in these small and fairly unknown places?
Josh Kletzkin: It was really one of those moments when you literally sleep with your video camera. Literally everything/anything is happening at any given moment, whether it’d be somebody puking in the bathroom or playing a show you always have to be going. One of the unique things about this tour was that there was so much going on. Sometimes they’d have media days in Belfast for a charity show or London for some press work, so it was juggling the tour aspects with all the press stuff that eventually made the main obstacle just keeping on top of all that because I didn’t have a team, I was just a one man outfit. It was basically me just shooting all the time.
Mark Hamilton: and than when you went to bed you missed all the cool things at night! (Laughs)
Josh Kletzkin: Right and then Mark would actually try to steal my camera at times that I actually literally started sleeping with my camera.
Taken @ Bradford by Tom Marshall
Mark Hamilton: (Laughs)
Josh Kletzkin: No he seriously did steal it a couple times, and this is a real professional camera! So it was quite scary. I did sleep with it…a lot.
Mark Hamilton: What about the event in Scotland where the camera almost got wrecked?
Josh Kletzkin: Oh (sigh)…that’s not a story worth repeating.
Mark Hamilton: (Laughs) you weren’t a happy chap uh?
Josh Kletzkin: Not at all, but to give you an idea of how much we shot, we came home with just under two terabytes of footage to edit. Which was great but also very challenging.
Mark Hamilton: Part of the fun of the tour was that you never knew what you were going to walk into on a daily basis. If you do a tour of the o2 academies or the house of blues venues in the states than you always know what the standards are of the rooms, stage and all of that. But a lot of these venues on the A-Z tour we walked into blind with no idea what we were walking into. Some of these stages were beyond a joke! There was one place in Rotherham, which was an old converted strip joint! It had nothing that even resembled a stage!
Josh Kletzkin: The whole stage was pretty much the size suitable for one drum kit!
Mark Hamilton: Health and safety would have shut that place down!
Josh Kletzkin: What was that place in Tunbridge Wells?
Taken @ Tunbridge Wells by Dan Aitch
Mark Hamilton: Oh right! We actually played in converted toilets!
Josh Kletzkin: From toilets to a venue!
Mark Hamilton: That was actually a pretty cool place. Was that place in Rotherham the Vault or the Crpyt?
Josh Kletzkin: No the Crypt was in Hastings! But that place was disgusting too! But yeah sometimes you’d walk into these places at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, seeing it in any remote lighting they had and wow did it smell like death and malaria (or better yet like someone died!) and than you’re told you have to set up and you’re wondering, “WHERE?!?!”
Mark Hamilton: Newport!
Josh Kletzkin: AHH! (Laughs) That was the worst! When you see the film we have a small section for Newport.
Mark Hamilton: There’s a toilet coming out of an abyss!
Josh Kletzkin: It was the worst toilet in Scotland, even though we weren’t in Scotland!
Panic Dots: (Note to self: when in a band never play in areas called Crypt or Vault). If you guys could do anything about The A-Z Tour differently what would it be?
Mark Hamilton: Have a bigger budget! (Laughs)
Josh Kletzkin: When you’re doing documentary work it is always nice to have a second shooter, just because there’s so much going on! You literally can’t be there at every moment for everything going on, so an extra shooter would have been nice.
Taken @ Kingston Peel by Ila Desai
Mark Hamilton: To be honest I dunno if I’d change anything. Probably some slightly better venues. Oldham, Hastings, and Rotherhams stages weren’t set up perfectly for the crowd to even see us. The problem with a tour like this is that you’re playing in venues that the promoters aren’t even aware of, so it was always a big gamble.
Josh Kletzkin: It was also a size thing as well because they would draw much bigger than capacity crowds to these venues that weren’t made for that. In some cases some people couldn’t see and some people were standing outside just to hear what was going on! (Laughs)
Mark Hamilton: We also had to deal with some dodgy promoters who tried to over sell the venues! For example in Oldham there was a promoter who bought us to a venue that couldn’t hold more than 400 people yet he sold about 600 of them! The place was so crowded and hot and it was really unbearable.
Panic Dots: Which track off The A-Z Series would you say got the best fan reaction throughout the tour?
Mark Hamilton: Technically it’s not an A-Z Single but I’d have to say “Return Of White Rabbit”. And once “Arcadia” was released it was established as a fan favorite. We were actually pissed off it wasn’t a radio single, if we were to go back and start again it would probably have been Single A rather than “True Love 1980″.
Josh Kletzkin: People really responded to that. I think White Rabbit went down so well because its just so fun, dancy, and catchy. I think even those who aren’t familiar with Ash or even the younger fans just took to that song like crazy.
Panic Dots: So what’s a favorite moment you have from the documentary?
Josh Kletzkin: It’s sort of a weird scene but before the tour started we were in a rehearsal studio in London and this famous photographer came in. He was doing a book on the hands of musicians (mainly guitarist). He did this shoot with Tim, just shooting his hands, and he told this story of meeting the band when they were 16. Right before they got big, and he tells a story of how he met them and took one of their first ever photos. It’s a very quiet moment in the movie and I really like it.
Mark Hamilton: I think the best part of the movie would have to be how the cinematography of “Twilight of the Innocents” is, it’s just so special. I like the whole movie but some of those slow motion shots are just during that performance is just incredible! We never made a video for Twilight so it’s good to have some decent content for that.
Taken @ Upper Norwood by Dan Aitch
Josh Kletzkin: Wow! Who filmed those sequences? He really is amazing!
Mark Hamilton: I can’t remember, but who was the executive producer? (Laughs)
Josh Kletzkin: Ugh, the executive producer of this film had very hands off approach to the whole thing. Which was nice because it gave the production team (me) a lot of…
Mark Hamilton: SCOPE! (Laughs) That was a good call on their part.
Josh Kletzkin: Yep! I guess so. (Laughs) oh how we snipe at each other.
Panic Dots: Would you say that you’re personalities come out during your stage performances? And Josh would you say that their personalities come out during their live performances?
Mark Hamilton: I am a different beast when I am on stage then when I am off it.
Josh Kletzkin: Mark is a beast on stage I have to say. I think the thing that’s cool about seeing them live is that they each have a presence on stage individually in the way they perform but it does lock together so well. I think even some of the younger fans who might have just heard one or two of the new songs have never seen a band who puts it on the way Ash do without lights and stuff since the whole tour was such a stripped down thing. It really is something special to behold…especially if Mark gets a good barf in before the encore! (Laughs)
Taken @ Kingston Peel by Ila Desai
Mark Hamilton: (Laughs) Tim is actually quite shy off stage. When he plays guitars he really loves to show off his skills and gets off on it a bit. It doesn’t come natural to him, the whole talking to a crowd, but I completely understand it, talking down on a microphone to a crowd is one of the last things I want to do, but over the years he has gotten better because when we started he would never say a word to the crowd. Rick! There is lots of little things you probably can’t see on stage with all our in jokes, Rick is always the one making the funnies making hand gestures and faces to keep you laughing on stage.
Josh Kletzkin: I think in the film I tried to make him…
Mark Hamilton: Serious? (Laughs) To be honest if you highlighted the goofy shit on camera that Rick did it’d totally throw off the vibe a song like Twilight makes.
Josh Kletzkin: Yeah, and it’s definitely true about Tim though. He seems really comfortable on stage. The way he gets into a solo is sort of like being on a trance.
Panic Dots: So what made it a no brainer for you guys to work together on this project?
Mark Hamilton: It was the promise of the pussy every night that made Josh want to do it!
Josh Kletzkin: Yep Mark! I do love the vagina! I love to touch it! (Josh proceeds to make funny faces via Skype) but yeah it was because of the shitloads of money they offered me! (Laughs) not true at all. I wanted to do it because from a story perspective of battling the trends of the record companies, I feel this is such a good story from a creative point of view that’s just totally ballsy. This is different than what anybodies doing and when you add the great music and shows this band produces and the fact they’ve been established for fifteen years, it’s simply incredible to see them work as hard as ever and still try to make a difference. But yeah I met the band when I filmed the video for their song, “I Started A Fire.
Taken @ Zennor by Frank Gane
(The interview deviates to a 10 minute conversation of Bertie Big Balls)
Mark Hamilton: We actually met him a year before when we first moved here to New York. We played a gig at the Annex and he kept pestering me on Myspace and said “I am a big fan of you guys! Please let me film you!” so I reluctantly said yes, he didn’t do that well of a job so we figured we’d give him a second shot.
Josh Kletzkin: We became Myspace bff’s and kept sending each other im’s!
Mark Hamilton: (Laughs) we really just kept talking about it loosely, we always knew we wanted to document it and just asked him if he wanted to do it, talk about a great excuse for a holiday!
Josh Kletzkin: I think we finalized it when you guys were here in Portland shooting the True Love video! I filmed the making of for NME, by then all the tour dates were finalized.
Panic Dots: So Panama Kings supported during the tour. The fans took to them very well, are there any moments with them in the documentary?
Mark Hamilton: Well I wanted them in but Josh kicked them out!
Josh Kletzkin: (Laughs) Oh my god, those guys. They have really amazing/catchy music, but their tech guy, I think his name is Steve. I have never seen a human being consume so much alcohol!
Mark Hamilton: (Laughs) He’s a diabetic as well!
Josh Kletzkin: I didn’t understand how he walked!
Mark Hamilton: It was a lot of fun. We made great friends with those guys and still keep in contact.
Josh Kletzkin: Are they supporting you guys again on the UK tour?
Mark Hamilton: No it’s a South African band called The Parlotones. Their supporting us for some dates in the UK and then we’re heading to South Africa in the fall to support them. They play stadiums back in South Africa so it should be fun.
Josh Kletzkin: I’ve never been there! I think I’ll go.
Mark Hamilton: Even on spec? (Laughs)
Josh Kletzkin: Hell yeah I’d do that on spec!
Panic Dots: What was an issue while performing/filming during the tour and how did you solve this?
Taken @ Spring and Airbrake by Clair McAllister
Josh Kletzkin: When we got to a new place the burning question of “where am I going to shoot?” always came to my head. Sometimes the band were literally against a wall and there was just nowhere to position myself. Sometimes I couldn’t get a reverse or even side angle to shoot, sometimes I had to slouch down and shoot from the crowd. Usually from performance shows you have 4, 5, or sometimes even 6 cameras rolling! But since we just had one it made shooting much harder logistically, especially in the smaller places to get an angle to find decent shots.
Mark Hamilton: Like in Oldham when we dealt with dodgy equipment. The PA kept going out so the show had to be halted a couple times; most of these places certainly weren’t even up to spec. Also some of the stages couldn’t even be called that. One time we had to change formation and play in a row! This happened in Queens Park.
Josh Kletzkin: Yeah! It was this weird piano stage, rectangular and stuff and the band were forced to stack one, two, three! It actually didn’t mess up the sound at all. I think there’s a slow mo shot of this during the end of the documentary.
Mark Hamilton: I mean we complain and bitch about it now but despite all that I still had an awesome time on tour.
Panic Dots: How was fan reaction for this tour? I know loads of fans had to travel miles to see you guys perform, how did that make you feel?
Mark Hamilton: Part of the fact we’ve been around for so long is because we have diehard fans that have been following around for years. It has actually become normal for some of our fans to take their vacation time from work just to follow us around for a few weeks to see us live. Those are the fans that have really bought into the band and who also feel as though they own us, and rightfully so since they really do make all of this possible for us.
Josh Kletzkin: Not to be cheesy but it was really moving to see that. While filming I talked to loads of them and there was one couple I think were from The Netherlands that we came across at Tunbridge Wells. They travelled all the way to Scotland for this one show just because they didn’t know when the band would be in Europe again and they were in pure ecstasy just from seeing the band. I think it’s a real testament to the band and how long they’ve been around for, just how their music has left a staple on people. And this couple was older than most fans but I interviewed some of the younger ones after each show. I was really impressed by the fans who just got into them because they travelled so far just to see them (these are kids mostly fifteen and sixteen) because of the new singles like “True Love 1980” or “Return of White Rabbit”, to me that was such an interesting story point because it’s not the band just relying on their “greatest hits” stuff but using their new songs to relate to new fans.
Taken @ Spring and Airbrake by Clair McAllister
(Mark pulls out the Star Wars ADIDAS cards to show Josh)
Mark Hamilton: Scarlett’s favorite word now is Yoda!
Josh Kletzkin: How did you teach her Yoda?!?!?
Mark Hamilton: We got a couple of these up on the fridge. She asked me if it was Yoda and I said yes, and now she won’t stop repeating it! She also tells the cat to shut up. “Shut up cat!”
Panic Dots: Are there any fan moments that stand out in the documentary?
Josh Kletzkin: You hear a lot from the fans. There are two sequences specifically that focus on the fans to show you how they and the band relate to each other.
Mark Hamilton: A lot of these fans come to our tours regularly.
Josh Kletzkin: Who was that one couple that travelled with us that one night?
Mark Hamilton: MIKE AND LAURA!
Josh Kletzkin: Yeah! They were mega fans.
Mark Hamilton: Yeah, their trains ended up getting fucked up or something because of the weather so they ended up travelling with us on the bus.
Panic Dots: Talk about a dream come true.
Josh Kletzkin: (Laughs) yeah, and they also got into this intense debate about what Ash song would be played at their wedding. They were like “No honey! We talked about this! We will not use Shining Light!”
Panic Dots: (Laughs) and lastly; what do you hope people take from this documentary? Those familiar and unfamiliar to Ash?
Mark Hamilton: This documentary is different from the tour videos we’ve put out before. For example the Free All Angels tour videos we’d release with singles were mostly about the inner jokes and craziness of being on tour. This time around it’s a different stab at it and really focuses on our big change of releasing music and our different approach to everything. It also positions us in a difficult area in how the music industry is in shambles and how overall we’re essentially trying to survive. Would you agree Josh?
Josh Kletzkin: Yeah totally. My goal with the film was to show what these guys were doing and why. I really think that the story of what drives Ash creatively (and even from a survival stand point) is just a really interesting story. I heard this piece on NPR the other day and how they were over a thousand bands playing during this years SXSW, and how “nobody has any money yet we’re they devote all their time being in a band!”
Mark Hamilton: (Sigh) honestly there really isn’t a career in music at the moment. Not with the current state of things.
Josh Kletzkin: Yeah, which is why I have a lot of respect for Ash because here you have thousands of musicians, new and old complaining about the current state of things yet Ash are actually doing something about it. They’re doing it from a very novel approach. Honestly to me this makes for a great story which is followed by great music and great performances that you’d expect from Ash and essentially the conclusion that these three guys have been together for so long and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. You couldn’t ask for a better story than that.
Be sure to check out
Available at all retail outlets (UK) and digital outlets (Rest of the World) on April 19th, 2010
and be sure to subscribe to The A-Z Series for competitions, exclusive bonus tracks, and much more at www.ash-official.com
Ken Grand-Pierre is a young photographer and journalist from New York. He has interviewed and photographed many of his favourite bands already and has a very promising career in front of him. Ken also has a really good taste in music and has some kind of infatuation with the Northern Ireland music scene. He has written, interviewed and photographed for Panic Dots and we thought it was time that Ken contributed to out podcasts. The sound is a dodgy, but all the tracks are sweet! Please enjoy a seriously kick-ass playlist by Ken Grand-Pierre.
