In a recent interview, Richard Ashcroft spoke about his latest release, EP Natural Rebel and his single ‘Surprised By the Joy’, before saying that singers should “just be singers”…

“So many fucking artists, man, if they can’t write a song or they can’t sing or they can’t play, they end up being like semi-political leaders, or believe they have to have a million causes to hide the fact that they can’t do the very thing that we want them to do.

“Ultimately, if someone’s paying hard earned money to see me play live, they don’t want a rant about what’s happening on the other side of the world… they don’t want to know which way they should vote.

“We don’t give a crap. That paradigm has been broken, smashed by music. That’s where music is power.”

“So all these artists and actors, with all their opinions and all their little speeches… Go back to what you were supposed to do. Go back and entertain the world.

“And it doesn’t have to be candy-floss entertainment, it can have some depth. But just do it via the vehicle of what we pay you to do. It’s like back in the day when David Beckham was putting in the crosses, you’d have people saying, yeah but he can’t string two sentences together! It’s like doesn’t matter shit, just put it on the guy’s head, he’ll head it in and then we’re one-nil up! I don’t want Shakespeare!”

You can see the full interview at Radio X. 

Richard Ashcroft will soon be commencing his UK Tour:

Friday 26 October – Glasgow Barrowland

Sunday 28 October – Middlesborough Town Hall

Monday 29 October – Nottingham Rock City

Wednesday 31 October – Manchester Albert Hall

Friday 2 November – Kentish Town Forum