Richard Ashcroft

“Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.”

“I'm a naturally gifted left-footed footballer.”

“Criticism is beyond your control and is a collective group of people deciding things about you that may or may not be true. Some critics look for more when there's no need to. They have a dotto-dot picture of me they are intent on filling in.”

“I am a family man, and I have children.”

“Really, I listen to more hip hop probably than most other things. That's where I get a lot of my influence from because it's so eclectic. So that's what I love.”

“Life is about unforgettable and transcendent moments, isn't it? The point of music is to get the moment.”

“Obviously, aging has a certain amount of mellowing process because there's certain things you realise you were doing when you were younger that were plain ridiculous, stupid.”

“I think I've learned a lot on the vocal side of things.”

“If Sinatra had packed in his style because there were a load of counterfeit Sinatras about, he would have stopped singing in 1956 or whatever.”

“80% of everything I've experienced since the Verve has been depressing.”

“I'm very interested in Darwinism and how that affects us on a day-to-day level. But I also have a deep interest in theology and the spiritual.”

“I love sportsmen's spirit, their ability to come back and override negativity. Michael Owen has been written off so many times, but he will always prove the doubters wrong.”

“I'm very lucky that I can walk on the stage before anyone in the world. And that's the thing: you've got to be pretty confident to go on after me. You've got to have the artillery, as I call it. And the artillery is your songs.”

“If the way I see the world is mad, then fantastic.”

“There's a track called 'Why Not Nothing' about how the world's turning so conservative and so religious at the same time. I think it's up to the songwriters to give another side to the coin, and my music does that.”

“Music is power.”

“The Grime guys have kind of rewritten the blueprint for people as far as creativity, songwriting, ownership, doing your own videos... So they're sending out a real positive message I think to people, that you can do it yourself in a punk way, and you can still potentially be successful and get to people.”

“You can radically change a person's life with a tune. I don't think people truly understand or appreciate how powerful that is.”

“Life's about ego. So for someone to talk about my ego, as they are writing their piece about my ego, I'm wondering what they're doing with their ego?”

“At The Verve's first-ever gig, I said that we were gonna blow this local band off the stage. It was only in the local Wigan paper, and they rang me to ask why I was being so aggressive. I just went, 'Hey man, it's like boxing. I'm just trying to sell a ticket.'”