Written by Lily Moayeri |
Daniel Ash of Love and Rockets has an aspirational style. On the trio’s current tour of North America opening for Jane’s Addiction, Ash has been sporting some enviable garments that beg for the development of a “Shazam for clothes” app.
“Is it black- and- white polka dots? Or is it a black suit with silver stars on it?” Ash asks me when I mention how impressed I was with his stage outfit during the group’s L.A. date. According to my Instagram Stories archive, it’s the former. “That’s a ‘Made in China’ special,” he informs me. “They disintegrate after about four gigs. I’ve got a chrome suit that’s so cheap, it’s made out of paper. $149 brand-new, including tax. People always think I’m wearing designer suits. How hilarious is that?”
Ash and his Love and Rockets bandmates David J and Kevin Haskins have always looked effortlessly cool. On a day off from gigging, Ash is wearing his version of a Beetlejuice sweater with black- and- white, horizontal-striped sleeves and big, black prescription shades that, in keeping with the “beetle” theme, look like that insect’s eyes. His hair is in his signature spikes, a default whether he’s on stage or not.
This tour went well for Love and Rockets, who are in top form. Jane’s Addiction’s touring schedule dictated a one-night-on/one-night-off schedule, which made for a better performance from the Love and Rockets guys.
“We are not exhausted; we’re not burned out, and we feel fresh,” confirms Ash. “I could never go back to the old way after doing this tour. I wouldn’t want to. It would be torture. This is so much more civilized.”
Love and Rockets’ most successful song, “So Alive,” was met with particular glee from audiences who are singing right along—something Ash says the more diehard indie-minded of their fans refused to do after the single’s astronomical success, deeming it a sell-out move on the band’s part.
“So Alive” hit No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 1989, catapulting Love and Rockets out of the underground goth world into the mainstream consciousness. Thirty-five years later, “So Alive” has a remix EP with reworks courtesy of the Crystal Method and D.J. K. The former came about after Love and Rockets’ Coachella appearance in 2008. Says Ash, “The Crystal Method came and said, ‘We’d love to do a remix of that song.’ And we said, ‘Yeah, why not? We’ve got nothing to lose. All of us love electronic dance music. If it doesn’t suck, we’ll release it.’”
The limited edition is available in clear picture disc, which fans can purchase at the Love and Rockets merch booth, as well as digitally. The D.J. K “Vibrant Nu Disco Single Edit” version also has a new video, which gives nods to the original’s classic sensuality with a fresh take on its nuanced approach.
Ash reminisces about how “all the most popular songs, the most successful songs, have been the ones that have happened really quickly,” noting, “‘So Alive’ was one of those.” He adds, “I must say, I do miss the days where you would sell 50,000 physical copies of a song.”
Hair is Long and Brown
We were recording the album [Love and Rockets], and I was having the weekend off. I went to this party in my hometown in Northampton, England. I saw this woman with long brown hair over on the other side of this crowded room. I was completely transfixed. It was like a soulmate or some connection. I can’t explain it. I was with my wife, so I couldn’t say anything about what was going on in my head. Even if my wife wasn’t there, I couldn’t go over and talk to her. My mouth went all dry. That’s what the song is about. That’s why the line says, “Don’t know what color your eyes are, baby / But your hair is long and brown.” I never got that close so I could see the color of her eyes. To this day I don’t know if she was someone I’d met in a previous lifetime, because it was this complete connection.
The Faster the Better
The party was Saturday. On Monday morning, I drove back to London to carry on working on the album. We were going to do one of Dave’s songs, and I arrogantly said, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re doing this. I got to get it out there right now. I got to record it today.” Kevin and David said, “Can we hear it?” And I said, “No, I haven’t written it yet.” All I had was two chords and the first line. I said, “Give me half an hour.” I went into the basement of Blackwing Studios—where we were recording with John Fryer, who was engineering and co-producing—with a bottle of whiskey and an acoustic guitar. I came up buzzed with the song finished. I asked Kevin for a drumbeat. That beat is the one we ended up using. Did a scratch vocal so we could get the arrangement and ended up using the scratch vocal because we couldn’t make it any better. Everything came into place in about an hour, hour and a half.
It was reminiscent of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and needed girls on backing vocals. John Fryer said he knew some singers and brought them in. It was two Black girls and a white girl, who I think was Mick Fleetwood’s daughter. They got paid a session fee, something like £75 each. Listening to the finished track, sitting with David and Kev standing behind us, I said, “If that isn’t a hit, then I’m not doing this anymore.”
“A Non-Entity in the U.K.”
The American record label was so confident it was a hit, they were putting stickers on the album saying, “Including the hit single, ‘So Alive’” before the single had even been released. In England, Beggars Banquet re-released that track three times in 1989, same time as in the States, and it sold a grand total of 600 copies. It completely bombed in the U.K. We’re a non-entity in the U.K. We didn’t care because it was big in America. Prince was No. 1, Madonna was No. 2, and we were No. 3. That was great rubbing shoulders with those guys.
I’ve always really loved the idea of a three-and-a-half-minute hit song. I remember hearing X amount of the public were going, “They’ve sold out” because it was a hit. And I thought, “Damn, right, we sold out. We’re doing really big gigs. Thank you very much, and bring it on.” I wish we had a half-dozen more of those in my book.
“Elitist Indie Bullshit”
I’ve always really hated that elitist indie bullshit. The more commercially successful you are, the better. What people get hung up on if you “sell out” is you make corny music. We don’t make corny music. We never have. We’ve got a good instinct on what’s good and what sucks. There’s a difference between selling out and being cheesy and you want to cringe when you hear it, and when you have integrity with commercial success. That’s what we were about. To this day, we embrace the idea of being commercially successful but with integrity, something that you can be proud of. When you’re being blatantly commercial and the integrity isn’t there, that’s when you’re going to be on your way out or you’re just going to be embarrassed about what you put out.
Commercially successful means you’re getting through to more people. What’s the hang up? I’ve never been hung up about breaking out of the indie nonsense. Screw the indie world. I like commercial success. It just means you’re reaching more people.
One-Off
“So Alive” was a one-off with us. You can’t just say, “Let’s make a commercially viable product.” What comes out just comes out. It was a fluke. It landed in our laps by complete accident. We never had another “So Alive.” We never had something that big. If you listen to “So Alive” on Love and Rockets, it is different from all the other songs. It sounds like us because it’s us playing and our voices, but it’s like nothing else on the album.