Why did The Verve first break up in 1995?
While out on tour in the summer of 1995, supporting their second album A Northern Soul, The Verve’s 23-year-old frontman Richard Ashcroft told the Alternative Press a variation of a proclamation he’d been making since he was a schoolboy.
“I want the Verve to be the biggest band in the world,” he said, “because rock and roll will be dangerous again if we are.”
At the time, that goal still looked unlikely at best—the Verve’s live shows were well received everywhere they went, but none of their new singles were denting the charts in the western hemisphere, let alone topping the UK’s.
The problem at home was partly a matter of timing, as the July 1995 release of A Northern Soul landed smack dab in the middle of the “Battle of Britpop”. The album’s comparative lack of instant sing-along earworms kept the Verve from rising above the fray in that moment, even despite booking a slot as Oasis’s tour openers later that year.
A Northern Soul peaked at number 13, and on the eve of the release of its third single, ‘History’, Ashcroft suddenly announced that his band was done, over, kaput, forever. No Oasis tour. No more Verve.
Most ‘90s kids are far more likely to recall the Verve breaking up after the massive success of 1997’s Urban Hymns. But don’t worry, this isn’t a case of the Mandela Effect. It’s just easy to forget that the Verve have broken up a half dozen other times, too, and that the first one actually came when they were still fairly early on in their ascent.
Fans prone to conspiracy theories could certainly look back at the 1995 break-up with a suspicious eye. Without question, the Verve had been dealing with some standard, run-of-the-mill creative differences during the recording of A Northern Soul; which is to say that everyone hated each other, especially Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe.
Shortly after a big show at the T In the Park Festival in August, Ashcroft made his departure known, saying that staying in the band “no longer felt right”.
So, what happened to The Verve?
The Verve’s manager, John Best, was weirdly cool and chillaxed about this financially catastrophic development, explaining to reporters that “Richard is very tempestuous and I think that has a lot to do with his sense of conviction”.
Adding: “He can’t fake it if he doesn’t feel it. There won’t be a band called The Verve any more and they won’t be working together again, but although he [Ashcroft] wasn’t happy and had obviously been thinking about this, he’s happy now. I wish it hadn’t happened this way but he’s only 23 and he’ll do something amazing again.”
A few days later, the single ‘History’ arrived with its ironic title and even more eyebrow-raising liner notes, featuring photos of the Verve standing in New York beside a marquee that says “All farewells should be sudden.”
Was this all an elaborate publicity stunt to generate more attention for the Verve through the Britpop fog? If so, they admirably stuck with the act straight on through the predictable reunion, which resulted in the Urban Hymns album and, arguably, a brief moment when the Verve really were the biggest band in the world.
“The [1995] breakup was basically about having to stop something before it went beyond any possibility of ever getting it back,” Ashcroft explained to Time Out in 1997. “Coming back is so natural and beautiful. It’s something beyond us as individuals. It’s about music and chemistry that happens maybe once every ten years, maybe 20.”
In 2025, Ashcroft got to do that big, high-profile opening slot on an Oasis tour, as he should have 30 years earlier, it just wasn’t with the Verve. If you haven’t heard, they’re currently on another break.
