Time To Listen: Ash's Tim Wheeler reveals the 5 songs that helped him through hard times
Listen to the intensely personal episode
Ash frontman Tim Wheeler has appeared on Absolute Radio’s series Time To Listen to discuss the five songs that mean the most to him.
Through Time To Listen, Absolute Radio hopes to open up the conversation about mental health by inviting some of our best-loved musicians and comedians to talk about the songs that have had a profound impact on their lives, and even got them through hard times.
During Danielle Perry’s evening show from 7pm on Monday to Thursday, a guest celebrity picks a song each day before a special omnibus half-hour show containing an extra fifth choice airs on The Sunday Night Music Club from 8pm.
Miles Kane, U2’s Adam Clayton, Tom Walker, Sam Fender, Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody, Skunk Anansie’s Skin, Ultravox’s Midge Ure and comedy icon Jo Brand are among the celebrities who have taken part in the series since last autumn.
Now, in an intensely personal episode, ever-genial Ash frontman Tim Wheeler has opened up about how The Verve’s ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ soundtracked his own comedowns, how he found redemption from a certain Van Morrison tune, and his penchant for The Smiths and Joy Division’s lyrically sombre yet musically uplifting songs.
Tim also picked two of his own tracks including an emotionally wrought solo song that deals with the death of his father.
Listen to Tim Wheeler on Time To Listen here:
Tim Wheeler’s 5 song choices are as follows:
The Verve - ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ (1997)
“I’ve chosen ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ by The Verve ‘cos I guess it reminds me of my real late teens. I had a demo of ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. I guess it sort of reminds me of substances, getting into experimenting with drugs and stuff myself and the comedowns and the emotional ups and downs you get when you’re taking drugs. I guess I was also experiencing fame and success at a very young age, so I was dealing with a lot of stuff. When I heard the song it really spoke to me about what I was going through and things I was knowing for the first time. I had a very special version of it as well because I had the demo on cassette. It was a song that was close to my heart from that time.”
Van Morrison – ‘And the Healing Has Begun’ (1979)
“(Van Morrison) is one of my favourite go-to artists if I’m feeling down, if I’m feeling great, he kind of covers everything for me. This particular song was one… I think my last really bad break-up a few years ago, I guess I associate this song with the time I was just starting to feel alright about everything and starting to move on and I would just listen to this song on repeat. It’s a very repetitive song, he’s just kind of jamming out over it. It’s got a feeling. The words are quite mad but it really encapsulates that feeling of rebirth and renewal, and after having come through a hard time. I’ve actually met him a few times over the years, but last time I met him I told him ‘Van, the song ‘And the Healing Has Begun’ has actually healed me’. And he was like ‘Really?!’ I think he might find it hard to take a compliment like that. This is a song that means a real lot to me.”
Joy Division – ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (1980)
“When I was 16, it was the time I was first experiencing maybe bits of depression. That was exactly the time I started getting into The Smiths and Joy Division. It was great finding music that came from really a heartfelt, low place and was also uplifting at the same time. I think when I was 16 I was going through my first break-ups and also dabbling in drugs. I was feeling lows I’d never really felt before. With an artist like Ian Curtis I knew the story about him, how he’d struggled with mental illness and committed suicide. I guess that was part of the myth of Joy Division. When you’re a teenager everything feels so amplified and songs like ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ really got me though that and it particularly reminds me of dealing with those emotions for the first time. You can really hear like the anguish in this song and also the self-criticism that’s there in the song and the guilt and grief – there’s so much in it, you can really hear it.”
Ash - ‘Darkest Hour of the Night’ (2020)
“Our new single is a track called ‘Darkest Hour of the Night’ and actually it really is about those times when… sometimes I’ve been going through a hard time and we all get those moments when you awake in the middle of the night and everything just seems really bleak and kind of in the darkness sometimes everything feels impossible. So, I wrote this song about that. I kind of feel there’s a positive energy to it – there’s always that thing when you wake up in the morning and you sort of feel you could go on and nothing’s quite as bad in the morning light. I quite like it when songs are mixed with lyrics where you’re at lowest, but the music is uplifting. It kind of feels empowering I think. That’s the whole idea behind the song.”
Tim Wheeler – ‘Vigil’ (2014)
“I was asked was there was a song of ours that was particularly hard to write lyrics for. When my dad passed away – he had Alzheimer’s –for the following couple of years I was really dealing with a lot of grief and I guess it was cathartic to write songs, but it was also painful to relive a lot of that and it maybe dragged out the grieving in a way but there was also great catharsis that came through it. One of the most painful but also most healing songs to write was one called ‘Vigil’, which I wrote about the few days we were keeping vigil by (dad’s) bedside because we knew he was a day or so away from dying. It was quite a powerful time for me and the family. I maybe only did six shows promoting the album (2014’s ‘Lost Domain’) but the final show was in Belfast and I remember singing the song and I just couldn’t hold back crying as I was playing it. It was quite hard to get through. I have had some great messages from people saying that the album has resonated a lot with them and helped them through similar grief. Even if the person they knew had Alzheimer’s or not, it still helped them.”