Ride – A brief history

Ride formed in 1988 while Andy, Mark and Loz were studying at Banbury Art College.

The initial line-up was composed by Andy, Mark and Steve who, in the meanwhile, was selling records in the Oxford branch of “Our Price” record shops. Steve already knew Andy having played together in their former band, “Big Spider Back”. Mark and Andy knew each other since the school days, when they used to play gigs at Cheney Upper School. Initially they reharsed without a drummer, using a drum machine instead. When Loz listened to one of their first tapes he thought that “their drummer was good, but that he could have done better if only he had the chance to…”. Indeed, while on an art trip in London, Loz was asked if he fancied to jam with the band… and he agreed. On October 19th 1988, the four of them played together for the first time in a garage, in Loz's mum's house in Ramsden. Coming back from the pub they found a note warning them “not to do that ugly noise again…”. They had just basically found their first fans…

The following months were spent writing songs and improving their skills…
They started building their reputation with several concerts in the Oxford area. The first of many was played at “The Jericho Tavern” in the early days of 1989. “The Jericho Tavern” was a now dismantled pub where hundreds of bands had played before, literally writing the history of indie music on its walls… Soon after came a supporting tour with “The Soup Dragons”, then a major act in the UK. Creation records supremo, Alan Mc Gee, having heard raving rumours about Ride, decided to attend their Sheffield date… the record deal was signed shortly after…

With Creation's advance money they entered the recording studio…
The “Ride” e.p. was released in January 1990. The media started raving about them… a new star was glittering in the indie sky. A short tour followed and, soon after,in April, they released their second e.p., “Play”. Another success, both critical and commercial, another tour… After their appearance at the Reading Festival, the expectations of their ever increasing audience were high… another single, the “Fall” e.p., released in September, paved the way for their debut album “Nowhere” (released in October). By now Ride were real media darlings, they dominated the press… the Melody Maker readers voted them “Brightest Hope” for the year to come… Since Ride had been costantly releasing records throughout 1990, everybody in the U.K. was yearning for new Ride releases, so they locked themselves into a studio and in March 1991 they delivered the “Today Forever” e.p. March and April were spent in the U.S. on a co-headlining tour with “fellow scenesters” Lush. Later, a short tour of Japan and Australia and a handful of shows in France completed this year's gigging activity.
By then, the early Ride potential was completely exploited… it was time to turn the page and start another chapter.

1992 was probably the crucial year in Ride's career. In February a brand new single (“Leave Them All Behind”) appeared, leaving the fans breathless… it was voted “Single of the week” in Melody Maker… Their second album, “Going Blank Again”, produced by Alan Moulder, was released in March, well welcomed both by the press and the audience… Ride appeared miming an edited version of “L.T.A.B.” on the popular British TV programme “The Word”. An extensive UK tour started on March 1st from Cambridge and ended in a triumph on March 27th in London where the Brixton Academy show was filmed and released as a home video. Among the supporting bands there was one that in the following years would have become world-reknowned, Verve… The tour was actually preceded by a special concert held on February 2nd in Ride's hometown, were they “sold out” the local “Apollo Theatre”, with Boo Radleys supporting. Soon after the British tour a massive U.S. tour started… being away from home (and from their loved ones) for six weeks had a destructive effect on the band… tension started to grow and the band almost broke up! But, back in Oxford, where Steve met for the first time his son Jamie (who was born while Ride were playing in Seattle) and Andy was rejoined by his wife Idha, everything was OK again… they quickly recharged their batteries and took another plane, this time to Japan and Australia… Ride played at the Reading Festival for the second time… here, Mark and Tim from The Charlatans had the idea to play together a “couple of special shows” in the forthcoming future… After that it was time for an European tour split into two legs… the first one (September) started in Rotterdam and ended in Milan… the second (late October) was almost a French tour indeed, since it started in Rennes and ended in Nancy, with just three Spanish dates in the middle… The remaining part of the year was spent recovering from heavy touring fatigue, writing new songs… and getting “those special shows” sorted out…

In March 1993 Ride reappeared playing with The Charlatans in Brighton (March 12th) and Blackpool (March 13th)… these were the two successful “Daytripper” shows… the two gigs were preceded by a pleasant media buzzing (quite unexpected since the press at the moment was dedicating all his attentions to the newest hype… Suede)… Mark and Tim appeared on the front cover of the NME, Ride played some new songs on BBC Radio One's “Evening Sessions” and, at the end of the day the press reviewed the “happening” in a quite positive way… One of the hilight of the two shows was the “preview” of four new songs: "Birdman", "Crown Of Creation", "Walk On Water" and "Since Then" (this one appeared, slightly reworked, as one of the “Birdman e.p.” b-sides, with the new title “Don't Let It Die”). Indeed the whole year was spent “testing” new material… the band played a dozen or so shows all across Europe (no UK gigs were played except from the two “Daytripper” ones)… they even played a “new songs only” set in front of a quite surprised audience in Angers (France)… Ride originally planned to record the new album with U.S. producer George Drakoulias (who also worked with Black Crowes and Primal Scream)… Ride and Drakoulias met several times, with the producer guest of the band in Oxford, helping them to put the new songs in a proper shape, before starting the recording sessions… At the end Drakoulias was too busy to produce the entire album and limited his work to “How Does It Feel To Feel”, a cover version of sixties mod band “The Creation”. The album, out in April 1994, was produced by former Stone Roses “mixing man” John Leckie…Although the album was reviewed with praises by the music press worldwide, the sales weren't very good… many fans left the band due to the sudden change in musical style from their distinctive “melodic wall of sound” to a “classic 60's &70's rock vibe”. What is more, the album was virtually split in two separated half, the first one with Mark's compositions and the second one with Andy's… This time the songs were credited separately while before all the tracks were “written and performed by Ride”… Due to the poor sales, Sire (the U.S. label) decided to retire their fundings and the American tour was cancelled leaving both the band and the U.S. fans hugely disappointed. Anyway, a successful British tour was set up, culminating with a show at the Royal Albert Hall (were they also played shortly before as part of the “Undrugged” show, celebrating the tenth birthday of Creation Records). This show, featuring even a brass and string section and a boys choir, was completely ignored by the British press. Another bad sign. Ride, for the first time, brought with them on tour a fifth element, keyboard player Nick Moorbath. A successful tour of France, were they still were popular, followed and, against all odds, spirits were high again… this feeling was confirmed by a moving gig they held at Oxford's Jericho Tavern a few days before its definitive closing… a few days after Ride had a last minute call from Oasis to replace Verve as their supporting act in Brighton, playing in the same venue where they played the first of the “Daytripper” shows… quite sad indeed.

Anyway, everyone was looking forward to the making of their fourth album… after a brief Japanese tour, which happened in January 1995, just after a terrible hearthquake, they locked themselves into the recording studio with a complete new approach… no one was producing, and the band entered the recording sessions with only “the basic idea” of the songs in their minds… All the songs had to be recorded “live”. Since Mark haven't been writing enough material, the album ended up being 90% Andy's work. Mark felt that his role in the band was unfairly “resized” and in August, in the middle of the mixing sessions for the album he announced his decision to leave the band… Ride had split. The split was kept secret until December when it was announced to the fans with a newsletter and shortly after to the press… “Tarantula” was released in March and deleted after only one week… it was preceded in February by “Black Nite Crash e.p.”.

Life after Ride

After the split, Andy formed a new band (Hurricane #1), which released two albums on Creation. The second one sold poorly and wasn't received very well from the press so the band decided to take a break and Andy moved to Sweden with his wife Idha and daughter Leia. While there (October '99) Andy was asked by Oasis if he wanted to become their bassplayer and he accepted the offer. Following the announcement of Andy joining Oasis, Hurricane #1 have officially split. During the whole year 2000, Andy toured with Oasis to promote their "Standing on the shoulder of giants" lp, and right now he's contributing songs for a new album due out in the second half of 2002.

Shortly after Ride's split, Mark tried to set up a new band (Exile) with former Big Audio Dynamite members, but the project never saw the light of the day. In early 1997 he released “solo” a limited edition single (“Magdalen Sky”) on Oxford's indipendent label Shifty Disco. After that Mark has formed a new band (The Animalhouse) with Sam Williams (Supergrass producer and ex-Mystics frontman) and our dear Loz on drums. They have released one album - "Ready to receive" - in 2000 and have split in 2001. Mark has relocated to France where he has set up a home recording studio and he's allegedly writing material for a potential solo album.

Loz has been a full-time member of The Animalhouse together with Mark, but from time to time he also contributes with his drumming skills to The Zimmermen, an Oxford based Bob Dylan cover band. Right now he is living in London where he's attending the Drumtech Drum College and he's also working on a brand new project called "Days Of Hip-Hop".

Steve still lives in Oxford with his family and apparently has retired from active music.

Ride's manager, Dave Newton, is still heavily involved with the music business, being the man behind Oxford Music Central, Oxford's music magazine “Nightshift” and the "fiercely independent" Shifty Disco records label.

Throughout 2001 all the four Ride members have joined their forces to put together the tracks that have appeared on a triple cd boxset released in September. Andy and Mark have also being doing a round of press and radio interviews together: they've denied plans of a Ride reunion in the short or medium term, but, nevertheless, the band has fully and briefly reunited to record some live footage for Channel4's music programme "Pioneers", broadcasted in UK in December 2001. Some audio and video clips of the one-time reunion can be downloaded from Ride's official website. More detailed reports about the Ride "Best Of" boxset are available in the news and in the special boxset section.

Last bio update: Feb. 2002