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Inspiral Carpets Fly High Again














Indie rock veterans Inspiral Carpets show no sign of slowing down as they prepare for another UK tour, more than two decades after they first formed.

The band, who enjoyed a string of hits in the 1990s including This Is How It Feels and Dragging Me Down, play Wolverhampton Civic Hall on March 12.

Singer Tom Hingley says the tours give the five-piece a chance to act and feel “like 17-year-olds”.

He says: “We played the V festival in 2003 at Weston Park and Liam Gallagher was stood at the side of the stage watching us. During the Chelmsford leg, we had Noel watching us.

“Afterwards he came up to me and said: ‘Why were you lobbing the mike through the air round your head?’ I said: ‘Noel, I’ve been round long enough that I don’t need your permission!’”

Noel Gallagher was originally a roadie for the Inspiral Carpets, helping them behind the scenes on world tours before finding superstardom with his brother’s band Oasis.

He adds: “One book on the Manchester came out recently and it had about 50 pages on the Stone Roses, 50 on Oasis, 35 on Happy Mondays and then a quarter of a page on us. And that quarter of a page was just dismissive of us.

“The revisionism makes out our band was rubbish but we were one of the top three bands in the country in 1990.

“Stone Roses were a marvellous band, who were better looking than us and better songwriters.

“But we created a fashion and we had really good songs. We were really, really good.”

While the Inspirals enjoyed a string of chart hits, their psychedelic side brought them the endorsement of a run of sessions for the late Radio One DJ John Peel.

Hingley says: “The band did about five or six of them. One of my proudest moments was headlining the Reading Festival in 1990. We played to 80,000 people and my dad was there to watch me for the first time.

He adds: “We get a lot of 30-something blokes at our gigs but we also get the young kids who know us from the bands who we influenced like Maximo Park, Richard Ashcroft, Oasis, the Fratellis and Kaiser Chiefs.”

Hingley hopes the Inspirals will produce some new material but he warns fans not to expect anything in the near future.

“We are working on some new stuff but I wouldn’t hold your breath,” he explains.

“For us to put it out, it’ll have to be the best stuff we have ever done. We wouldn’t want to put out anything we didn’t really want people to hear.”

Source: www.expressandstar.com

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