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.

Hingley is riled that his band do not get more credit for their role in reviving the UK music scene during the early 1990s, particularly in their native north west.

The Inspirals, as they were known by fans, hit number two in the charts with their 1990 album Life, a rare feat at the time for guitar bands.

Hingley says: "Before us, bands like the Wedding Present were seen as big indie stars but we came along and sold half a million albums."

Hingley is angry that the Inspiral Carpets have been airbrushed out of histories of Manchester's music in the late 80s and 1990s.

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.

"Backstage, John Peel bought my dad a pint of Guinness. It was amazing to have the two men who had inspired me the most there together in this way."

The band enjoyed a run of hit singles through to the mid-1990s, including Two Worlds Collide and Saturn 5.

Hingley says the band's split in 1995 seemed a natural conclusion at the time but may have been premature.

"If we had kept going for Britpop, we would have been massive," he claims.

"We split as friends because we didn't want it to get nasty. And I'm glad we did but the Roses finished after playing Reading with only half the proper line-up.

"We put real, authentic hate, love and anger into our music."

The singer describes the group, most of whom are now in their 40s, as "a psychedlic beer band".

The Inspirals got back together in 2003 for a greatest hits record but Hingley says their tours now come round "like an eclipse of the sun".

He adds: "On this tour, we're trying to go to places famous for different things. We're going to Oxford because it's a seat of learning, Manchester to have it large and then Wolverhampton to go for a curry. Because there's nowhere better for a curry, is there?"

Hingley is familiar with the Black Country crowd and can lay claim to a special link with the region.

"We've played the Civic three times and I've played the Little Civic many times as a solo artist.

"My family come from Dudley. The Hingleys used to make chains and anchors. They even patented a merchant navy anchor.

"If you were to look at the anchor in the middle of the Atlantic on the Titanic, you would find it had the name Hingley on it."

Hingley now teaches performance art and plays with his own band, Tom Hingley and the Lovers, who release new album Highlights in March.

Hingley is full of praise for newer acts like Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem.

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."

• Inspiral Carpets play the Civic on March 12.

• Tom Hingley and the Lovers play Birmingham Academy on April 20.