Three lives in music, three cities, three distinct pasts: Bauhaus/Tones On Tail/Love and Rockets’ arch glamour and experimentation, Sade/Sweetback’s low-lit and elegant basslines, Public Image Ltd./The Pop Group’s irreverent, abstract percussion. Together, they sound like they’ve been daring each other in the studio for decades.
“When I met Bruce for the first time (I had known Paul since way back), we were all renting a very humble rehearsal space in Los Angeles at the same time,” recalls guitarist/vocalist Daniel Ash about the genesis of Ashes And Diamonds, the new band he formed with Bruce Smith (drums, programming, background vocals) and Paul Spencer Denman (bass). “Paul and I had been already discussing working together, but it was Paul’s wife Kim who suggested Bruce for drum duties. It all started with the standard, ‘Hi, I’m Bruce/Hi, I’m Daniel’. About an hour later, the three of us were making a noise putting something together.”
Their debut single On A Rocka, out now via Cleopatra Records, lands as the first flare from the forthcoming album Ashes And Diamonds Are Forever, set for release on October 31, 2025. The title could be a warning, a recollection, or a shrug, while the music sounds like it could short out the streetlights.
On A Rocka drives like late-’50s rock and roll rebuilt for a modern chassis. Daniel’s stabbing, staccato guitar chords fire like a chain of detonations, Bruce’s unyielding beat keeps the wheels true, and Paul’s bassline wraps around the track like an arm holding steady in the storm.
“The first few songs we wrote in the studio together, but then Covid landed, so several songs were written long distance,” says Smith. The pandemic sent Paul to the UK and Bruce to Vermont, their ideas shuttled back and forth as attachments—basslines, beats, skeletons waiting for flesh. “We taped what we had done in LA in the early days, and then went away with it. Bruce put some beats down, I played bass, and we sent what we had done to Daniel,” Paul explains. When the trio reunited in Los Angeles, they worked in a concentrated ten-day burst with engineer Robert Adam Stevenson (Queens of the Stone Age, Jane’s Addiction, The Kills). Twelve tracks were recorded and mixed, “banging it old school,” as Ash calls it.
“For me, it’s been one of the most fulfilling recordings I’ve ever been involved in… and I’ve made a lot,” says Spencer. “The songs are realized, the production is dope with no tracks you wanna skip over…I am incredibly proud of what we have done. When we first got together, we didn’t know if it was going to work out and we had to see if things gelled, but working together was a breeze! I’m a big fan of Bruce and Daniel. They are both exceptional musicians but in a rather non-musical way. They always play things that surprise me and I find that exciting.”
Ash’s lyrics start life as clipped headlines, reassembled into oblique poetry. “By the end of the first day, there were clippings all over the floor… and the rest is history,” he says. In On A Rocka, the colour contrasts and cyclical refrains keep heat and movement in a constant loop—a revving engine that never lets go, echoing the kinetic urgency of Suicide’s Alan Vega.
The video, directed by Jake Scott (son of Ridley Scott), with a music video history including Oasis, U2, Radiohead, and The Rolling Stones. frames the song as a stripped-down road hymn. Ash’s riff rides shotgun with classic motorcycle footage that recalls CHiPs, Rebel Without A Cause, Easy Rider. Speed circles back into ritual, the lens waiting for that point where velocity turns ceremonial.
Watch the video for “On A Rocka” below:
Ashes And Diamonds Are Forever will be available digitally and in stores on October 31, 2025.
“We wanted to start with something hard and fast for major impact regarding the first single,” says Ash. “It’s a killer piece of music,” adds Smith. “Super fresh, it doesn’t sound like anyone else. What else can you say?”
Originally anticipated to finish the album in seven months, the process instead stretched to seven years. “Like the time it takes for coal to crystalize,” Ash quips. “…Are Forever may have taken a while to develop, but finding a diamond amongst ashes is a great find indeed.”
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