In 1996 the teenagers in Ash were some of Ireland's hottest musical exports, thanks to the distorted pop ditties of the group's second album, "1977," and its pair of alt-rock singles, "Kung Fu" and "Girl from Mars.

Ash ran into some trouble with its American label, Warner Bros., after completing work on its subsequent record, "Nu-Clear Sounds," a situation which delayed the Stateside release of the album until almost a year after it was issued in the U.K. and Europe.

Shortly before the U.K. release of "Nu-Clear Sounds," Ash joined U2 to play at concert urging support for passage of the "Good Friday" referendum, a joint peace accord designed to bring an end to the violence in Northern Ireland waged between Catholics and Protestants (see [article id="1425019"]"U2 And Ash To Rock For Peace In Northern Ireland"[/article]).

In a recent interview with MTV News, Ash discussed how it manages to carefully mix the dicey politics of Northern Ireland within a musical

setting.

[article id="1438495"]"We pretty much stay out of the whole political thing. That's not what we're really about,"[/article] commented bassist Mark Hamilton.

[article id="1438495"]"Music isn't gonna be a vehicle for spreading any message about how to sort Northern Ireland out,"[/article] added drummer Rick McMurray. [article id="1438495"]"We're doing the music almost as an escape, I guess. Being brought up as Northern Irelanders in small little towns -- very boring. Nothing to do, and music was more of an escape for us, really." [RealAudio][/article]

That sort of perspective also seems to have kept Ash from getting sidetracked by the label shuffling that resulted with the band landing on DreamWorks Records, who plan to (finally) issue "Nu-Clear Sounds" on September 28.

"The whole split with Warner Bros. kind of came about just as we'd finished

Sounds'] and just as it was coming out [in the U.K.]," explained frontman Tim Wheeler. "Which meant that we couldn't put it out in the U.S. until we got a new deal sorted out." [RealAudio]

It's kind of bizarre, y'know," McMurray said, "because the album has been out for almost a year, and we're starting to think about the next record and what we want to do for that. But we're back over here to promote ['Nu-Clear Sounds']. But I guess we've been playing the songs live for the last few months, so we're as tight as we can be with them.

Ash has completed a video for the first American single, [article id="1438494"]"Jesus Says," [RealAudio][/article] and the band is planning to tour the U.S. in the fall to support the new album.