Nick McCabe

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Nicholas Joseph "Nick" McCabe, born on July 14 1971 in St Helens, is a guitarist who played with The Verve during the 1990s.

Nick McCabe was the youngest of three children and was strongly influenced by music growing up. He lead a normal life training to be a Quantity surveyor until he met Richard Ashcroft at Winstanley college near Wigan. Ashcroft heard McCabe's guitar jamming and thought he McCabe could "almost make the guitar talk". Along with Simon Jones and Peter Salisbury, Ashcroft and McCabe formed the Verve.

Tensions and power struggles between McCabe and Ashcroft would later cause the band's dissolution, twice. The first breakup happened when Ashcroft left after The Verve's unsuccessful second album, A Northern Soul. Shortly thereafter Ashcroft reformed the band, but at first McCabe refused to return, though he later returned for the band's third album, Urban Hymns. The Verve broke up for the second and final time when McCabe left after Urban Hymns.

Musically, McCabe has always expressed his fondness of synthesizers and explained his "psychedelic" sound as trying to make a guitar sound like a synthesizer by using effects pedals and Valve Amps.

McCabe recently remixed a single for The Music ("Freedom Fighters" - September 2004).

He is currently working with Bristol based rock group Spencer. It is not yet clear exactly what the pairing have, or will do together.de:Nick McCabe