Two days after finishing school, Ash played at Glastonbury for the first time. A Girl From Mars - Ash

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"Girl from Mars," a song by the band Ash turned 30 years old on July 31, 2025. 
A song the band wrote and recorded while still at school. 
In April 1994, when the band members were 17 years old, they signed with Infectious Records. 
Because they were under 18, their parents had to sign the contract on their behalf, and they also needed permission from their school headmaster, Jack Ferris.
Tim Wheeler, the bands singer and guitarist, wrote "Girl From Mars" at 16, inspired by a TV listing for a similarly titled film, and a recent breakup with his first girlfriend. 
He spoke about it  in an interview with Dave Simpson of The Guardian in 2020.
"I’d broken up with my first girlfriend, which was very intense, first love. I’d always been a happy child but for the first time was experiencing teenage angst, which I poured into the song. Aged 17, I was already nostalgic for those happier times. The previous summer, I’d gone on a family holiday to France. We met a bunch of cool kids and hung out on the beach, smoking cigars, which is where the line about “Henri Winterman cigars” comes from."
"After our manager discovered us and we signed to Infectious Records, they put us in the studio to record a mini-album, but specifically instructed us not to record Girl from Mars. They knew it had the potential to be a hit and wanted to hold it back until we’d left school and could promote it properly."
“We had this double life,” Wheeler said, “where we’d be normal schoolkids and then we’d play gigs in the back room of pubs."
Two days after finishing school, Ash played at Glastonbury for the first time. 
The band performed "Girl From Mars" on their Top of the Pops debut just two weeks after their A-level exams.
The single was released in 1995, was their first top-forty single in the UK. 
On the band's Facebook page it states of the single "We released Girl from Mars, which crashed into the UK chart at #11 and changed everything!‬"

Next came the band's debut album 1977. The name refers to the year two of the bands members were born, and the year the original Star Wars film was released, as they were big fans. 
Ash recorded their debut album with producer Owen Morris at Rockfield Studios in Wales, and released on 6th May 1996 (just missing Star Wars Day!). It was described as a Britpop, power pop and garage rock album, and drew comparisons to the Buzzcocks, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth at the time. 
The album would later be certified platinum in the UK.

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