IT'S BEEN a long and winding road via the Mojave desert, India and a restored barn in France, but Mark Gardener’s solo album has finally surfaced.

They say nothing worth fighting for is ever achieved easily and so it is with the former Ride frontman’s latest work.

His understandable weariness of record labels since the collapse of his previous project, The Animal House, resulted in him largely self-financing the recording of These Beautiful Ghosts.

Its stripped down, emotionally charged sound is shot through with an engaging sense of urgency. Equally uplifting and bittersweet, it’s a heartening reflection on the best and worst of times - exorcising a few lingering demons in the process. As Mark explains, it’s been a major challenge but one he is not likely to have traded for anything.

"I’m really happy with it, it’s taken a while as I’ve not been supported by label’s which is the way I wanted it, off my own back. I recorded it at studios here and there with Goldrush including one in New York, Woodstock and three of the tracks were done live in Harlem, he says sounding in fairly laid-back yet philosophical form.

"It has worked well as I like to travel. I like the guys in Goldrush, they are really good band and we’ve been doing quite a lot of gigs together. You give them a song idea and within an hour they’ve got it perfectly. I’ve said that they’re a bit like my Crazy Horse as they have been willing to be my backing group."

While explaining this may be his Neil Young singer-songwriter phase, he is at pains not to court direct comparisons with the great man, which he plainly believes would be foolhardy.

Having just turned 36, his direction has clearly taken a more considered path than the frenetic work of Ride, yet it’s no less engaging. Anyone who’s witnessed his live gigs either in acoustic mode or with his favoured support act will readily confirm there’s still a fire burning strong.

Like many before him, his adventures in hi-fi began in his teens when he met up with school mate Andy Bell in Oxford - which has long-since entered legend as a haven for indie brilliance.

From this hippest of suburban bases, his musical diet consisted of the angst-ridden sounds of The Smiths, New Order and Echo and The Bunnymen, who were an early influence on the young singer.

"We got to know each other as we knew we were just music geeks really. When I was 15 I wanted to be in a stage production and we ended up doing Grease. I played Doody and Andy was the rock and roll guitarist in the Grease rock and roll band- he was accomplished even back then.

"He thought I could sing ok and I liked his guitar playing so we just started writing songs together. We met Loz (drummer) at art school in Banbury and he’d just got a ride cymbal and we were doing a project about motion. We were walking back to classes through the park having been at the pub and thought Ride was a great name for a band…."

Not a bad name indeed, and after recruiting Stephen Queralt on bass they set about what became their debut album Nowhere. As Mark concedes, he was never the greatest vocalist out there, but he stepped up to the job as no-one else fancied it too much.

The end product is all that matters, and they knew it was good. Underlining this, it narrowly missed the top 10 on its release in 1990. But only now is it being acknowledged as a genuine classic after appearing in the NME’s top 40 Brit records of all time. Drenched in feedback, cavernous drums and edgy melodies, tracks such as Vapour Trail, Chelsea Girl and Taste have easily stood the test of time.

"It’s taken 16 years for that to be recognised and at that rate my new album will be acclaimed when I am dead," he quips with more than a little justified frustration.

"We made Nowhere as a record which was not at all commercial or radio-friendly. There were no expectations that it was going to go how it did, but there was a brilliant chemistry with us that made it such a great thing to be involved in and was a dream come true. It was very surreal when we found ourselves in the charts but then life in a band is often surreal at the best of times."

Their record label Creation had been responsible for some of the most influential acts of the eighties including My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and House Of Love. Yet Ride’s emergence provided them with a much-needed shot in the arm.

The Charismatic head of the firm Alan McGee was quick to recognise their massive potential. Though there was far from a universal fanfare in the press heralding their arrival, they swiftly built a strong fanbase and secured a string of gigs in the UK as well as taking their uncompromising sound to Europe, Japan and America.

Their follow up two years on, Going Blank Again saw them take a musical leap forward while sounding true to the spirit of the early material. "Even a stopped Clock tells the right time twice a day," went the deftly nicked line from 80s seminal flick Withnail and I that provide a fittingly hazy entry to what would prove to be the peak of their shortly-grasped fame.

It furnished them with their only top 10 single (though both the first and second albums went top five) in the form of Leave Them All Behind.

Supporting its release, they played the Daytripper weekend at Brighton with Mancunian stars The Charlatans which provoked renewed media hype around both acts.

"Our second album is my favourite - Cool Your Boots came on my stereo last week and I just thought what a brilliant song!"

Following the success of the distinctly retro Carnival of Light LP, noticeable cracks in their ranks were beginning to show. Andy’s 60s obsession brought him increasingly into conflict with other band members including Mark, from whom he grew ever-more distant.

But they were not about to throw in the towel so easily and made a surprise appearance alongside Oasis and the La’s at the Brighton Centre in 1995 that was to go down as their last UK show.

"That was a good gig but there was a lot of frustration there, we were with Creation but the company was all about Oasis then. There was a feeling that we couldn’t compete with them. What they were doing was great but so was what we had done before that. I guess there was a bit of envy. I remember that night Noel giving one of his typical comments, something like 'It’s a good job we’re effing great'. Well, our playing there got Andy his job with Oasis."

That Ride even made a fourth record at all seems a minor miracle to some as their internal fallout intensified. They had as good as split by the time of the disjointed and tense sounding Tarantula’s eventual release in 1996. As a testament to their popularity it still reached number 21 with little or no label promotion.

"That was a really difficult time. When you go on a journey like that you become different people, the band changed us. There was a lot of tension between me and Andy and when things are not working it’s hard to face But I still think songs like Black Nite Crash benefited from there being a strange atmosphere. I think we needed to get a life outside of the band, but six months later Andy was back round my place playing guitar."

Though there were clearly a number of peaks and troughs to their days together, their legacy has remained strong. Does he have a favourite memory from the road?

"Gig wise it would have to be Reading 92 (featuring on their recent Best Of). It was an amazing time, it was such a massive thing I couldn’t take it in at the time but later realised it was a real highlight. For the first couple of years we were on cloud nine when things were on the up."

Such a strong friendship was seemingly not going to be broken by their group’s disintegration.

For both it was a chance to rebuild and saw the lead guitar man front his own band, Hurricane #I, that flirted with chart success. Yet their time was perhaps inevitably short-lived due to its quickly-assembled nature. Andy then wasted little time in accepting a dream job playing bass alongside the all-fighting, all swearing Gallagher brothers.

Meanwhile, Mark was content to take some time out from the process and found himself producing local bands for a spell. Looking back on their achievements offers plenty of fond memories despite Ride’s messy demise.

They were to re-unite momentarily in 2001 for the Coming Up For Air EP that many thought might hail a comeback, which now seems unlikely.

"We got back in a room together for the Sonic Youth tribute programme and everyone made a lot of it, though I don’t remember much about it. I just don’t know if we could get back together, it’s weird. There’s reasons to do it but a lot against it."

After their brief reunion, Mark and Loz tried their hand with a new outfit, The Animal House, who found themselves on Top Of The Pops with an experimental hybrid of rock and dance beats. Signing to BMG offered a potential return to the big time, but alas it was not to be.

"We were victims of major label panic. Because we weren’t a boy band we suffered badly. We spent two and a half years on that project and it amounted to nothing.

"I went away to America for a while - travelling helps you see things a lot clearer and did some snowboarding which is something I always wanted to do. But I broke my wrist which was a bit of worry. It was really expensive to have it bound up in plaster, it doesn’t pay to have an accident in the US. That was a message from someone to tell me to slow down," added Mark.

Picking up the pieces, he adopted something of hippy existence in deciding to part company with his beloved pad in Oxford and rent it out which allowed him to take to the road.

Many of the tracks on Beautiful Ghosts were written in India and a stint in France where he worked restoring barns for a number of months. There’s certainly no doubt it’s been worth the wait.

He’s just returned from a well-received stint touring with the Black Rebel Motorcycle club in America and a break with his girlfriend in Montreal. But it seems life is unfortunately throwing a few fairly significant spanners in the works after the financial drain of recording.

To make matters worse, his beloved Oxford United are teetering on the brink of relegation and is feeling pressured by how fractured the music business now seems.

"Things are not going so well at the moment as the whole download business has meant that record sales are pretty non-existent, which makes it hard to make a living," he offers with frustration.

Despite such setbacks, he appears a resilient character- you would have to be in such a fickle and ever-shifting industry. Right now he’s enthused by the prospect of several fresh gigs including a show in London.

"I always love playing shows and enjoyed touring in the US. I don’t know if it will be with Goldrush or not but It will be with a full backing band. There are lots of aspects that can be pretty testing to being in this business but on the whole I have loved being involved in music."

Mark Gardener plays Club AC30 in London on Thursday, March 30. Tickets are £7 see www.clubac30.com. To hear Mark’s new material see www.myspace.com/markgardener.