The Verve pledge not to split

Sep 19, 2008, 9:55 GMT

The Verve have reassured fans they will not be "careless" enough to split up again.

The UK band have had a rocky past, disbanding on two occasions - once in 1995 and again in 1999 at the peak of their commercial success - due to in-fighting but insist they are now more willing to talk through their differences.

Bassist Simon Jones said: "I don't think any of us would be that careless again. If we have a disagreement, we'll work through it. It won't be 'F**k you, f**k you, f**k you and f**k you.' "

The band released new album 'Forth' this year, but cancelled some festival appearances this summer amid rumours the band had not been getting along, due to a division between singer Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe, who walked out on the band in 1998, leading to their second demise.

Despite pledging to stay together Simon, 36, admits relations

had been strained between the quartet.

He added: "It means the world to me to do this. I'm not going to lie and say that everything's all of a sudden easy in this band. We still do have our disagreements but we're a bit more mature and better able to deal with it."

During the band's hiatus, frontman Richard went on to enjoy a successful solo career, while the other members floundered - something Simon struggled to deal with.

He told Britain's Daily Star newspaper: "I had lost my band and he went on to have a solo career and that was painful. I couldn't listen to it. When Richard played with Coldplay at Live8 in 2005 I turned it off. I had to find a way to deal with the fact that this thing that was so precious to me was lost. My way to deal with it was to not listen to Richard's records."