(no subject)
Image
I was never very interested in clothes back then (at university), and I never shopped at thrift shops. I was a bit of a nerdy casual. I was into golf so I even used to wear Pringle jumpers. We did used to get stuff from Oxfam when we started spray-painting shirts for the band, but that's different. It was only the rich kids that wanted to dress down like that.
Nicky (1994)
Individually we've always been pretty powerless, but together we make up for each other’s inefficiencies. Nick's Handsome and has always been the most popular with the girls; Richey never had any musical talent but he's so articulate and sensitive to everything around him. Sean is brutality personified, pisses everybody off because he doesn't like anybody or anything, and then there's me who's a bit musical and a bit of a lad.
James (1994)
We looked at ourselves while we were recording the album (Everything Must go) and thought either we go for a Latino thing -put on as much weight as we can, grow beards and come back as Roberto Duran or Marlon Brando in fat phase, or something more simple. The only people got wrong was calling us the Littlewoods Manic Street Preachers. Sean was deeply offended by that, because everything he buys is Paul Smith or Katharine Hamnett.
Nicky (1997)
This phase of supposedly being the Band At C&A is fine by me. Except I've got my Harvey Nics charge card now. Pop down to the sales, pick up Armani jeans for £40.
Sean (1997)
In the past we would follow Nick on how the band looked. Like, the army stuff, that was just what Nick was wearing. The only time I felt uncomfortable was at the start, when there was all the androgyny. I just didn't have the bone structure, did I?
James (1997)
I remember Sean used to feel a bit awkward with the glam look as well. The camouflage he didn't mind, 'cos he could buy a lot of it. We'd get a pin-on badge and Sean would come in with a £180 Russian medal.
Nicky (1997)
If we were as big then as we are now, the four of us in camouflage could have put on the most scary, fantastic live show ever. I have this picture of us at Glastonbury in 1994 with balaclavas and Russian hats, thinking we were an army and we could take anyone on. We'll never feel like that again.
Nicky (1997)
We were rock's equivalent of the TSB. The band that likes to say 'yes'.
Nicky (1994)
I feel past it at 27, but I still try to make a semblance of an effort. It's up to a younger band. But I look around, and there are no bands out there who take any risks in the way they dress. It really disappoints me. It's either sports gear or black casual shirts. With us it was always, 'come on Mooro, get this fucking blouse on'.
Nicky (1997)
When you're playing the songs off The Holy Bible to a really partisan audience, and you're all dressed up in military gear like a fucking soldier, it makes you feel more aggressive. I still feel like doing it. I don't feel like smashing things up so much anymore, because... my back's bad, and I'm just a bit older.
Nicky (1997)
You could say that I had an eating problem because if I ate too much, and I was drinking, I got all puffed up and blotchy. Me I'm too vain to be like that. I couldn't handle looking in a mirror. All is vanity.
Richey (1994)
In the last year I've been doing loads of exercise. I do about 1,500 sit-ups every day. I do some weights as well. I take them on tour with me. It's about trying to control my body, to eat less and get fit. I want a flat stomach, I want a six pack, I want a stomach like Brad Pitt. I'm incredibly vain.
Richey (1994)
Richey once dressed up as a semen for Rag Week, and painted himself all white. He soon learned the error of his ways.
Nicky (1994)
If you're hopelessly depressed like I was, dressing up is just the ultimate escape... nothing could excite me except attention, so I'd dress up as much as I could. Outrage and boredom just go hand in hand.
Nicky (1993)
We're going to die young and leave good-looking corpses.
Nicky (1992)
What's heavenly? Pure rock'n'roll, dolphins, waking up and realising we're the sexiest, most intelligent, hateful rock'n'roll band in the whole world.
Richey (1991)
We are the scum factor of the Mondays meets the guitar overload of Five Thirty/Ride while killing Birdland with politics.
Richey (1989)
We all decided that from the start, me and Richey can't write music but we can write lyrics and look pretty tarty. Richey's the spirit of the band.
Nicky (1991)
Every morning Richey would with a really bad hangover after drinking a litre of vodka. Then to the gym, exercise, swim, do weights, have a jacket potato with all his grapes, and then not eat anything else for the rest of the day until he started drinking again. He knew full well that in the rock'n'roll world it's either the food or the booze in order to keep one's figure. Not both.
Nicky (1993)
Generation Terrorists
We are just another band in the racks, but with more intelligence.
Richey (1991)
I'm just interested in getting three Number 1 Singles, pissing off to America and making the greatest rock album of all time.
Nicky
One of our best abilities is to arrive at the same realm of consciousness at the same time, the same mood. That's the way it's got to be. I've got to justify what I do. Just being an entertainer or a singer-guitarist isn't enough. We've got to be a band that has a collective consciousness.
James (1996)
You can maybe ignore our songs but when we walk down the street and you see our song titles on our chests you've got to think something.
Richey
The more you achieve, the more blasé most bands get.. Generation Terrorists went gold in Britain, sold 100,000, but that wasn't an achievement to us because we said we were going to sell 16 million. It does make a better band by putting that continual pressure on yourselves. We're always striving for something more.
Nicky
In the band at the moment, it's a matter of giving ourselves some human grace, the chance to show emotion other than disdain or hate and not be ashamed of it. Breathe a bit more. I think we've survived under a heavy load of self-censorship.
James (1996)
We've been accused of slagging off every band there is, and we've been told to stop. But our statement is that we hate every other band. We're not interested in them. That's all we can say. I've got no respect for any other band in the world.
Nicky (1991)
When we do interviews for Japanese magazines they get all upset because they want us to be all obnoxious and we aren't really. We actually get faxes from the record company in Japan saying, please tell the Manic Street Preachers to spit on people. It's just sad. That's what people want. It's pathetic.
Richey (1992)
We read all the books about the Rolling Stones and Kiss and now the saddest thing is that we do all the things that every other band does but we get no pleasure from it. It's not glamorous, it's not exciting, it's not like being in a Who documentary at all. We had millions of groupies in Cardiff last night, but it's not as good as reading about it in the kiss On Tour book.
Richey (1992)
If we looked like we felt then we would have come onstage like Joy Division. We had to make a massive effort to be a glamorous band, because inside we know we're not particularly glamorous really.
Nicky
Seeing Mick Jagger jumping about doing 'Jumping Jack Flash' was the most important thing in our lives. Isn't that pathetic? I'd like to do something worthwhile like Nick's brother who helps people who are dying of cancer- but none of us could ever do anything like that because we'd always be whining 'Ooh, I want to watch a video, put the telly on'. We just feel sad there are no groups like the Rolling Stones any more. We are here at the complete death of rock culture
Richey (1992)
Neil Kinnock is our MP. His constituency house is in the same street as James' -and he's such a tosser. Party politics always seemed irrelevant to us. We got obsessed with cultural politics, it seemed more relevant; the real issues like how futile life is, how fucked-up modern society is. In terms of music, we went back and rediscovered the great bands. Everything else seemed boring and worthless.
Richey (1991)
Even the bands from the past that we love - the Who, the Stones, the Pistols, the Clash - the way all of them turned out in the end was disillusioning, a letdown. We'll never let that happen.
Richey (1991)
We still read the music papers from cover to cover. On Wednesday that's all we do. That's all we've ever done.
Richey (1991)
We just totally despise people like Kingmaker; and think we should say that. Bands deserve to be exposed if they're so redundant, lyrically inept, ugly... and that's what those bands are.
Nicky (1991)
The zeitgeist of this year in general is fucking death and destruction.
Nicky (1994)
I still think Richey carving '4 Real' into his arm was a magnificent gesture. That's just the way we are, unfortunately. At the time it mattered so much to us, being in a band; that's what Richey felt he could do to express it.
Nicky (1994)
I think the bloke from Kula Shaker (Crispian Mills) talks some utter crap, but at least you can laugh. I like (Cast's) John Power: I think he's a bit of an angel, but he does talk some bollocks.
Nicky (1996)
I've never benefited from having a conversation with another band in my life. I'm not interested in being pally with other groups.
James (1993)
I'm not going to pretend that I'm converted to dance culture, because I find a lot of it extremely lazy. They call rock musicians Luddites, but they can't even pick up a pen and write lyrics half the time.
Nicky (1996)
I fucking hate the Beastie Boys. It's so much emphasis put on the quality of a sound loop. If you talked like that in rock about a guitar sound, everyone would take the piss out of you, but people will wax lyrical about Beck no end.
Nicky (1996)
I find Suede's keyboard player (Neil Codling) a bit odd. Everyone's supposed to fancy him, but I can't see Ocean Colour Scene fans fancying him. They'd probably want to batter him.
Nicky (1996)
I absolutely despise John Spencer Blues Explosion with a vengeance. He signed to his major label and tried to lose some weight and look cool, but it's corporate Nick Cave with a pretence of having some kind of edge. He reckons he's incorporating hip-hop: bollocks! That's like saying just because we get re-mixed by the Chemicals, we're bastions of the fucking dancefloor.
Nicky (1996)
That fucking Bjork remix album: how did journalists ever fall for her? Talentless piece of shit. But you can't even say that because (then-boyfriend) Goldie will probably beat you up.
Nicky (1996)
Nick Cave is allowed to get away with writing songs about smashing a woman's head in with a brick - but if a band like us did it, there'd be even more outcry.
Nicky (1996)
As far as British music is concerned, there will never be another band as dangerous as us. Bands are too friendly. I detest every musician I've ever met.
Nicky (1994)
No band faces hysteria any more, unless they're Take That. Brett Anderson could walk around Brighton and no-one would bother. People don't care any more.
Nicky (1994)
The first thing I ever said in an interview with the music press was 'we're gonna set fire to ourselves on 'Top Of The Pops'. You don't say things like that for shock, there's some sort of sub-conscious. I do worry about ourselves, as people.
Nicky (1996)
Beck is vastly overrated. Typical maverick US lyrics that pretend to be intelligent, but deep down mean absolutely fuck-all. I know he's very credible, but I just don't see it. He's got a good haircut and that's about it.
Nicky (1997)
This year's the first time I've actually met people in other bands. It's hard to avoid it when you're at festivals. Before, I've always completely secluded myself. But when you actually meet people, I can't bring myself to go out in the press the next week and take the piss out of them. I couldn't live with myself if I couldn't say it to their face. Whereas before it was all right because I'd just say summat, and never see these people.
Nicky (1997)
We always knew we were going to fuck up. Everyone knew we were going to fuck up. We were really saying, 'Let's forget notions of contradiction. When it comes to bands, everyone fucks up, everyone lets you down'. Contradictions are meaningless, there's nothing to betray.
Nicky (1994)
Right now I don't want to go out, I don't want to make any friends. All I want to do is make enemies. I've never felt this much contempt for everyone and everything in my entire fucking life. I don't feel the need for anyone to like me anymore. Jesus, it's hard enough to like myself.
Nicky (1994)
We've reached a point now where we feel as if we've prostituted ourselves so fucking much, just given and given and given, that we've given everything away, and we've got absolutely fucking nothing left of our own. And we played up to that, you know-'culture sluts'. But these things catch up with you.
Nicky (1994)
I know what I think made us special. But spiritually for others, I haven't got a clue. Except maybe... too much truth?
Nicky (1996)
We will always hate Slowdive more than Adolf Hitler.
Richey (1991)
Breakfast is always sad on a Wednesday because the music press arrives.
Richey(1992)
We're banning Charlatans fans from our gigs because they all have moustaches.
Nicky (1992)
In this season of goodwill, let's hope Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddie Mercury pretty soon.
Nicky (1992)
The Stipe comment is the one I could be pushed into showing a morsel of regret about. Otherwise, we have a Murder On The Orient Express mentality. We all willingly step forward to stab the corpse.
James (1996)
I've got nothing against Michael (Stipe) at all. I'm just all for bitchin' in music.
Nicky (1992)
Everybody knows that the Happy Mondays made some fucking great records, but we could never say that, because it was our blinkered Pol Pot period, and we didn't like what they were supposed to represent.
Richey (1993)
Somebody should build some more bypasses over this shithole (Glastonbury).
Nicky (1994)
All the best bands get really fucked up... we're not saying there's anything glamorous in getting fucked up, we're not saying there's anything glamorous in being dead, but there's nothing glamorous in having a 20-year career either. That's even more sick.
Nicky (1994)
Some 'Cult Of Richey' disciples just won't be happy unless everybody else in the band becomes ill. I'm not willing to fall into that trap.
Nicky (1995)
At the time most journalists seemed to be public school drop-outs. You could pick them off one by one. They'd been put in public school and they'd fucked up because they weren't very intelligent. And we'd come along we were very bright, we'd stress the fact that we were educated and they didn't want to know. They wanted to make us their playthings.
Nicky
The only beautiful thing about London is McDonalds.
Richey (1991)
When Steve Clarke of Def Leppard died, a man who's written songs that sold 60 million or whatever, classically cool, why did he get about that much (holds up thumb and forefinger, millimetres apart) in the press? Yet when Shaun Ryder, talentless and brain dead, has a baby, he gets a page. Why does he deserve it?
Nicky (1991)
The only good thing about New York is that it killed off John Lennon.
Nicky (1992)
As long as there are a few people who understand, it's okay. That's why we never minded doing teenage magazines like Smash Hits which some bands refuse to do. I just find that incredibly patronising. I know when I was 14, music was the only thing I cared about.
James (1994)
We get compared to the greatest bands ever and are accused of being crap. If you start comparing the music journalists to the greatest writers ever, you soon see how shit they are too.
James (1991)
Music journalists don't even look good. I saw Andrew Collins on television and I nearly threw up. My God, he looked like a Pork Pie Dwarf with a pudding-bowl haircut... At least Nick Kent looked beautiful.
Nicky (1991)
30 is a very desperate age; rock music is being done by people in their 30s for teenagers. You get to 30 and look back and realise you've achieved nothing, you are nothing, and you've got nothing coming up.
Sean (1991)
Pride, Prejudice And Welshness
The only perfect circle on the human body is the eye. When a baby is born it's so perfect, but when it opens its eyes it's just blinded by the corruption and everything else is a downward spiral.
Richey
We didn't learn anything from other Welsh bands, just never to be remotely like them. It's really patronising, the way they suddenly decided to learn to speak the Welsh language, when they'd written songs about the bright lights of Mersey and Liverpool about two years before. And the Welsh language was never important to us at all. I mean, what's the point of resurrecting something that's completely dead? Dead culture doesn't interest us.
Richey (1993)
Most bands look forward to their homecoming gig. I don't expect roses and petals at my feet but the amount of grief we get here is non-stop. Anything from Welsh bands complaining about us not singing in Welsh to gangs of blokes pouring lager over me and saying 'What are you gonna do about that?' Tom Jones doesn't get this!
Richey
The working class is patronised a lot these days. Working-class imagery is taken by the middle-class people.
Nicky (1996)
I do want to get a place in Cardiff, but I feel I've got to live in London - for the band. It's the only way I can stay detached. If I went home I'd become obsessed with my own history. I remember so many things, good things that don't exist anymore. I get maudlin and lose all my energy. There's a transience in London that keeps me ticking over.
James (1996)
There's an awful lot of white British kids who have never really gone hungry, always had a roof to live under but at the same time are desperately unhappy. It's not total poverty, just a poverty of ideas.
Richey
All great art is always massive and well-known. No great art is reclusive. That's why Van Gogh sells for £50 million.
Nicky (1991)
Computer games are much more exciting than bands. We had our Sega Megadrive when we were down the studio making our record (Generation Terrorists) and we were spending hours a day playing on it because it's so engrossing. You feel involved, which you can't feel with music anymore. It's much better than traveling in the rain to see a band. But it's so sad that the best human minds on the planet are just trying to invent characters like Sonic The Hedgehog.
Richey (1992)
A Gibson Les Paul was one of the only things I'd ever longed for. I had it for two concerts and then I smashed it up. On impulse really. I did regret it after, I've got to admit. Then I got another Gibson and I smashed that up. I did feel quite ashamed because it was like my father's accumulated wage for about four weeks. I was just showing off and I felt ashamed.
James (1992)
Where we come from, to see any band you like, you normally have to travel quite a way. Faced with a choice between doing that, or staying home and blowing up planet after planet, then I know what most people would do. But the idea that video games are killing rock'n'roll is misleading. They exist with each other. They're different mediums.
Richey
You get these fans called Jeremy. They think they're being rebellious because they wear smelly jeans and have matted hair. Then you get the Welsh ones who think you're trying to do something important for Wales. We've never said good things about where we come from. All we've said is 'We're from Wales, from a town where there's nothing to do.' We've never felt any sense of pride in where we come from. Of course, if we were Irish and saying this, we'd be crucified for it.
James (1992)
Right now it seems the hierarchy of British pop - Oasis, Damon - wants to be seen with Tony Blair. We're still the band who'd rather be seen with Arthur Scargill. It kind of makes me feel good that we're still out of step. It's a good Manics trait.
Nicky (1997)
I have discovered my Welshness much more over the past few years. My greatest ambition is to do a film script on Owain Glyndwr, who was kind of Wales' William Wallace. He defeated the English and gave Wales self-rule. Anthony Hopkins could play him in old age, but I'm not sure who would do him when he was young.
Nicky (1997)
I'm proud that the Welsh were the last miners to go back to work. Quite cool.
Nicky
When we started the idea of Welsh music was like the Ivory Coast at the Olympics: one bloke carrying the flag and one walking behind. Now there's more of us and we can carry our banner with pride.
Sean (1997)
We realised the four of us were very different from the outside world. We're very proper. We did believe the Welsh thing; get an education.
Nicky (1996)
I think there's a lot of people who feel uncool, and they realise that getting into dance music is the one thing that can make them cool. I think that's true for a lot of people, whether it's dodgy old punks from the 1970s who were in shit bands and now they make dance music, or they're young kids putting 'Technics' or 'Kenwood' on their bags.
Nicky (1996)
I don't blame Lam for walking out on Oasis's US tour. It isn't like Oasis cancelled their tour and ruined our schedule. I think it's brilliant that they did it. And the MTV thing was brilliant, I thought they out-fronted everyone. It did stir my emotions quite a bit, and it does make you feel a little too much of a Brit, but I can't help that. I always see music in terms of a sporting contest.
Nicky (1996)
Sexual politics have never been on my agenda. Richey might have been more interested in that. Basically, I think men are cunts and women are fine. Ninety five per cent of violent crime is still caused by men. Men are nastier. I do get on better with blokes, but I know deep down we're all pretty... dodgy.
Nicky (1996)
Perhaps I'm xenophobic in the sense that I find it very hard to fit in in other countries. Then again, I find it equally hard to fit in in Wales sometimes.
Nicky (1994)
We were a Welsh rock band and in the eyes of some people then that was the very worst thing in the whole world. We were totally a product of our environment, but we had to prove we weren't the Alarm.
James (1996)
I'm not into tribalism any more. I'm into oneness. We're too small in Wales to divide any more. There's three times as many people in London as the whole of Wales.
Nicky (1997)
At the start we never went around wearing Welsh credentials. Richey was really paranoid about ever coming across as Welsh. He always called it the Neil Kinnock factor. I've become more conscious of it lately. I've started to support the Welsh rugby side. Vanity Fair interviewed Sharon Stone recently: they asked her to name her favourite Irish author and she said Dylan Thomas. Things like that wouldn't have annoyed me before, but they really do now.
Nicky (1997)
When you've got nothing, you've got something pure that no one can take away. As soon as you've got something, some cunt's gonna come and take it off you.
James (1994)
For me the greatest figure in British history is still Nye Bevan. It just fucking sickens me that people have been conned into believing that you can't think in terms of class any more. As soon as working-class people lose their sense of belonging, they lose all their humility, and you get a classless society in the worst possible sense.
James (1994)
In Wales the women are as bored as the men, but the men will go out to the pub and beat the shit out of everyone else. The women will stay at home and concentrate on surviving.
Richey (1992)
The media are so into this idea of 'Generation X' at the moment. This concept of teenage discontent. But they're just celebrating these kids saying, 'Ooh, we've always had money, but the second they took the spoon out of our mouths we decided maybe we never really liked our life after all and - hey, maybe we won't get a job'. They'd never publish anything by some scummy, junked-up bastard from Manchester, they're only concerned with willing underachievers from the upper middle classes.
James (1994)
I'm never going to lose touch with myself, or with where I came from. The only destructive force in my life is alcohol, and even that never got me into trouble, it just made me put on weight.
James (1996)
Where I come from I've seen violence, I've been in stomach-churning fights, bones broken and everything, but even that doesn't turn my stomach as much as some of the things I see in London. The perpetuation of certain privileges, certain forms of so-called intelligence... that really horrific provincial violence seems more understandable.
James (1996)
One thing I'm proud of is that where I come from, throughout the whole mining area, every colliery in every town gave money to build an institute, with a library, with complete access for free, which was a way of keeping your class, but having access to education and learning - that's why I ended up at university. The fact is now, almost every one of those institutes has been destroyed. So now you've got this pit-bull terrier working class, completely without pride, and you'd be very naive to think the working class had done that to themselves. It's down to an actual plan by the Conservative government to destroy the working class.
Nicky (1996)
You go and see a film like Seven and you realise that most people can't become what they want these days, and the one thing you can become is a killer. It's the easiest thing in the fucking world.
Nicky (1996)
We're not the fucking Senseless Things. We don't want to return to some supposed golden day like they do. You hear bands like that and they talk as it now is useless and everything in 1977 was so great. We're now. All you can do with the past is to never want to be like it. 'Cos the past has created what we're living in now, and we're not happy, so it must've failed.
Richey (1991)
We're not left wing but we do have roots in Situationism and stuff, and when we formed the band, the miners' strike was going on on our doorsteps. So when you listen to 'Archives Of Pain' (off the Holy Bible), a very right-wing song, it shows how fucked up and confused our times are. And it shows that we're still arrogant and unafraid enough to make judgments, even miscalculated ones.
James (1994)
Everyone likes Happy Mondays 'cos when the working class dance, it means nothing except prole fashion. The Stone Roses seem to understand the working class, but only in interviews. No one is speaking for people like us.
Richey (1991)
People we met in London would never like the idea of meeting a girl in a pub and having a bag of chips and a tuck in the bus stop on the way home. That's something ordinary, working-class people do all the time. We'd do that; we wouldn't check into a hotel - it'd be, 'Stop here a minute, I want my dick sucked'. That's the scum factor.
Richey (1990)
I've never thought a band could ever do anything that's important. It can change individuals, it can create a common ground for important issues, but in terms of actually doing something, changing the economic infrastructure, it's not gonna do that. It never has done. Richey (1993)
We are the scum that remind people of misery. When we jump on the stage it's not rock 'n' roll cliché but the geometry of contempt. We don't display our wounds, we shove them in people's faces. We are the decaying flowers in the playground of the rich. We are young, beautiful scum, pissed off with the world.
Richey (1989)
Wipe out aristocracy now, kill, kill, kill. Queen and country dumb flag scum. We are drowning in manufactured ego fucking. Boredom bred the thoughts of throwing bricks.
Richey (1989)
We've never been the Trade Unionists of rock. We know that we could never reach as many people as we wanted, unless it was on a major (label). We were willing prostitutes.
James (1991)
We came to feel we were part of a culture that didn't exist anymore. We wanted to believe in something and didn't find anything to believe in. We wanted to attach some new-found intelligence or theory to the place and class we came from. But we were always confused, always contradictory, always very suspicious. Suspicious of the smell of the burning martyr.
James (1996)
Language has always been our weapon. Our lyrics are getting stronger and if you hurt a couple of 'nice' people
the way, or offend them, then that's necessary.
James (1991)
New Art Riot was one of the first slogans we used to spray everywhere. It was our most grey, political and dogmatic time. We read Marxism Today and carried the Communist Manifesto everywhere, and we went through a naive phase of putting Lenin and Che Guevara posters on our walls. But it was the height of Madchester- a barren time for lyrics -so we were determined to say something.
Nicky (1993)
I was listening to Gene on the radio talking about 'Sleep Well Tonight' and the singer was going, 'Oh, we've taken all this video footage of people spilling out of pubs and beating themselves up and it's so terrible', and I thought, 'What the fuck do you expect them to do when they've been working in a factory for 20 years? These people will start a revolution - not the Martin Rossiters of this world who just stay in reading Morrissey lyrics all their lives. It's really wrong to patronise these people.
Nicky (1996)
From Despair...
I suppose it was a gradual decline that led (Richey) to seeking treatment, but when he was at home he seemed reasonably happy and it was only later that we realised there was something seriously wrong.
Graham Edwards, Richey's father
When Richey's car was found on the Severn bridge we had to think... not so much about splitting up, but simply the prospect of everything being so dreadful. We were just frozen in disbelief. That's the closest we came without it being a literal 'splitting up' situation. There was no policy meeting, the only policy was to immediately cancel the US tour on the spot. It would have been pretty bad if Richey's body had been found while we were on tour.
Nicky (1996)
In the end Richey is one of those people who will always do the opposite of what you tell him.
James
Up until Richey's car was found I thought there was a good chance he'd turn up. After that I thought either he was dead or he wouldn't turn up for a long long time. I was in Wales when he went missing, so I rushed down to the flat and waited for him and he had been there by all accounts, because he dropped something off. But he never came. We started phoning hotels, asked every one in the country whether they had a Richard Edwards staying. And we found one in Swansea and thought we'd got him. I was just about to go down and it turned out to be just some businessman. After the car was found we thought, whatever he'd done, he wants to do it. If he's happy, good luck to him.
Nicky (1996)
If you have a body, you can let it flood out. Anger and grief. But we were just... suspended. Although the hope is still there, so is the dread. If I get a phone call and it's a wrong number, or the person just puts the phone down, it can ruin your whole week.
Nicky (1996)
There was the possibility Richey just didn't like us any more. That was a real blow, and that was the only time I wish he'd left some kind of note saying, 'Boys, it's for the best. But I still love you'. The fact he just disappeared is very upsetting, and I know that's selfish.
Nicky (1996)
I wonder whether Richey felt he had to justify himself. The lyrics on The Holy Bible were so harrowing that a lot of the press would say, 'How can you justify these records unless you top yourself afterwards?'.
Nicky (1996)
There are two very obvious things which have befallen us this year which have made me very aware of how things can be snatched away from you. I'm getting a bit weary of the arbitrary nature of life. I can't help thinking, 'Richey, if you could just have held on a little longer things might have been a lot different. Maybe then you could have had all these things you wanted. You might have been happy'.
James (1996)
I wanted to go to Australia after Richey disappeared, but I ended up in Torquay for three days. Rock'n'roll, eh?
Nicky (1996)
For all we know he could have gone insane. The morning he left, for all we know, he could have gone mad.
Nicky (1996)
I'm superstitious and it did feel like a very scary, self-fulfilling prophecy. We made our own beds and we were always in love with rock myths. I mean, I still love Joy Division more than New Order.
James (1996)
I was adrift. Suddenly the focus of my life for the last six years was gone. I'd get up, make some tea, walk around, go out, get pissed with my mates and then do it all over again.
James (1996)
It was in the last six months that he really deteriorated. I could feel something was wrong. He'd call me late at night and talk about Apocalypse Now or Naked for two hours, trying to get some sort of idea across, and he just couldn't.
Nicky (1995)
If Richey doesn't want to come back, then that's fine. But we just want him to give us a call or send us a postcard.
Nicky (1995)
Rachel (Richey's sister) wrote to every monastery she could think of, and they wrote back saying they couldn't say. So he could easily just be living a quiet life somewhere.
Nicky (1995)
Everyone feels sorry for us right now. I think it might be a honeymoon period. I feel sorry that it took Richey to go missing before some people would accept us.
Nicky (1996)
Doctors keep saying, 'you've got to accept it, he's dead'. But I don't think anyone can accept someone's dead without a body.
Nicky (1997)
Deep down it's my gut feeling that he's alive. But that's not based on any logical evidence. I just try to tell myself that he'd done what he wanted to.
Nicky (1996)
When you're young you're bored and pissed oft. Life seems futile. It does to us, even now.
Richey
To Where?
People see us on stage, see me smiling, see us selling albums and having hits and they think we've forgotten. We haven't. We keep it to ourselves. We're willing to talk about Richey in interviews, but it's only between ourselves and with my wife that the real emotion comes out. That's when we really talk.
Nicky (1996)
Splitting up was perhaps a possibility right up until the first time we practised together (after Richey's disappearance).
Sean (1996)
We practised where we've always done it, an absolute shithole in Cardiff. We didn't walk in and burst out crying. We're not drama queens. We're too self-conscious for that.
Nicky (1996)
In a way, it was just like the very first rehearsal. We were apprehensive and unsure of what would happen. It wasn't like we looked at each other and said, 'Hey, it's still there... the magic'. It was just like normal. After 20 minutes we went shopping.
Sean (1996)
Between the three of us we can still be very sarcastic and take the piss about the whole thing, and that helps. It's the New Order school of thought: 'Ian Curtis was a twat 'cos he ruined our American tour'.
Nicky (1996)
Before Richey went missing he photocopied a whole file of 60 lyrics and gave a copy to each of us. But we haven't used any of those. The four or five songs we have used on the album were done before. It's funny how I've been written out of the story. Admittedly on The Holy Bible Richey wrote 70 per cent of the words. But up until then it had been 50:50, so it wasn't that difficult for us to move forward without Richey's lyrics.
Nicky (1996)
I'd just got married and moved into my new house, and I didn't want to write about death camps, so I'd amassed quite a stockpile of my own stuff anyway. There was a kind of temptation to break completely with the past and not use any of Richey's lyrics, but in the end it feels quite elegiac really.
Nicky (1996)
We played at the Hacienda - the first time we'd played a small gig since Richey disappeared. In the old days, Wire would bump into me on stage and I'd shoot Richey a look: 'What is he like?'. On Friday I looked over and there was no one there. I thought, 'What the fuck did I do that for?'. Apart from that it was strange. There were a few heavily dramatised tears being shed down the front.
James (1996)
We've sat down and discussed whether to record or not at great length, among ourselves and with Richey's family, and basically decided we would have a go. We've been rehearsing regularly for the last few months and have over 20 new songs, which have been written over the past year. The last six months have been very difficult for us, but we feel ready to start recording.
Nicky (1995)
How can I put myself in competition with Richey when he was one of my best mates? I'm not gonna go, 'We're gonna be bigger than ever'. You don't compete with your friends on that level.
James (1996)
(Fans) want to believe that he was perpetually tortured, and any kind of ordinariness they just don't want to see. They'll never believe that Richey and me played cricket for hours on end. The last year of being in the band he definitely did go downhill. We got one letter which said 'Why didn't you talk to him?' And I spent more time in my life talking to Richey and trying to understand him than I have done with any other person. He made my life a misery sometimes, because I was just worrying about him all the time.
Nicky
Two months ago I was out having a drink in London and someone says to me, 'How can you be out having a drink? If I was you, I know I'd be in my room, chopping myself up by proxy for Richey'.
James (1996)
I think it's good that we've kept certain memories to ourselves, because that keeps that sort of bond there. It doesn't become a myth. For us... it's still a bloke. I think it's really important that we keep hold of that.
Nicky (1997)
'Yes' is one of the band's favourite songs, it really is. James finds it impossible to sing live. It may be in the third person, about a prostitute, but it's so personal to Richey, he says, 'I can't do that live. I don't care how much I love that song'. It's weird being on stage when you've got these fucking myriad emotions going through your mind, that's what I usually forget when I'm playing.
Nicky (1997)
When your best friend was a genius, you don't want to throw away everything he stood for, just like that.
Nicky (1996)
The hardest thing is trying to speak on his behalf for fans' sakes. You get so paranoid, having to watch what you say. And then there's always the fear that he'll be reading it somewhere with a big beard, thinking, 'You twat'.
Nicky (1996)
I've tried to blank it out, to a certain degree. I won't give anybody the illusion that I'm sitting there waiting, 'cos we've all nearly fucked ourselves up over it and I've developed some kind of immunity towards it. I'd rather be shocked than wait on something now. Because I can't wait around any more.
James (1995)
The time you'd notice it was when we'd be in Nicky's room, socialising, and suddenly there'd be a lull in the conversation and we'd all real se that was the point Richey would have come up with one of his Richey-isms.
James (1995)
I remember the introduction to 'From Despair To Where' (at the Hacienda in Manchester), looking over to where Richey would have been standing, swigging at a bottle of whisky, and there was no one there. And when we came offstage I virtually had a breakdown. I was just crying hysterically for about three hours, like a twat. The first time I'd been able to cry since the day they found his car.
Nicky (1995)
The success of Everything Must Go is tainted by the knowledge that it's not the four of us enjoying it together.
James (1996)
The album isn't a goodbye to Richey. We could never say goodbye. He was my best friend. We talk about him all the time between ourselves. It's easier to live with now because we're getting busy again, but you still wake up every morning and think about him.
Nicky (1996)
What am I supposed to do? I loved him, and so did Nicky, and so did Sean... I can't sit in my room forever with the curtains closed being a cold fish. It's then that it's been really difficult to stop myself getting really violent.
James (1996)
We decided to carry on in April (1995) after two months of waiting by the phone and feeling really ill and exhausted. We were really paralysed and unable to do anything. We thought we'd been so close, and in the end we couldn't do anything for him. It's sad to think that perhaps he didn't like you.
Nicky (1995)
We did consider changing the name and starting over again.. .and we probably would have done if we knew he was dead. It would be more like a Joy Division/New Order thing then.
Nicky
I was never very interested in clothes back then (at university), and I never shopped at thrift shops. I was a bit of a nerdy casual. I was into golf so I even used to wear Pringle jumpers. We did used to get stuff from Oxfam when we started spray-painting shirts for the band, but that's different. It was only the rich kids that wanted to dress down like that.
Nicky (1994)
Individually we've always been pretty powerless, but together we make up for each other’s inefficiencies. Nick's Handsome and has always been the most popular with the girls; Richey never had any musical talent but he's so articulate and sensitive to everything around him. Sean is brutality personified, pisses everybody off because he doesn't like anybody or anything, and then there's me who's a bit musical and a bit of a lad.
James (1994)
We looked at ourselves while we were recording the album (Everything Must go) and thought either we go for a Latino thing -put on as much weight as we can, grow beards and come back as Roberto Duran or Marlon Brando in fat phase, or something more simple. The only people got wrong was calling us the Littlewoods Manic Street Preachers. Sean was deeply offended by that, because everything he buys is Paul Smith or Katharine Hamnett.
Nicky (1997)
This phase of supposedly being the Band At C&A is fine by me. Except I've got my Harvey Nics charge card now. Pop down to the sales, pick up Armani jeans for £40.
Sean (1997)
In the past we would follow Nick on how the band looked. Like, the army stuff, that was just what Nick was wearing. The only time I felt uncomfortable was at the start, when there was all the androgyny. I just didn't have the bone structure, did I?
James (1997)
I remember Sean used to feel a bit awkward with the glam look as well. The camouflage he didn't mind, 'cos he could buy a lot of it. We'd get a pin-on badge and Sean would come in with a £180 Russian medal.
Nicky (1997)
If we were as big then as we are now, the four of us in camouflage could have put on the most scary, fantastic live show ever. I have this picture of us at Glastonbury in 1994 with balaclavas and Russian hats, thinking we were an army and we could take anyone on. We'll never feel like that again.
Nicky (1997)
We were rock's equivalent of the TSB. The band that likes to say 'yes'.
Nicky (1994)
I feel past it at 27, but I still try to make a semblance of an effort. It's up to a younger band. But I look around, and there are no bands out there who take any risks in the way they dress. It really disappoints me. It's either sports gear or black casual shirts. With us it was always, 'come on Mooro, get this fucking blouse on'.
Nicky (1997)
When you're playing the songs off The Holy Bible to a really partisan audience, and you're all dressed up in military gear like a fucking soldier, it makes you feel more aggressive. I still feel like doing it. I don't feel like smashing things up so much anymore, because... my back's bad, and I'm just a bit older.
Nicky (1997)
You could say that I had an eating problem because if I ate too much, and I was drinking, I got all puffed up and blotchy. Me I'm too vain to be like that. I couldn't handle looking in a mirror. All is vanity.
Richey (1994)
In the last year I've been doing loads of exercise. I do about 1,500 sit-ups every day. I do some weights as well. I take them on tour with me. It's about trying to control my body, to eat less and get fit. I want a flat stomach, I want a six pack, I want a stomach like Brad Pitt. I'm incredibly vain.
Richey (1994)
Richey once dressed up as a semen for Rag Week, and painted himself all white. He soon learned the error of his ways.
Nicky (1994)
If you're hopelessly depressed like I was, dressing up is just the ultimate escape... nothing could excite me except attention, so I'd dress up as much as I could. Outrage and boredom just go hand in hand.
Nicky (1993)
We're going to die young and leave good-looking corpses.
Nicky (1992)
What's heavenly? Pure rock'n'roll, dolphins, waking up and realising we're the sexiest, most intelligent, hateful rock'n'roll band in the whole world.
Richey (1991)
We are the scum factor of the Mondays meets the guitar overload of Five Thirty/Ride while killing Birdland with politics.
Richey (1989)
We all decided that from the start, me and Richey can't write music but we can write lyrics and look pretty tarty. Richey's the spirit of the band.
Nicky (1991)
Every morning Richey would with a really bad hangover after drinking a litre of vodka. Then to the gym, exercise, swim, do weights, have a jacket potato with all his grapes, and then not eat anything else for the rest of the day until he started drinking again. He knew full well that in the rock'n'roll world it's either the food or the booze in order to keep one's figure. Not both.
Nicky (1993)
Generation Terrorists
We are just another band in the racks, but with more intelligence.
Richey (1991)
I'm just interested in getting three Number 1 Singles, pissing off to America and making the greatest rock album of all time.
Nicky
One of our best abilities is to arrive at the same realm of consciousness at the same time, the same mood. That's the way it's got to be. I've got to justify what I do. Just being an entertainer or a singer-guitarist isn't enough. We've got to be a band that has a collective consciousness.
James (1996)
You can maybe ignore our songs but when we walk down the street and you see our song titles on our chests you've got to think something.
Richey
The more you achieve, the more blasé most bands get.. Generation Terrorists went gold in Britain, sold 100,000, but that wasn't an achievement to us because we said we were going to sell 16 million. It does make a better band by putting that continual pressure on yourselves. We're always striving for something more.
Nicky
In the band at the moment, it's a matter of giving ourselves some human grace, the chance to show emotion other than disdain or hate and not be ashamed of it. Breathe a bit more. I think we've survived under a heavy load of self-censorship.
James (1996)
We've been accused of slagging off every band there is, and we've been told to stop. But our statement is that we hate every other band. We're not interested in them. That's all we can say. I've got no respect for any other band in the world.
Nicky (1991)
When we do interviews for Japanese magazines they get all upset because they want us to be all obnoxious and we aren't really. We actually get faxes from the record company in Japan saying, please tell the Manic Street Preachers to spit on people. It's just sad. That's what people want. It's pathetic.
Richey (1992)
We read all the books about the Rolling Stones and Kiss and now the saddest thing is that we do all the things that every other band does but we get no pleasure from it. It's not glamorous, it's not exciting, it's not like being in a Who documentary at all. We had millions of groupies in Cardiff last night, but it's not as good as reading about it in the kiss On Tour book.
Richey (1992)
If we looked like we felt then we would have come onstage like Joy Division. We had to make a massive effort to be a glamorous band, because inside we know we're not particularly glamorous really.
Nicky
Seeing Mick Jagger jumping about doing 'Jumping Jack Flash' was the most important thing in our lives. Isn't that pathetic? I'd like to do something worthwhile like Nick's brother who helps people who are dying of cancer- but none of us could ever do anything like that because we'd always be whining 'Ooh, I want to watch a video, put the telly on'. We just feel sad there are no groups like the Rolling Stones any more. We are here at the complete death of rock culture
Richey (1992)
Neil Kinnock is our MP. His constituency house is in the same street as James' -and he's such a tosser. Party politics always seemed irrelevant to us. We got obsessed with cultural politics, it seemed more relevant; the real issues like how futile life is, how fucked-up modern society is. In terms of music, we went back and rediscovered the great bands. Everything else seemed boring and worthless.
Richey (1991)
Even the bands from the past that we love - the Who, the Stones, the Pistols, the Clash - the way all of them turned out in the end was disillusioning, a letdown. We'll never let that happen.
Richey (1991)
We still read the music papers from cover to cover. On Wednesday that's all we do. That's all we've ever done.
Richey (1991)
We just totally despise people like Kingmaker; and think we should say that. Bands deserve to be exposed if they're so redundant, lyrically inept, ugly... and that's what those bands are.
Nicky (1991)
The zeitgeist of this year in general is fucking death and destruction.
Nicky (1994)
I still think Richey carving '4 Real' into his arm was a magnificent gesture. That's just the way we are, unfortunately. At the time it mattered so much to us, being in a band; that's what Richey felt he could do to express it.
Nicky (1994)
I think the bloke from Kula Shaker (Crispian Mills) talks some utter crap, but at least you can laugh. I like (Cast's) John Power: I think he's a bit of an angel, but he does talk some bollocks.
Nicky (1996)
I've never benefited from having a conversation with another band in my life. I'm not interested in being pally with other groups.
James (1993)
I'm not going to pretend that I'm converted to dance culture, because I find a lot of it extremely lazy. They call rock musicians Luddites, but they can't even pick up a pen and write lyrics half the time.
Nicky (1996)
I fucking hate the Beastie Boys. It's so much emphasis put on the quality of a sound loop. If you talked like that in rock about a guitar sound, everyone would take the piss out of you, but people will wax lyrical about Beck no end.
Nicky (1996)
I find Suede's keyboard player (Neil Codling) a bit odd. Everyone's supposed to fancy him, but I can't see Ocean Colour Scene fans fancying him. They'd probably want to batter him.
Nicky (1996)
I absolutely despise John Spencer Blues Explosion with a vengeance. He signed to his major label and tried to lose some weight and look cool, but it's corporate Nick Cave with a pretence of having some kind of edge. He reckons he's incorporating hip-hop: bollocks! That's like saying just because we get re-mixed by the Chemicals, we're bastions of the fucking dancefloor.
Nicky (1996)
That fucking Bjork remix album: how did journalists ever fall for her? Talentless piece of shit. But you can't even say that because (then-boyfriend) Goldie will probably beat you up.
Nicky (1996)
Nick Cave is allowed to get away with writing songs about smashing a woman's head in with a brick - but if a band like us did it, there'd be even more outcry.
Nicky (1996)
As far as British music is concerned, there will never be another band as dangerous as us. Bands are too friendly. I detest every musician I've ever met.
Nicky (1994)
No band faces hysteria any more, unless they're Take That. Brett Anderson could walk around Brighton and no-one would bother. People don't care any more.
Nicky (1994)
The first thing I ever said in an interview with the music press was 'we're gonna set fire to ourselves on 'Top Of The Pops'. You don't say things like that for shock, there's some sort of sub-conscious. I do worry about ourselves, as people.
Nicky (1996)
Beck is vastly overrated. Typical maverick US lyrics that pretend to be intelligent, but deep down mean absolutely fuck-all. I know he's very credible, but I just don't see it. He's got a good haircut and that's about it.
Nicky (1997)
This year's the first time I've actually met people in other bands. It's hard to avoid it when you're at festivals. Before, I've always completely secluded myself. But when you actually meet people, I can't bring myself to go out in the press the next week and take the piss out of them. I couldn't live with myself if I couldn't say it to their face. Whereas before it was all right because I'd just say summat, and never see these people.
Nicky (1997)
We always knew we were going to fuck up. Everyone knew we were going to fuck up. We were really saying, 'Let's forget notions of contradiction. When it comes to bands, everyone fucks up, everyone lets you down'. Contradictions are meaningless, there's nothing to betray.
Nicky (1994)
Right now I don't want to go out, I don't want to make any friends. All I want to do is make enemies. I've never felt this much contempt for everyone and everything in my entire fucking life. I don't feel the need for anyone to like me anymore. Jesus, it's hard enough to like myself.
Nicky (1994)
We've reached a point now where we feel as if we've prostituted ourselves so fucking much, just given and given and given, that we've given everything away, and we've got absolutely fucking nothing left of our own. And we played up to that, you know-'culture sluts'. But these things catch up with you.
Nicky (1994)
I know what I think made us special. But spiritually for others, I haven't got a clue. Except maybe... too much truth?
Nicky (1996)
We will always hate Slowdive more than Adolf Hitler.
Richey (1991)
Breakfast is always sad on a Wednesday because the music press arrives.
Richey(1992)
We're banning Charlatans fans from our gigs because they all have moustaches.
Nicky (1992)
In this season of goodwill, let's hope Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddie Mercury pretty soon.
Nicky (1992)
The Stipe comment is the one I could be pushed into showing a morsel of regret about. Otherwise, we have a Murder On The Orient Express mentality. We all willingly step forward to stab the corpse.
James (1996)
I've got nothing against Michael (Stipe) at all. I'm just all for bitchin' in music.
Nicky (1992)
Everybody knows that the Happy Mondays made some fucking great records, but we could never say that, because it was our blinkered Pol Pot period, and we didn't like what they were supposed to represent.
Richey (1993)
Somebody should build some more bypasses over this shithole (Glastonbury).
Nicky (1994)
All the best bands get really fucked up... we're not saying there's anything glamorous in getting fucked up, we're not saying there's anything glamorous in being dead, but there's nothing glamorous in having a 20-year career either. That's even more sick.
Nicky (1994)
Some 'Cult Of Richey' disciples just won't be happy unless everybody else in the band becomes ill. I'm not willing to fall into that trap.
Nicky (1995)
At the time most journalists seemed to be public school drop-outs. You could pick them off one by one. They'd been put in public school and they'd fucked up because they weren't very intelligent. And we'd come along we were very bright, we'd stress the fact that we were educated and they didn't want to know. They wanted to make us their playthings.
Nicky
The only beautiful thing about London is McDonalds.
Richey (1991)
When Steve Clarke of Def Leppard died, a man who's written songs that sold 60 million or whatever, classically cool, why did he get about that much (holds up thumb and forefinger, millimetres apart) in the press? Yet when Shaun Ryder, talentless and brain dead, has a baby, he gets a page. Why does he deserve it?
Nicky (1991)
The only good thing about New York is that it killed off John Lennon.
Nicky (1992)
As long as there are a few people who understand, it's okay. That's why we never minded doing teenage magazines like Smash Hits which some bands refuse to do. I just find that incredibly patronising. I know when I was 14, music was the only thing I cared about.
James (1994)
We get compared to the greatest bands ever and are accused of being crap. If you start comparing the music journalists to the greatest writers ever, you soon see how shit they are too.
James (1991)
Music journalists don't even look good. I saw Andrew Collins on television and I nearly threw up. My God, he looked like a Pork Pie Dwarf with a pudding-bowl haircut... At least Nick Kent looked beautiful.
Nicky (1991)
30 is a very desperate age; rock music is being done by people in their 30s for teenagers. You get to 30 and look back and realise you've achieved nothing, you are nothing, and you've got nothing coming up.
Sean (1991)
Pride, Prejudice And Welshness
The only perfect circle on the human body is the eye. When a baby is born it's so perfect, but when it opens its eyes it's just blinded by the corruption and everything else is a downward spiral.
Richey
We didn't learn anything from other Welsh bands, just never to be remotely like them. It's really patronising, the way they suddenly decided to learn to speak the Welsh language, when they'd written songs about the bright lights of Mersey and Liverpool about two years before. And the Welsh language was never important to us at all. I mean, what's the point of resurrecting something that's completely dead? Dead culture doesn't interest us.
Richey (1993)
Most bands look forward to their homecoming gig. I don't expect roses and petals at my feet but the amount of grief we get here is non-stop. Anything from Welsh bands complaining about us not singing in Welsh to gangs of blokes pouring lager over me and saying 'What are you gonna do about that?' Tom Jones doesn't get this!
Richey
The working class is patronised a lot these days. Working-class imagery is taken by the middle-class people.
Nicky (1996)
I do want to get a place in Cardiff, but I feel I've got to live in London - for the band. It's the only way I can stay detached. If I went home I'd become obsessed with my own history. I remember so many things, good things that don't exist anymore. I get maudlin and lose all my energy. There's a transience in London that keeps me ticking over.
James (1996)
There's an awful lot of white British kids who have never really gone hungry, always had a roof to live under but at the same time are desperately unhappy. It's not total poverty, just a poverty of ideas.
Richey
All great art is always massive and well-known. No great art is reclusive. That's why Van Gogh sells for £50 million.
Nicky (1991)
Computer games are much more exciting than bands. We had our Sega Megadrive when we were down the studio making our record (Generation Terrorists) and we were spending hours a day playing on it because it's so engrossing. You feel involved, which you can't feel with music anymore. It's much better than traveling in the rain to see a band. But it's so sad that the best human minds on the planet are just trying to invent characters like Sonic The Hedgehog.
Richey (1992)
A Gibson Les Paul was one of the only things I'd ever longed for. I had it for two concerts and then I smashed it up. On impulse really. I did regret it after, I've got to admit. Then I got another Gibson and I smashed that up. I did feel quite ashamed because it was like my father's accumulated wage for about four weeks. I was just showing off and I felt ashamed.
James (1992)
Where we come from, to see any band you like, you normally have to travel quite a way. Faced with a choice between doing that, or staying home and blowing up planet after planet, then I know what most people would do. But the idea that video games are killing rock'n'roll is misleading. They exist with each other. They're different mediums.
Richey
You get these fans called Jeremy. They think they're being rebellious because they wear smelly jeans and have matted hair. Then you get the Welsh ones who think you're trying to do something important for Wales. We've never said good things about where we come from. All we've said is 'We're from Wales, from a town where there's nothing to do.' We've never felt any sense of pride in where we come from. Of course, if we were Irish and saying this, we'd be crucified for it.
James (1992)
Right now it seems the hierarchy of British pop - Oasis, Damon - wants to be seen with Tony Blair. We're still the band who'd rather be seen with Arthur Scargill. It kind of makes me feel good that we're still out of step. It's a good Manics trait.
Nicky (1997)
I have discovered my Welshness much more over the past few years. My greatest ambition is to do a film script on Owain Glyndwr, who was kind of Wales' William Wallace. He defeated the English and gave Wales self-rule. Anthony Hopkins could play him in old age, but I'm not sure who would do him when he was young.
Nicky (1997)
I'm proud that the Welsh were the last miners to go back to work. Quite cool.
Nicky
When we started the idea of Welsh music was like the Ivory Coast at the Olympics: one bloke carrying the flag and one walking behind. Now there's more of us and we can carry our banner with pride.
Sean (1997)
We realised the four of us were very different from the outside world. We're very proper. We did believe the Welsh thing; get an education.
Nicky (1996)
I think there's a lot of people who feel uncool, and they realise that getting into dance music is the one thing that can make them cool. I think that's true for a lot of people, whether it's dodgy old punks from the 1970s who were in shit bands and now they make dance music, or they're young kids putting 'Technics' or 'Kenwood' on their bags.
Nicky (1996)
I don't blame Lam for walking out on Oasis's US tour. It isn't like Oasis cancelled their tour and ruined our schedule. I think it's brilliant that they did it. And the MTV thing was brilliant, I thought they out-fronted everyone. It did stir my emotions quite a bit, and it does make you feel a little too much of a Brit, but I can't help that. I always see music in terms of a sporting contest.
Nicky (1996)
Sexual politics have never been on my agenda. Richey might have been more interested in that. Basically, I think men are cunts and women are fine. Ninety five per cent of violent crime is still caused by men. Men are nastier. I do get on better with blokes, but I know deep down we're all pretty... dodgy.
Nicky (1996)
Perhaps I'm xenophobic in the sense that I find it very hard to fit in in other countries. Then again, I find it equally hard to fit in in Wales sometimes.
Nicky (1994)
We were a Welsh rock band and in the eyes of some people then that was the very worst thing in the whole world. We were totally a product of our environment, but we had to prove we weren't the Alarm.
James (1996)
I'm not into tribalism any more. I'm into oneness. We're too small in Wales to divide any more. There's three times as many people in London as the whole of Wales.
Nicky (1997)
At the start we never went around wearing Welsh credentials. Richey was really paranoid about ever coming across as Welsh. He always called it the Neil Kinnock factor. I've become more conscious of it lately. I've started to support the Welsh rugby side. Vanity Fair interviewed Sharon Stone recently: they asked her to name her favourite Irish author and she said Dylan Thomas. Things like that wouldn't have annoyed me before, but they really do now.
Nicky (1997)
When you've got nothing, you've got something pure that no one can take away. As soon as you've got something, some cunt's gonna come and take it off you.
James (1994)
For me the greatest figure in British history is still Nye Bevan. It just fucking sickens me that people have been conned into believing that you can't think in terms of class any more. As soon as working-class people lose their sense of belonging, they lose all their humility, and you get a classless society in the worst possible sense.
James (1994)
In Wales the women are as bored as the men, but the men will go out to the pub and beat the shit out of everyone else. The women will stay at home and concentrate on surviving.
Richey (1992)
The media are so into this idea of 'Generation X' at the moment. This concept of teenage discontent. But they're just celebrating these kids saying, 'Ooh, we've always had money, but the second they took the spoon out of our mouths we decided maybe we never really liked our life after all and - hey, maybe we won't get a job'. They'd never publish anything by some scummy, junked-up bastard from Manchester, they're only concerned with willing underachievers from the upper middle classes.
James (1994)
I'm never going to lose touch with myself, or with where I came from. The only destructive force in my life is alcohol, and even that never got me into trouble, it just made me put on weight.
James (1996)
Where I come from I've seen violence, I've been in stomach-churning fights, bones broken and everything, but even that doesn't turn my stomach as much as some of the things I see in London. The perpetuation of certain privileges, certain forms of so-called intelligence... that really horrific provincial violence seems more understandable.
James (1996)
One thing I'm proud of is that where I come from, throughout the whole mining area, every colliery in every town gave money to build an institute, with a library, with complete access for free, which was a way of keeping your class, but having access to education and learning - that's why I ended up at university. The fact is now, almost every one of those institutes has been destroyed. So now you've got this pit-bull terrier working class, completely without pride, and you'd be very naive to think the working class had done that to themselves. It's down to an actual plan by the Conservative government to destroy the working class.
Nicky (1996)
You go and see a film like Seven and you realise that most people can't become what they want these days, and the one thing you can become is a killer. It's the easiest thing in the fucking world.
Nicky (1996)
We're not the fucking Senseless Things. We don't want to return to some supposed golden day like they do. You hear bands like that and they talk as it now is useless and everything in 1977 was so great. We're now. All you can do with the past is to never want to be like it. 'Cos the past has created what we're living in now, and we're not happy, so it must've failed.
Richey (1991)
We're not left wing but we do have roots in Situationism and stuff, and when we formed the band, the miners' strike was going on on our doorsteps. So when you listen to 'Archives Of Pain' (off the Holy Bible), a very right-wing song, it shows how fucked up and confused our times are. And it shows that we're still arrogant and unafraid enough to make judgments, even miscalculated ones.
James (1994)
Everyone likes Happy Mondays 'cos when the working class dance, it means nothing except prole fashion. The Stone Roses seem to understand the working class, but only in interviews. No one is speaking for people like us.
Richey (1991)
People we met in London would never like the idea of meeting a girl in a pub and having a bag of chips and a tuck in the bus stop on the way home. That's something ordinary, working-class people do all the time. We'd do that; we wouldn't check into a hotel - it'd be, 'Stop here a minute, I want my dick sucked'. That's the scum factor.
Richey (1990)
I've never thought a band could ever do anything that's important. It can change individuals, it can create a common ground for important issues, but in terms of actually doing something, changing the economic infrastructure, it's not gonna do that. It never has done. Richey (1993)
We are the scum that remind people of misery. When we jump on the stage it's not rock 'n' roll cliché but the geometry of contempt. We don't display our wounds, we shove them in people's faces. We are the decaying flowers in the playground of the rich. We are young, beautiful scum, pissed off with the world.
Richey (1989)
Wipe out aristocracy now, kill, kill, kill. Queen and country dumb flag scum. We are drowning in manufactured ego fucking. Boredom bred the thoughts of throwing bricks.
Richey (1989)
We've never been the Trade Unionists of rock. We know that we could never reach as many people as we wanted, unless it was on a major (label). We were willing prostitutes.
James (1991)
We came to feel we were part of a culture that didn't exist anymore. We wanted to believe in something and didn't find anything to believe in. We wanted to attach some new-found intelligence or theory to the place and class we came from. But we were always confused, always contradictory, always very suspicious. Suspicious of the smell of the burning martyr.
James (1996)
Language has always been our weapon. Our lyrics are getting stronger and if you hurt a couple of 'nice' people
the way, or offend them, then that's necessary.
James (1991)
New Art Riot was one of the first slogans we used to spray everywhere. It was our most grey, political and dogmatic time. We read Marxism Today and carried the Communist Manifesto everywhere, and we went through a naive phase of putting Lenin and Che Guevara posters on our walls. But it was the height of Madchester- a barren time for lyrics -so we were determined to say something.
Nicky (1993)
I was listening to Gene on the radio talking about 'Sleep Well Tonight' and the singer was going, 'Oh, we've taken all this video footage of people spilling out of pubs and beating themselves up and it's so terrible', and I thought, 'What the fuck do you expect them to do when they've been working in a factory for 20 years? These people will start a revolution - not the Martin Rossiters of this world who just stay in reading Morrissey lyrics all their lives. It's really wrong to patronise these people.
Nicky (1996)
From Despair...
I suppose it was a gradual decline that led (Richey) to seeking treatment, but when he was at home he seemed reasonably happy and it was only later that we realised there was something seriously wrong.
Graham Edwards, Richey's father
When Richey's car was found on the Severn bridge we had to think... not so much about splitting up, but simply the prospect of everything being so dreadful. We were just frozen in disbelief. That's the closest we came without it being a literal 'splitting up' situation. There was no policy meeting, the only policy was to immediately cancel the US tour on the spot. It would have been pretty bad if Richey's body had been found while we were on tour.
Nicky (1996)
In the end Richey is one of those people who will always do the opposite of what you tell him.
James
Up until Richey's car was found I thought there was a good chance he'd turn up. After that I thought either he was dead or he wouldn't turn up for a long long time. I was in Wales when he went missing, so I rushed down to the flat and waited for him and he had been there by all accounts, because he dropped something off. But he never came. We started phoning hotels, asked every one in the country whether they had a Richard Edwards staying. And we found one in Swansea and thought we'd got him. I was just about to go down and it turned out to be just some businessman. After the car was found we thought, whatever he'd done, he wants to do it. If he's happy, good luck to him.
Nicky (1996)
If you have a body, you can let it flood out. Anger and grief. But we were just... suspended. Although the hope is still there, so is the dread. If I get a phone call and it's a wrong number, or the person just puts the phone down, it can ruin your whole week.
Nicky (1996)
There was the possibility Richey just didn't like us any more. That was a real blow, and that was the only time I wish he'd left some kind of note saying, 'Boys, it's for the best. But I still love you'. The fact he just disappeared is very upsetting, and I know that's selfish.
Nicky (1996)
I wonder whether Richey felt he had to justify himself. The lyrics on The Holy Bible were so harrowing that a lot of the press would say, 'How can you justify these records unless you top yourself afterwards?'.
Nicky (1996)
There are two very obvious things which have befallen us this year which have made me very aware of how things can be snatched away from you. I'm getting a bit weary of the arbitrary nature of life. I can't help thinking, 'Richey, if you could just have held on a little longer things might have been a lot different. Maybe then you could have had all these things you wanted. You might have been happy'.
James (1996)
I wanted to go to Australia after Richey disappeared, but I ended up in Torquay for three days. Rock'n'roll, eh?
Nicky (1996)
For all we know he could have gone insane. The morning he left, for all we know, he could have gone mad.
Nicky (1996)
I'm superstitious and it did feel like a very scary, self-fulfilling prophecy. We made our own beds and we were always in love with rock myths. I mean, I still love Joy Division more than New Order.
James (1996)
I was adrift. Suddenly the focus of my life for the last six years was gone. I'd get up, make some tea, walk around, go out, get pissed with my mates and then do it all over again.
James (1996)
It was in the last six months that he really deteriorated. I could feel something was wrong. He'd call me late at night and talk about Apocalypse Now or Naked for two hours, trying to get some sort of idea across, and he just couldn't.
Nicky (1995)
If Richey doesn't want to come back, then that's fine. But we just want him to give us a call or send us a postcard.
Nicky (1995)
Rachel (Richey's sister) wrote to every monastery she could think of, and they wrote back saying they couldn't say. So he could easily just be living a quiet life somewhere.
Nicky (1995)
Everyone feels sorry for us right now. I think it might be a honeymoon period. I feel sorry that it took Richey to go missing before some people would accept us.
Nicky (1996)
Doctors keep saying, 'you've got to accept it, he's dead'. But I don't think anyone can accept someone's dead without a body.
Nicky (1997)
Deep down it's my gut feeling that he's alive. But that's not based on any logical evidence. I just try to tell myself that he'd done what he wanted to.
Nicky (1996)
When you're young you're bored and pissed oft. Life seems futile. It does to us, even now.
Richey
To Where?
People see us on stage, see me smiling, see us selling albums and having hits and they think we've forgotten. We haven't. We keep it to ourselves. We're willing to talk about Richey in interviews, but it's only between ourselves and with my wife that the real emotion comes out. That's when we really talk.
Nicky (1996)
Splitting up was perhaps a possibility right up until the first time we practised together (after Richey's disappearance).
Sean (1996)
We practised where we've always done it, an absolute shithole in Cardiff. We didn't walk in and burst out crying. We're not drama queens. We're too self-conscious for that.
Nicky (1996)
In a way, it was just like the very first rehearsal. We were apprehensive and unsure of what would happen. It wasn't like we looked at each other and said, 'Hey, it's still there... the magic'. It was just like normal. After 20 minutes we went shopping.
Sean (1996)
Between the three of us we can still be very sarcastic and take the piss about the whole thing, and that helps. It's the New Order school of thought: 'Ian Curtis was a twat 'cos he ruined our American tour'.
Nicky (1996)
Before Richey went missing he photocopied a whole file of 60 lyrics and gave a copy to each of us. But we haven't used any of those. The four or five songs we have used on the album were done before. It's funny how I've been written out of the story. Admittedly on The Holy Bible Richey wrote 70 per cent of the words. But up until then it had been 50:50, so it wasn't that difficult for us to move forward without Richey's lyrics.
Nicky (1996)
I'd just got married and moved into my new house, and I didn't want to write about death camps, so I'd amassed quite a stockpile of my own stuff anyway. There was a kind of temptation to break completely with the past and not use any of Richey's lyrics, but in the end it feels quite elegiac really.
Nicky (1996)
We played at the Hacienda - the first time we'd played a small gig since Richey disappeared. In the old days, Wire would bump into me on stage and I'd shoot Richey a look: 'What is he like?'. On Friday I looked over and there was no one there. I thought, 'What the fuck did I do that for?'. Apart from that it was strange. There were a few heavily dramatised tears being shed down the front.
James (1996)
We've sat down and discussed whether to record or not at great length, among ourselves and with Richey's family, and basically decided we would have a go. We've been rehearsing regularly for the last few months and have over 20 new songs, which have been written over the past year. The last six months have been very difficult for us, but we feel ready to start recording.
Nicky (1995)
How can I put myself in competition with Richey when he was one of my best mates? I'm not gonna go, 'We're gonna be bigger than ever'. You don't compete with your friends on that level.
James (1996)
(Fans) want to believe that he was perpetually tortured, and any kind of ordinariness they just don't want to see. They'll never believe that Richey and me played cricket for hours on end. The last year of being in the band he definitely did go downhill. We got one letter which said 'Why didn't you talk to him?' And I spent more time in my life talking to Richey and trying to understand him than I have done with any other person. He made my life a misery sometimes, because I was just worrying about him all the time.
Nicky
Two months ago I was out having a drink in London and someone says to me, 'How can you be out having a drink? If I was you, I know I'd be in my room, chopping myself up by proxy for Richey'.
James (1996)
I think it's good that we've kept certain memories to ourselves, because that keeps that sort of bond there. It doesn't become a myth. For us... it's still a bloke. I think it's really important that we keep hold of that.
Nicky (1997)
'Yes' is one of the band's favourite songs, it really is. James finds it impossible to sing live. It may be in the third person, about a prostitute, but it's so personal to Richey, he says, 'I can't do that live. I don't care how much I love that song'. It's weird being on stage when you've got these fucking myriad emotions going through your mind, that's what I usually forget when I'm playing.
Nicky (1997)
When your best friend was a genius, you don't want to throw away everything he stood for, just like that.
Nicky (1996)
The hardest thing is trying to speak on his behalf for fans' sakes. You get so paranoid, having to watch what you say. And then there's always the fear that he'll be reading it somewhere with a big beard, thinking, 'You twat'.
Nicky (1996)
I've tried to blank it out, to a certain degree. I won't give anybody the illusion that I'm sitting there waiting, 'cos we've all nearly fucked ourselves up over it and I've developed some kind of immunity towards it. I'd rather be shocked than wait on something now. Because I can't wait around any more.
James (1995)
The time you'd notice it was when we'd be in Nicky's room, socialising, and suddenly there'd be a lull in the conversation and we'd all real se that was the point Richey would have come up with one of his Richey-isms.
James (1995)
I remember the introduction to 'From Despair To Where' (at the Hacienda in Manchester), looking over to where Richey would have been standing, swigging at a bottle of whisky, and there was no one there. And when we came offstage I virtually had a breakdown. I was just crying hysterically for about three hours, like a twat. The first time I'd been able to cry since the day they found his car.
Nicky (1995)
The success of Everything Must Go is tainted by the knowledge that it's not the four of us enjoying it together.
James (1996)
The album isn't a goodbye to Richey. We could never say goodbye. He was my best friend. We talk about him all the time between ourselves. It's easier to live with now because we're getting busy again, but you still wake up every morning and think about him.
Nicky (1996)
What am I supposed to do? I loved him, and so did Nicky, and so did Sean... I can't sit in my room forever with the curtains closed being a cold fish. It's then that it's been really difficult to stop myself getting really violent.
James (1996)
We decided to carry on in April (1995) after two months of waiting by the phone and feeling really ill and exhausted. We were really paralysed and unable to do anything. We thought we'd been so close, and in the end we couldn't do anything for him. It's sad to think that perhaps he didn't like you.
Nicky (1995)
We did consider changing the name and starting over again.. .and we probably would have done if we knew he was dead. It would be more like a Joy Division/New Order thing then.
Nicky