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Nicky's Blog July 2010

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0100

A Friday afternoon, early June. Nicky Wire is sat half watching the World Cup opening ceremony. Since the last time I was here, Faster Studios has undergone a radical overhaul. Walls of iconic images – everyone from Van Halen to Vanessa Paradis – and a proper kitchen make the studio feel like home from home. Wire is looking scarily healthy, the result of months of clean living forced on him by a series of ailments. He’s also fiercely positive about the new record which is in the final hurdle stages of recording.

There seems to have been an amazingly quick turn around on this record…

I think the key to that was the fact that I didn’t write any lyrics on the last record. I’ve been stockpiling a lot of words and quite a few tunes since Send Away The Tigers. It’s made the record more doable. With the record, we’re currently down to the last few tracks. Tom Elmhirst is mixing a few tracks, he did Amy Winehouse… and Lifeblood! We ended up writing quite a few tracks on the American and Canadian tour, that was an incredibly productive time for us as a band. The Descent Pages 1 & 2 was written on the bus. We were playing the track acoustically on the bus, James fitted the words in and it was done. There was another one in Toronto called Hazleton Avenue which was written on the bus. Must have been sharing the space with John Niven. Recording wise, James is cutting in New York at the start of July and that’s it done.

Did the fact that there was such a gap for you writing between SATT and this record mean that there was a backlog that gave you more to choose from?

There’s been a lot of editing. There’s 24 songs on the board and we’ve been very rigorous in what we’ve chosen. Lyric wise it’s been pretty fast. Postcards From A Young Man came quite late. That song was one we felt we needed to dig out of ourselves, so to speak. Otherwise it feels like a very natural record, the natural progression from SATT. We always said that JFPP was us stepping off the treadmill. James likes to make an analogy with Aerosmith, that SATT was Permanent Vacation and this record is like Pump. Bigger and better. I most point out that is absolutely not a musical analogy! It’s just us ramping everything up. There’s strings everywhere, gospel choirs, John Cale is on a track, Duff McKagan is on a track… we’ve even got Ian McCulloch doing a duet with James.

Looking back, was the end of the JFPP period a tension valve being released?

Only the touring was a strain. Making the record was magical. Rediscovering Richey’s lyrics, being in the studio with Steve Albini. When we toured it, it got a little tougher. Much like the Bible when you’re singing those words every night, or hearing them in my case. Then my back going was really depressing. It was a very short, very intense period. It was James’ idea and it was definitely the right one for us as a band. If we’d have done this straight after SATT it probably would have been too hard to pull off.

Did you use any of the Albini approach?

The essence of recording, the engineering skills of Dave and Loz, us playing much more carefree, looser. It’s like a ’70s engineered record released in the ’90s! It’s unashamedly ’90s at times.

You’d said previously about trying to make a record that sat somewhere between ABBA and Queen…

From the get go, we conceived it as our last chance to attempt to communicate on a mass level. We felt it was our last shot at rock immortality. Not saying we’re splitting up or anything but ten albums is a massive milestone. Ten albums on the same label, with the same manager, with the same people in the band. Not many bands manage that in eighteen years these days.

Most bands have got at least three members in rehab and a load of pending divorce cases by then. I always wonder whether there’s some kind of Welsh work ethic that kicks in too…

Generation Terrorists was ’92, so that makes this our tenth studio album in eighteen years. There’s a couple of double album length records, a greatest hits, a B-sides best of… solo albums. When we resigned with Columbia, there was something to be genuinely proud of. Apart from Sade we’re their longest serving ‘artist’. That, in this day and age of the end of the music industry, was something heart-warming. You know us, we hate using words like ‘proud’. Really, it’s a feeling that’s transferred onto the record. There’s a famous quote from an author that says “You only write two kinds of novels and all the rest you repeat yourself.” I think with the Manics there’s the Holy Bible/Journal For Plague Lovers novel, that’s one entity when we’re at our best and then there’s Everything Must Go/Send Away The Tigers at the other end of our spectrum. I think the two versions of the band that we’re really comfortable with, this record fits into the latter one. But then I theorize a lot more than I should.

It seemed like the record came together incredibly quickly, down here in Cardiff…

I think we demoed seriously when we got back from America. James couldn’t be here for some of it so he’d record acoustic tracks and me and Sean would put down bass and drums together, Beatles style. It’s been utterly joyful, we’ve really trusted each other more than ever on the record. But as we came to the end of recording, the intensity and concentration almost overwhelmed us because we felt the stakes are so high. The main pressure we’ve felt with the record is to think whether we could still get on the radio.

What’s been the motivation with the record?

There are loads of strings on this record. I think the best strings that have ever been recorded are on Ocean Rain. Everything Must Go has been a big influence on us – we always look inwards to our own records when we record. The idea that melancholia and rage can be harnessed into something euphoric – that’s the key to some of our best records. They’re angry but they lift you up. The Beatles have been a big influence, it’s the first time we’ve given in to them, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road have been a huge influence. Primal Scream’s Dixie Narco period – the idea of adding a slight modernity to a classic sound. Paul Weller’s Wake Up The Nation. Sometimes it feels like he’s the only one able to have a critical eye. The lack of new bands with anything to say makes it feel more and more like he’s the only eye surveying the universe.

He’s also the only person with a similar work ethic…

I’ve grown to love him and respect him more and more. 22 Dreams and this one. You’re not going to get better records from a fifty year old are you? The fact that he’s so full of rage. That’s one thing I haven’t denied on this record. Injustice and anger are in our DNA, there’s no point suppressing it. It’s not a Richey-esque Nihilist rage, that clinical, genius dissection of things. With me it’s almost a petty rage at times. The Dennis Wilson Pacific Ocean Blue reissue. Biffy Clyro believe it or not. Out Of Time by REM has been there in the background.

There are loads of motivating things in there that don’t come through but that’s ok. I’ve been listening to loads of Sparklehorse and Stockhausen but those influences don’t necessarily come through on the record. I’m sick of bands becoming ‘the artist’ and mutating into something they’re not supposed to be. The dramatic nature of the landscape change out there is so phenomenal, who knows. There’s a certain nostalgia to the record too. I’m not sitting here saying, “The past was fantastic!” but I do think the present – music wise – is utterly mediocre. It’s undeniable that this generation is utterly devoid of any from of political or critical analysis of it's own environment. It's totally disconnected from it. If you think that's important then I think there’s still a relevance to us existing. I really believe this record will either connect or it’ll be a huge stiff. That’s not me being overly dramatic or arrogance, there’s a genuine belief that’s divisive like that. Either massive radio hits or completely fucked. I don’t think this is so much of a press record. It’s very different to Journal, that record was a press dream…

It was a record with a story attached to it - a perfect press story.

And this one is different. We’re not wilfully rejecting the credibility that we got with the last album – with the record, the gigs, the remixes. I think we just feel that this is our only option at this point.

That’s a brilliant thing to still have that drive.

The thing with Oasis splitting, you think what is there left? All those people who moan on about the ’90s fucking everything because all the bands became too big, I just keep thinking, what are we left with? An eternity of absolute fucking indie shit that’s not connecting with anyone. There are some truly desperate people out there. They’re lower than tedium. There are bands and they’re aping Ian Curtis but they’re not taking inspiration from the deepness and the true poetry of his lyrics, they’re just doing his fucking kooky dance. They’ve made the whole thing into a cabaret act. For us, Ian Curtis is one of the great writers in any field of the 20th century.

So many bands seem to have picked an outfit off the rails at American Apparel – the ‘indie’ look and thought that’s enough…

That’s why I love the xx. At least they’re for real you know they’re a genuine band who are doing it whatever the prevailing wind. I don’t need to listen to their record every day but I thank fuck they’re doing it. I love the fact that they’ve managed to rewrite the blueprint of one of Wales’ greatest, most underrated bands, Young Marble Giants. I mean that as a massive compliment, by the way. They look like they should be in a band together.

You’re going out on the road with British Sea Power, another band a total aesthetic.

We’re really thrilled, they’re doing the whole tour with us. I think it’s a perfect match for us. They did a brilliant remix of Me and Stephen Hawking for us, there’s a mutual appreciation I think. Tickets have done remarkably well – we never take anything for granted, we’re just so thrilled about it all.

We’re also doing the Millennium Stadium with Paul McCartney. We’ve played there twice before – on Millennium Eve and when Wales beat Italy in the football, we played on the pitch before the match. It’s a good triptych I think. I was genuinely thrilled to be asked – I was supposed to interview him for a newspaper at this office in Soho. Then, after a shit year health wise, I was in the doctors the night before we were supposed to do it, crawling on my fucking knees feeling like utter shit. I had to cancel. Probably the only person in the world who’s blown him out. He really is a hero, he’s written some fantastically bleak songs. People see him as this chirpy happy bloke but listen to Eleanor Rigby to Yesterday to For No One which is one of my favourite Beatles songs ever. I really wanted to plunder that side of things. To have the chance to go up and apologise about blowing him out, that’s something I’m really happy about.

What have you been enjoying during the recording?

The poetry of Anne Sexton. I don’t know why I haven’t discovered it before, it’s pretty bleak. But then the best poetry is. One of the cardinal sins of life is funny poetry. Like funny music, it should be banned. Sarah Kane’s plays I’ve been reading. I think she was an admirer of Richey’s. I’ve been going back to Dylan Thomas. I know it sounds like a cliché but that line, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”, it feels so applicable to the music industry at the moment, where we’re stood at the moment. It’s not a negative thing to say, it’s just true. There’s one track on the album called All We Make Is Entertainment which is very much about here, now. The selling off of Cadbury’s was the final death knell for Britain, there’s genuinely nothing left that we make here that we own. The crime of New Labour was to believe that only good could come out of surrendering to the city. If you’d have said ten years ago that the only nationalised industry in this country would be banking people would have had heart attacks. It makes you despair, why didn’t we prop up the car industry years ago, where people had proper jobs? Steel, coal, engineering, gas, water, electricity, the trains… why didn’t we keep them going, why don’t we own our own utilities? Industries based on jobs that involved men and women going to work and actually making something. New Labour pissed on its own class, it really did.

On a completely different tip, I’ve been trying to write a script for Doctor Who called Do Not Go Gently. The idea is centred around Dylan Thomas’ last days in New York. Of course it’s going to have a massive fucking monster in it too.

Politics wise, John Gray’s Straw Dogs has been a massive influence. The track on the album A Million Balconies Under The Sun is very influenced by JG Ballard. The idea he posited back in the ’60s that everyone would be their own movie star is horribly prophetic. The bad sides of the internet – the reliance on numbers and being popular, the selfishness of it. The Mark Lawson interview with Martin Amis was fucking amazing. It was proper Cracked Actor stuff, he looked like a man utterly broken. And he had a fucking awful leather jacket on. Him and Will Self, I can’t read either of their fiction works now but I love seeing them in discussion on TV. As a raconteur, Martin Amis has more command of the English language than anyone. He just talked so much about growing up in Swansea with Kingsley. Just brilliant. He looked like I’ve felt this year, properly poorly. Lastly, the Pixar film Up. That’s such a beautiful piece of melancholy, that’s been a constant inspiration on the new record. The first ten minutes are the bravest bit of cinema I’ve seen in years.

Wire blog July 2008

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:08:00 +0100

To the British festival goer, used to the scenic, landscapes of Reading and the like, the Positivus AB Festival in Latvia comes as something of a shock. Buried deep in lush, seemingly never ending woods (looking like something out of a Grimm’s fairy tale), the site is located on the shores of the Baltic sea a couple of hours drive from the stunning capital city of Riga. The site is beside the undulating sea (it doesn’t lap the shore so much as wobble towards it like jelly), festival goers sit getting pissed watching the blazing sunset over Sweden, just out of sight on the other coast. The perimeter fence is patrolled by angry looking dogs, like an Eastern European Burns Manor, a far more effective deterrent than a ten-foot high superstructure and probably a damn site cheaper too. When we walk off the path to the beach, a security guard runs over to warn us that if we don’t get back on track, we’re highly likely to get mauled. This is more like it.

Manic Street Preachers are headlining the first night of the festival as part of a summer run of gigs that takes in virgin territory across the former Soviet union, alongside more familiar stages at the likes of Oxygen in Ireland and aforementioned Reading (and Leeds).

Prior to the gig, the dressing room is all carefully applied nail varnish and “In Utero” played at full volume; the first Mary Chain album and the local speciality beer (lager mixed with Rose – only keyboard player Sean Read is brave enough to indulge). While the rest of the band scout out the site, Nicky Wire sits and reflects on the summer so far.

You’re halfway through a load of summer festivals and you’re playing a host of places you’ve never played before.

And I have to say, from Romania to Poland, Bucharest, Switzerland, Zagreb, Latvia… they’ve been some of the best festivals we’ve ever done. We played Oxygen in Ireland which was great but it didn’t have the sense of mystery that the other ones have had, a real sense of wonder, of turning up places just not knowing what the fuck it’s going to be like. You don’t know what the city is like, how the people will react. It’s like missionary work in a way. There is a sense of conversion going on. When some songs get played, something like “…Tolerate” especially, they seem so universally popular.

Has it been like an alternate version of Manic Street Preachers in a way… in their perceptions of what the band are as opposed to how the audience at home see you?

I think James would say the same thing, that the places I mentioned already, it’s just much easier to be less inhibited and just more entertaining. James has been a different kind of front-man, more communal. It’s quite odd but it doesn’t feel embarrassing at all. I don’t mean it even in a naff way; it’s been really enjoyable to do. In Bucharest, it was like Queen doing the “Radio Ga Ga” video, 12,000 people going nuts, all in time with the band! It felt humane and enjoyable, not what we expected at all. It’s strange because I don’t even know really if we’ve sold records out here. Post-Soviet, all the countries that came out of the Soviet Bloc, I’m not sure if our albums have sold, it’s kind of an unknown for most bands I think. That said, “Your Love Alone…” and “Autumn Song” particularly seem to have transcended everything. Even I have to admit the wonders of the Internet on this one - the 1.2 million viewings on You Tube must actually mean something for once.

The start of the summer we were pretty scared, thinking, “Why are we doing this?” in typical Manics fashion. It started with Foo Fighters and two gigs in Germany (Rock Am Ring/Rock Am Park) and to be honest, those were the hardest ones we did, because it was such familiar ground. The Foo Fighters gig in Manchester was really hard because it was the first one back. Sean has never drummed so fast, James couldn’t play the solo on “You Love Us” ‘cos the horse had bolted – it was the fastest “Motown Junk” & “You Love Us” you’ll ever hear. I forgot loads of notes, it was messy. We’re always like that though, we need to get gig hardened after any real time off. Oxygen I messed up too, I played the wrong second note all the way through “Motown…” and I kept staring at my bass thinking, “Why is that sounding wrong?” That said, I was smashed. We were on late and I peaked early. We were on at midnight, I’d had a bottle of champagne and a bottle of white wine before I’d even got onstage. Sometimes I am so fucking useless.

Tour wise, all the places have all been fantastic. The Baltic is just an unbelievably cool place. Zagreb was just so beautiful a city; I really fell in love with it. When Scott (our agent) started coming up with offers to play these places at the start of the summer, we were a bit unsure, but as it’s unfolded, it really has had the feeling of missionary work, of conquering new ground, of planting the Manics flag in virgin soil. And, as I said, the audiences have been fantastic. I think we matched Bob Dylan on-stage at Radar in Varazdin! We played an amazing show that night.

It’s strange and a bit exhilarating to walk round the cities that we’ve played this summer. It’s as if post Soviet, post Yugoslav war, the cities have that feel of the first throws of consumerism kicking in, what Britain in the 1950s must have felt like. You get the feeling that there’s a massive explosion going on, people thinking, “Fuck me this is alright!” There seems so much cultural, artistic and civic pride and a real sense of rediscovering ‘your own country’. Also, thank fuck for this, they aren’t saturated with Starbucks. From here, we’re off to Moscow. I have to say it’s always been a bit of a dream of mine to play there. But, a bit like Havana, the closer it gets, the scarier it all seems.

It’s funny that you’re playing all these places, in a way they seem like archetypal Manic Street Preachers types of places…

The odd thing is, anywhere that was occupied by the Soviets, you do get quite a hard time from the journalists there. Not that we were card carrying Commies or anything, but imagery that we’ve used in the past seems to have stuck out somewhat. You’ll be sat in an interview and someone will ask, “So, those medals that you wore in a photoshoot in 1994, where did you get them from?” All “The Holy Bible” stuff is very much in the back of people’s minds. The Castro thing doesn’t go down well either. Actually, it doesn’t go down well any fucking where! We thought it worked at the time, but Christ, it’s always there lurking at the back. I mean, it’s fine for Bono to shake hands with George Bush but shaking hands with Castro seems like you’re a living endorsement of all his bad policies over the years.

Any other highlights with these gigs?

Meeting Ian McCulloch at Oxygen was incredible. Unbelievably witty and sharp, I have to say. There are still some genuine surreal moments, even after nearly 20 years of doing this. To think that James, Sean and Richey, their first ever gig was Echo & The Bunnymen at Bristol Colston Hall. They met Pete de Freitas outside just getting on his motorbike. I never went, I was way too much of a mummy’s boy to ever go to gigs. To think that they were there as 15 year olds and now he’s sat in the dressing room for hours, holding court, which is pretty impressive, to think that he could shut me up.

So is Reading & Leeds putting a lid on “Send Away The Tigers’?

Yes. It does seem like the culmination of a ‘world tour’. We’ve maxed out on a great rock record. It’s what we set out to do too. With “Lifeblood” we did something like 20 dates in the UK, 2 in Japan and that was it. I don’t think we did a festival at all. That was when we were offered Guilfest!

So if that’s the end of this bit, then what next?

End of September, we’re hoping to start a new record. I can’t really talk about it at the moment, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s booked and we’re going in to start recording properly around then. I’ll do another one of these when it’s all sorted out properly, I’ll talk people through the record. We’re really excited about it though, we really are.

What else has been happening in Manics world?

I’ve been listening to “The Modern Dance”” by Pere Ubu a lot, that’s having a bit of an influence on the record. “Non-Alignment Pact”, what a record. Sean’s been listening to Late Of The Pier and Sheryl Crow a lot. I’ve been listening to “Bummed” by Happy Mondays. Indie bands these days just don’t have the intelligence or the wit to make records like that. it really reminds of the old Heavenly Records office on Clerkenwell Road, of nicking a 12” of “Lazyitis” from there when Jeff (Barrett) was doing their press and signing us. It seems odd to think of that record as being 20 years old now. Richey used to be obsessed with “Do It Better”. The lyrics really reflect how little attention bands give to the words these days. It’s either the American cliché or the London cliché. “Tired Of England” indeed…

How much time do you dedicate to listening to things you know you’ll hate?

(Laughing) I get most of it off the telly. I watch NME TV a lot, and you just end up seeing them all on there. I’m not spending money on them, that’s for sure. I’ve made a big effort with Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver but… much as I love the music there’s a lot of lyrical clichés going on there. 22 year old kids should not be walking round with massive fucking beards. It all goes back to The Band. Everyone’s doing it now. The Raconteurs, dressing up in grey Confederate army fatigues… it’s just this search for authenticity and validation.

Here, it’s like one endless party. People in bands spread themselves so thinly these days with endless pointless collaborations, there’s such a grand sense of delusion going on. There’s nothing fantastic or great about writing a song, unless it’s really good. It’s as simple as that. This is a trap we’re in. All your mates telling you it’s great, “Yeah, do another track, man!” It’s just insipid bollocks. It’s the equivalent of getting kicked out of the pub and going round someone’s house to jam on the bongos. I think there should be a band amnesty, where all these fuckwits give their instruments in to the police. They can get retrained with a life skill, then fuck off and stop bothering us.

The other thing I think is truly bizarre is Coldplay going so “Holy Bible” in their pictures and videos. And there’s a track on the album called “Yes”!

I take it that lyrically, it’s not covering many the same bases…

It’s not… thank God. I think it’s weirdly admirable that Chris Martin has dragged his band kicking and screaming towards that image change. It’s like they’ve gone “We must try harder” and that’s got to be a good thing. It’s a hard record for me to like, but there’s something about the amount of effort they’re putting in that makes me think “Good on you.” The attention to detail I admire. I think with a lot of bands, they just seem to have lost the glamour and the will to make any kind of effort to look the part.

Who do you think still manages to make an effort then?

My Chemical Romance with “The Black Parade” for certain. The look, the first video… it was a gothic version of “Sgt Pepper”. It’s a great album. Liam Gallagher is still a star, a very beautiful star. Pete Doherty has still got that quality. When he finally turned up to a gig in Germany, hours late, when he got there, he’s just still got something. An X factor. A very grubby X factor, it must be said…

What have you been watching and reading?

There was an amazing BBC4 documentary about Black Power (“Black Power Salute”). That was very, very good TV. Watched “Summer Of Sam” again the other night, realised what a brilliant film that was. It’s a great period piece, I always thought I’d hate it being about a serial killer, but it’s great. I loved “The Pursuit Of Happyness” and “Zodiac” too, both great period pieces, San Francisco at it’s best. I’ve been reading Andrea Dworkin, “Heartbreak” and “Against The Machine” by Lee Siegel. James has been reading “The Best Intentions (Kofi Anan and the UN in the Era Of American World Power)” and “Ash On A Young Man’s Sleeve” by Dannie Abse.

I had this vicious, bordering on violent argument on the bus the other day with James and Sean. I was making the point that every genre that ever existed in cinema has been done better by TV now. “Godfather” against “Sopranos” – “Sopranos” wins hands down. “American Gangster” vs “The Wire”? No competition. Comedy there’s no competition. Who wants to watch comedy in films these days? The last great comedy movie I can remember was “Midnight Run”. One of my favourite films and also one of Ian McCulloch’s. War stuff, much better documentaries. Musicals? “Blackpool” was really good. It was a deeply flawed argument, I nearly won it through sheer force of will. It really was fucking hard work though... as usual it was a mixture of me talking bollocks with a small element of truth.

P.S.

By the way, we’re all really looking forward to playing the Heavenly 18^th birthday Festival, I don’t think we’ve ever played “Spectators Of Suicide” or “We Her Majesty’s Prisoners” live (unless any of you can remember) and we certainly haven’t played “Starlover” for 15 years. It’s going to be really exciting, very odd to see a lot of old faces. Sean Read, our keyboard player, is guesting in at least 3 bands over the weekend – no idea how he does it.

Also, thanks for selling out Newport Centre so quickly – you know how to make an old man very happy!

James's blog March/April 2008

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:56:00 +0100

While Nick and I have been talking, James has been recording downstairs. After downing tools, he sits down with a cup of tea (two teabags) and reflects on the last year.

So, long time since we’ve spoken. First things first, how did it feel winning the Godlike Genius Award?

The thing that made all the difference to when we’ve won awards previously was, say, in all improbability, we’d have been offered this after “Lifeblood”, it would have felt like a nail in the coffin, because we would have been like a band, not on form, and somebody was just saying “Let’s give the poor dabs an awards, they’re obviously at the end of their career…” The fact that they gave us the award after “Send Away The Tigers”, which was us back on top form, that made it the perfect experience really. The fact that they gave us the award when we’re at the top of our game – well, I think we are anyway – made it feel like it’s an impetus to push on rather than a nail in the coffin. It was the prefect scenario really. It’s been given to bands that have split up, it’s been given to other bands who maybe don’t know where they’re going at that point, and I think it’s been given to us at exactly the right time. There is definitely some extraordinary serendipity there. Undoubtedly, even though it came to us at the right time, it does feel very emotional when you get it, but the day after we did all start feeling a bit weird about it. You do think, “Fucking hell, we have to carry on straight away and forget about it.” It is a strange award to get, for that reason.

Were you really conscious of wanting to start work as soon as possible?I wanted to start the day after. Seriously, I wanted to start straight away, even though I had a really fucking bad hangover. It is a massive cliché but if you take too much pleasure in any award you get, you do feel as if it hinders you somehow.

Ideally, if you’re hitting the ground running, how do you see this year as panning out?
I think as a band we sometimes manage to shoot ourselves in the foot when we talk about what we want to do. When we end up talking about it, the reality of what gets released is usually quite the opposite. Except “Send Away The Tigers”, actually. We did exactly what we set out to do with that. The three times that our ideas have come to fruition were “The Holy Bible”, “Everything Must Go” and “Send Away The Tigers”. Sometimes I do look upon the other records as being by a band who have slightly ignored their own brief. I’m loathe to talk about things in terms of what we’re going to do but I actually know that what we’ve set out to do, I think we’re going to achieve it. We’ve started writing a lot of stuff already. I think the one important lesson about “Send Away The Tigers” was really remind yourself, everyday, of what the original essence was, which we are doing now. When we were recording it, we were always shouting these credos at each other, and we’ve started doing that already. The one lesson I’ve learnt is that if you’re going to talk up an idea, which in this case I can’t at the moment, then you really have got to stick to it, otherwise you’ll just fuck it up. I think a good way to put it is that before “Send Away The Tigers”, everything was about personal ambition. Once you get past a certain age, everything becomes about some kind of survival. When there are so many young bands around - bands are getting younger too - it does feel like survival of the fittest. I don’t know if the competition is so competitive creatively, but in terms of what people expect from bands, to be so young, to have that New Wave of the New Wave of the New Wave edge to them, it does feel like survival of the fittest.

Also with less column inches out there, you have to keep relevant because there’s always some new kid that people are harping on about…

What I mean about survival of the fittest is, it come down to the music more than it ever did. And that’s such an earnest thing to say. When we were young, with “The Holy Bible” and with “Generation Terrorists”, we could sue certain ‘get out of jail’ cards. Richey or Nick would say or do something, which would make you seem relevant, and it would be truthful as well, because we viewed the band as a kind of cultural, organic whole. But now you can’t rely on those soundbites or the way you look to convince people. It’s got to be so much about the music, which is strange for a band that started out like us. We always thought being in a band was about so much more than the music. It’s a funny realisation as you get older and you realise that the thing that’s going to convince people is the music. Conversely, people still challenge you in interviews, asking “Why is the band still going?” Before the award, it did feel like people challenged the worthiness of the band or they challenge whether you’re relevant or whether you’re fit to be in this modern environment. And I think the one advantage you have, when faced with that question, is that there really is no other reason why we’d be doing it, other than being fiercely committed to it. It’s what people don’t really think about, that it would be pretty easy for us to pack this in, if you thought about how old we are and how long we’ve been doing it. In reality, it’s fucking impossible for us to pack it in because, I think anyway, we are still a band driven on by ‘conviction politics’. I never feel like I can D-Mob myself out of the forces!

Back to the Godlike Genius Award – I just talked to Nicky about this - in a parallel universe, if Richey had been there, how do you think he’d have reacted?
I think because Nick was so much closer to Richey, I think he finds it easier to imagine. Personally, I find it really confusing because he was an impenetrable ball of charm and viciousness sometimes. Nick always has this theory that they were opposite in the sense that Nick didn’t care about being accepted or liked by anybody but Richey secretly did. I find it hard to know which version of him would have shown up for something like the NME Awards. This level of acceptance… I have a sneaking suspicion that as soon as he’d have achieved something like this level of acceptance, he’s have rejected it straight away, as soon as he’d have got what he wanted.

So what have you been listening to recently?

One record that’s really affected me, and I don’t understand why, is the Future Of The Left record. I barely understand anything they are trying to achieve or what they are talking about, but it’s an entrancing record. And it’s so fucking powerful, so militant. I’ve also been listening to a lot of old Girls Against Boys records too. I’ve been going a bit heavy I suppose. Drive By Truckers album, I love that. I’m really getting into the Hot Chip album, which I didn’t expect. It has that genius geekness that Thomas Dolby used to have. And, total contrast, the Bullet For My Valentine record, total and utter fucking metal, really good. Sean has been really going on to me about Blood Red Shoes and likewise Nick is obsessed with the The Afternoons record

Something I’ve talked to Nicky about, a bit of a recurring subject for us, is the fact that we seem to be in some kind of Welsh renaissance period at the moment.
Eddie Butler, the Welsh rugby journalist, said that we are a “bonkers nation”, but that it’s a good thing, it’s what fuels us in our good times and our bad times. It’s definitely a positive time to be Welsh. People say that the Scottish are superior, that the Irish are romantic and optimistic and that the Welsh are confused. In a strange way, it does feel like our identity is always evolving. I like the fact that we’re not easily sellable, as a country we aren’t a shit ‘theme pub’ abroad, I really cherish that fact. I used to hate it that we didn’t have a saleable identity, that it was hard to explain to people, but now I love it.. I also like the idea of part of the award being for flying the flag for Wales and maybe for doing that when it wasn’t fashionable to do so. Resetting a tradition almost. I like to think that part of the award nods to that. It’s very easy to forget how stunted your ambition was coming from Wales back in the day, there was no expectation on us, which in a way ended up making it more difficult. We had that hurdle to overcome. Now it seems different – the Furries, the Phonics, Lost Prophets, Duffy, it’s almost not an issue anymore, whereas it very much was back when we started.

Anything else you’ve been doing?
I love the ‘Summits’ programme on BBC4, which was about famous summits between world leaders. You had Reagan meeting Gorbachev, there was Nixon going to China, JFK and Khrushchev, it was fucking amazing. I’m still watching ‘Inside The Actors Studio’ all the time. Film wise, I’ve been to see pretty much everything that’s out recently, “There Will Be Blood”, “No Country For Old Men”… I have to say, I think I saw the most depressing film of my whole life the other day, a film called “Garage”. I don’t want to sound too pretentious but it really affected me for four or five days afterwards. It’s a really small Irish independent film, it’s utterly bereft of any hope at all. It really fucked me up for four or five days. Not exactly ‘Happy Feet 2’, that one. Books wise, I’ve been reading one called ‘Dr Glas’, which is a Swedish book from the start of the last century. I’ve been dipping in and out of the ‘Encyclopaedia Of Wales’ that’s just come out and also I’ve been loving a Welsh cookbook I got given recently, called ‘First Catch Your Peacock’. There’s a whole section in it called “Poverty” – I’m going to cook so much from there… lots of gruel. One last thing, I’ve been invited by John Cale to play at a Nico tribute that he’s doing at the Royal Festival Hall. I think in October she would have been 70 years old this year. John Cale is directing it, he’s trying to get loads of people involved. I’m choosing a song off “The Marble Index” which is just a fucking brilliant album. So I’ve got that to look forward to.

Nick's blog March 2008

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:47:00 +0100

Nick talks to good mate Robin Turner:

Holed up in a small demo studio in Cardiff, Nicky, Sean and James are working on demos of new songs with Dave Eringa. Always with the fierce work ethic, they have demoed six songs in four days. It’s hammering down rain outside, but here, they are in ebullient mood, possibly due to the Grand Slam, possibly due to the NME Godlike Genius Award, possibly due to the fact that the songs are so brilliant. Nicky and James sat down to share their thoughts at the end of a remarkable year.

Last time we spoke was three days before the NME Awards…

NW – Even though it was a long old day, It reminded me a bit of the Cuba/Castro experience - it’s one of those things that just flashed by in an instant, that you wish you could just suck it all in. For us it was a very big deal, it was very important, I just wish I could have taken it all in more. I thought the gig itself at the end of it was pretty majestic. From the bagpipes at the start of it to the glitter at the end… I peaked twice in one day, which is not like me. I talked so much on the red carpet. James and Sean just disappeared and left me there with Joe Calzaghe (what a man and a true sporting great), doing the rounds. I felt very drained and empty at the end of it. It really was pretty special though. At the actual Awards, Conor gave a really nice speech, and then they did a montage of footage and interviews. Peter Hook was absolutely brilliant about us, really funny, really charming, spot on. He compared our career to the Joy Division/New Order situation then he said, “I’m not sure about the bass player wearing a dress!” It was gorgeous. Zane Lowe was really nice about us; I still love listening to Zane, even though he doesn’t play us anymore! Ryan Jones, the Welsh captain, he sent a message saying “Well done boys, ‘ave a good night!!” how cool is that. Kylie had done one that was lovely; unfortunately it was in the wrong format so they couldn’t use it. I was fucking gutted. Same with the Super Furry Animals, they shot one on a mobile phone, it was really lovely, but they couldn’t get it to work. We’re going to try to put them on the website ‘cos they were both so great. Those two would have topped it all off for us.

It must have been strange turned up there, knowing you were winning the top award – usually there is the element of surprise with these things.

Yeah, it was odd. You get the nod at the other awards ceremonies that you might be in with a chance, but knowing that you’ve won in advance, it made me want to compose a speech and try to find the defining moments of our career for it. Playing four songs in front of other bands really was harder than I thought it would be. I closed my eyes the whole fucking time we played! I thought Danny Dyer was brilliant there, when he gave the Best Film award, which went to ‘Control’ – he just said “Thank fuck it’s not ‘Atonement’!” I thought the boys from ‘Gavin And Stacey’ (James Corden and Mathew Horne) were just brilliant presenting it. It wasn’t the greatest atmosphere for them as it was early in the day, I think lots of bands knew they had to play later so people weren’t getting tanked up like the old days, but I just thought they were hilarious. I thought the Gallows were really good even though it was humongously loud; Frank the singer was giving out daffodils to the crowd. Me being an idiot, I thought it was a St David’s Day thing. When he gave one top me I said that and he said it was for cancer research… their guitarist, Laurent came into our dressing room later, smashed out of his skull, he was a huge Manics fan, he was ranting “I’ll do anything for you, I’ll sell swag for you! I’ll do a really good job too!!” He was really charming. Fair play, I thought they were lovely lads.

Who else came through as a fan on the day?

Russell from Bloc Party, the pretty one with the haircut and translucent skin, I had a really nice chat with him, he was a real sweetheart, and he was raving about ‘The Holy Bible’. Also Huw Stephens wrote something really nice about the whole day and our award in the Western Mail, Huw is a true gentleman. Apparently Alex Kapranos did whisper to an NME journalist “Nicky Wire is the biggest prick I’ve ever met” – I don’t know why he whispered it, fair play really, he should have shouted it out, it’s all rock ‘n’ roll isn’t it? I’m really glad he found success after trying out every genre and every different style in about 10 different bands. I’m really pleased he finally found success so late in life. Billy Bragg, I had a quick chat with him, he is a proper elder statesman. I had a chat to The Horrors, I think they’ve got something special, they look amazing, but why they had Kelly Osbourne on their table is beyond me. They are just one record away from being something really outlandish and important I think.

At the end of the day, you walked away with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the equivalent to what Macca won at the Brits the week before…

In typical Manics form, maybe three or four days after, it did come down on us, that thing of “Where do we go, what do we do?” – in typical Manics fashion, one of the greatest days of our career turned into “It’s all over!” James especially. It did feel odd, you start thinking about things and realise it’s not far off 20 years since we signed with Heavenly, 1990. We always see “Motown Junk” as us being a fully formed precociously talented entity, on a proper label. In the speech at the awards I did thank Heavenly, I thanked Tennessee Williams, Echo & The Bunnymen, Aneurin Bevan… on an on, a really long list… and I forgot to fucking thank Martin Hall, our manager. Which is unforgivable. Scott Thomas, Mitch Ikeda, Mark Farrow, Rob Stringer, Simon Price, The Enemy, Terri Hall and Lizzy Gould… I even found a copy of our first NME cover, which was when Richey and me spent all day wandering round Shepherds Bush trying to find some girl to give us both love bites. Wouldn’t do that today! I remember when we won in 1997 for “Everything Must Go”, I can remember Owen Morris and Mark Bowen (Wichita Records) being there, on the tables screaming, people like Cian from the Super Furries passed out under the same table. It felt like the working classes had won back then – it didn’t feel like that this year. It didn’t feel like a lot of people were driven by the overwhelming desire to be in a band, it was more like a career option from school. It’s the reason why there’s so much good behaviour these days. It was weird at the awards, people are so interested in their laptops and Blackberry's, it’s such a disconnected generation, no one seemed to want to have any real fun. One thing I have to say, I feel really sorry for Muse – they only ever seem to win Best Live Band, or Best DVD or something shit like that. It’s not even like I love them that much but they really are amazing musicians, they are the Rush of our era. It’s like “We need to get Muse here, give them the Live Award!” I’m sure they want more as a band and they deserve more!

How was the gig?

I thought Cerys sang incredibly. She was a bit nervous at the awards because it was full of industry people, but she delivered everything and more. I thought Tom from The Enemy was really good, they are a working class rock ‘n’ roll band. We asked him to do it, it’s not like he was begging to do it at all, we just thought it would be something good to do. There wasn’t a big intellectual logic behind it – we like him, we like his band. It was a good thing to connect with a different generation. They are desperate to be in a band, he is driven; he loves the process of communication. You can’t be snobby about things like that, I’d rather him than a million of these other stage school Brit School bands.

So four days later then...

It just felt like we’d peaked. With those two NME covers we had, Hamish McBain’s piece, the second one, ’10 Ways To Be A Godlike Genius’, it was almost embarrassingly positive! It just felt like “How the fuck do we come back from this?” It was nice to see Cuba being mentioned in positive terms for the first time in ages. It’s been seen in such a bad light, almost a faux pas. After the euphoria of doing the gig in Cuba, everything seemed to go completely wretched almost straight away! I’m not sure how it happened but it seemed like we’d offended so many people just by doing it. I remember thinking at the time “I’ve slagged so many people off and said so many bad things, but we never got anything like the amount of shit we’re getting now!” It’s funny, now launching an album, the most exciting thing is just doing a gig in a pub in Camden or “I’m doing a fucking tour of people’s front rooms!”

And how has coming back to the studio been?

I think it’s the best thing that could have happened. I think it’s like when footballers or rugby players they play and have a real hammering and all they say is that they want the next game straight away, to get it out of the system. The whole day of the NME Awards was unbelievably brilliant, we are so chuffed and honoured to have it, there is no complaints at all, it felt humbling, a real privilege to win it, it was just the next few days we felt… I don’t know… it’s different to every other award we’ve ever won, this one was about 18 years work… we’re scarily grateful for it really! Having said that, I think we fucking deserved it! Like I said before though, we got ourselves back in the position where we did deserve it. If we hadn’t done “Send Away The Tigers” we’d never have won. That day I must have done 50 interviews on the red carpet – I did feel, with the sheer amount of information that ends up on blogs and in the papers, that people must be getting sick of hearing me crapping on – so this is the last one of these for a while! It must look sometimes like I want to do it all but it’s just a division of jobs. I feel like I have talked myself into oblivion.

I’ve been thinking recently, since “Lifeblood” then onto my solo record, I did 23 lyrics for that, then “Send Away The Tigers” which was written at the same time, lyrically I just kind of need a break at the moment. I kind of think maybe I’ve been saying the same thing for a couple of years now and I need to find a different way to express. I do love writing words and I’ve written a load of stuff, but I just think the older I get, I just need to be really spot on. It would be nice if we could carry on but I could have a break from writing, to recharge somehow. So, you hear it hear first, Mooro is going to write the lyrics!! Him and Dave Eringa!

Dave has made it into the little video we’ve done for “Umbrella”, he got himself in there. My brother came down the studio the other day and shot a load of stuff. The “Tolerate” noise on the record, we got Dave to play it on his fucked up Moog in the studio, so he’s in, like back in “Gold Against The Soul” days. That’s going on the site as soon as it’s done. The “Umbrella” thing is an odd situation, especially for me with my insane marketing head on. Part of me thinks we should have given it a massive push as it’s selling loads on download, maybe we should have had a physical format and made it an official Manics single. I’m really perturbed that if it’s perceived that way, we’ll have had 33 consecutive Top 40 singles since “Stay Beautiful”, back when we signed to Sony. I don’t want our record ruined. I can take it as a happy accident as long as the sales don’t push it to Number 42 or something but it is definitely not an official Manics single.

What’s been rocking your world?

Been listening to ‘The Moral Maze’ on Radio 4 – it’s a philosophical question show, goes out on a Saturday at 10.15 in the night… heavy going but brilliant. The name of the show sounds like the story of the Manics career! Brett Favre retiring from the green Bay Packers, the greatest Quarter Back I’ve ever seen, a true American hero, he broke down crying when he finished. Puma Clyde, my favourite trainers, all that I ever wear… I’ve got 60 or 70 pairs of the fuckers. I wouldn’t call it an endorsement as such, but they just sent me a box of 20 pairs of trainers, and some for the boys as well. That was just brilliant. World indoor athletics championship… really love that… 60 Foot Dolls I’ve gone back and listened to them a lot – that’s an underrated record on the sly, they were a proper fucking rock ‘n’ roll band the Dolls. They were a proper cult band.

I forgot to mention about Tottenham winning the Carling Cup which was brilliant, we had a great season really, Ramos is a genius, I’m just so pleased for Ledley King, he’s such a fine figure of a man, Robbie Keane, such a loyal servant and Dimitar Berbatov he is Andy Garcia in disguise…

And, obviously, the Grand Slam…

Before it happened I stopped myself thinking about it, it was too scary. On BBC Wales they had a highlights programme, all about the 2005 Grand Slam, I sat down there with my wife and she looked at me and said “What’s wrong with you, you’re covered in goose bumps” – what does Mitch called it? Chicken skin! – anyway, it’s the Grand Slam; it’s such a huge thing! James went to the match but I couldn’t do that, I watched it from my sofa.

We talked previously about a Welsh renaissance, and Duffy has been Number 1 since then, Wales won the Grand Slam…

Cardiff City in the semi finals, Swansea City looking at promotion, Joe Calzaghe… to have one of the top 3 boxers in the world with us at the NME Awards kind of made you feel pretty invincible – I don’t know why I didn’t slag more people off. I was well protected! He nearly ripped one of the security’s heads off at the 02… the security there was fucking abysmal – fair play to the Kaiser Chiefs for cancelling their gig there. The security fucked them off so badly they moved the gig to Wembley. I only got back into the venue for the actual gig, clutching the award and saying to some idiot “Do you want to be the man who stops us going on stage?”

I must say, at the end of all this, I did genuinely miss Richey at the Awards, just for his honesty, his friendship, his companionship, his sense of humour, his naivity and his poetic beauty.

How do you think he’d have reacted to it all?

Well he’d have got fucking hammered, that’s for sure. We only ever went to one awards ceremony when he was still around, the first NME Awards in 1995. It was for best radio session. It was at the Embassy on Tottenham Court Road (now Spearmint Rhino). Justine and Damon were there rowing, “Giant Steps” by the Boo Radleys won album of the year. It’s just sad that everything since then, Brits, Ivor Novello’s, it’s all been without him being there.

So where next?

We’re just bashing around making a real dirge. It feels great to be making a melodic dirge, it really does. You can’t come up with a “Design For Life” or a “Your Love Alone” every day of the week… there’s no parameters and no predilections for what we’re doing down here, the songs may never be released … it’s “just music, maaaaaan!”

Last time we spoke was before the Christmas tour...

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:07:00 +0100

NW - To be honest the Christmas tour we were really worried about it, it was the first time we'd got back into that arena mentally for quite a while. We were pretty scared and apprehensive. It did have one of the greatest Manics gigs ever, the one at the CIA in Cardiff. It was truly incredible. The night before in Manchester had been weird. It was freezing cold; we just didn't click that night. The next day in Cardiff, Martin our manager came on the bus before the gig and said, "Can you come upstairs boys, I've got something I need to talk to you about." As Welsh people we obviously thought something was wrong – someone’s died, something’s gone wrong, been dropped. Anyway, he says, “Conor (McNicholas, NME editor) has just rung me, you’ve got the Godlike Genius Award” to which James replied, “Shit, I’m not sure we deserve it…” in his Mr Humble way. From that moment on the gig was just fucking stupendous, it really was. I had to keep it quiet until Brixton the next week. Those two gigs were probably two of the best reviewed gigs we’ve ever done, certainly in London. All the London gigs we did this year were amazing in the end. Anyway, I think I said something from stage like “Buy the NME next week, there’s going to be some beautiful news in there!” I could see Dan Silver and a couple of the NME boys bricking it that I was going to give it away. The two Brixton’s, Cardiff, Edinburgh, even Aberdeen on a Sunday night, kind of allayed all our fears. Brighton I think was good but I was so fucking utterly hammered… there was tiny bit of an onstage fracas… only a little one. I remember mumbling onstage “I’ve peaked too early!” James said to the crowd “Excuse my voice I’ve got a bit of cold” and I shouted “Shut up, you’ve had loads of fucking steroids” and he turned to me and said “Alright you fucking sing then.” I am assured that it was a good concert though. I do firmly believe that champagne afflicted playing is better – for me anyway. Champagne with a sugar cube – gets into your bloodstream quicker. As soon as I come offstage I stop drinking. Great contrary behaviour.

The whole tour and finding out the NME thing, it really was a fine end to a very good year. I have to say about that period, everything did genuinely go so well band wise that every time you end up doing something you are convinced you’re going to spoil it.

Why do you think there was such a sea change last year with regards people’s feelings towards the band?

A few things really. Ourselves, our attitudes, the way we looked, our outlook, our sense of fun, a sense of the “fabulous disaster” had returned. And we made a brilliant rock record. We couldn’t have had the return that we had without making a brilliant record. I think you see it in the artwork, which I still think is great, all the artwork, all the singles, and the video with Nina. I think our approach was to take ourselves less seriously, just to be like we were in 1992 - making mistakes, being laughed at but with people deep down knowing that “the boys are back in town”.

It did seem like it became “acceptable” to like you again… it also seemed like you became cool again which bands of your stature don’t really ever get again…

I thought the NME cover with Richey on the front was one of the best things ever on us. On him in particular. I went through all my archives, through all of Mitch Ikeda’s photos that didn’t make it into the book, they were all exclusive pictures in there. I thought it was written so tenderly, so intelligently. And there were five pages of writing in there, which you just don’t get anymore. The glory of getting the NME award, it’s not about boosting record sales or anything like that, let’s be honest, it’s not like the Brits. It’s really about being recognized about being one of the quintessential NME bands of the last 20 years. I know we could have been all cynical about it and said “Oh they ignored us for ages” but it just doesn’t matter, we’re so fucking lucky to have a weekly music press in this country. What happens if it goes, I’m supposed to sit and read a fucking computer screen. I still get a real buzz when a journalist gives you a really brilliant “reviewer phrase”, like when Barry Nicholson did the album review and said “‘Rendition’ sounds like the National Anthem played by The Who” – that’s because he’s a journalist. Some blogger, it’s just not the same thing. Being a writer, seeing millions of bands, siphoning through culture, it’s not easy. It still gives us a thrill when someone says something great.

It did seem like some sort of cynical wall had been taken down, not just at the NME. I can understand why people thought that maybe we didn’t care anymore, maybe that we were on some kind of never ending Marlon Brando period! Every great band should have a Brando period, where they don’t give a shit and make wilderness albums that you dip back into, like “Know Your Enemy” and “Lifeblood”, a folly type of record. “Their Satanic Majesties Request” by The Stones is the one I always pick up – no one liked it at all. Funnily, fan-wise it’s really turning. I’ve been told that on all the websites, they have “Do you prefer the melancholic beauty of ‘Lifeblood’ or the chart friendly ‘Send Away The Tigers’?” They’re all voting for fucking ‘Lifeblood’!

It feels nice that this NME thing will be the end of this little chapter of our career. If we end up doing any festivals in the summer it will definitely be with a few new songs thrown in. It’s funny, I was remembering back to this time last year, before we started doing these things, in one of my insane chatters to James and Sean, which I’m sure they don’t fucking listen to by the way, I remember saying “I’m going to be in the Cool List, we’re going to get the Godlike Genius Award, come on boys, we can do it!” they were both completely like “Oh Wire just fucking shut up!” In the end, setting us that impossible target was a good thing to do. We could never be Radiohead, that kind of lackadaisical coolness. We’ve never been like that. We’ve always had a certain work ethic, an insane “plough on” mentality. Band mate goes missing, manager dies – shall we make another record? Looking back, ‘Generation Terrorists’ to ‘Everything Must Go’, four albums in four years, with pretty much two masterpieces in ‘Holy Bible’ and ‘Everything Must Go’. ‘Generation Terrorists’ is a fucking double as well! The only person with that work ethic now is Pete Doherty. He still has that innate thing that he loves writing a tune, that that’s the only thing he can really do, I love that. I really felt good about that, thinking about the NME Award and the four albums in four years thing, the singles that we did, the B sides, that burst of creativity…

It must be funny to be having the peak point of the Manics renaissance in a week where Wales seems to be at the top of it’s game, so to speak… the rugby, St David’s Day… a second wave of Cool Cymru maybe?

NW – Duffy at number 1 for two weeks, Joe Calzaghe, Mark Webster winning the BDO World Darts Championship, ‘Gavin & Stacey’ winning awards... I think coming from a small country, if you’d have asked me this 10 years ago I’d have been really cynical but now, I think you just have to enjoy the times when we experience these little spates of greatness. There is serendipity to it all at the moment; it just feels like a good place to come from. Cerys is doing “Your Love Alone…” with us at the Awards – she’s sounding great at the moment. When you hear all these Amy’s and Duffy’s and Adele’s, as good as they are, I just think Cerys’ has got such a great voice – she should do an album of covers, we’d even be her backing band if she wanted. I just think it’s perfect timing for her. By the way, utter respect, to the Arctic Monkeys for their Brit School piss-take at the Brit Awards. I thought they’d made a good effort with their suits, but when they went up the second time, I just thought their speech was fucking fantastic.

Also, it was funny watching Paul McCartney get the equivalent award to us at the Brits, the Lifetime Achievement Award. His version of ‘Live And Let Die’ fucking rocked. Why on earth does he have to play that fucking awful one with the ukulele? (‘Dance Tonight’)

What would be your equivalent single to that?

“There By The Grace Of God”, it’s got to be our worse single. That or “So Why So Sad”. God knows why we never put The Avalanches mix of that on the greatest hits. We should do another one someday – I think there’s something like 17 singles that aren’t even on ‘Forever Delayed’. I think we’re on 36 singles now.

Where next then?

There’s some real heavy stuff going on at the moment, I can tell James is really itching. We’re practising for the show and I can hear him playing a lot of “Holy Bible”-esque riffs. I think he wants to do something very angular, very meaningful. Typical Manics fashion, just when things appear to be going really well and we could keep it going, we fuck it all up. I think he wants to do something very heavy – not the kind of anaemic stuff that gets called New Wave today, he’s trying stuff that’s got a metallic sheen to it. So that’s the next thing we’re going to try. But they again it could end up being an acoustic album.

What else has been going on over the last few months, what have you been listening to and watching?

James has been working in Germany, playing guitar with Herbert Gronemeyer, a German musician who was also in ‘Das Boot’ years ago. I’ve been listening loads to the MGMT album, it’s just glorious. Been listening to The Faces loads, I’d forgotten just how brilliant they were. Les Savy Fav, The Courteeners, Morrissey’s “Your Arsenal”, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Lightspeed Champion, Those Dancing Days. Loads of Green On Red, loads of That Petrol Emotion, I managed to dig out all of their records again. One of the great lost bands they were. Funny thing – I noticed that the last Super Furries record is called ‘Hey Venus’, which was a That Petrol Emotion album, also that there was a TPE track called ‘Lifeblood’ – two of the great Welsh bands have albums named after That Petrol Emotion records! I loved Michael Portillo’s documentary on Thatcher, it was stunningly brilliant. I love him as a broadcaster, he’s soothing and intelligent but as a politician I used to think he was utterly detestable. It’s obviously been a total sports fest, from the Superbowl onwards, the Six Nations now, just brilliant. Touchingly beautiful documentary on Edwyn Collins on BBC4 the other day, which was just spiritual. His wife just seemed like an angel, she really did. Been watching lots of the political coverage of the American election which has been amazing, I’m addicted to that. A lot of Bill O’Reilly on Fox believe it or not. “Meet The Press” on NBC. The most bizarre thing about it all is if anyone watched the last series of ‘The West Wing’. It’s so scarily similar. John McCain is Alan Alda in that, a republican who could get Democrats to vote for him. Jimmy Smits, a Democrat coming from nowhere, race issues and all of that, it’s incredible. It’s the most underrated series of ‘The West Wing’, the best series too. Worth watching if you’ve got any interest in the current state of American politics.

Watch out for a post NME Awards blog, going up in the next couple of weeks…

BLOG SEPTEMBER 2007

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:05:00 +0100

It's a Tuesday night in mid September and Nicky Wire is sat in a London hotel room, wearing shorts, on exceptional form, waxing lyrical about actually enjoying a packed summer of festivals the world over... New Wire, New Danger.

We're up in town for some Vodafone live awards thing. We were up last week; we played live at the Q awards party in the O2 Arena and got nominated for a few awards. Which was lovely. We also got to see Cherry Ghost, who are supporting us on the Christmas dates, they were mesmeric.

I was reading the other day about this couple that live in a Travelodge. Twenty years ago they decided that they wanted to go to more antiques fairs so they wanted to be more mobile. They moved from their fifteen grand flat in Sheffield, which is now worth a hundred grand. There was this brilliant quote from them in the paper, they said "We love it in the Travelodge, they give us the best room, it's Room 1 and it's only a 2 minute walk to the Little Chef and there¹s plenty of other eateries around!" I think that
they're pretty much living my perfect life. Whenever you see a Travelodge, 23 quid a night, it's always a welcome sight.

We've just come back from Istanbul, which was just glorious. I've never felt so welcome in a place since when we went to Japan in 1992. It was the first time we've ever played in Turkey, the country has only just gone on the 'circuit' really, so we were slightly nervous about the whole thing, but when we got there, there was 10,000 people singing the words to "If You Tolerate This" At one point James did the most stadium rock thing I've ever seen, halfway through "Design For Life" he said "You take this one!" and they just sang the whole fucking verse! The place was a good hour drive out of town; it was quite a way to go. We had a fucking nightmare on the way, B.A. lost our entire luggage, and James still hasn't found his. The most amazing was when we got into Istanbul at about two in the morning and coming over the Bosporus, all the mad architecture, new and old, east and west it
was very much like the first time we went into Tokyo, like there is somewhere left that we didn't really know. That said, we went to Harvey Nichols the next morning to replace the lost clothes so it wasn't that alien. The rest of the festival had Franz Ferdinand their drummer has the most amazing tattoo on his neck - a couple of lovely Turkish bands apparently Turkey's biggest band who came back to say hello, apparently they're unbelievably big Manics fans. Pete Murphy from Bauhaus lives there, he came backstage to meet us. He was a bit of an icon for us growing up,"Bela Lugosi's Dead", every fucking indie kid's dream, to get the sympathy vote from the local Goth girl and get a snog at the end of the night.

Festival wise this summer, we were gutted that Fflam in Swansea was cancelled. Greece didn't happen cos of the forest fires, which was a real disappointment to us. They're trying to reschedule it, it¹s meant to be us and Kasabian, our summer playmates, we've done so many festivals with them, it's been brilliant. I watched them in Tokyo and they were absolutely awesome. Tom was Dave Gahan in his heyday, he just led from the front and he had 50,000 people in the stadium eating out of his hands. We'd already played a stormer and he came and ruled it, he just connected with the audience so well. I was really impressed with Kasabian live, they're pretty uncompromising really, and it's quite an original music I think. I thought they were fucking enormous sounding. We did Osaka which was blindingly hot, 95 degrees, then we did Summersonic in Tokyo as well, us them and the Arctic Monkeys. I didn't see them 'cos it was past my bedtime. At one stage I was watching Kasabian and they have a break where Serge does his psychedelic bit. All of a sudden I realised there was a hand up my rather sweaty skirt. It was Tom Kasabian, just before he went back on to sing the next song. I said "Do you realise it's a bit messy down there?" he didn¹t give a shit, he's brilliant. They actually came up to me and applauded me for my Snow Patrol comments, which ended up in the Daily Mirror. They were all going
"Well, someone's got to say it!" Unfortunately it's always left to me!

We were out with the other Tom, the singer from the Enemy, in Japan. He was looking slightly the worse for wear; I don¹t think he'd eaten anything the whole time. His brilliant quote was "The only thing I eat from the sea is salt." He was fucked over there, he really was. I think they're a really special band, I think they are going to grow and grow. There is something unique about a band that young being so fully formed. Also, in the NME, he said "Nicky Wire is a giant in physical and historical terms" I've got to
love someone who says that! I fell in love with Japan again on this trip. I've fallen in and out of love with it a few times now, but playing to that many people in those venues was incredible.

The bass player of the Noisettes came up to me and said "The Holy Bible" was his favourite ever record, saw us seven times on that tour... Ffye from the Guillemots, he was there, he knows every single word on "The Bible", I kid you not. The singer of The Sunshine Underground, his thing was "Everything Must Go" how come none of them end up sounding like us - they were all
sweethearts though.

The northern V gig was just brilliant, probably the best UK festival gig we've done since T In The Park in 1999. It was just starting to drizzle, we had a huge crowd, I don't really know why it was so big for us up there. It was really special, quite touching. For the first time in a long time, we got that singing back thing.

Had a great time at Electric Picnic in Dublin, watched The Good, The Bad & The Queen from side of stage, met Paul Simonon, which was a big thing for me. I own one of his paintings, a picture of Cromer beach in Norfolk, which is gorgeous, I went up and told him and said how much I loved his bass on the album. He was really chatty, I just wanted to tell him he was my bass-playing hero, which seemed pretty easy after half a bottle of vodka before I went on. Damon was looking in fine form too. Love that record. We'd
played a brilliant, anarchically shit gig before them. There was a bit where my bass fell apart and smashed. I didn¹t realise that when those Italia Maranello basses splinter when they break. I badly cut my hands, Davo cut his hands. Everything was out of tune but it was a real old fashioned, heavy, murky horrible Manics show. It was brilliant.

Scott Thomas, our agent, found this interview with Christian Bale in America I obviously haven¹t seen it because I haven't got a clue how to get You Tube anyway, he¹s on an American chat show going on about us, how we're one of his favourite bands. Bizarrely, five days before, another one of our great exports, Ioan Gruffudd had texted James from the Hard Rock Café in L.A. to say that "Motorcycle Emptiness" was playing on the jukebox sounding great. Christian Bale, I genuinely think he's a brilliant actor. I think 'The Machinist' is modelled on Richey. It's an anorexic, prison camp, insomniac, pyjama lookŠ he was brilliant in 'American Psycho' and 'Batman Begins' is one of my favourite hotel movies. Apart from the last 10 minutes, it's an absolute classic filmŠ him saying that was such a brilliant thing, it really has been a Manics summer of love this year! Even Mooro is enjoying himself, it's really strange. I think I've been really sociable this summer, I was saying to James the other day that I've built a lot of bridges this year. He reckons I've slagged more people off than ever. I pointed out it's the right people for once!

It's been a brilliant summer really. I never thought I'd love festivals so much, especially being as it rained so fucking much. Also, I was at home for six weeks after Stanley was born which was bliss. We got nominated for best reissue of the year for "Everything Must Go" in Classic Rock, which I was made up about. Been listening to loads of music, Sean's been updating my ipod; I don't know how to fucking do it. I love the Super Furries album; "Show Your Hand" is just a glorious pop record. Cherry Ghost, "Dead Man's
Suit", it's unbelievable, it's so poetic, the words are just amazing. "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osborne, Randy Rhodes is one of the greatest guitarists before "Motown Junk" in Japan; James was doing the riff from "Crazy Train", which isn't easy I can tell you. The Enemy album, lots of Neil Young. Shack "H.M.S. Fable" and "Delivery" by Babyshambles Pete's best song in years. A
honourable mention to That Petrol Emotion

We've been toying with the idea of doing a Christmas single. Its either"Ghosts Of Christmas" which is a bit Pogues-y or "Who Killed Christmas?" as in it's become fucking shit. James tells me he's written some words and I've got to fill in the blanks my line was "I killed myself on Christmas Day/it felt so good I did it again" Martin and James kind of looked at me a bit shocked. It might be official release, it might end up on the website, I don't know. We want to do something that sounds like The Sweet, something a
bit festive, a proper Christmas record, the anti-X Factor in the classic British tradition of Wizard, Slade and Saint Etienne featuring Tim Burgess. Hopefully the lyrics will give it something a bit extra.

Last thing - "Indian Summer" is out in a couple of weeks, the video is getting shown all over the place, which is great. We did it on the beach in Penarth with my brother Patrick, then him and me edited it in a little suite in Newport, properly lo-fi. Slightly prophetic title, the weather's been really alright this month so far. September has always been my favourite month, weather wise. You can wear a jacket without feeling cloistered and hot.

Some thoughts to leave you with desperate shame about Gordon having his picture taken with Maggie but on the plus side me and James are interviewing Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson from Rush for Classic Rock. Saxondale is back, Gavin and Stacy and the Rugby world cup is on and the conkers are falling. Sometimes life is sweet!

The Thoughts Of Nicky Wire, May 2007

Thu, 31 May 2007 14:11:00 +0100

It's Tuesday afternoon in a hotel in Norwich that appears to have been modelled somewhere between the Crossroads motel and Alan Partridge's temporary roadside accommodation. Nicky Wire sits drinking cranberry juice while we sit updating the Report From The Field photo blog section on the website (keep checking for on the road stuff over the next week or two). The band are using their day off to record B-sides for the next single ("Autumn Song"). Wire is in a jubilant mood in spite of the surroundings.

So, three weeks since the album was released...

"Got shown Greg Haver's blog the other day - he's got his own f*****g little blog, and it's just three pages of him moaning about the album being number 2 by 690 copies... he just wanted more money from his points, it's hilarious. We love Greg, he's working on an album with the Hot Puppies at the moment, says it's amazing. Two weeks into the tour and Glasgow and Wolverhampton have been the absolute highlights so far, the second night in Cardiff ran it pretty close. Everything has been great overall, some really good leeryness in Preston, I've got a really nasty gash on my leg. For some reason, when I came on in the second half in my skimpy miniskirt, there were some real lads, I got four pints chucked at me. One grazed my cheek, one got me in the leg. I was just being my usual self, going mental. It was all good fun... well, as good fun as a pint in the face can be. I think it ended up with me saying "You obviously threw that at me 'cos you're such a f*****g ugly c**t" and something to the tune of "Come up here and you'll get a f*****g bass across your head" to which James goes "Ooooooooooooo!"... so Preston was pretty 'lively', as they say... "Naughty" as Danny Dyer would say. Glasgow Barrowlands was just an amazing gig. If the album had have been number 1, 'cos it was the day after, that would have been like when The Faces played Sunderland the day after Sunderland won the FA Cup, supposed to be one of THE great celebratory gigs. If every city had a Barrowlands you wouldn't want to do a bigger gig, it really is incredible. If Swansea had one of them...

So, tour wise, we went from pre-tour nerves to physical breakdown. I've had a torn calf muscle. I went to the masseur at the hotel in Manchester (long story, went there after the Preston gig), she told me - I think she's exaggerating. James has got a dodgy knee. The nerves have gone at the moment, but they'll be back in London. It's always the way, it's fine then we get there and it goes to shitting ourselves straight away. Hugh Stevens turned up in Preston as well, he was up for that Radio 1 shindig but left early to come see us. He's a good "Zeitgeist" believer, he got a dedication, all the "Zeitgeist" believers get dedications. He loves Johnny Boy and they were supporting, so he got to see them. He's a big fan of Strange Death Of Liberal England, I told him they're doing 3 shows so hopefully we'll see him again. The Enemy joined us last night, they were really good. There's something about them boys. The supports have all been great, I think we chose well there. Hopefully we'll do something similar on the arena tour at Christmas... shit, shouldn't have said that...

Album wise, it's a bit more frustrating knowing we were so close. With the single we ended up loosing by a couple of thousand so you kind of take that on the chin, but when it's as close as it was with the album. Back in the day you'd have just had a buying team, someone would have made it happen, more TV ads... but, you know, "Everything Must Go" was number 2, and, honestly, if you'd have told us after "Lifeblood" that we'd be selling out a tour in two hours; having the biggest hit single we've had in probably 10 years; our biggest hit album in 5 or 6 years - it's gone top 10 in Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, it's already doing well in Sweden, Germany, Greece, Austria - it's the biggest radio hit we've ever had there. Switzerland, Italy... if you'd told us there was a chance of that at the end of "Lifeblood" we'd have bitten your hands off to get it..."

Do you think the solo records helped level the playing field a bit?

"I think the solo records made us look like different human beings, which was really important. Kind of more frail, fragile... more talented even... something outside of what we're known for. We're a bit like the Ramones in a sense - Richey has always been Richey Manic, I'm only known as the Wire 'cos... 'cos I'm the coolest. In a purely technical way, I don't think I'd have ever done anything like writing half of "Your Love Alone", I just don't think that would have happened if I hadn't learnt how to write songs for myself... that's not taking credit at all, by the way. Also I think they might have reminded people in a way as to why they liked us in the first place, might have removed some of the bullshit that's built up over the last few years. The best thing about those solo records is that they didn't sound like the Manics, with the exception of "Still A Long Way To Go" off James' record, which I do think would have made a great Manics track. James' was definitely a great singer/songwriter record and mine just sounded like nothing unless you grew up with C86 and Lou Reed."

You're never tempted to get up and do a solo section, like James does acoustic songs?

"Zeitgeist" nearly came up the other day but I bottled it. We did do a few bars of "Wattsville Blues" 'cos some idiot's calling out for it. On James' solo tour they used to shout for "Sleepflower" every night, so we've started playing that every night after the acoustic bits. It's sounding f*****g great, we're just sounding like such a gigantic rock band at the moment. Handclaps sporadically break out in the breakdown. That and "Autumn Song" have really worked. "Autumn Song" just sounded like a single straight away, from the first gig in Cambridge. The last two nights we're done "Imperial Bodybags" which is a tough one to play, it's like a pile driver, pure metal rockabilly. "Born To End" has been in a lot, that's great. All the stuff I talked about previously, about reconnecting with the fans, the people who first fell in love with us, it's all come good. The only problem at the moment is that we aren't doing anything off "Lifeblood". It's not because we don't love the record, it just hasn't seemed to fit. I've been trying to get James to do "1985" acoustic, but he can't remember all the words! Everything else has been represented, there's something like 6 songs off "Generation Terrorists"... "Little Baby Nothing" has been amazing every night. I think this is the best we've ever played, Sean (Read) & Wayne have really taken the pressure off James with backing vocals... there's a brilliant Larry Sanders episode which is based around the idea of 'the man who plays piano with his ass', which is what Sean Read is. On one song, I think it's "Kevin Carter", he's doing percussion, he's playing the sax solo and he's doing keyboards and backing vocals. He is the man who plays piano with his ass. Wayne's really singing really well and it's the best Mooro has ever drummed. I know it's boring for people but it's f*****g amazing. His time keeping is incredible he's just reached a level. He's turned into one of his gadgets, he's become a f*****g human metronome. Bradfield's solos are truly heroic, the spirit of Slash has re-entered his body and soul, he sounds like Jeff Beck on steroids."

What's been going on the bus?

"Been listening to Gallows. We watched "A History Of Violence" a few times, absolutely brilliant film. "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" - Sean's been watching all the spaghetti westerns. "Football Factory", "The Business" - for some reason I love Danny Dyer, he's so bloody homoerotic in that it's hilarious. "Sexy Beast", Richard Pryor live, "Snakes On A Plane". "F**k Forever", Babyshambles. If we covered that we'd turn it into a rock beast. The Hold Steady, I like that record apart from his voice, it's like early Wilco. The Enemy, been listening to them, they've definitely got that spark there. Got the Strange Death Of Liberal England 7" given to me, not managed to play it but it looks nice which is half the battle. James has got a real soft spot for the Kaiser Chiefs, so they've been on a lot. Been reading Kurt Vonnegut "A Man Without A Country". James got me a book, "Non-Violence" by Mark Kurlansky, which is brilliant, James thought it would be funny to get that for me. Been reading a great magazine called 032c, the Berlin issue, the Werner Herzog and Simon Norfolk features are out of this world. I've been given a load of brilliant homemade clothes by fans, been wearing loads of it on stage. Loads of bracelets made for me. I've been spending loads of money on Urban Decay make up, really good glitter stuff. And I've been finishing most gigs off with an ice bath to sort my legs out. You get a massive bag of ice from catering, lie down in my pants and get covered in ice... there's an image for you."

What you doing now for your day off?

"Now, we're just off to the studio to do some B-sides for the second single, "Autumn Song". There could be a Nicky Wire's Secret Society number on there, could be a McCarthy cover and apparently James and Sean are doing an instrumental called "The Vorticists" - watch this space!"

April 17th 2007 Blog

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:10:00 +0100

April 17th 2007, a quick audience with Nicky Wire, a hotel room in London. England are playing South Africa at cricket n silently in the background. He is drinking hot chocolate.

We did the first gig of the campaign, our first official gig I'd say, in Cologne on the weekend. It was heart-warmingly full...scarily so. There were some brilliant hardcore fans from the UK there, the true Secret Society Girls. I must add that they were dressed in cheerleader outfits with TEAM WIRE written in glitter across their chests. I think James and Sean just took that one on the chin. There was lovely kid from Ireland there... actually, to be honest it was a lot of the people who turned up at all of my solo gigs! There were some lovely German fans we've known right from the start. I did my usual bit of German speaking, post "I Killed The Zeitgeist". 'Sehnsucht!' 'Ich heise Nicky Wire, das ist der Manic Street Preachers!" I got worried that it made it sound like I was saying it was my band. When we were in Germany, I got given this brilliant book that has been being compiled for years, which is pieces of art by alternative rock stars- mine's the best in there, obviously! (The picture is a painting of Saint David's Wood - you can find the book at http://www.myspace.com/skizzenbuchunterwegs) It's a beautifully done book. Maximo Park's one is brilliant, very architectural. Ricky Wilson's is good, it's quite Matisse like I think I was the only one who sent them the physical painting too. I was tactile...

Shit, England are f**ked there...

Anyway, that was really good, the first gig, first time we've properly played tracks off "Send Away The Tigers". We did 5 new tracks, a few oddities as well. "Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children", I don't think we've played that in about 6 years, that was really good. Off the new record, we played "Send Away The Tigers", "I'm Just A Patsy" "Autumn Song", "Your Love Alone" which James is finding really hard without Nina, 'cos he's literally getting out of breath, having to sing all the words, all the replies, it doesn't leave him much room to move... we did "Underdogs" as well. 5 new ones, plenty of old ones. As far as first gigs go, there were no real disasters. Then we drove all the way back to Heathrow, dropped Sean off, flew to Dublin, did a load of promo, James did a couple of acoustic sessions. We've got a Top 20 airplay hit in Ireland, very good reaction over there... we just confirmed Electric Picnic over there too. Nina's coming in tomorrow, we're doing E4, T4 - you know, whatever all those f**king young children's programmes are (due to be broadcast the weekend of the 22nd April). We're doing 'Transmission' down in Swansea, in the Brangwyn Hall. We played there on the second 'Lifeblood' tour, it's got these huge murals on the wall, it's really beautiful. We're back in Swansea doing Fflam later in the year too. We're hoping Nina will be good to do a couple of festivals with us, hopefully Hultsfred in Sweden and Glastonbury. V Festival, we'd love her to that but that's a bit far away to plan...

England just lost another wicket - for 8 - theWorld Cup is over. This is the last chance saloon for England, imagine they'll be sent home, imagine the coach will be sacked from the one day side after this, 'cos it's been awful...unless they bowl South Africa out...

Coming back from Germany, we had a great service stop. I do think I am the person who should stand up for British service stations, there's always some cunty chef on BBC 2 saying how "As a kid I was driving through France and there were these great services where they served beautiful bread and free range chicken." Yeah, where's the f**king fruit machines and video games, where's the f**king M&S food shop, where's the brilliant stationary shop where you buy any magazine. You go into one in France and they've still got Betamax videos and some dusty fucking antiques, just 'cos you can buy a belly of pork people think it's great. Services are are fantastic. Reading services are f**king genius. I could fucking live there. Costa Coffee... food that's just been there, getting crisp for hours on end, a breakfast that's been there for 8 hours, dried out and shrivelled up, I f**king love that...

On the bus, the whole 'garden shed' bus journey, consisted of repeated listens to "Marquee Moon", the first Goldie Lookin' Chain album... you forget how much that record makes you smile. The tour bus now, and this is how much things have changed, the bus has a hard disc facility with 300 films on it. Sean was in his element. We watched "25th Hour", "Blood Diamond", "Equus" (the Richard Burton version which was really f**king grim), "The Thick Of It - the whole first series. Listened a lot to the Bright Eyes album, which I've absolutely fallen in love with. The first four songs are awesome. The lyrics... I have to say I don't think there are too many people who write better lyrics than me but he really does write some amazing words. The rhymes he gets out of words too...

The other week, I had a very rare night out in London, dragged kicking and screaming by all of James' mates to the Jon Savage book launch (CLICK HERE). It was a brilliant turn out for the boy - Johnny Marr, Edwyn Collins, Nicky Wire. Jon was in a beautiful checked lilac jacket mixed with a lilac polo neck. He looked on fine form. The book is brilliant, highly recommended by me, a heavy read, really f**king good...

So other than that we're about to start another load of rehearsing, we've got about 6 radio sessions coming up. We're trying to rehearse in London then weu'll be on the never-ending tour - the Bob Dylan Manics tour of the UK. Now it's less Springsteen, we're more like the 'Rolling Thunder Revue' At the moment, support wise, I think The Enemy are doing a few, Fear Of Music are doing a few. Davo is roadie-ing for us AND playing support as Johnny Boy on 3 nights which is a big call for him. The Little Ones are supposed to be doing a few but there is a question mark at the moment over them. The Enemy were on Soccer AM the other day talking about doing it, the singer is really f**king bright in interviews. F**king young too...

Finally, one brilliant thing for us, this time around we've actually got a release in America. That's the first time in a while. Red Ink are putting it out there. There you go - Nicky Wire's f**king solo career pays dividends again!!!

MARCH BLOG - PART II

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:05:00 +0100

The cover shot for the record is by the photographer Valerie Phillips (from her book 'Monika Monster, Future First Woman On Mars'). What made you chose that imagery?

NW - we were just sitting around in Stir Studios one day. I'd been fishing around in my library the night before, someone at the record company had said that we needed something iconic, something like Primal Scream would use, which has never really fitted us - it fits them but not us. I found the book and the imagery seemed iconic in a much more modern way. We've had a connection with Valerie for years, she shot the cover of 'Motorcycle Emptiness'. Her first ever photo session was us, in James & Sean's bedroom back home. They were some of the best shots ever of us, Richey up at Pen-y-fan Pond. I'm really into fate, into serendipity at the moment, and I seemed to be guided towards her book in my house. I took it into Stir the next day and everyone just seemed to think it was the right choice. James spotted the cover picture straight away. As soon as Martin, our manager, called her up she was on board. She's been offered loads of money from big corporations to use this particular book and she's always refused.

JDB - I think one of the valid comparisons we've always thought of for ourselves with The Clash is that we've always wanted to work with a very small collection of people, be it a producer or a photographer. We just hadn't seen Valerie for a long time. The fact that Nick was looking at an individual piece of work of hers that fitted the sentiment of the record, as he said, it's just serendipity.

SM - we hadn't seen her within that time and within minutes of meeting up again we'd reconnected.

Talking about reconnections, you're back working with Dave Eringa again here, although the record is mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, in much the same way that 'The Holy Bible' was overhauled by his brother (Tom Lord-Alge).

JDB - Dave really wanted to do the same things that we did. Dave is the person who has produced our only two number 1 singles ('Tolerate' and 'Masses Against The Classes'). In a strange way, the ambition that we had matched the one that he had. He wants us to be a marquee band again. It was like we'd independently arrived at the same point.

NW - I don't want to be disingenuous to Dave but for the first time in a long time were well rehearsed, we knew what we wanted, we weren't looking for a producer with ideas. That's nothing against Dave, he added loads, but we were fully realized as a band, we had a real deep focus.

JDB - Dave wasn't being quite so egotistical, he wanted us to sound a bit like Mike Hedges era Manics. He didn't mind following that type of inspiration.

NW - we were well played, well rehearsed. We always had the idea of someone else to mix it as well. Chris Lord-Alge was always this dream choice for us, a mixer who would give us this final sheen of FM rock that the record needed. Now, Dave wants all his records mixed by Chris Lord-Alge and Dave is very precious about mixing, he hates people getting their greasy paws on his records.

JDB - it's a strange bit of serendipity again, we've always had the template of 'Malibu', the song by Hole. Most of the album ('Celebrity Skin') is mixed by Tom Lord-Alge, but just that track, which has always been all of our favourite, is mixed by Chris. We didn't realise until the other day. It's kind of weird because that kind of power, that kind of crunch, that molten quality to the sound, that was what we were trying to achieve. You could never call Chris a subtle mixer. He didn't once try to make things more subtle.

The album couldn't really sustain much more at that level of intensity, at around 35 minutes, it's the perfect length.

NW - we did scratch around trying to find the mythical 'Small Black Flowers' moment. We really went round the houses and in the end it didn't need it. We also edited as we went along. We dumped songs before we even got into the process. We knew which were the best songs so we thought 'Let's not fanny about'. 'Lifeblood' we had about 27 fucking songs. It was ridiculous.

JDB - I think sometimes you convince yourself that if you've done something before that it's easy to achieve again. It's not. There is a lot more dark science involved. We assume that just because we came up with 'Small Black Flowers' before that we could do it again and that's just not the case. Dark forces guide you sometimes. There's a tiny bit of voodoo there. If it's not happening, just because you've done it before doesn't always mean you can do it again. We just made a decision that we couldn't force that 'tender' moment. There isn't much tenderness on the record, I must say...

NW - there's a bit of mournful melancholia..

'Underdogs' seems like it's written with the fans in mind, in the same way 'You Love Us' and 'Masses Against The Classes' could be said to. How important is it to project specifically with the fans, to make a connection, which very few other bands seem to do?

NW - it is really important. You never stick with a band unless you make a real, deep connection. I think those two had it with Echo & The Bunnymen for a while. I probably had it with Whitesnake, then the Smiths. It leaves an indelible scar.

JDB - also it's a connection with our past. A lyric like 'Underdogs' has a strange symmetry, it connects with what we were when we were very young. We realise that the song is kind of written about how we were when we started out as well.

NW - coming from Wales, you're just naturally an underdog.

Talking about looking to the past, your 20th anniversary as a band must be coming up soon?

JDB - we should take that from when we wrote our first song really.

NW - I always consider 'Motown Junk' as when we started.

SM June 88 'Suicide Alley'. We should re-release it.

JDB - then people would realise that we stole the verse of 'Suicide Alley' for the chorus of 'Little Baby Nothing'

NW - It's recycling. It's ethical.

At the end of the Lifeblood tour you said that people wouldn't be seeing you for a couple of years. Solo records followed within 12 months, recording for SATT started almost immediately. What is it with the Manics work ethic?

SM - just not enough on the TV I suppose.

NW - it's a kind of clichéd thing to say but it's creativity I suppose, a genuine urge...
There's a line in 'Autumn Song' which goes "Born to destroy, born to create" which is very much us. Creation and destruction very much go hand in hand.

JDB - I missed the conflict of being in a band. In a good way. Missed the conflict of disagreeing about certain ideas, then finding the concensus and writing a song, especially after doing the solo thing - I was like 'The Man With Two Brains', having arguments with myself. It's brilliant to argue and then be forced to do things, that kind of organic conflict gives rise to creativity.

NW - there's also a bit of a "garden shed" complex. Recording and being in a band is the most luxurious escape for a bloke, the best garden shed experience that one can have. I think we all need it, it's our solace.

Live wise, does Springsteen-esque epic sets mean you'll go on a voyage of discovery through Meic Stevens back catalogue ala BS's Pete Seeger sessions? What can people expect from the gigs this time round?

NW- this is where Sean gets nervous...

SM - we'll play for an hour and a half then Nick will do the next hour, solo.

NW - the idea behind that was that we are going to play loads off the new album but not one of those cunty bands who go "We're not playing the hits." It's just going to be a long trawl through the old stuff as well as the new stuff.

JDB - take the word trawl out...

NW - I hate it when you get bands going out and they just refuse to play any of their old songs, that's all.

JDB - it's just admitting that we've always had a really strong rock'n'roll entertainment ethic. I know Springsteen is being mentioned in connection with a lot of people at the moment and he's always been a valid artist but he has always been a corny motherfucker too. He's always walked that line between incisive commentator and an entertainer.

NW - we are talking a lot more 'Born In The USA' than 'The Ghost Of Tom Joad'.

What's each of your favourite Cardigans song?

NW - mine is 'Holy Love'. One of my favourite songs ever written, the lyrics are amazing.

JDB - 'Erase and Rewind'. Between that and 'For What It's Worth'.

SM - mine is 'Communication'. I love the guitar solo in it, it's so simple.

Was Nina Persson the only choice of singer on 'Your Love Alone'?

NW - she was.

JDB - surprisingly, cos it was Nick's choice, from writing it. I don't know if you wrote it with her in mind?

NW - I did, yeah.

SM - the question was never "Is she the right person?" it was always "Will she do it?" and if she doesn't what are we going to do?

NW - there were a couple of back up ideas. James worked out straight away it really suited her range

JDB - 'Little Baby Nothing' was a one shot as well. Martin Hall had the idea

NW - funny Martin coming up with a porn star

JDB - it's very rare when that kind of thing happens.

NW - We were used to people telling us that these ideas couldn't work. People were afraid to even ask Chris Lord-Alge. When we did the Greatest Hits ('Forever Delayed'), I really wanted Elton John to redo 'Little Baby Nothing'. I just wanted to try something like that. You end up getting quite scared of asking people. The fact that she seemed keen really early on when we sent her the demo, her management came back saying she was a fan of the band...

JDB - at the end of the album sessions in Ireland, I got on the plane to New York from Shannon airport, met up with her and her husband, who used to be in Shudder To Think, I can%u2019t remember where their studio was, but he recorded her in five takes, then I was on the plane back home. One of the easiest things we've ever done.

The album features songs called 'Indian Summer', 'Autumn Song' & 'Winter Lovers' which season is truest to the Manics?

NW - it used to be winter for me but my body can't take it anymore..

JDB - he's fucking gone and deserted me, I'm the only winter lover left now.

NW - it's autumn for me..

JDB - summer for you, you fuck!

NW - September, its my favourite holiday time

JDB - why were you so fucking miserable in September then?

Sean?

SM - it's all the same fucking season nowadays anyway. I'm a constant throughout the year..

NW - a constant fucking misery.

Final question, a proper Myspace blog moment - the mood in the Manic Street Preachers camp at the moment is...

JDB - feels like the disconnection of the training camp

NW - training camp is good. It feels like training at the moment. And it can only get worse.

march blog

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 12:19:00 +0100

On a blustery, slate grey Friday in March, Manic Street Preachers are working flat out in a dingy rehearsal room in Cardiff. The mood in the city is pensive as flailing Welsh rugby team are playing England in the 6 Nations the following day. This is pretty much to be the only thing bothering the band - a 40 song set list and two untested musicians doesn't seem to be a cause for concern. A new album, a single that is about to go to radio, an impending tour that sold out in three hours... all in a days work.

PS they needn't have worried in the rugby, Wales hammered them. Happy times.

Robin Turner, Socialism Magazine

"Send Away The Tigers" was a phrase used by the late great Tony Hancock. What's the significance to the Manics in 2007?
NW - I was always a massive fan. Richey used to love him too. This was obviously very pre-Pete Doherty. I like the tragedy of his life more than his comedy. That's the real dichotomy of it, the way he ended up washed up and washed out in Australia. There's a line "there's no hope in the colonies" which is basically Hancock going there to try to save his career, then ending up killing himself. His big decision was to sack his writers, that's what would haunt him forever, just like Blair's bad decision was Iraq and that will haunt him forever. That's the parallel in that particular song, lyrically.

What music was inspirational during the recording?
JDB - to me it was two old Jeff Beck albums. The first time I went to Japan (1991) I came back with "Beckola" & "Truth", I've loved them ever since. Early Skids stuff is in there too. I just realised that Jeff Beck and Stuart Adamson were, and I know this sounds quite trite, they were guitarists who were always very expressive, almost like a backing vocal the way they played. I wouldn't say it's going back to my guitar roots, but I definitely looked back to early Jeff Beck records, when he was playing with Rod Stewart and Stuart Adamson with The Skids, I just thought 'fuck it', those were the kind of records I always used to practise to. They were the kind of people who were never ashamed to play a solo.

NW - "Give 'Em Enough Rope" just the way The Clash finally became a proper rock band. Alice Cooper. Smashing Pumpkins. "Quadrophinia" was a big lyrical influence, the way Pete Townshend reconnected with his audience, he was convinced he had completely bamboozled Who fans to the point that people didn't understand what the band were about, which is, I think, what "Lifeblood" did with our fans. We don't slag "Lifeblood" off because we achieved what we wanted and the songs were great, but what we achieved was an amoeba... a barely living organism that functions within it's own little bubble. Aerosmith "Pandora's Box". Mott The Hoople I think James was listening to...

JDB - Their album "Mott", it's really slightly pompous, which I kind of like really. Going back to a lot of guitarists from the 70s and 80s, their playing really was pretty bombastic, they weren't afraid to shred it up a little bit, I just looked back at the early Manics stuff and that always seemed what we were naturally best at. Our natural state was being aggressive and sometimes overblown. When we started playing these songs, that's kind of how it felt, it felt full frontal. A lot of those records reminded me of our past in a funny way.

SM - drumming wise, I was just thinking about what I'd have done when we were first in the band, just keeping it really simple. I never try to get too inspirational about these things. I just tried to be me when I was 21 again.

JDB - I think you went back to your Topper roots a tiny bit as well. Really controlled aggression. Whereas "Lifeblood" was more mechanical, I think you went back to the Topper Headon style of controlled aggression.
SM - Yeah, pre-"Generation Terrorists", "Motown Junk", "You Love Us", that kind of thing.

NW - Actually, I have to say Hole's "Celebrity Skin" was a massive influence. Sonically that was a good litmus test of what we were after.

With all the talk of returning to earlier sounds/roots, is this not a record that could only have been made by a band at this point in their career?

SM - It's not going back to the naïve past, it's definitely drawn from the experience of the time since. Obviously we're playing better and we know the studio a bit better.

JDB - it's just inevitable that when you find your natural state you're always trying to find something that compliments that, a hidden part of yourself. That's what "Lifeblood" was. You're discarding your 'method'... it's almost like being an actor, it's like saying I need to go to the theatre to try something else, then you just come to some realisation that you're a film actor and maybe that's enough.

SM - I think in a funny way, back then we were trying to achieve then what we've achieved now.

NW - always go back to Richey, when he used to wear a guitar strap that had "I Am A Cliché" written on it in big letters. It was half ironic but it was half saying "we're just a fuck off rock band". There's nothing to be ashamed of. If the songs hadn't have been so natural then it wouldn't have worked but within three or four demos we knew exactly where we were going. Also, James has had a hard time. For five years we've told him not to do any solos. This time round we were saying, "Wank your arse off."

JDB - there's a great Samuel Jackson quote I think of. He started his career as an actor, then he became a massive addict, took lots and lots of drugs until the start of the 90s. They asked him "how did you get your career back on track" and he said "Simple. Greed." He'd gone back to the original inspiration of why he wanted to become an actor, he'd wanted to be recognised, it was his ego. The only way he could get his life back on track was to reactivate that greed in himself. It's the same kind of thing with the way I played guitar on this record; I'd spent a long time subjugating the need to fire off a solo. When we started doing the demos for this record, Nick and Sean would be saying, "put a solo there" and it felt great again. It is egotistical, it feels great and that satisfies my needs if I'm being honest.

NW - James was starting to become known more as a singer. I'm not saying he's a bad singer but I'd rather hear his guitar than his voice sometimes. It's not his fault - all the reviews of "Lifeblood" were talking about how James was singing like an angel, the words scan so simply... if you listen back to "...Tolerate" it's just a million words with a lot of emotion and passion.

What did your respective solo albums teach you?

NW - that it's just much more fun being in a band. Making a racket together. To me, vanity projects are great fun, but they're not really the main business of life.
SM - it taught me not to do one.

JDB - the thing it taught me was that it was much easier playing that music on stage and being the centre of attention. I thought it was going to be more difficult. When I stepped back on stage to do the XFM Winter Wonderland gig (Manchester Apollo, Dec 06) I just realised that playing in the Manics is just about three people going at it with such a full force, it's like a physical fight.

NW - it's a serious thing, there is actually a concept behind Manic Street Preachers, which is why we are different, why there's not many bands like us. Maybe Blur, maybe Radiohead. Manic Street Preachers is still a concept. When you get onstage you have a duty to fulfil that social contract between you and the fans.

The Manics seem to work best when backed into a corner and fighting their way out, reacting against prevailing trends - as this record is up there with your very best, what is it a reaction to?

NW - it's a reaction against ourselves, primarily, in terms of reconnection. Sometimes you've just got to do what you do best. We came to the conclusion that there was one really good thing that we could do as a band...

SM - we reacted against ourselves, against politics, music... all those things really.

NW - I think it had to come from within really... that said, I do think there is a culture of decadence in this country at the moment. There are loads of good young bands in this country, but the most social commentary you're getting these days is how bad the bouncers are in Sheffield. That's the nadir of it really. Actually the nadir was when Arena had Theo Walcott's girlfriend on the cover and you just think, "What the fuck has happened to this country?" Fair play to Damon - The Good, The Bad & The Queen, I think the lyrics on there put a lot of young bands to shame.

Did it feel like, for want of a better term, you were elder statesmen and you had a duty to deliver this record?

NW - there is something inside... even something as awful as Neil Young's "Living With War", he still felt like "I'm the only fucker who is going to actually do this." It's not the greatest record he's ever made but at least he had the balls to try to articulate what he was feeling. There's a 'brilliant' new band every week at the moment, but there's no one who really seems to be stepping up to the plate. The Gossip are brilliant, mind, they stand for something. Even if they're not quite there yet with the records. That's what I love about bands, that's what we did, we showed ambition. The Klaxons is a good example. First time I heard them I thought "I love everything about this but they don't sound very good." But they've realized their potential, I think they're the one band who stand way above everyone else, they've got so many ideas, the lyrics about Greek mythology, the videos are just fucking fantastic. There is something brilliant about them. They stand out to me as a band who've just gone on their own. Bands who are fully realised when they come along tend not to work. Look at The Strokes, much as I still love them, it's been 'downhill skier' ever since the first album. Our peers, especially the great '90s bands Radiohead and Blur, none of us sold any records early on. None of us made a 'masterpiece' until our third albums. Blur nearly got dropped, Radiohead nearly got dropped and we nearly got dropped. There must be something in that.