 Nicky: If you come to one of our gigs, it is one of the freakiest mish-mash of people you will ever see. Zane: But that's cos as a band you are, you always have been, even when Richey was a part of the band, you all represented very different parts of the human personality didn't you, in your band. Nicky: Yep [beep] the tall, spiteful, bitter one. The good bloke in the middle and the drummer who never says anything, just buys cars. Well, that's drummers. 
Zane: There is a great question I'm going to rush to before we move on to your first choice I believe. The question was, will Sean ever say anything at a gig? [Nicky laughs] And god forbid he should ever stand up and go "Thank you Wembley!" There'd be deathly silence.Nicky: We did tour Japan early on actually and he did wear like a Samurai headband and throw his sticks into the audience. That was early on. Zane: You can prove me wrong, but I reckon being the quiet drummer, which is a strange thing in itself, he has probably the darkest and most absurd sense of humour of anyone in the band. Nicky: Oh... yeah, I mean, seriously weird bloke, seriously. Zane: You can just so tell. [Libertines video finishes] Nicky: You used to see 'em on MTV2 about 2 years ago. Zane: Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Now you just see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, don't you. Nicky: Queens of the Stone Age 5 million fucking times an hour. Zane: Hey listen, we've got an audience we have to satisfy [Nicky's moaning in the background] Music television is all about flicking. 
Nicky: You're gonna convince me they were the greatest stoner rock band ever. Zane: I don't even wanna know what you think about Queens Of The Stone Age unless you believe they're one of the most awesome rock experiences of your life. Nicky: They're so puny, they sound so puny. So puny. Sean loves them actually. Sean loves them. He plays them in his Lotus, his little sports car. He drives round in it. I can't get out of his car cos it's so small and sporty. He traps me in there he does. "You must listen".Zane: Nicky Wire's on the couch and you're loving him. And I'm kind of loving him but hating him at the same time. The Queens Of The Stone Age debate we'll put to one side for the moment. Back to the message board. Someone actually wanted to know about... Playing at the Millennium Stadium before Wales beat Italy - your greatest moment? Nicky: Yes, one of them, it was fantastic. I sat next to Mark Hughses mother [the manager] which I didn't know. His mother-in-law. And I got a little bit boisterous, I have to say. Until she put her hand on me and went [Nicky whispers] "I'm Mark Hughses mother-in-law, be quiet". Zane: Lipstick Traces is the compilation, B-sides and Rarities. It's a kiss goodbye to the past and a chance to move on. And onwards and upwards with the future. Nicky: It is. Zane: We're going to talk about this forthcoming new record. One more from the message board for the moment. Bored Rigid - do you really read all the books you namedrop? Nicky: I've always said that the quotes we use on records, I'd never admit to reading all those books. But if you look in my bag now, you'd probably be pretty bored. Zane: Find a copy of Heat? Nicky: Closer. There's a Carol Ann Duffy poetry book and a book called Existentialism and Humanism - A Lecture by Jean Paul Sartre. 
Zane: Was it difficult, apart from the obvious reasons, when you decided to continue, for James to step up and realise that you're an entertainer, but James is now the front man of the band.Nicky: I know what you mean. The thing with James is, he's such a phenomenal musician. I mean, he plays 3 guitar parts live. Zane: He's a great guitar player. Has he ever been on the cover of Guitar Magazine? Nicky: Yes he has. He was voted, I think he was 96th best guitarist in Britain. Zane: He wails, man. For a man with very little fingers as well. Nicky: Yes, he's very strong hands though. But I mean he does play 3 guitar parts live. Somehow, as well as singing backing vocals and lead vocals. Cos we've never replaced Richey and it doesn't seem right at the moment to do so. But he is a phenomenal musician James, he really is. Zane: I don't think he gets - even though amongst the right circles he probably does - I don't think he gets enough respect in the mainstream media for his guitar playing alone. Nicky: I agree, he's a Rock God. Better than your mates anyway. Zane: Moving swiftly on. Do you have to bust my balls every single time? Zane: This new album that you plan to record in New York City. Are you gonna work with a producer, or are you going to do it yourselves? Nicky: Yeah, we're gonna work with a producer. Zane: Who is it? Nicky: I can't tell you, but it's gonna be good. Zane: Oh man come on, if you're gonna throw a dog a bone, I'm the dog [I don't think I've ever transcribed someone like Zane before, the things he says] Nicky: I know, James'll kill me. Last thing he said to me last night was [puts on a gruff voice] "don't talk about the new album Wire". Zane: OK, I respect James. Nicky: [continues as James] "I don't wanna be under that pressure". Zane: Rick Ruben? Nicky laughs. Zane: That's cool, that's absolutely fine, man. Russ Robinson! Nicky: You must be joking! Get all your rock mates out the way and then try and find someone classy. Zane: No, no, that's absolutely fine, that's cool. Steve Lillywhite! Nicky: [mouths] Steve Lillywhite! Zane: I'm just pulling names out of the hat. Jesus christ. Nicky: We can't afford any of them. We just want to make a direct kind of pop album. An elegaic pop... Zane: Glen Ballard [They both laugh] Zane: I know you're not gonna give away too much about this brand new album, and stuff like that, but I do wanna know, why New York? Nicky: I think we've had it a bit easy on ourselves, recording in Wales, going home at night to see the family and stuff. It's lovely and I really wish we could do it, but I think we just need a bit of psychosis and a bit of... Zane: Dave Freedman!! [still suggesting producers...] Zane: Found That Soul, I love that, I very much used to enjoy playing that on my radio show on XFM way back in the day. Nicky: It wouldn't be allowed now mate. Zane: Easy! Nicky: Playlist. Zane: No playlist, that's why I went. Nicky: 98 percent American music, 2 percent British [Zane swears at him] Zane: Found That Soul, good strong track. Are you going to maintain some of this punk rock spirit on the next record? Nicky: I don't think so. I think it's time for our Achtung Baby, our Automatic For The People, where it's a drastic re-invention. That's what I mean by clearing the decks [Zane suggests yet another producer] I don't think you'll get it actually. Zane: Really? Nicky: No. 
Really sad song, Bright Eyes. Watership Down's a really sad film. It makes me cry. James always would play that right from the start in the old bedroom days. You've got to understand, we're very sad people with no girlfriends, except the 4 of us. Sean had one, he just disappeared. Me, Richey and James just sat there. And he'd just play songs, Sweet Child O'Mine, Last Christmas, all that kind of stuff.[Clip of Last Christmas acoustic] That's from TFI, actually, which he did one Christmas time, which was a really good version. But it also shows our love of music, you know, we grew up in the bedroom, listening to Abba, Demis Roussos, you know, all your mothers and fathers records. So I think that comes out, just our love of certain songs. The Sex Pistols and the Clash were the only 2 real bands from punk that we felt had the kind of rock mythology that was needed. All the other stuff didn't excite us so much, the classic bands were The Who and The Stones and The Clash and The Pistols. Those comparisons all the time were what excited us. I mean the Clash were the reason... they weren't the reason we formed a band, but they were the band that made us believe we could be a band. Cos we saw 'em live on an old Granada Celebration Of Punk and you know, they were just as ropey and just as energetic and just as all over-the-place as we thought we were. You know, Paul Simonon's cheekbones, and Joe Strummer's politics, you know, Topper's drums. They were the perfect mix for us. The perfect mix of politics and pop. We had the same colour guitars, we had the same symmetry of the singer, the tall bass player, you know, everything seemed to fit. I think we did What's My Name really early on, about 93 maybe. And Train In Vain we did just cos Annie Lennox did it and we hated her version of it. Joy Division were probably our favourite band, but we knew, coming from Wales, there was no way we could go onstage and act as serious as them. We might have felt like Ian Curtis, but we couldn't go onstage and wear grey, we would have been dead in the water. 
Guns N Roses gave us a real glamorous edge. I don't know if people found it glamorous. It made us feel glamorous. We really did wear tight white jeans, and stencils, and makeup. It just made us feel different to The Roses. We couldn't compete with Stone Roses, they had that inbred Manchester swagger. We had to try 10 times harder, coming from a place with not much musical history, you know, South Wales. We were listening to Hanoi Rocks, Exile On Main Street and Guns N Roses and Public Enemy which was different to the rest of the country really.James and Sean, and Richey actually, they were the biggest Bunnymen fans around. The followed 'em around. I was more of a Smiths boy really. The first phase then, with Echo and the Bunnymen and then all the C86 stuff, The Loft we absolutely loved and Primal Scream and then the Weather Prophets and the Wedding Present. Half Man, Half Biscuit, all that kind of stuff. And then through that, more punk stuff. The Fall and all the rest of it. The Fall, up to when his missus jumped ship really, were an awesome band. There was nothing, there wasn't an Evening Session, there wasn't The Amp. It was much harder then, everything was based around the seven inch single. Which made it more precious, I personally think. You know, I had to seek things out. There was a book called Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus, which was one of the biggest influences on us. There was 2 books really, Jon Savage, England's Dreaming, which was the British view of punk if you like. And Greil Marcus is the American view. And those 2 books had a massive infuence on us. 
I get sent so many stuff from fans. I can't pretend every quote I've ever used I've read every book that's from. I'm not that literate. I've read a fair few of 'em [quote appears onscreen: "Then came human beings, they wanted to cling but there was nothing to cling to" Camus] I think it's the general culture of Manic Street Preacher fans and fanzines and websites and stuff. I very much steal, beg and borrow off that kind of stuff. But I always try and get it to fit the album or the single you know, there is meant to be a meaning behind it [quote appears onscreen: "The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger and ... dice for death" Nietzsche]I think the other good thing about it, using all those people, what we've always tried to do is to show people who are much better than ourselves, you know, whether it's writers or painters or whatever. That's always been the idea. It's not the idea "we're clever, we're showing you", it's just this person has said something better than we could ever say it [quote appears onscreen: "Regard all art critics as useless and dangerous" Futurists Manifesto: 1910] When a fan writes to you and said "I read a book because it was on one of your records" - a quote - then that's the best thing that can happen. That's the real joy of when I looked at a painting and it gave me something, that's great [DFL video quotes appear onscreen: When freedom exists there will be no state - A house is a machine for living in - Man does not create he discovers] James called me today, literally an hour ago, and he's dropping a cassette off of a new song he did. I gave him some lyrics a couple of weeks back and he's just gonna put a cassette under my door so... The excitement we've always had is still there right from 20 years now. There's still an amazing thrill of when the 3 of us get together and make a dodgy old racket. It's still the best feeling on earth. You know, when something comes right, when you know you get something right. It's the best. I always find it really weird when bands just have no ideas and complain about what the record company's done with the artwork or what the record company's done with the video. I mean, there's so much to write about, there's so much to think about. I haven't got time to do half of what I wanna do. Being a student of rock history, for me it includes artwork, it includes lyric sheets, it includes videos, it includes clothes. I don't know if it does for some other people I suppose. 
Wiz is the best video director [a pic comes up and he looks like a cross between early Sean Moore when he had long hair - and Johnny Depp] I think the 4 best videos we've ever done, he's done. Everything Must Go, Tolerate, Love's Sweet Exile and You Love Us. We feel really comfortable with him. We'll do anything for him. You know, get massaged by a 25 stone wrestler, who turned out to be a wrestler, not a masseuse, he lied to me. I wore a wedding dress. I ate oysters with Richey, which I despise, oysters. I ate one and threw up. And the rest are pepsi in the oyster things. I think if you get a video director you trust, then you're onto a winner. I think all his videos are fantastic.I mean sometimes it's fine, like Tolerate was about 120 grand: it's production values, it's sets, it's beautiful, it is Kubriqesque and it works. But sometimes, the decadence... I don't blame anyone else, I blame ourselves. I think it's easy for a band to say "we didn't know what was going on". You see the fucking budget. Everyone falls for it. We all fall for the big "you're gonna break America with a 300 grand video" once in your career. You just don't get royalties for 3 years. You know, from doing a cover of Guns N Roses It's So Easy, to Paul Robeson pretty much sums up our... some might call it contradictions but for me it's just that devouring of culture and finding things that really excite you. And reading about Paul Robeson or Axl Rose is the same thing to me. You just take different bits from different people. Some people just find it a bit supercilious I guess, but you can't deny what you enjoy, and I just enjoy finding out about people. 
Nicky's InfluencesGuns N Roses - Welcome To The Jungle.
The Clash - London Calling. Hanoi Rocks - Up Around The Bend. Echo And The Bunnymen - The Cutter. Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart.
Blur - Out Of Time.  Janice: What about the new stuff? I read somewhere there are working titles - Blue Print For Exile, Litany, Unwritten Diaries. Is all of this true? Nicky: We've got 4 or 5 songs on the go which we're really happy with. We want to re-invent ourselves, part of the whole cleaning-out-the-closet syndrome is to make the next sonic-leap, the next lyrical-leap, the next image-leap. We've got to come back with metaphorically an Achtung Baby, you know, where you draw a line in the sand and you just make a big jump. Whatever that is, I don't know, but it's gotta be. I am inspired by everything. I'm never short of ideas to write words because there's so much going on. There's so much to read, there's so much to see. I can't understand people when they say they've got nothing to write about really, you know, from a lyric perspective. Janice: So you are a sponge, and you're still soaking up everything that's going on around you. Nicky: Completely yeah. Janice: Sean's actually here. He's sat in another room. I said "come and shake a box of matches". "No, no, no". Nicky: It's the closest you ever got to a Sean interview Janice: Aw, he's lovely. He's quiet though, isn't he. Is he always like that? Nicky: He is. "Let Sean Sing" that's what the crowd sing now. [At this point, you wish they'd physically drag Sean into the interview, or at least I did, because I know how good at them he is] Janice: What about your mates from school, your peers, what are they doing? Nicky: One's in a band, the other one's in a band, and the other one's missing. Janice: But did many leave or did many stay? Nicky: I just didn't have any friends, Janice. Nicky: Sometimes I'd like to think we could be more chaotic and more shambolic but... I wake up and write 5 lists every morning. That's the way I've always been. That's the way I was brought up, that's the way I am. I'm not ashamed of it at all. Janice: I'm a listmaker. Whether I do it, but it makes me feel better. JDB: Well you should go in his office, he's got 5 different types of cellotape, 3 different staplers. Everything alphabetisised. Pen ends all over the place. Nicky: My dark secrets are coming out. JDB: Pens are his friends. Nicky: Some people take heroin, I just use cellotape. JDB: I still think I've got that kind of bedroom ethic. I either watch a film, read a book or try and write a song when I'm off. It doesn't make for a good interview, but I think that's still what our lives are like a bit. Nicky: I still think we treat songwriting in such a precious way that since we were 16, it's all about that. You don't want anyone else to hear it, it's just about looking at the song and hearing a piece of music, a little cassette or whatever. It's still definately totally inside us. If you lose that preciousness about the band and about your songs then you just sort of dissolve into nothingness. Janice: Where would you escape to then, James. JDB: To be honest I just find it easier to escape... Janice: In your head. JDB: Just 4 walls kind of thing. I've got a predeliction towards going to Italy quite a lot because there's not many British people there.  I read Lipstick Traces was your idea, you'd been bugging people for ages to do this. Why do it now? Nicky: We should have done it after This Is My Truth but no-one would let me do it because they were all just irritated by my constant bickering. I just get massive creative urges. Sometimes you wake up and you want the band to end, then 20 minutes later you want to go and do artwork and put things together and tour and... it must be quite hard for the others. James: We have arguments sometimes like Judge Dredd... [corrects himself] The song Judge Yourself. I like it but Nick really likes it. And because it'd been laying around for ages, we've only just recently mixed it, and I was like, yeah, that's good. And Nick was like, no, I love it, it's got to be on the album. And I was like, I like it, but perhaps we could keep it back for a box set in 50 years or something. And he was like, no, it's gotta be on this album. So now and again we do disagree, but it's never to the point of actually falling out. You've come with your list with some of your personal favourite cover versions from your album and also some cover versions that you like from other people. Let's get one on from your album, a personal favourite Manics b-side. Nicky: Well Prologue To History, it's the favourite lyric I've ever written, kind of post-Richey, it just deals with everything, up to that point in our career, it dealt with everything we've experienced. It's quite stream-of-conciousness and it mentions Steve Ovett and Phil Bennett in the same song, which is quite an achievement. Going through these 98 songs must have been a hell of a long process, but you also took into account the fans survey on your website when compiling the tracklistings for your b-sides. Did anything surprise you from the fans responses, a rarity that you guys had actually forgotten about yet the fans really, really love. Nicky: Yeah completely. It was on like for about 4 days, there was about 5,000 votes in 3 days or something it was. Bizarrely 15 of the 20 tracks matched up, we kind of agreed with the fans on 15 of them, but there was one, Too Cold Here, which was their number 1, I have to say, or number 2. Does that surprise you? James: It's just an absolute pile of excrement. Nicky: No-one could actually remember what it was, I was trying to whistle it, saying "you remember the one". It hasn't got much of a tune anyway. I think it might have been one fan voting repeatedly for it or something. The covers CD, it features reworkings of songs from Chuck Berry, Nirvana, Clash, Happy Mondays to Andy Williams. That is pretty diverse. Is that a reflection of the bands varied taste in music and your influences? James: I think, kind of like, yeah, but I think the main reason for doing covers has usually been that it takes the pressure off you. There's no kind of like... you're taking everything out of context and you don't feel as if you're adhering to any rules. In a sense you're kind of having, as much as 4 miserable bastards like us can have fun, that's us having fun. Nicky: I think that's true, and the songs we pick, and the way we do 'em. I do think it shows our genuine love of pop music. We've always been pigeon-holed as kind of miserable bedroom boys but we just grew up listening to so many records. And to have Paul Robeson and Wham on the same record, does show how much we just genuinely love music. James: Bright Eyes from Watership Down. Nicky: Which we did the last time we played as a 4 piece. James: Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head. Nicky: That was for the first Warchild album as well, the first thing we did after Richey disappeared, wasn't it. James: Yeah, it was the first thing we recorded. The first thing we recorded with Mike Hedges. When it comes to covers, you've got millions of songs to cover. How do you choose, cos that process must be even harder, surely? Nicky: Yeah, certain ones like when we did Suicide Is Painless, it was a toss up between that and Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers. And we just went for the really miserable lyric. I think Paul Robeson at the time, we done that song Let Robeson Sing, so that made sense. Sometimes it makes sense. Can't Take My Eyes Off You actually was around that time... in 83 the Welsh football side... James: It became the unofficial Welsh football fans anthem. Nicky: When Romania beat us to stop us going to America. That's how that one came about. Do you think a cover version can ever better the original though? James: Erm... Nicky: I'm trying to think of any. I was racking my brains last night, I was trying to think of a cover version that is better. Nirvana did a great unplugged cover... Nicky: The Man Who Sold The World. James: Yeah because, yeah because, obviously it's a Bowie track but Lulu's version of it is pretty bad. Nicky: I like Lulu's version of it. I'm beginning to build this picture of you Nicky, and this is the first time we've met. You've got all this stuff at home, collating all your videos... Nicky: Sad! Your words not mine. James: In his actual study he's got like 4 different sizes of staplers, 5 different sizes of cellotape. Are all your CD's alphebetised? Nicky: Yes of course. Yeah, mine are as well. James: There's nothing wrong with that. Nicky: I think Sex Pistols version of No Fun is pretty amazing. Especially at Winterland. James: Yeah. Nicky: "It's fucking awful!" - when he says that [I think that's what he says] Let's play a cover from the CD. There's so many I wanna do. We could do Out Of Time which is from the second Warchild album. Nicky: Out Of Time, the day my baby daughter was born, I wasn't actually there. James and Sean did it all in London. And I remember calling them up the next day, and my baby girl was born, so it's got nice memories for me. Let's play another of your favourites, a cover version that you guys like, or a b-side that you like. James what do you wanna go for? James: I think I'll go for something like Comfort Comes actually because it was a signpost for the direction that we were going to take at that time, so it's an historically important kind of like stylistic kind of like statement. I've got some more of these fans emails. This is from Lisa in Maidstone. She says "I read once that you'd always planned to make one explosive album and then vanish. Are you pleased that never happened?" Nicky: Not really, I think if we could've pulled it off and sold 25 million records and split up it would've been the greatest statement of all time. Unfortunately it didn't happen. James: I'm glad it didn't happen. Those kind of statements were always Nick and Richey's game. Nicky: Oh alright!. James: Because we wouldn't have written a song like Design For Life, we wouldn't have written a song like If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. And that would've been kind of tragic. This is from Jim by email, who I took off the official website last night. "Who piss you off more, zealous old fans who drone on about the good old days, or ignorant new fans who have little or no idea of your history pre Everything Must Go" James: Neither. Not at all. Nicky: Neither. I think if you do go on our websites and the affiliated ones and all that it's an incredibly healthy debate on every kind of facet of us and the world. It's really healthy that we've got that kind of fan base. Not many bands have, you know, got that dedication and that intrinsic... James: The split in our fans does put us in an interesting position because even though we did the website vote for the b-sides, a lot of those fans, the Bible-ites as we call them, will still moan about the fact that their perfect tracklist order is not going to be on the album, even though we've made the effort to include their opinions. The new fans, sometimes we'll play something off The Holy Bible and you can see it in their faces going "what's this song?" get it over and done with, play Design For Life, play the drinking song. But it doesn't bother us, because that would just represent some kind of inverted snobbery. We should play maybe a cover of a song that someone else has done. James: Erm Clash. Nicky: I Fought The Law as well. James: There you go, The Clash have really bettered the originals with some of their songs like I Fought The Law by Bobby Fuller, Police On My Back... Nicky: I think it's Eddy Grant. James: Eddy Grant wrote. They've constantly bettered the originals when they've covered songs I think. Nicky: I think I Fought The Law especially. Let's talk about the new album. I read not long ago that the album was pretty much work in progress or it'd been done. What's the state with the new Manics album? James: The only thing we know at the moment is we're determined to write just 10 songs and just have a really concise... Nicky: 10 singles. James: Yeah, try and write 10 singles which probably is impossible. Nicky: We want to make a concise album. James: We've just started writing songs and stuff and if anything doesn't come up to scratch we'll just chuck it away. We're not going to have lots of stuff hanging round for b-sides this time. Nicky: We want to do something elegaic, something quite poppy really I think in an experimental way. And is there a reason why you've chosen to record this new album in the USA, and I take it you'll be working with the same producers. James: Since Everything Must Go, we've always worked in the countryside in a residential studio and it's always been quite idyllic. And Nick's got it in his head that he wants to work through some kind of psychosis in the city, this time. Nicky: I know I'm not much of a city person but I think I need to just push myself a bit. So whereabouts in the USA are you gonna do it. Are you gonna do it in glitzy old LA. Nicky: I think New York probably. |
