Steve: Hello. Nicky: hello there. S: How are you. Nicky: I'm ok thank you very much. S: and where are you calling from? N: some dingy rehearsal place in north london. S: so are you getting ready for the gigs then. N: yeah we are we're practising and it's going quite well.

S: when you get together to do something like this do you pull out one or two of the old songs and give them a dusting off. N: oh yeah the last songs we did were you love us, motorcycle emptiness, motown junk, faster and stuff like that, we've just been y'know swotting up on the old stuff as we speak.

S: right cos I suppose you're more familiar with some of the newer material cos you only just put that down I guess. N: yeah I mean it's probably the easiest kind of thing we've ever had to do, I dunno why if we just got better or because we made a more natural sounding album.

S: This was something I was going to ask you cos when we talked to James on new years day he was saying the new material was like this is another new era for the band almost like the start of another chapter. N: definitely. I mean it's just we realised we couldn't pursue the kind of orchestral path no longer. I think you know it would've been a disaster if we had. And the thing with this record I always like to think that it's almost some of the songs are tributes to the records that made us want to be in a band in the first place. Certain influences like with the record you're about to play it's really influenced by Raw Power kind of Iggy and the Stooges, So Why So Sad obviously very influenced by the beach boys and all those records that made us want to be in a band in the first place we wanted to recreate the idea of getting excited about something.

S: So is it rediscovering a hunger or is it a different sort of hunger for it. N: I think it's definitely rediscovering it but I think it came naturally I think the saturation point reached a peak with the gig in cardiff infront of 60,000 people, that was brilliant it was one of the best things ever but we realised there's no point trying to recreate that, if you peak in a certain way then you've got to move in a different direction I think. Just started playing all the records that I loved when I was young really.

S: are you saying you're regressed into childhood Nicky Wire... N: (evil laugh) that'd be a nice thought perhaps I wouldn't be so nasty then. S: so in retrospect do you look back and do you maybe think the last album was a wee bit too calculated or something which came too fast or... N: yeah I think y'know it's not the songs it's the way they were treated and we were just too intelligent about it, there were no rough edges really. There's still certain moments which I love on the record but you kinda know when you're doing things but it's certainly served a purpose for us but it's not something we'd ever want to do again.

S: Yeah sometimes you have to almost delearn don't you after like over analysing things for too long. N: totally. S: but anyway this record which we're going to play in a second, FTS, that's coming up but first we can unveil another live gig you're doing, tell us about this.

N: it's just a little kind of shindig we're doing in the coal exchange in cardiff, it's very intimate, think it's about 600 people something like that, it's going to be the first date we do in the uk and I don't know what it's going to be like cos I'm always quite frightened when you can actually see all those people... we're very excited about it, we tried to do something a little bit different in wales, it's from 62,000 people in the millennium stadium to 600 people so it's a dramatic change for us.

S: so it's cardiff coal exchange and the date is march the 8th. Tickets go on sale this Friday February the 9th at 8am from the city center ticket line westgate street cardiff. N: ever the professional you are.

S: One more thing... you're gonna hate this but I've got to do it because this is just one of the many emails I've had about it today. This is from Tonia Cook who says can you ask Nicky's response to manics fans having their napster accounts closed down because they've accessed the new manics tracks available on the site.

N: I'm fairly indifferent to the whole internet shenanigans really. If people found the tracks and everything then all well and good but the idea that napster is somehow a wonderful company and does great things is just rubbish because they're just another form of american capitalism, they're not a charity. They're a company and they'll end up wanting to make money and sell all their shares so y'know, I'm all for free access to everything but I don't think people should kid themselves that napster is like oxfam, y'know, it's alright for me to say it's great being on napster y'know because we're on our 6th album and I haven't got to worry about the money but if I was a young band and you know people were downloading my tracks for free and I was living in a shithole somewhere then I'd be pretty annoyed about it really. I think we can be a bit flippant about it because we've established ourselves. I think there's 2 sides to it.

S: those gig details again: march the 8th cardiff coal exchange tickets for the gig go onsale this friday that's february the 9th from 8 o clock in the morning from the city center ticket line westgate street cardiff, it's 2 tickets per person personal callers only. This show if you can't actually get to the gig will be live on radio 1 as well, we're going to take the show down there and do the gig on the evening session on march the 8th.