Nicky in Total Guitar May 2001
"I said to James that we shouldn't rehearse any of the songs this time and he was a bit frightened by that. But as soon as we went into the studio we did Let Robeson Sing and Intravenous Agnostic in a couple of days, so I think he quickly realised that it was a much more exciting way of doing it"
(think this is Nicky) "The important thing on this album was to trust ourselves. We don't have to do everything 50 times to make it work. Not rehearsing meant that we incorporated the rough edges"
Nicky Wire, meanwhile, enjoyed trading places and getting to play some guitar. "It was very exciting" says Nicky. "I've written some songs over the years, but never anything that the band has done. We were in Wattsville and had nothing to do and James asked me if I had anything. I played him this demo and it just seemed to fit with the spirit of the album, really. James has written some lyrics this time and Sean has been playing his trumpet. I play guitar and James has been playing some bass. The whole idea of changing things seemed to fit really well"
In the early days, of course, it was rumoured that James played all the guitar and bass on the albums. Did he play much bass before? "Not a lot" says Nicky "but he has played some bass, especially the lead Peter Hook-like stuff (the bass lines for baby elian and royal correspondent are very reminiscent of new order's hooky, so I guess we can presume that James had a hand in those) But we seem to switch things around more. I often play the guitar during rehearsals. And the fact that I'm not that good, can be a good thing. In general I'll say that we trust eachother a lot more these days, we let eachother do and play whatever we want"
Two apparently opposing musical schools have always been represented in Manic Street Preachers. How do the Manics balance these apparent opposites. "I think that it is still important to keep the punk spirit in mind" says Nicky (and you're tempted to say well, you would say that wouldn't you) But obviously after six albums we have become a lot better musicians and we're able to record things a lot quicker"
"I think that we can make a record really, really quickly again cos I think that we've found a way of recording really quickly. I think we could have an album out within a year even though we'll be touring. That would be an achievement" James doesn't agree.
the comments in the interview are by total guitar magazine
