THE FACE SEPTEMBER 1998 - The full interview appeared in their tour programme
Extracts from the "unabridged version" start and end with a star

Sean Moore is explaining the role the three Manic Street Preachers play in the video to their fairly glorious new single "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" when the conversation takes a strange turn. In the video, the group are trapped in some kind of totalitarian scientific experiment, playing the same song over and over until it makes them sick and faceless. "Basically we're an experiment gone wrong. Which, I suppose in a way, we are. We were going to do one album and split up, and as time's gone on we've become this five-album thirtysomething everything-that-we-didn't-want-to-be" You've spoiled it all by carrying on, I goad. "We know that. That's the thing. We feel, personally, to ourselves, that we have spoiled it. However much we still enjoy what we do, and people still enjoy listening to us, there's always that thing in the back of your mind that you think "it didn't quite go right, did it?"

What do people get wrong about you? Sean: They always try to break us down into individuals and I think Manic Street Preachers is more of a collective thing. Though Richey is lost to us, it's the loss of a limb of Manic Street Preachers... * rather than of the individual Richey which all the Richey-ites, Richey-philes see it as. I mean, personally to us it is a loss of Richey but to Manic Street Preachers it's just that...* part of the machine is missing. It's still Manic Street Preachers.

* Sean on Nicky: It's all about his personal predicament. What is his predicament? I don't know. I suppose he just feels alienated. What does he feel alienated from? I think the biggest thing is maybe people *

Do you think Manic Street Preachers are sexy enough? Sean: No, not at all. Just because we've become old and bloated. Maybe to the record company it's a problem; myself, I don't care. It's just marketing, isn't it? I suppose it's like cars - people tend to go for the more sleek, shiny, daring-looking cars. As you get older you start moving towards the Volvos; practical boring greyish sorts of cars.

We are informed that Sean has two Dysons. James has none but he has a cleaner. "He has succumbed" mutters Sean, darkly "to those London ways. Everything - cleaners, gardeners, interior designers"

* For a 28 day tour, Sean will take 28 pairs of underpants *

* The basic music is written by James then worked on with Sean *

* Nicky mutters something rude under his breath to Sean. "Ooh" says Sean, Philip Larkin of the valleys!" *

* Sean talks about how much he enjoys watching Patrick Moore's The Sky At Night. "The Sky At Night is the most boring programme on television" says Nicky, derisively. "You're someone who likes watching women's golf" retorts Sean, reasonably. They met Page & Plant (from Led Zeppelin) at the Ivor Novello Awards and told them how they used to play their "The Song Remains The Same" video on the tour bus on early tours when they wanted to go to sleep. "Robert Plant said it used to have the same effect on him" says Sean *

Tell me some things that are true. Sean: The sky is blue. The world is round. It goes round the sun. I could go on for days (please do...)

At school Sean used to get in trouble for wearing his hair sticking up (he used to put coke in it)

* "Sean always had a girlfriend, of course" says Nick. "It was easier for him" "No it wasn't" Sean objects. "I didn't have a girlfriend til I left school" "You had a bit more than us" Nicky reiterates. "Yeah" says James "You wore really good school trousers and you had a tie pin" "You were always so immaculate" Nicky agrees "And your tie was always really cool" says James though he does add, with a certain edge "and you had all The Thompson Twins albums - the girls loved that sort of stuff" "But after school" Sean protests "I didn't used to go anywhere. It wasn't as though I went to youth clubs or discos..." "You know what I'm on about" says Nick...*

Sean lived with James after his parents divorced. Earlier, alone, Sean had described the magical days when they would spend afternoons in the bedroom where he and James shared bunkbeds, drinking cups of tea, listening to the Clash and reading out poetry... * and eating Cadbury's Spiras *

* Richey once played a tape on a school trip to France annoying the teacher. Sean: "Which never left him, throughout his life. He's always loved to annoy" "He loved to do it to us" Nicky says "He'd put Pantera on at one hundred and fifteen decibels" "Or Dogs D'Amour" Sean says, ruefully *

* The Glam phase was a bit much for Sean. "I tried it for one gig and thought "this isn't me" he says. "I didn't feel comfortable" He stuck with the Dorothy Perkins womens blouses for one British tour. "They weren't cut properly" he complains. "So I'd be drumming away, getting stuck to all this horrible crimplene nylon stuff which was just chafing my arms" After that tour, he wore shirts instead *

On the 4 Real incident, Sean says: I wish Richey hadn't felt he needed to do that. I regret that it was the start, I feel, of a downward spiral in his life, personally.

* I mention to Sean the line "When our smiles were genuine" Sean: I suppose they're not now. We're playing this media circus now. Which we did in the beginning but, even though we were talking about alienation, in a much more optimistic and lively way. We've become very melancholic over the years. Me: the irony is, back then you were failing at everything you set out to do. Sean: yeah, we enjoyed it. Me: And now you're a success. Sean: We had greater expectations then than we do now. Me: So what is your greatest expectation now? The best that can come from this? Sean: (shrugs) Well obviously we can do a lot better in Europe and America than we do now *

* How many members of the Manics have you kissed? Sean: One. Richey. Larking - it wasn't on the mouth. On the cheek. I think it was one of his drunken malaises, helping him stand up in a friendly way. It was a very stubbly sort of affair. A brotherly thing. James: I can't even think of kissing Sean when I was young. To kiss Sean would be incest *

Sean's role in MSP is the most oblique (why?) He is the least likely to join in their visual excesses. For years, even if he attended interviews, he would sit there reading or drinking a cup of tea: it was always the same stupid questions. After Richey was gone, he at least felt people genuinely wanted to know what he had to say about it. His role in the songwriting is somewhat oblique (?) but he is not just a drummer; he played trumpet in the South Wales Jazz Orchestra. When he and James work together at the music, James describes them as "complete pottering housewives"

He lives on the outskirts of Bristol with his girlfriend. Neither James nor Nicky have ever been to his house. Late at night, on the tour bus, when he's having trouble sleeping, he likes to do the washing up... * When they were recording the album at Mike Hedge's studio in France, Sean bought a telescope. He wanted to find a galaxy he'd heard you could see in Orion, but he didn't. The fans send him drumming gloves. Some have got welsh flags sewn into them. He keeps them in the bottom of his spares drawer, just in case. He volunteers the information that he was once voted the tenth most uninteresting person in pop in Melody Maker (it's the grim worst of both worlds: you make the most uninteresting list but your uninterestingness is not spectacular or impressive enough to get a decent chart placing) "I try not to be a pop star. I always try to be as ordinary as possible" he says. "It's easy when you're the drummer" *

He is obsessed with shopping and newness. "I want everything to look like it's just come out of the wrapper. I love the smell of, say, a Walkman when you first unwrap it. If it gets a scratch on it, that's it. That's the way I am. And I've always got to get the next best thing. I don't care about money"

* He knows everything there is to know about "TV's, videos, DVD players, computers, useless gadgets, mobile phones... my search for perfection for something that will do absolutely everything without going wrong". He feels most calm at that moment when, six or seven shopping bags in his hands, he flops into a taxi and tells them to take him to his hotel. There's a real sense of accomplishment *

Sean and I have tea one afternoon in a London hotel. I ask him, purely making conversation, what he has been enjoying in his life. He raises his eyebrows. "Nothing really. I don't enjoy anything. I just exist. To be truthful. Because you know it's got to come to and end. We really despise hedonists who do everything regardless of what people think" Doing nothing and not enjoying life has it's consequences too. "Only to yourself. It's personal" * It's very wasteful. "It is very wasteful, it must be said. It's a terrible dilemma, the whole thing. It's just a huge cacophony of contradictions. It's just complete confusion. If you simplify your life as much as possible then hopefully those threads sort of untangle (thinking of something) I appreciate flowers a lot more than I used to. I appreciate the things that are untainted. The innocent" *

He does not have children and he has no plans to have children. "Probably because this world is such a horrible place. Put it this way - if the world ended tomorrow, if the human race ended tomorrow, I wouldn't have any regrets about it whatsoever, because I don't think we've contributed anything whatsoever, in the entire history of this planet, that's worthwhile. At the end of the day, everything's dust, and that is it"

Richey's lyrics had often been fascinatingly unmusical. "Basically" says Sean "Richey had no concept of music in terms of metre and bars and beats * No concept whatsoever * A line could go on and on and on"

How does Richey appear in your dreams? Sean: I don't dream.

There is an argument that, as many of Richey's impulses were unfriendly and uncommercial, his absence has eased their rise. "In a way he was very indulgent to his impulses" Sean says. "Nicky has the same impulses but then he manipulates them in a much more universal and user-friendly way than Richey ever did. Richey was more... I'd say honest. Truthful about it. He'd actually say "this is it" and push it right in your face. Whereas Nicky will sort of sidestep, dress it up. People sometimes can't digest things in it's raw form"

They explain how Richey bought a Nirvana songbook and got Sean to teach him Come As You Are. "I had to explain what these dots were" Sean says. "It's strange how someone could remember all those quotes and you show him just a little snippet of music that probably doesn't last more than ten seconds, and within about two or three minutes he'd forget it"

* Sean talking about Richey... You have to want to help yourself and obviously, he didn't. I regret that there was absolutely nothing that we could do or say to change his mind. Obviously his mind was completely set, whatever he's done. It annoys me a bit when people say "Well, you could have done more" We get that from some fans and even some people in the media. I think we did everything possible. There's nothing more we could do *

* Sean: I'd always say that in school Richey was a very vain personality and I think it did give him a vehicle to indulge himself. Me: Do you think if he hadn't been successful he would have just been a fucked up person no-one knew, or did what happen with the band...? Sean: It accelerated it *

* Sean voted for Tony Blair *

* What fetishes do you have? Sean: It all goes back to shopping. Smelling brand new electronic equipment fresh out of the bag *

* They talk about the X Files. They refuse to watch it on sky with adverts; it just isn't right. They prefer to wait for them on the BBC. Or, better still, hold out for the boxed set. Sean explains why he is a vegetarian. "We used to busk down in Cardiff, get enough money for a single fare to Cardiff, and the object was to get a fare home, buy a 7 inch from Spillers, and get a burger from McDonalds or Wimpy. And I'd feel ill all the way home" They talk about the songs they used to woo the Cardiff shoppers with: Primal Scream's "Velocity Girl", Camper Van Beethoven's "Take The Skinheads Bowling" Orange Juice's "Felicity" something or other by the June Brides. "Various Wedding Present songs" Sean says. I bet you didn't get much for those. "No" he concedes. "Velocity Girl used to go down well. James went down by himself when there was a Rugby match at Cardiff Arms Park and did "La Bamba" and it was the biggest earner. He got pound coins" *

* Sean, both because of his love for expensive electronic consumer goods and because of Nicky's fear of crashing, bought something known as a Brightling Emergency Watch. "Basically" he explains "if the plane crashes and you manage to survive and we were on a desert island or floating in the sea it actually sends out a signal on the international frequency within a 600 mile radius and someone will actually pick me up" It was a bargain "It cost three and a half thousand" he says "but I got it for £2,900" *

Sean, incidentally, would like it known that, though it said in the Daily Star he used to walk down Blackwood high street in his mothers sun dress wearing makeup, this happens not to be true. "If I had" he reflects "I wouldn't be here now"

They are in James's flat: "Guess what Sean gave me in here" he says. I point at the Phillipe Starck lemon squeezer and he nods... * When the others arrive, they look through James's new videos. Sean has just been buying new DVD's *

What is Manic Street Preacher's contribution to modern culture? Sean: Absolutely nothing whatsoever, probably. Will people know who the Manic Street Preachers are 50 years from now? Probably not.

* Nicky is talking about chips and there is a further detail which Nicky does not tell him. Sean obliges. The sauce. There is no room for deviation. It has to be Daddy's *