SELECT NOVEMBER 1998

Interview done the week they were No. 1 with If You Tolerate This...

Talking about trashing the stage at the Astoria... “If we could have” says Sean “we’d have trashed everything into tiny pieces and said “That is it. We can’t do anymore. We haven’t got any instruments to play, we haven’t got a stage to play on. That is it”

The Saturday before the Manics mooch through Top Of The Pops, Sean is slouched in a Cork hotel foyer. No-one casts Sean so much as a curious glance: he is merely an anonymous man on a sofa in a Stone Island baseball cap and a pair of ill-advised shorts. Later that night... James and Sean, by 2am had sensibly switched from whiskey to water - were up until four or so, happily reacclimatising to the social milieu that comes with touring. Everyone then went quietly to bed and got up for breakfast. Their road life takes in such X-rated pleasures as... Sean’s propensity to tinker with his collection of gadgets, which he refers to as his “kit”: at Top Of The Pops he plays patience on one of those electronic personal organisers that comes with a digital pencil.

The Manics prepare to go onstage at Slane Castle... Sean flexes his arms in much the same way that athletes do in the prologue to the starting gun.

Ready For Drowning is about the fate of Treweryn, a North Wales village that disappeared from the map in the late 60’s. It was flooded to create a reservoir that would supply Liverpool with its drinking water. During periods of drought, according to Sean, you can still make out the rooftops.