SELECT January 1997

Nicky: The only thing that people got wrong was people calling us the Littlewoods Manic Street Preachers. Sean was deeply offended by that, because everything he buys is Paul Smith or Katharine Hamnett.

The taciturn Manics drum man has had a good year. Encouraged by the way his band have adopted the Le Corbusier dictum “A house is a machine for living in”, Sean now owns two of them. Nestled alongside his girlfriend in his twin Avon homes, he has listened long and hard to his albums of the year (Super Furry Animals and Smashing Pumpkins) and built up the cars, computers and clothes that make him the band’s premier consumer. “This phase of supposedly being The Band At C&A is fine by me” he says. “Except, I’ve got my Harvey Nics chargecard now. Pop down to the sales. Pick up Armani jeans for £40”

Nicky: I remember Sean used to feel a bit awkward with the glam look as well. The camouflage he didn’t mind, cos he could buy a lot of it. We’d get a pin-on badge and Sean would come in with a £180 Russian medal.

Sean: When we started, the idea of Welsh music was like The Ivory Coast at the Olympics. One bloke carrying the flag and one walking behind. Now there’s more of us and we can carry our banner with pride.

You see, the cutlery’s neat and symmetrical and we don’t get cigarette smoke or shouting... Backstage at Exeter University, Nicky Wire explains the benefits of his routine habit of dining a deux with Sean. Seated in their own room, removed from the cig-infused eating habits of James and the crew, Sean and Nick can enjoy the delights of the precisely aligned serviette. It’s an arrangement the pair have employed many times in 1996, as they’ve taken in nutrition before a series of historic shows - the majority of which have involved Oasis.

Sean will spend the (xmas hols) doing up his new home and plotting what consumer goods to fill it with.