X-PRESS MAGAZINE June 96

The band's multi-talented (co-music-writer, drummer, trumpeter) Sean Moore speaks to Gareth Gorman about how EMG differs to the intense sounds of The Holy Bible.

"Well, it's just a natural progression over the last five years. It just seems right - there's no euphoric rush, which everyone seems to think there is"

But does it feel right? Does the band feel vindicated at the treatment they received when they first came out, treatment and accusations which caused Richey to carve the statement 4REAL with a razor blade into his arm infront of an NME journalist.

"NME wasn't actually the worst of the bunch, the other press were giving us a far harder time. NME actually were showing concern. We always knew we were going to get a hard time, due to coming from Wales. Wales is a very depressed area which doesn't get a lot of coverage - it's that English thing. Now it's rather strange, because after our continual chart success after five years, there's all of a sudden people starting to venture outside of London and looking further than Manchester. They're going further afield and I'm glad, but very surprised"

DON'T MAKE CRACKS IN ANGER

Another factor that figured in the band's initial slagging stemmed from the Manics attitude to the favoured bands of the period.

"We always liked and admired the likes of the Happy Mondays but the interviews we did at the start of our career, we were always damning the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets; all those Manchester 'baggy' bands of the time, but that was just us attempting to establish ourselves as a band who weren't part of any movement, just like the Britpop thing now. We'll never be part of that - we're not even invited. We're now into expressing ourselves where our anger and angst comes from, before we were a little bit too young, too angry and it meant we weren't able to explain ourselves fully"

All this shows in their current image. Gone are the battle fatigues, the face-paint and the slogans written on bodies. A concerted effort to say 'this is just us' seems to have been made.

"Well that's it. It's more of a no-image type of idea. Gone are the gimmicks, the eyeliner and as you said the slogans and camouflage. It's just us as people and people have to appreciate the songs rather than an image"

As earmarked by the divine and rather lush first single, A Design For Life, Everything Must Go is supposed (and you can underline that) to be a far different album to the Holy Bible. That album is an extremely intense and savage listen. It definitely has merits but it's not the kind of album you'll be putting on that often, unless you enjoy visiting the precipice of hell on a regular basis.

"The Holy Bible was only supposed to be on limited release - 30,000 copies and written specifically to regain the critical acclaim we found that we'd lost after GATS. Really, Everything Must Go is just going back to the natural progression. We knew what we were doing with The Holy Bible, we knew it wasn't going to be a clutched to the bosom type of album. We liked Gold Against the Soul, but at the time stadium bands... Oasis hadn't happened and the idea of an independent rock band appealing to a much larger audience album wasn't really figured then"

A Design For Life is easily the Manics most well received single going to number two in Britain. People have really taken on board its anthem-line of 'We don't talk about love/we only want to get drunk' Does Sean feel that lyric has struck a chord with people ever more into getting out of things by booze or other chemicals, while real love is conveniently swept underfoot?

"I think that has been taken on board, but just as much is the fact that it's taking on patronising statements made by the middle-upper classes towards the working classes as well. It's a lyric that can be looked both ways"

A HUNKA' HUNKA' BLACKPOOL ROCK

Everything Must Go begins with Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier, it's a song which really delves into a very pathetic side of life. Wanting to be an Elvis impersonator is bad enough, wanting to see one is almost as scary and then there's Blackpool, a tarnished veneer of a place which you can only hope has seen better days because it's not having them now.

"Yeah, it's like all those Welsh/English seaside late Victorian places. In a way they promised you all this glitz - well it did anyway, in your 1950's and 60's, but now the paint's peeling off and as you said it's a veneer now. You can see it for the dirty depressing, seedier side of life that exists in these seaside towns now. Also, it's a place for old-age pensioners to go away and die - for a lot of them"

Like many of their songs, Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier conjures up all manner of visions in the brain and the one I kept getting was one similar to the film Funny Bones starring Jerry Lewis, Lee Evans and Oliver Reed, which featured an American comedian facing up to his past and the truth in Blackpool. Obviously this begged the question have the Manics been approached for film-work? This took us into territory I wasn't expecting this particular question to go.

"Before Sex, Lies and Videotape came out they were trying to use Motorcycle Emptiness, but nothing came of it. Nothing really happened until we were asked by the producers of Judge Dredd to submit a song, but that was the week Mr Richey Edwards disappeared, so we ah, decided not to continue with the demo of that track"

THAT MOST PRECIOUS THING

As it turned out, not doing something for Judge Dredd was probably no great loss which leaves us with the disappearance. It's obviously a great loss to a band who grew out of reading music magazines in each other's rooms as they were growing up. But what did Sean and the rest of the band make of Richey's various attempts to take control through self-mutilation, anorexia and, so it would appear, ultimately suicide? What of his respect for people like Joy Division's Ian Curtis and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain who he felt had shown ultimate control by taking their own lives in a pre-meditated manner?

"I think it's just an ultimate act in a person's life who has no control - it's the only way they find that they can get some control over their life or existence. It's a personality control that does something like that as far as I'm concerned. It's a very copybook thing. Every anorexic, every self-mutilating kind of person does what they do as a way of controlling their emotions or lives. It's a very copybook way - there's no exception, they're all the same in the way that they do it"

Was he someone who felt too much?

"(Pauses) It's really strange (Pauses again) Umm, some things he did and some things he didn't. Some things he didn't feel enough and that's why he'd react in a more violent way to himself. In some things he was very sensitive and other things he wasn't - like we all are"

The Manic Street Preachers in deciding to carry on went through much soul-searching before making the decision. Obviously comparisons have been made with New Order - who emerged from Joy Division after Ian Curtis hung himself (on May 18 1980) - but for every New Order there's a Who and their futile attempt to find a replacement for a one-off such as Keith Moon.

"We knew that. We asked Richey's mother and father, we asked a lot of people, 'What do you think we should do?' and everyone turned around and said 'Yes, we think you should carry on'. So that gave us a lot of strength and gave us that momentum to go out and write some new songs"

GREAT SOUTHERN LAND

All of the new songs are on a par with at least Motorcycle as being the best work they've ever done. But then there's the bigger than a planet epicness of Australia, a song about escaping from it all if ever there was one. However, Australia wasn't chosen just because British people find the likes of Neighbours and H&A providing entertainment from their grey sky days.

"It's more of a Life On Mars type thing, the idea from Nick was that it's the furthermost place from his home - the furthermost place to get away to. He loves Australia as a great sporting nation - he loves his rugby. He sees the people as being stronger - more working class than the English toffs and things"

Where do Australian's escape to?

"Well, it wouldn't be England, maybe Wales"

Finally, just what would Sean be doing now, if the band had split up after their first album?

"If we'd sold our 16 million albums which was also what we were saying we were going to do, then I'd probably be at some farm-type place - a typical rock retreat place, growing trouts in dams with a huge electric fence around the property so no one could get in and racing fast cars on Sundays. All those things bored millionaires do"