(no subject)
Walking On The Edge
Drugs...
Drugs are the biggest get-out clause in the world. Dope enhances your creativity? Bollocks! It destroys your brain cells. When we came to London it was 'hey, chill out, spliff up man'. But our calling-card was 'Anxiety is freedom'.
Nicky (1996)
I think we're going to have drug problems and end up living in a squat in south London.
Richey (1992)
On our first European tour I remember us going to Frankfurt and seeing the needles at the station and being so shocked. We had never had anything to do with that.
Nicky (1996)
I could never see the argument that Trainspotting glamorised heroin, 'cos I think it's incredibly seedy, but the very fact that handsome actors are making loads of money doing a brilliant film is obviously glamorous. Drugs, for me, I just find them incredibly boring and I find the people that take them incredibly boring.
Nicky (1996)
I must admit, in all my years in the industry, cocaine seems back with a vengeance. It hardly breeds reasoned behaviour, but it sometimes breeds good records.
Nicky (1996)
...and drink
On the Suede tour James was pissed all the time and was lying in bed until five every day. I had my moments.
Sean(1996)
I started drinking in my first term at university. It was something that I'd never allowed myself to do, but it was just a question of getting to sleep. It was so noisy, and I needed to get to sleep at a certain time and wake at a certain time. Drinking gave me that opportunity.
Richey (1994)
It's true that I drink at least half a bottle of vodka a day, but it's only on the same level as most people. Say if we were back home, working: everybody I know would come home from work, go down to the pub, drink five or six pints, forget about everything and go to bed. I don't think it's a big thing...
Richey (1993)
At least a third of my body must have been made of alcohol during the run-up to the release of 'A Design For Life'. I just didn't feel confident. You'd go home to see your mum and dad and she'd go, 'James, I never thought you'd have a weight problem! Look at your dad'. And my dad's there, 55 years old, smokes 40 a day, drinks and he's completely fit and hard. My auntie comes in and goes, 'Oooh, you fat little blob'.
James (1996)
I'm trying not to drink. You can't play the kind of shows we do if you're permanently hungover.
Sean(1996)
I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat... I'm paranoid about not being able to sleep and if by about eight o'clock at night I haven't had a drink, I get massive panic attacks and I'll be awake all night, and that's my biggest nightmare. I know that until one in the afternoon I'm going to be shaky and have cold sweats. By six o'clock I feel good, but by eight it starts coming round again, the thought of not sleeping. And that's when I start drinking.
Richey (1994)
The one constant in Richey's life which he enjoyed was drinking. The fact that it put him to sleep. He'd drink on his own - not a social thing.
Nicky (1996)
My need is functional. By about midday I need a drink to stabilise me, but I've got to drive the group to rehearsal, so I can't have that drink. But on tour, I drink all day, just so I don't have to think about going onstage.
Richey (1994)
Typical rock bands drink Jack Daniels and get fucked-up because they have this romantic, glamourous Jack Kerouac vision of the world. When I sit in my bedroom with a book and a bottle of vodka, I do it because I'm sad, not 'cos I think it's cool. I do it because I want to forget what I'm thinking about.
Richey (1992)
I used to be really outgoing, but I'm more withdrawn now than I ever was. I can almost honestly say that I've seen Richey and James become confirmed alcoholics over the last I 8 months. During that period there hasn't been a single day where Richey hasn't had at least half a bottle of vodka. Neither him or James can go to sleep at night without drinking that much. It's depressing. If they went out boasting about it, it would be worse.
Nicky (1993)
At university, I never spent my money on beer like all the union crowd. I just used to go into town and play on the fruit machines. I got to be a bit of an expert at it. In fact I was completely addicted, and I ended up £3,000 in debt because of it. I've never drank or taken a single drug in my life, so I guess fruit machines took their place.
Nicky (1994)
Sex
I was about 12, playing football and a bloke called Brian Summers said, 'I've found some great stuff under my brother's bed'. It was quite hardcore porn. We all had a look at it, about five of us, in silence for ten minutes, then I had to run out the house quite quickly. I was ill. I was sick.
Richey (1994)
I was 12 and I used to mess around with a mate down the street in his garage, and his father kept loads of porn magazines in there. I was just really turned on by it. It awakens all your interest. It was my rites of passage sexually, definitely.
James (1994)
I've seen loads of porn films. When I was 16 we used to go to a friend's house every dinner time and we watched this same porn film every lunchtime solidly for a month. You got bored after a while, mostly because there was no way you could sneak upstairs to the toilet and just stay there for ten minutes because everyone would kill themselves laughing when you came back.
James (1994)
If you're on tour you might stop off at a service station and buy a porn magazine. It's usually chucked away before you even get back on the bus. It's banal entertainment. They're all identical. Films too. You've seen one porn film, there's no point watching another. The only interest is when somebody gets something like Animal Farm, chickens and ducks. Yeah, I've seen it. After five minutes it's boring because it's just the same thing with a different animal.
Richey (1994)
All bands go to sex shops. When you tour Germany and Holland, that's what you do. I've been in one in Britain and it was so limp-wristed that I walked straight out. I'm too used to the hard stuff.
James (1994)
I think that sex between two people is quite crushingly dull. All the magazines here... I really can't find anything sexy in them. Men with non-erect dicks or man on top of woman, woman on top of man - it just bores the fuck out of me. Essentially porn is for 13-year-old kids.
Richey (1994)
The thrill of pornography is coming, and I think that wastes away into wanting something better. It makes me more romantic. It's a classic male response: you get pornography, you get your kicks out of it, then suddenly you think, 'Oh, I'm not really into that, because I want a relationship'. Does that make be a better person or a worse person? I don't know.
James (1994)
We got asked by For Women if we would appear naked, but I have no desire to expose my genitalia. Too small.
Richey (1994)
That Wonderbra advert might be funny, but it's still designed to titillate men. We'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't say that's a picture of a woman being subservient to a little sexual token, a bra. Advertising men use feminine images as subservient to everything. And Penthouse and Playboy try to diffuse pornographic images by putting in features about cars, or lifestyles of the rich and famous. That's just backing up the advertising industry. It's fusing Pornography and product. It's very tactful. It pisses me off.
James (1994)
I find it very sad that a girl in a swimming costume is all that's required to turn some men on.
Sean(1994)
I don't regard paying for sex as being that different to sleeping with a groupie. It's all done on the same functional level.
Richey (1994)
We like to threaten people sexually. Especially males.
Nicky (1993)
We all love to play the fruit machines but Sean owed thousands of pounds. The problem got so bad our record company had to pay off all our debts for us, and they banned us from gambling ever again.
Richey (1992)
Porn has helped me through fallow periods. Everyone goes through a dodgy period when they can't pull anything. Porn just gives you a quick relief. It just sends you to sleep really... men just want to see women with their legs open.
James (1994)
Sex is just an iota removed from a wank.
Richey (1991)
I think people are becoming more machine like and that's the imagery I like. Also sex and death are closely linked. Sado-masochistic imagery, bleeding... I find it attractive. I find it... sexual.
Richey (1994)
I've had herpes since I was 15.
Nicky (1991)
Songwriting And Recording
We aren't wallowing in any musical nostalgia like the music papers' Clash/Dylan freaks. We might sound like the last 30 years of rock 'n' roll, but our lyrics address the same issues as Public Enemy.
Richey (1991)
We must write our thoughts without any regard for structure or tone. It's up to James to fit it in. Sometimes he has a really impossible line, or something he doesn't want to sing, so he cuts it. We usually give him a page of words and let him choose. We've never cared about our lyrics being cut up. Some of our favourite authors, like Burroughs, did that anyway. Kerouac never used full stops or commas.
Richey (1991)
You can never get the producer you want (for Generation Terrorists). We wanted Public Enemy, but that was impossible to produce the whole album. I'm glad they didn't do it, actually. I wouldn't want them working with a poxy band like us.
Nicky (1991)
We can only really make basic, straightforward white rock music, 'cos we're not patronising people. We don't pretend we understand the street, or pretend to understand New York City. You know, we live in a crap little town in Britain.
Richey (1991)
I currently spend eight or ten hours a day playing Sonic The Hedgehog on my Megadrive. That's all I've done while the others have been making the LP (Generation Terrorists). It took me a couple of weeks, to get to the end and kill Doctor Robotnik. Then, every day, I couldn't live with myself unless I tried to finish Sonic in a shorter time. I should be interested in learning to play my guitar, but Sonic The Hedgehog rules my life. I find that very sad. It's the same with Nick, having to go up and play on a fruit machine every day.
Richey (1991)
We'll never write a love song. We'll be dead before we have to do that.
Richey (1990)
I have to totally understand everything I'm singing, it's not just a throwaway thing. I think of myself as a redeemable Roger Daltrey.
James (1994)
When we write lyrics, sometimes we'll come up with something we think is really good and works really well with James' melody. And I hate having the thought in the back of my head that we can't possibly print this in a lyric sheet, because people will misunderstand it.
Richey (1994)
I've been getting better as a guitarist and did actually play some guitar on this record (Gold Against The Soul). But I don't know if that was just to amuse the other members.
Richey (1993)
We recorded Gold Against The Soul in a fucking £2,000 a day studio. Snooker tables, swimming pools - and I thought, 'Shit, I'm turning into Primal Scream', you know, just hanging out, spending money. Something had to change, so we wrote, rehearsed and recorded this album (The Holy Bible) in some shithole studio in the red light district of Cardiff. Not going out, just working and working, listening to Joy Division records, working, working some more.
Nicky (1994)
Richey's written about 70 per cent of this album (The Holy Bible). He just kept handing us complete lyrics that were absolutely perfect, absolutely beautiful and very personal. He's not here to speak for himself, but I think he's explained himself pretty fucking perfectly in those songs.
Nicky (1994)
'Of Walking Abortions' (The Holy Bible) was one of the most extreme examples of Richey's lyrics -'so wash your car in your X baseball shoes'. I just didn't know what the fuck he was on about. All the weight of reference to Eastern Europe or Nazi culture and figureheads. 'Revol'? I didn't have a clue what that was about. Even Richey said afterwards that he didn't know what it was about. It's lover spelt backwards, or so he kind of tried to explain it. A decline in relationships... I don't know.
Nicky (1997)
The Holy Bible was created through an almost academic discipline. We sat down and gave ourselves headings and structures, so each song's like an essay.
James (1994)
I don't see The Holy Bible as a record, I see it as a state of mind. One we were all in. When we recorded it Richey wasn't suicidal or anything. He'd just bought a flat, he was still drinking and he'd come in about 12 o'clock, collapse and have a snooze and say 'Leave me alone, I've had a big drink' in a nice Welsh voice. Then he'd get up and do a bit of typing and we'd record for a bit, then go round Cardiff and have a shop.
Nicky (1996)
I was worried that, because Richey was undergoing treatment, he'd turn into Peter Gabriel, lyrically. He's living on a different proverb a day at the moment and I didn't want our songs to turn into psychobabble. But he's kept his own voice, which is admirable. It hasn't weakened us, but I'm not prepared to say it's made us stronger.
James (1994)
When I was young I used to keep myself to myself. I don't feel I have the right to intrude on anyone else, and I don't think anyone should necessarily want to listen to me. I think my lyrics are valid. I guess it's egotistical to publish your lyrics, but we always publish them because I want people to read them.
Richey (1994)
We thought 'Motorcycle Emptiness' was universal, and I still think it's fantastic. But 'life lies a slow suicide' and 'culture sucks down words'- it doesn't translate literally. A song like 'Yes' (The Holy Bible), which was a brilliant song, there were so many words there, and so many difficult words, that it was impossible for James to sing it. And if James can't sing it, there's no way a crowd can sing it, and there's no way you can digest it from the radio.
Nicky (1997)
I'm in a privileged position of interpretation. Sean and I never use bits of music we have lying around. We start afresh when we hear the lyrics. I have rules: I don't have to accept, only understand.
James (1994)
This time we seemed to be capable of saying everything we wanted to say. We weren't shoehorning the lyrics in this time, the lyrics suggested the melodies, these beautiful, beautiful melodies. James is so happy with this record, (The Holy Bible) and he's not a man who's easily pleased.
Nicky (1994)
I don't think we've ever made happy records. Maybe we've had uplifting moments, but I don't think lyrically we've ever been particularly joyous.
Richey (1994)
Sleep is constantly throughout every lyric I've ever written. It's a big thing because I'm scared to go to sleep. 'Cos the things I get in my head I don't like. That's the reason I started drinking - to knock me out.
Richey (1994)
Richey would always find something new to write about. Always. Whether it was a disease, or an article he read... he would always find some obscure reference which two people in the world knew about.
Nicky (1997)
I would like to be able to write’ I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic', but I just can't. I think that's a brilliant lyric, but I haven't felt supersonic since I was about ten years old.
Richey (1994)
We've always had a song about disease on every one of our albums. It's not a very good tradition to follow, really.
Nicky (1996)
People want well-played, good, sensibly-dressed songs, so I've convinced myself it's a kind of tactic to get in a position where perhaps the bigger we get it might be easier to subvert. Maybe then we'll dress up again and I'll strip again like I did in Thailand. If I've still got the guts to do it.
Nicky (1996)
I was like the McCartney to Richey's Lennon. But even Richey's lyrics on this album (Everything Must Go) are quite easy to understand. 'Black Flowers' is about something; 'Kevin Carter' is about something. With The Holy Bible and songs like 'Revol', people didn't have a clue what it was about. Richey was so intelligent that he ended up trying to condense so much that it was unintelligible.
Nicky (1997)
'A Design For Life' is one of the best songs we've ever written. 'Motorcycle Emptiness' is one of the best songs of the decade, but there was no way it could be a hit in 1992. British culture was so divided: the Levellers, the arse end of Madchester, shoegazing, acid house. But I think we knew straight away with 'Design'. James phoned me after he'd written it and said it was something special. Ennio Morricone, a bit of Tamla, a bit of Spector. Our only reservation was it might be too epic.
Nicky (1996)
Having (producer) Mike Hedges around (for Everything Must Go) helped. Boring to say though it is, we can play now. It's so much easier to record now that I can keep up with James a bit.
Nicky (1996)
All our records are just collages of ideas, a reflection of our bedrooms. Our first album was an attempt to find answers from Public Enemy, Guns N' Roses, McCarthy and the Clash. I'm under no illusion that Everything Must Go is original either. Pick a song and I'll tell you exactly which records it comes from. I don't think we're original, but I think we're unique.
James (1996)
James loves all that Motown stuff, it's all he fucking plays on the bus. It's his sex music. You can hear it on Everything Must Go, even if it's clouded by a few rockisms.
Nicky (1996)
We're not saying that we've got to forget our past. Things like that will always be with you. But obviously, it is a new start in some ways. We did feel a bit free doing the album (Everything Must Go) - it is such a reaction against The Holy Bible, musically.
Nicky (1996)
Mike Hedges uses old gear but we didn't go there (Normandy, France) for a full-on rustic valve experience. He's one of the last old-school fellas who really knows what he's doing with a band.
James (1996)
Our first three albums were a build up to this one (Everything Must Go). They're all flawed mind, occasionally naive records, but they were important. The Holy Bible was very dark, something we knew from the moment we stated working on it that wasn't going to be Played at parties. But without Richey, we've become more Optimistic on record, more positive. Having said that, I think some of the drama has gone now he's not around.
Sean (1996)
Everything Must Go is a more uplifting album than the ones we've done before. And it's what we wanted to do. We didn't want to make another manic-depressive album. We couldn't cope with going through the same misery again. But it's still a pretty dark album. In the position we were in, it was pretty easy to write, a lot of emotions surfaced and we only needed to catch that.
Nicky (1996)
James has a lot of ideas and, musically, I think the next record will Probably be a bit more adventurous, a fusion of the polar opposites of The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go. But to be honest, I'm finding it really hard to write any lyrics. I'm really struggling, I've got writer's block.
Nicky (1997)
Street Level
Signing to a major record company is the price of an education. We don't care what they do to us. The credibility of indie labels is shit.
Nicky (1991)
The whole indie mentality that grew up from punk onwards just seemed so bullshit to us, because the most subversive, really important group in the world were Public Enemy, and they were on Columbia (CBS/Sony, the Manics' label). The level of corruption on an indie label is just on a smaller scale.
Richey (1992)
Music industry is the easiest thing. The press, easy. Press agents, easy. All of them, easy. There's all these little boys going round being scared by it. It's all gone wrong. The independent mentality of the press sums it up. They're all tossers.
Richey (1991)
Everyone we talk to, we say 'We're not signing unless it's a contract for just one double album, one debut double'. Then we'll make enough money from that to last forever.
Nicky (1991)
'Everything Must Go' was a proper hit because blokes in my mum's betting shop were whistling it.
James (1996)
To be universal, you've got to stain the consciousness of the people. You've got to dig out a truth that everybody knows, but they don't want to hear, then tell it in a manner that's so articulate and so aesthetically indignant, so beautiful, that they've got to accept it back in their lives again.
James (1996)
We've had quite a few letters saying we're a band parents like, because we're quite moral and intelligent. I think they've gained that impression from the new album (Everything Must Go). They might not be so keen if they heard us do 'Repeat'.
Nicky (1997)
We know it's a pointless existence being in a band. It's not a worthwhile job, like being a doctor or a nurse. There are people who work for nothing saving badgers or otters.
Richey (1991)
It's the ideal prototype. Do one brilliant album then disappear, gain everything then give it away, create this franchise then scrap it.
James (1991)
Whatever happens to us, at least we'll know that we always tried to be a brilliant band. We've set ourselves up to be compared with the greatest rock bands ever. We've always set out to be something worthwhile, that meant something real and valuable; to make records about ideas and attitudes that are important and real, and that no one else is doing. To be the band we never had when we were growing up.
Richey (1991)
If we'd fulfilled the promise of the ten million albums then I'd be running for the President of America by now. It wouldn't have changed us... except maybe to accelerate our decline.
Nicky (1996)
Even Richey's self-mutilation was very private. His fuck-ups were not on public display. There was a working-class disgust - cover it up and get on with it. I have a concept of a working-class rage which is in some people. It's in us. It's in Liam Gallagher, Linford Christie, Nigel Benn and Paul Gascoigne. The desire to prove yourself.
Nicky (1996)
We got signed to Sony for a lot of money, but none of us bought anything, except portable CD players and stuff. Then, two months later, another one came out that was thinner and I bought that one. It was no value to my life, it just means I have a smaller CD player.
Richey (1991)
Whatever we've achieved, we never see it as any kind of achievement.
Nicky (1994)
My mind is not cluttered with the day-to-day necessities of staying alive. I'm not worried about 'if I don't pay this bill the gas is gonna get cut off'. Because I just chuck some money to somebody and it gets paid.
Richey (1994)
I had some fun a couple of days ago. That's my lot for a while.
Sean (1994)
When the gigs are getting bigger and people love you more and there's all this euphoria, it's harder to get quite so angry.
Nicky (1997)
The band was never about self-hate, it was about injustice in society and with The Holy Bible it became too inward-looking for my liking... It was never the intention to carry on in that vein, but now we're destined to be frozen in time as this myth. The only way we could ever break out of that now is to completely shed all our old fans, which I don't want to do.
Nicky (1996)
We were never a fanclub kind of band. We were hardly known for, you know, 'we love our fans'. We were never the kind of band who'd hang around signing autographs or whatever, but I think ultimately we gave them something a bit more special than that. We gave them a part of our lives.
Nicky (1996)
As long as we're the absolute antithesis of another main voice in pop music, then that's justification. A lot of groups who're massive now, like Blur or, especially, Pulp, they've got big by creating a certain empathy with their audience. And I don't think we're doing that now.
James (1996)
If you start off working at a certain level of intensity, you'll always be judged by that. It's easy, especially in a world as impatient and unforgiving as pop, to be rendered irrelevant by your past actions.
James (1996)
I'll only be happy if we keep changing and moving forward, which is perhaps why the second album upset me a bit. I'm very protective about our history, and I wouldn't want to sully it.
James (1996)
The fact that 95 per cent of New Musical Express readers say they feel an affinity with Richey, or feel the need to support him, pre-empts the fact that the last five per cent think he's a cunt. They actually think he's playing up to the people who feel an affinity for him, for what he went through. They feel it's just another little angle, that's all.
James (1994)
I'm just as happy having people loathe me as I am to have them love me. Music's got safe and ordinary; it'd be good if a few more bands tried to get those sort of opinions forced on them.
Richey (1993)
We don't want to reach the music papers, we just want to reach The Sun, The Star, The Mirror. That's what most people read. We'd rather be sensationalised than just be another NME band and get critical respect. Critical respect is the easiest thing in the world because journalists are so crap.
Nicky (1990)
We know they (Sony) completely own us, they can do anything they want with us. They can drop us... In fact they said, 'if you want, you can come in and smash the place up, it would be good press'. It wouldn't be good press - we'd end up paying for it.
Richey (1991)
All Richey does is go to London, drives around in the Sony limousine, goes to Soho strip joints, spends £300 on the band's American Express card, comes back covered in love bites and asks how the track's going. I think that's the thing that's given me the most pride in this band.
Nicky (1992)
We wanted to sign to the biggest record label in the world, put out a debut album that would sell 20 million and then break up. Get massive and then just throw it all away.
Richey (1993)
Whether we sell millions and millions of albums, or we fail abjectly, we'll still have said everything we have to say in one double album. We don't want to look beyond that, because we'd just be treating it as a career. If you throw it away when you're the biggest band in the world, then you're bound to get respect.
Nicky (1991)
We signed to Sony for a quarter of a million in advance with £400,000 to make the album.
Nicky (1991)
I think a lot of our fans are motivated by the fact that other people hate them because they like us.
Nicky (1991)
A lot of girls of 14, 15 love the band. I think they see us raging on their side. I hate men. Males don't seem to have any self-control any more; something catches their eye and they don't see why they shouldn't have it.
Nicky (1992)
Preaching Live
It's really hard for us to take other bands out on tour. There's just no-one we can get on with or like, really. We're such an insular band, and musically we just seem apart from anybody. Lyrically also. We've just got nothing in common with anyone. I think that's because people are scared to do what we're doing.
Nicky (1993)
I don't look forward to touring... I don't like it. I don't like traveling and I can't sleep at hotels. I hate flying, actually. I don’t know why I do it, really.
Nicky (1996)
(Supporting Oasis) is a good experience. You can't help but be proud when you hear the Oasis crowd sounding like they're at a schoolboy international, except there's lots of girls there too. It's humbling all the same. It puts you in your place.
James (1996)
We used to walk on to a reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. Not many bands did that in 1990. Not many bands do it now. I'm glad we did those things. They made us different. Most people thought we were pretentious wankers, which undoubtedly we were.
Nicky (1996)
Any other group in the world would get the audience to do this (claps hands above head) during the quiet bit of 'Roses In The Hospital' but we physically can't do it. We can't bond with the audience.
James (1994)
Doing the Suede tour in Europe was probably the worst time of my life. Richey wasn't well and I felt ill. I had all these pains. I flew home and went to a Harley Street doctor who said 'You want to watch the fruit out there; they don't wash it, these foreigners'. Fucking Harley Street doctor!
Nicky (1996)
When we released Generation Terrorists we didn't play Motorcycle Emptiness' (live) for six months, because Richey and I couldn't play it.
Nicky (1996)
I feel very sad. This is the first time we've done concerts for a while. The last time we were really excited, talking among ourselves a the time Now we sit on the four back seats of the tour bus, nobody really talking, playing computer games, listening to our CD players.
Richey (199l)
The first gig at the Whisky A-Go-Go in LA was just abusive; non musical. Totally and utterly nonsensical to the Americans. Made us realise that to break America is just about the hardest thing to do, especially if you're a British band.
Nicky (1996)
It's quite glamorous being associated with such a mad tour (Oasis). People not turning up, people disappearing. It's good that it wasn't us for a change. We were dead normal, professional. Didn't say a word.
Nicky (1996)
We're caught in between markets. We're not pop, we're not metal - our rockisms have always been a bit too synthetic for American tastes - and we're not alternative enough.
Nicky (1996)
I still think touring's one of the worst things you can do. I'd much rather be at home now watching the Welsh rugby match tonight. I'm just not into the experience, really. TV is such an integral part of my life and when you go abroad there's nothing you can watch.
Nicky (1996)
I used to have that Barfly mentality. It made it worth while traveling all this way to have almost Zen-like insights by meeting a stranger at a bar and having a good old yap. But even I've gone off that romanticism.
James (1996)
I feel much more comfortable in Europe now. There's just a general air that people have a bit of intelligence and a bit of humour. Even Germans have some sense of humour compared to (Americans). So do feel really comfortable in Europe. Not happy but comfortable.
Nicky (1996)
For me, being in a band is about expression. It used to be through image and nastiness, but now it's just through the lyrics. I love listening to music but I just get bored. I get utterly bored sometimes being in a band. I don't know how people can actually enjoy being onstage in terms of playing. I still say the best five minutes ever of us being in a band was the last gig with Richey at the Astoria when we smashed everything up. That's the most enjoyment I've ever had onstage. It says something about myself.
Nicky (1996)
I'm enjoying Bangkok. I've never been on an 18-30s holiday before... I just feel like a complete lad. I don't feel any need to be accepted by women whatsoever, which is the way I've always felt, so it's reassuring to be me for once.
James (1994)
Tonight the gig was total shit. It's not that I need to bond with an audience at all, but I want it to be a good show, a spectacle. If things go wrong then it's all a waste of time and you might as well be a bloody traveling salesman. But I suppose it feels good to be wanted. That wasn't always the case.
James (1996)
When you go abroad there's so much pressure for you to experience things, to go out for these fancy meals every night, and I find it really boring. I don't mind going to an art gallery, or looking at the odd bit of architecture, but... I don't think food is culture.
Nicky (1997)
The thrill of it isn't stardom. It's not all down to ego, 'cos I lost a lot of ego a long time ago. the thrill is that we're
going to be playing to all these people on the tour. Just the fact that you think 'I could do something tonight that might change somebody's life.'
Nicky (1996)
I suggested that I wouldn't play on stage anymore, but would carry on writing words and doing the artwork and stuff. I convinced myself that was what I wanted. But it's not enough for me just to do the words. I think I'd be cheating on them, 'cos the touring part is the worst bit - the bit that no band really enjoys. It's the thing that makes it feel like a job because you know what you'll be doing in three months time at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Richey(1994)
Glastonbury just seemed like the worst gig we'd ever done, it was like cabaret for post-degree students.
James (1994)
In Thailand, definitely for Richey and me, something just snapped. It isn't that we weren't getting on. We went to Portugal and had a terrible time and then Richey's friend from university hung himself and, from then on that summer; it got worse.
Nicky (1994)
Playing live without Richey is the one thing that's incomprehensible. Recording's not a problem. We are incredibly arrogant, we still think we're the best group in the world, we still think that we write the best songs. But without the visual iconoclastic weight of Richey, as well as missing him, it's not right.
Nicky (1996)
The more touring you do, the less you remember you have to talk to each other -but I think we'll have the dignity to get out before we turn into wretches.
Nicky (1993)
Heroes And Influences
(Seeing 'Guns N' Roses) was the first time that we realised rock wasn't dead. We had the Stones, the Who, the Clash and we'd basically given up on hearing a new rock record that we'd really like. When we heard this (Appetite For Destruction) it was just so instant and exciting. 'Sweet Child O' Mine' is one of the most amazing love songs ever written and 'Welcome To The Jungle' is one of the most hateful, but people just dismiss him (AxI) as a redneck. He's one of the few people I'd actually like to meet and talk to.
Richey
Music had got so tame and watered down, and all of a sudden Public Enemy were probably the most extreme band that's ever appeared. There's nothing more articulate or intelligent in the entire world.
Nicky (1993)
Oasis have made me a fan again. They've completely revitalised British music. But yeah, we do like to think it could have been us. Perhaps we didn't have the guile. We were too nasty and confrontational. We waged war on the punters, the music press, everyone.
Nicky (1996)
Nick tried to get Jocky Wilson's autograph once and Jocky just went 'Fuck off'. Nick's quite proud of that. We all loved the darts on the telly and things like Pebble Mill. When that closed down we shed a tear.
Richey (1992)
(Miners' leader) Arthur Scargill came to see us in Liverpool. He came back and had a chat, which was a bit of a magic moment. I still find him inspiring because, despite all his faults, everything he said came true.
Nicky (1997)
Meeting Arthur Scargill was the most nervous I've been this year. I found it scary that here was someone who had a lot in common with my uncles, but had found a way to articulate it all. But he was the worst strategist in the world. I just looked at him and immediately had a million questions in my head. You could talk to him all night and it would be as frustrating as it would be inspirational.
James (1997)
Musically I do genuinely love Oasis. They're so natural, I think it's above criticism. But I now know we're too difficult for that. They have something that hits you like an elemental force. In many ways, Oasis are the band we wanted to be, but never could be.
Nicky (1997)
When we supported Oasis at Maine Road, it just put everything in perspective. It made me realise that we were becoming a big band, but we were nowhere near becoming a phenomenon, and we never would. Maine Road showed us our allotted position. I knew what we never would be after that gig. People have taken Oasis so completely to their hearts, independent of anything like a marketing push, anything at all, it just seemed uncontrollable. Totally inspiring.
James (1997)
For us Public Enemy are the ultimate rock 'n' roll band at the moment because they've got style and rage, which is what it's all about. So many bands are just worthless. We adore people like Kylie because she doesn't pretend to be anything except someone who makes brilliant pop records.
Richey (1991)
Alice In Chains are one of our favourite bands at the moment. They're like the American version of Joy Division, but a lot louder
Nicky (1994)
(Joy Division singer Ian Curtis was) the only musician whose death I was saddened by. I love music, but I couldn't give a fuck if anybody dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear.
Richey
One of my heroes is Jimmy McGovern. He wrote Cracker and some of the early Brookside episodes. I've always really liked him, but I'd never seen him before last Sunday, when he was on the South Bank Show. He was absolutely fantastic. I loved all the Crackers he wrote, especially 'To Be Somebody' with Robert Carlyle as the Liverpool fan, which was one of the finest things I've ever seen.
Nicky (1996)
Everything I've liked has always failed in some way.
Richey (1994)
Although people might not think it, the Stone Roses did have a lasting influence on us when we started. They were people we defined ourselves against.
Nicky (1996)
Black people have got a far more genuine rage than a white man could ever have. White people feel repressed, but black people are completely oppressed - so you get a real militancy. Public Enemy combined that with being glamorous: the way they moved, the way they dressed - it was like Aretha Franklin on smack.
Richey (1993)
One lyricist I really admire is (Beautiful South singer) Paul Heaton, who's a real pop genius, but he still has a lot of depth in his lyrics, and his interviews are fantastic - when he goes on about being a Sheffield football hooligan: 'those people with the season tickets, they didn't give a fuck, it was the hooligans who kept Sheffield United going in the 19805'. From a man who writes two-million-selling albums, I've got a lot of time for him.
Nicky (1997)
It's obvious to me that Oasis are the best band in the world. Liam is not very eloquent or anything, but you've just got to look at him and you know he's the business. He could have only come from where he came from.
Nicky (1996)
Drugs...
Drugs are the biggest get-out clause in the world. Dope enhances your creativity? Bollocks! It destroys your brain cells. When we came to London it was 'hey, chill out, spliff up man'. But our calling-card was 'Anxiety is freedom'.
Nicky (1996)
I think we're going to have drug problems and end up living in a squat in south London.
Richey (1992)
On our first European tour I remember us going to Frankfurt and seeing the needles at the station and being so shocked. We had never had anything to do with that.
Nicky (1996)
I could never see the argument that Trainspotting glamorised heroin, 'cos I think it's incredibly seedy, but the very fact that handsome actors are making loads of money doing a brilliant film is obviously glamorous. Drugs, for me, I just find them incredibly boring and I find the people that take them incredibly boring.
Nicky (1996)
I must admit, in all my years in the industry, cocaine seems back with a vengeance. It hardly breeds reasoned behaviour, but it sometimes breeds good records.
Nicky (1996)
...and drink
On the Suede tour James was pissed all the time and was lying in bed until five every day. I had my moments.
Sean(1996)
I started drinking in my first term at university. It was something that I'd never allowed myself to do, but it was just a question of getting to sleep. It was so noisy, and I needed to get to sleep at a certain time and wake at a certain time. Drinking gave me that opportunity.
Richey (1994)
It's true that I drink at least half a bottle of vodka a day, but it's only on the same level as most people. Say if we were back home, working: everybody I know would come home from work, go down to the pub, drink five or six pints, forget about everything and go to bed. I don't think it's a big thing...
Richey (1993)
At least a third of my body must have been made of alcohol during the run-up to the release of 'A Design For Life'. I just didn't feel confident. You'd go home to see your mum and dad and she'd go, 'James, I never thought you'd have a weight problem! Look at your dad'. And my dad's there, 55 years old, smokes 40 a day, drinks and he's completely fit and hard. My auntie comes in and goes, 'Oooh, you fat little blob'.
James (1996)
I'm trying not to drink. You can't play the kind of shows we do if you're permanently hungover.
Sean(1996)
I'm the sort of person who wakes up in the morning and needs to pour a bottle down my throat... I'm paranoid about not being able to sleep and if by about eight o'clock at night I haven't had a drink, I get massive panic attacks and I'll be awake all night, and that's my biggest nightmare. I know that until one in the afternoon I'm going to be shaky and have cold sweats. By six o'clock I feel good, but by eight it starts coming round again, the thought of not sleeping. And that's when I start drinking.
Richey (1994)
The one constant in Richey's life which he enjoyed was drinking. The fact that it put him to sleep. He'd drink on his own - not a social thing.
Nicky (1996)
My need is functional. By about midday I need a drink to stabilise me, but I've got to drive the group to rehearsal, so I can't have that drink. But on tour, I drink all day, just so I don't have to think about going onstage.
Richey (1994)
Typical rock bands drink Jack Daniels and get fucked-up because they have this romantic, glamourous Jack Kerouac vision of the world. When I sit in my bedroom with a book and a bottle of vodka, I do it because I'm sad, not 'cos I think it's cool. I do it because I want to forget what I'm thinking about.
Richey (1992)
I used to be really outgoing, but I'm more withdrawn now than I ever was. I can almost honestly say that I've seen Richey and James become confirmed alcoholics over the last I 8 months. During that period there hasn't been a single day where Richey hasn't had at least half a bottle of vodka. Neither him or James can go to sleep at night without drinking that much. It's depressing. If they went out boasting about it, it would be worse.
Nicky (1993)
At university, I never spent my money on beer like all the union crowd. I just used to go into town and play on the fruit machines. I got to be a bit of an expert at it. In fact I was completely addicted, and I ended up £3,000 in debt because of it. I've never drank or taken a single drug in my life, so I guess fruit machines took their place.
Nicky (1994)
Sex
I was about 12, playing football and a bloke called Brian Summers said, 'I've found some great stuff under my brother's bed'. It was quite hardcore porn. We all had a look at it, about five of us, in silence for ten minutes, then I had to run out the house quite quickly. I was ill. I was sick.
Richey (1994)
I was 12 and I used to mess around with a mate down the street in his garage, and his father kept loads of porn magazines in there. I was just really turned on by it. It awakens all your interest. It was my rites of passage sexually, definitely.
James (1994)
I've seen loads of porn films. When I was 16 we used to go to a friend's house every dinner time and we watched this same porn film every lunchtime solidly for a month. You got bored after a while, mostly because there was no way you could sneak upstairs to the toilet and just stay there for ten minutes because everyone would kill themselves laughing when you came back.
James (1994)
If you're on tour you might stop off at a service station and buy a porn magazine. It's usually chucked away before you even get back on the bus. It's banal entertainment. They're all identical. Films too. You've seen one porn film, there's no point watching another. The only interest is when somebody gets something like Animal Farm, chickens and ducks. Yeah, I've seen it. After five minutes it's boring because it's just the same thing with a different animal.
Richey (1994)
All bands go to sex shops. When you tour Germany and Holland, that's what you do. I've been in one in Britain and it was so limp-wristed that I walked straight out. I'm too used to the hard stuff.
James (1994)
I think that sex between two people is quite crushingly dull. All the magazines here... I really can't find anything sexy in them. Men with non-erect dicks or man on top of woman, woman on top of man - it just bores the fuck out of me. Essentially porn is for 13-year-old kids.
Richey (1994)
The thrill of pornography is coming, and I think that wastes away into wanting something better. It makes me more romantic. It's a classic male response: you get pornography, you get your kicks out of it, then suddenly you think, 'Oh, I'm not really into that, because I want a relationship'. Does that make be a better person or a worse person? I don't know.
James (1994)
We got asked by For Women if we would appear naked, but I have no desire to expose my genitalia. Too small.
Richey (1994)
That Wonderbra advert might be funny, but it's still designed to titillate men. We'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't say that's a picture of a woman being subservient to a little sexual token, a bra. Advertising men use feminine images as subservient to everything. And Penthouse and Playboy try to diffuse pornographic images by putting in features about cars, or lifestyles of the rich and famous. That's just backing up the advertising industry. It's fusing Pornography and product. It's very tactful. It pisses me off.
James (1994)
I find it very sad that a girl in a swimming costume is all that's required to turn some men on.
Sean(1994)
I don't regard paying for sex as being that different to sleeping with a groupie. It's all done on the same functional level.
Richey (1994)
We like to threaten people sexually. Especially males.
Nicky (1993)
We all love to play the fruit machines but Sean owed thousands of pounds. The problem got so bad our record company had to pay off all our debts for us, and they banned us from gambling ever again.
Richey (1992)
Porn has helped me through fallow periods. Everyone goes through a dodgy period when they can't pull anything. Porn just gives you a quick relief. It just sends you to sleep really... men just want to see women with their legs open.
James (1994)
Sex is just an iota removed from a wank.
Richey (1991)
I think people are becoming more machine like and that's the imagery I like. Also sex and death are closely linked. Sado-masochistic imagery, bleeding... I find it attractive. I find it... sexual.
Richey (1994)
I've had herpes since I was 15.
Nicky (1991)
Songwriting And Recording
We aren't wallowing in any musical nostalgia like the music papers' Clash/Dylan freaks. We might sound like the last 30 years of rock 'n' roll, but our lyrics address the same issues as Public Enemy.
Richey (1991)
We must write our thoughts without any regard for structure or tone. It's up to James to fit it in. Sometimes he has a really impossible line, or something he doesn't want to sing, so he cuts it. We usually give him a page of words and let him choose. We've never cared about our lyrics being cut up. Some of our favourite authors, like Burroughs, did that anyway. Kerouac never used full stops or commas.
Richey (1991)
You can never get the producer you want (for Generation Terrorists). We wanted Public Enemy, but that was impossible to produce the whole album. I'm glad they didn't do it, actually. I wouldn't want them working with a poxy band like us.
Nicky (1991)
We can only really make basic, straightforward white rock music, 'cos we're not patronising people. We don't pretend we understand the street, or pretend to understand New York City. You know, we live in a crap little town in Britain.
Richey (1991)
I currently spend eight or ten hours a day playing Sonic The Hedgehog on my Megadrive. That's all I've done while the others have been making the LP (Generation Terrorists). It took me a couple of weeks, to get to the end and kill Doctor Robotnik. Then, every day, I couldn't live with myself unless I tried to finish Sonic in a shorter time. I should be interested in learning to play my guitar, but Sonic The Hedgehog rules my life. I find that very sad. It's the same with Nick, having to go up and play on a fruit machine every day.
Richey (1991)
We'll never write a love song. We'll be dead before we have to do that.
Richey (1990)
I have to totally understand everything I'm singing, it's not just a throwaway thing. I think of myself as a redeemable Roger Daltrey.
James (1994)
When we write lyrics, sometimes we'll come up with something we think is really good and works really well with James' melody. And I hate having the thought in the back of my head that we can't possibly print this in a lyric sheet, because people will misunderstand it.
Richey (1994)
I've been getting better as a guitarist and did actually play some guitar on this record (Gold Against The Soul). But I don't know if that was just to amuse the other members.
Richey (1993)
We recorded Gold Against The Soul in a fucking £2,000 a day studio. Snooker tables, swimming pools - and I thought, 'Shit, I'm turning into Primal Scream', you know, just hanging out, spending money. Something had to change, so we wrote, rehearsed and recorded this album (The Holy Bible) in some shithole studio in the red light district of Cardiff. Not going out, just working and working, listening to Joy Division records, working, working some more.
Nicky (1994)
Richey's written about 70 per cent of this album (The Holy Bible). He just kept handing us complete lyrics that were absolutely perfect, absolutely beautiful and very personal. He's not here to speak for himself, but I think he's explained himself pretty fucking perfectly in those songs.
Nicky (1994)
'Of Walking Abortions' (The Holy Bible) was one of the most extreme examples of Richey's lyrics -'so wash your car in your X baseball shoes'. I just didn't know what the fuck he was on about. All the weight of reference to Eastern Europe or Nazi culture and figureheads. 'Revol'? I didn't have a clue what that was about. Even Richey said afterwards that he didn't know what it was about. It's lover spelt backwards, or so he kind of tried to explain it. A decline in relationships... I don't know.
Nicky (1997)
The Holy Bible was created through an almost academic discipline. We sat down and gave ourselves headings and structures, so each song's like an essay.
James (1994)
I don't see The Holy Bible as a record, I see it as a state of mind. One we were all in. When we recorded it Richey wasn't suicidal or anything. He'd just bought a flat, he was still drinking and he'd come in about 12 o'clock, collapse and have a snooze and say 'Leave me alone, I've had a big drink' in a nice Welsh voice. Then he'd get up and do a bit of typing and we'd record for a bit, then go round Cardiff and have a shop.
Nicky (1996)
I was worried that, because Richey was undergoing treatment, he'd turn into Peter Gabriel, lyrically. He's living on a different proverb a day at the moment and I didn't want our songs to turn into psychobabble. But he's kept his own voice, which is admirable. It hasn't weakened us, but I'm not prepared to say it's made us stronger.
James (1994)
When I was young I used to keep myself to myself. I don't feel I have the right to intrude on anyone else, and I don't think anyone should necessarily want to listen to me. I think my lyrics are valid. I guess it's egotistical to publish your lyrics, but we always publish them because I want people to read them.
Richey (1994)
We thought 'Motorcycle Emptiness' was universal, and I still think it's fantastic. But 'life lies a slow suicide' and 'culture sucks down words'- it doesn't translate literally. A song like 'Yes' (The Holy Bible), which was a brilliant song, there were so many words there, and so many difficult words, that it was impossible for James to sing it. And if James can't sing it, there's no way a crowd can sing it, and there's no way you can digest it from the radio.
Nicky (1997)
I'm in a privileged position of interpretation. Sean and I never use bits of music we have lying around. We start afresh when we hear the lyrics. I have rules: I don't have to accept, only understand.
James (1994)
This time we seemed to be capable of saying everything we wanted to say. We weren't shoehorning the lyrics in this time, the lyrics suggested the melodies, these beautiful, beautiful melodies. James is so happy with this record, (The Holy Bible) and he's not a man who's easily pleased.
Nicky (1994)
I don't think we've ever made happy records. Maybe we've had uplifting moments, but I don't think lyrically we've ever been particularly joyous.
Richey (1994)
Sleep is constantly throughout every lyric I've ever written. It's a big thing because I'm scared to go to sleep. 'Cos the things I get in my head I don't like. That's the reason I started drinking - to knock me out.
Richey (1994)
Richey would always find something new to write about. Always. Whether it was a disease, or an article he read... he would always find some obscure reference which two people in the world knew about.
Nicky (1997)
I would like to be able to write’ I’m feeling supersonic, give me gin and tonic', but I just can't. I think that's a brilliant lyric, but I haven't felt supersonic since I was about ten years old.
Richey (1994)
We've always had a song about disease on every one of our albums. It's not a very good tradition to follow, really.
Nicky (1996)
People want well-played, good, sensibly-dressed songs, so I've convinced myself it's a kind of tactic to get in a position where perhaps the bigger we get it might be easier to subvert. Maybe then we'll dress up again and I'll strip again like I did in Thailand. If I've still got the guts to do it.
Nicky (1996)
I was like the McCartney to Richey's Lennon. But even Richey's lyrics on this album (Everything Must Go) are quite easy to understand. 'Black Flowers' is about something; 'Kevin Carter' is about something. With The Holy Bible and songs like 'Revol', people didn't have a clue what it was about. Richey was so intelligent that he ended up trying to condense so much that it was unintelligible.
Nicky (1997)
'A Design For Life' is one of the best songs we've ever written. 'Motorcycle Emptiness' is one of the best songs of the decade, but there was no way it could be a hit in 1992. British culture was so divided: the Levellers, the arse end of Madchester, shoegazing, acid house. But I think we knew straight away with 'Design'. James phoned me after he'd written it and said it was something special. Ennio Morricone, a bit of Tamla, a bit of Spector. Our only reservation was it might be too epic.
Nicky (1996)
Having (producer) Mike Hedges around (for Everything Must Go) helped. Boring to say though it is, we can play now. It's so much easier to record now that I can keep up with James a bit.
Nicky (1996)
All our records are just collages of ideas, a reflection of our bedrooms. Our first album was an attempt to find answers from Public Enemy, Guns N' Roses, McCarthy and the Clash. I'm under no illusion that Everything Must Go is original either. Pick a song and I'll tell you exactly which records it comes from. I don't think we're original, but I think we're unique.
James (1996)
James loves all that Motown stuff, it's all he fucking plays on the bus. It's his sex music. You can hear it on Everything Must Go, even if it's clouded by a few rockisms.
Nicky (1996)
We're not saying that we've got to forget our past. Things like that will always be with you. But obviously, it is a new start in some ways. We did feel a bit free doing the album (Everything Must Go) - it is such a reaction against The Holy Bible, musically.
Nicky (1996)
Mike Hedges uses old gear but we didn't go there (Normandy, France) for a full-on rustic valve experience. He's one of the last old-school fellas who really knows what he's doing with a band.
James (1996)
Our first three albums were a build up to this one (Everything Must Go). They're all flawed mind, occasionally naive records, but they were important. The Holy Bible was very dark, something we knew from the moment we stated working on it that wasn't going to be Played at parties. But without Richey, we've become more Optimistic on record, more positive. Having said that, I think some of the drama has gone now he's not around.
Sean (1996)
Everything Must Go is a more uplifting album than the ones we've done before. And it's what we wanted to do. We didn't want to make another manic-depressive album. We couldn't cope with going through the same misery again. But it's still a pretty dark album. In the position we were in, it was pretty easy to write, a lot of emotions surfaced and we only needed to catch that.
Nicky (1996)
James has a lot of ideas and, musically, I think the next record will Probably be a bit more adventurous, a fusion of the polar opposites of The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go. But to be honest, I'm finding it really hard to write any lyrics. I'm really struggling, I've got writer's block.
Nicky (1997)
Street Level
Signing to a major record company is the price of an education. We don't care what they do to us. The credibility of indie labels is shit.
Nicky (1991)
The whole indie mentality that grew up from punk onwards just seemed so bullshit to us, because the most subversive, really important group in the world were Public Enemy, and they were on Columbia (CBS/Sony, the Manics' label). The level of corruption on an indie label is just on a smaller scale.
Richey (1992)
Music industry is the easiest thing. The press, easy. Press agents, easy. All of them, easy. There's all these little boys going round being scared by it. It's all gone wrong. The independent mentality of the press sums it up. They're all tossers.
Richey (1991)
Everyone we talk to, we say 'We're not signing unless it's a contract for just one double album, one debut double'. Then we'll make enough money from that to last forever.
Nicky (1991)
'Everything Must Go' was a proper hit because blokes in my mum's betting shop were whistling it.
James (1996)
To be universal, you've got to stain the consciousness of the people. You've got to dig out a truth that everybody knows, but they don't want to hear, then tell it in a manner that's so articulate and so aesthetically indignant, so beautiful, that they've got to accept it back in their lives again.
James (1996)
We've had quite a few letters saying we're a band parents like, because we're quite moral and intelligent. I think they've gained that impression from the new album (Everything Must Go). They might not be so keen if they heard us do 'Repeat'.
Nicky (1997)
We know it's a pointless existence being in a band. It's not a worthwhile job, like being a doctor or a nurse. There are people who work for nothing saving badgers or otters.
Richey (1991)
It's the ideal prototype. Do one brilliant album then disappear, gain everything then give it away, create this franchise then scrap it.
James (1991)
Whatever happens to us, at least we'll know that we always tried to be a brilliant band. We've set ourselves up to be compared with the greatest rock bands ever. We've always set out to be something worthwhile, that meant something real and valuable; to make records about ideas and attitudes that are important and real, and that no one else is doing. To be the band we never had when we were growing up.
Richey (1991)
If we'd fulfilled the promise of the ten million albums then I'd be running for the President of America by now. It wouldn't have changed us... except maybe to accelerate our decline.
Nicky (1996)
Even Richey's self-mutilation was very private. His fuck-ups were not on public display. There was a working-class disgust - cover it up and get on with it. I have a concept of a working-class rage which is in some people. It's in us. It's in Liam Gallagher, Linford Christie, Nigel Benn and Paul Gascoigne. The desire to prove yourself.
Nicky (1996)
We got signed to Sony for a lot of money, but none of us bought anything, except portable CD players and stuff. Then, two months later, another one came out that was thinner and I bought that one. It was no value to my life, it just means I have a smaller CD player.
Richey (1991)
Whatever we've achieved, we never see it as any kind of achievement.
Nicky (1994)
My mind is not cluttered with the day-to-day necessities of staying alive. I'm not worried about 'if I don't pay this bill the gas is gonna get cut off'. Because I just chuck some money to somebody and it gets paid.
Richey (1994)
I had some fun a couple of days ago. That's my lot for a while.
Sean (1994)
When the gigs are getting bigger and people love you more and there's all this euphoria, it's harder to get quite so angry.
Nicky (1997)
The band was never about self-hate, it was about injustice in society and with The Holy Bible it became too inward-looking for my liking... It was never the intention to carry on in that vein, but now we're destined to be frozen in time as this myth. The only way we could ever break out of that now is to completely shed all our old fans, which I don't want to do.
Nicky (1996)
We were never a fanclub kind of band. We were hardly known for, you know, 'we love our fans'. We were never the kind of band who'd hang around signing autographs or whatever, but I think ultimately we gave them something a bit more special than that. We gave them a part of our lives.
Nicky (1996)
As long as we're the absolute antithesis of another main voice in pop music, then that's justification. A lot of groups who're massive now, like Blur or, especially, Pulp, they've got big by creating a certain empathy with their audience. And I don't think we're doing that now.
James (1996)
If you start off working at a certain level of intensity, you'll always be judged by that. It's easy, especially in a world as impatient and unforgiving as pop, to be rendered irrelevant by your past actions.
James (1996)
I'll only be happy if we keep changing and moving forward, which is perhaps why the second album upset me a bit. I'm very protective about our history, and I wouldn't want to sully it.
James (1996)
The fact that 95 per cent of New Musical Express readers say they feel an affinity with Richey, or feel the need to support him, pre-empts the fact that the last five per cent think he's a cunt. They actually think he's playing up to the people who feel an affinity for him, for what he went through. They feel it's just another little angle, that's all.
James (1994)
I'm just as happy having people loathe me as I am to have them love me. Music's got safe and ordinary; it'd be good if a few more bands tried to get those sort of opinions forced on them.
Richey (1993)
We don't want to reach the music papers, we just want to reach The Sun, The Star, The Mirror. That's what most people read. We'd rather be sensationalised than just be another NME band and get critical respect. Critical respect is the easiest thing in the world because journalists are so crap.
Nicky (1990)
We know they (Sony) completely own us, they can do anything they want with us. They can drop us... In fact they said, 'if you want, you can come in and smash the place up, it would be good press'. It wouldn't be good press - we'd end up paying for it.
Richey (1991)
All Richey does is go to London, drives around in the Sony limousine, goes to Soho strip joints, spends £300 on the band's American Express card, comes back covered in love bites and asks how the track's going. I think that's the thing that's given me the most pride in this band.
Nicky (1992)
We wanted to sign to the biggest record label in the world, put out a debut album that would sell 20 million and then break up. Get massive and then just throw it all away.
Richey (1993)
Whether we sell millions and millions of albums, or we fail abjectly, we'll still have said everything we have to say in one double album. We don't want to look beyond that, because we'd just be treating it as a career. If you throw it away when you're the biggest band in the world, then you're bound to get respect.
Nicky (1991)
We signed to Sony for a quarter of a million in advance with £400,000 to make the album.
Nicky (1991)
I think a lot of our fans are motivated by the fact that other people hate them because they like us.
Nicky (1991)
A lot of girls of 14, 15 love the band. I think they see us raging on their side. I hate men. Males don't seem to have any self-control any more; something catches their eye and they don't see why they shouldn't have it.
Nicky (1992)
Preaching Live
It's really hard for us to take other bands out on tour. There's just no-one we can get on with or like, really. We're such an insular band, and musically we just seem apart from anybody. Lyrically also. We've just got nothing in common with anyone. I think that's because people are scared to do what we're doing.
Nicky (1993)
I don't look forward to touring... I don't like it. I don't like traveling and I can't sleep at hotels. I hate flying, actually. I don’t know why I do it, really.
Nicky (1996)
(Supporting Oasis) is a good experience. You can't help but be proud when you hear the Oasis crowd sounding like they're at a schoolboy international, except there's lots of girls there too. It's humbling all the same. It puts you in your place.
James (1996)
We used to walk on to a reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg. Not many bands did that in 1990. Not many bands do it now. I'm glad we did those things. They made us different. Most people thought we were pretentious wankers, which undoubtedly we were.
Nicky (1996)
Any other group in the world would get the audience to do this (claps hands above head) during the quiet bit of 'Roses In The Hospital' but we physically can't do it. We can't bond with the audience.
James (1994)
Doing the Suede tour in Europe was probably the worst time of my life. Richey wasn't well and I felt ill. I had all these pains. I flew home and went to a Harley Street doctor who said 'You want to watch the fruit out there; they don't wash it, these foreigners'. Fucking Harley Street doctor!
Nicky (1996)
When we released Generation Terrorists we didn't play Motorcycle Emptiness' (live) for six months, because Richey and I couldn't play it.
Nicky (1996)
I feel very sad. This is the first time we've done concerts for a while. The last time we were really excited, talking among ourselves a the time Now we sit on the four back seats of the tour bus, nobody really talking, playing computer games, listening to our CD players.
Richey (199l)
The first gig at the Whisky A-Go-Go in LA was just abusive; non musical. Totally and utterly nonsensical to the Americans. Made us realise that to break America is just about the hardest thing to do, especially if you're a British band.
Nicky (1996)
It's quite glamorous being associated with such a mad tour (Oasis). People not turning up, people disappearing. It's good that it wasn't us for a change. We were dead normal, professional. Didn't say a word.
Nicky (1996)
We're caught in between markets. We're not pop, we're not metal - our rockisms have always been a bit too synthetic for American tastes - and we're not alternative enough.
Nicky (1996)
I still think touring's one of the worst things you can do. I'd much rather be at home now watching the Welsh rugby match tonight. I'm just not into the experience, really. TV is such an integral part of my life and when you go abroad there's nothing you can watch.
Nicky (1996)
I used to have that Barfly mentality. It made it worth while traveling all this way to have almost Zen-like insights by meeting a stranger at a bar and having a good old yap. But even I've gone off that romanticism.
James (1996)
I feel much more comfortable in Europe now. There's just a general air that people have a bit of intelligence and a bit of humour. Even Germans have some sense of humour compared to (Americans). So do feel really comfortable in Europe. Not happy but comfortable.
Nicky (1996)
For me, being in a band is about expression. It used to be through image and nastiness, but now it's just through the lyrics. I love listening to music but I just get bored. I get utterly bored sometimes being in a band. I don't know how people can actually enjoy being onstage in terms of playing. I still say the best five minutes ever of us being in a band was the last gig with Richey at the Astoria when we smashed everything up. That's the most enjoyment I've ever had onstage. It says something about myself.
Nicky (1996)
I'm enjoying Bangkok. I've never been on an 18-30s holiday before... I just feel like a complete lad. I don't feel any need to be accepted by women whatsoever, which is the way I've always felt, so it's reassuring to be me for once.
James (1994)
Tonight the gig was total shit. It's not that I need to bond with an audience at all, but I want it to be a good show, a spectacle. If things go wrong then it's all a waste of time and you might as well be a bloody traveling salesman. But I suppose it feels good to be wanted. That wasn't always the case.
James (1996)
When you go abroad there's so much pressure for you to experience things, to go out for these fancy meals every night, and I find it really boring. I don't mind going to an art gallery, or looking at the odd bit of architecture, but... I don't think food is culture.
Nicky (1997)
The thrill of it isn't stardom. It's not all down to ego, 'cos I lost a lot of ego a long time ago. the thrill is that we're
going to be playing to all these people on the tour. Just the fact that you think 'I could do something tonight that might change somebody's life.'
Nicky (1996)
I suggested that I wouldn't play on stage anymore, but would carry on writing words and doing the artwork and stuff. I convinced myself that was what I wanted. But it's not enough for me just to do the words. I think I'd be cheating on them, 'cos the touring part is the worst bit - the bit that no band really enjoys. It's the thing that makes it feel like a job because you know what you'll be doing in three months time at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Richey(1994)
Glastonbury just seemed like the worst gig we'd ever done, it was like cabaret for post-degree students.
James (1994)
In Thailand, definitely for Richey and me, something just snapped. It isn't that we weren't getting on. We went to Portugal and had a terrible time and then Richey's friend from university hung himself and, from then on that summer; it got worse.
Nicky (1994)
Playing live without Richey is the one thing that's incomprehensible. Recording's not a problem. We are incredibly arrogant, we still think we're the best group in the world, we still think that we write the best songs. But without the visual iconoclastic weight of Richey, as well as missing him, it's not right.
Nicky (1996)
The more touring you do, the less you remember you have to talk to each other -but I think we'll have the dignity to get out before we turn into wretches.
Nicky (1993)
Heroes And Influences
(Seeing 'Guns N' Roses) was the first time that we realised rock wasn't dead. We had the Stones, the Who, the Clash and we'd basically given up on hearing a new rock record that we'd really like. When we heard this (Appetite For Destruction) it was just so instant and exciting. 'Sweet Child O' Mine' is one of the most amazing love songs ever written and 'Welcome To The Jungle' is one of the most hateful, but people just dismiss him (AxI) as a redneck. He's one of the few people I'd actually like to meet and talk to.
Richey
Music had got so tame and watered down, and all of a sudden Public Enemy were probably the most extreme band that's ever appeared. There's nothing more articulate or intelligent in the entire world.
Nicky (1993)
Oasis have made me a fan again. They've completely revitalised British music. But yeah, we do like to think it could have been us. Perhaps we didn't have the guile. We were too nasty and confrontational. We waged war on the punters, the music press, everyone.
Nicky (1996)
Nick tried to get Jocky Wilson's autograph once and Jocky just went 'Fuck off'. Nick's quite proud of that. We all loved the darts on the telly and things like Pebble Mill. When that closed down we shed a tear.
Richey (1992)
(Miners' leader) Arthur Scargill came to see us in Liverpool. He came back and had a chat, which was a bit of a magic moment. I still find him inspiring because, despite all his faults, everything he said came true.
Nicky (1997)
Meeting Arthur Scargill was the most nervous I've been this year. I found it scary that here was someone who had a lot in common with my uncles, but had found a way to articulate it all. But he was the worst strategist in the world. I just looked at him and immediately had a million questions in my head. You could talk to him all night and it would be as frustrating as it would be inspirational.
James (1997)
Musically I do genuinely love Oasis. They're so natural, I think it's above criticism. But I now know we're too difficult for that. They have something that hits you like an elemental force. In many ways, Oasis are the band we wanted to be, but never could be.
Nicky (1997)
When we supported Oasis at Maine Road, it just put everything in perspective. It made me realise that we were becoming a big band, but we were nowhere near becoming a phenomenon, and we never would. Maine Road showed us our allotted position. I knew what we never would be after that gig. People have taken Oasis so completely to their hearts, independent of anything like a marketing push, anything at all, it just seemed uncontrollable. Totally inspiring.
James (1997)
For us Public Enemy are the ultimate rock 'n' roll band at the moment because they've got style and rage, which is what it's all about. So many bands are just worthless. We adore people like Kylie because she doesn't pretend to be anything except someone who makes brilliant pop records.
Richey (1991)
Alice In Chains are one of our favourite bands at the moment. They're like the American version of Joy Division, but a lot louder
Nicky (1994)
(Joy Division singer Ian Curtis was) the only musician whose death I was saddened by. I love music, but I couldn't give a fuck if anybody dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear.
Richey
One of my heroes is Jimmy McGovern. He wrote Cracker and some of the early Brookside episodes. I've always really liked him, but I'd never seen him before last Sunday, when he was on the South Bank Show. He was absolutely fantastic. I loved all the Crackers he wrote, especially 'To Be Somebody' with Robert Carlyle as the Liverpool fan, which was one of the finest things I've ever seen.
Nicky (1996)
Everything I've liked has always failed in some way.
Richey (1994)
Although people might not think it, the Stone Roses did have a lasting influence on us when we started. They were people we defined ourselves against.
Nicky (1996)
Black people have got a far more genuine rage than a white man could ever have. White people feel repressed, but black people are completely oppressed - so you get a real militancy. Public Enemy combined that with being glamorous: the way they moved, the way they dressed - it was like Aretha Franklin on smack.
Richey (1993)
One lyricist I really admire is (Beautiful South singer) Paul Heaton, who's a real pop genius, but he still has a lot of depth in his lyrics, and his interviews are fantastic - when he goes on about being a Sheffield football hooligan: 'those people with the season tickets, they didn't give a fuck, it was the hooligans who kept Sheffield United going in the 19805'. From a man who writes two-million-selling albums, I've got a lot of time for him.
Nicky (1997)
It's obvious to me that Oasis are the best band in the world. Liam is not very eloquent or anything, but you've just got to look at him and you know he's the business. He could have only come from where he came from.
Nicky (1996)