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This page was created by a PROUD BRIT WANNA-BE!
And since this thing is so crappy, i have to put this stuff here. Sorry about the crappy spacing. It wouldn't go any other way. grrrrrr. SO unprofessional. i realy love the word crappy, apperantly.....
The Manic Street Preachers are:
James Dean Bradfield: Guitar and music
Sean Moore: Drums and music
Nicky Wire (Nicholas Allen Jones, brother of Patrick Jones the playwright): Bass and lyrics
Richey James Edwards untill 2/1/95: Guitar (sometimes) and lyrics
This is who Richey is (sorry. i stole this stuff from othyer pages bewcause i'm far too lazy to do it all myself!):
RICHEY JAMES EDWARDS
rhythm guitarist and lyricist
D.O.B: 22 December 1968
BORN: Newport, Gwent, South Wales
FAMILY STATUS: older sister, Rachel
HEIGHT: 5'8"
FIRST RECORD: 'It's Only Make Believe' by Child
PREVIOUS JOBS: none
LIVES: unknown. Owned a flat in Cradiff before his dissappearance
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Claimed never to have had a girlfriend, left a box addressed to Jo and labelled with the words 'I love you' before he dissappeared.
OTHER...STUFF:
When he was 13 he did a school project on Shakespeare that was 859 pages long "Whenever I do something, I like to do it a lot...I just had fuck all to do but sit in and write"
Went to Swansea university after gaining three A graded A-Levels to study Political history and left with a 2:1... and also a dependancy on alcohol which developed when he used to have to drink himself to sleep to drown out the noise the other students were making late at night
As well as having been an alcoholic he was also aneorexic and used to mutilate himself 'to get pain out' which he found sexual
Originally his role in the band was that of the band driver as he was the only one who could drive
Boasted of the fact that he didn't play a note on debut album 'Generation Terrorists' preferring instead to concentrate his efforts on playing SEGA 8 hours a day: "I should be interested in learning to play my guitar, but Sonic the Hedgehog rules my life. I find that very sad." Richey made up for his lack of musical input ("I can't play guitar very well, but I wanna make the guitar look lethal") by writing the bands lyrics with Nicky Wire, and wrote nearly the whole of the manics deeply disturbing album 'The Holy Bible' save for three Wire written songs which stick out like rusty nails against the Richey backdrop of prostitution, self mutilation, abortion, concerntration camps, aneorexia.
Changed his name to 'Richey James' because he considered it more rock 'n' roll.
Has four tattoos: 'Useless Generation', 'I'll surf this beach', and 2 large oval shaped ones.
Once carved the legend '4 REAL' into his arm during an interview with then NME hack Steve Lamacq to attest his authenticity, it required 17 stitches and the arch of the R cut all the way to the bone. It did make front cover of the music paper though and has since been dismissed as a distasteful publicity stunt.
Thinking he was in his prime performing live when drunk he was once faced with a problem when the manics had to perform live twice in the same day, so after the first performance he tried to sober up by stuffing his face with kiwi fruits... which didn't work. Another time he fell asleep on James shoe.
Has been missing since 1st February 1995 and, despite many dubious Richey sightings, it is generally assumed that he commited suicide by jumping off the river Severn bridge in South Wales as his car was found in the surrounding car park and it is a 'notorious suicide spot' the strong river currents mean that his body could easily have been dragged under never to re-surface. However, manics fans prefer to believe he is still alive and well somewhere in the world and many pointers can be pulled up to support this theory. The police are still searching for him.
They Said:
James Aug '94: "He has a very acute perception of things, and you can't
lose that perception"
The Face: "In person he's soft-spoken, nervy and intense."
MM Aug '94: "That methadone-glossy hair, that hungry jawline, the
sparkle of destiny in the eyes."
Caitlin Moran, (The Times) 7 okt '94: "The most untochably
beautiful person I have ever seen in my life. His hair has that "rockstar"
glow. His skin is translucent, and punctured only by two huge, softbrown
Bambi eyes. He has the kind of bone-structure that would make Kate
Moss's agent weep. This is beaty beyond lust."
James: "I've always envied Richey for his cheekbones."
James, Kerrang 7/11/92:"I haven't got much respect for Richey as a
musician. ...But I respect Richey as a person and as my friend. He's also
my second favourite lyricist after Joe Strummer, and that's good enough
for me ..."
Sean, The Face 9/98: "In a way he was very indulgent to his impulses, ...
Nicky has the same impulses but then 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. ..."
Carol, Leeds, NME 3/9/94:"... I can't believe what's happened to
Richey. I want to help him, I want to comfort him and I want to hit him.
I've never cried about a bloody stupid pop star before but I'm crying now.
Please get better. Stop turning all that hatred inside on yourself and start
using it to hurt the bastards who deserve it. ..."
Ian Ballard, Damaged Good Records (who put out the 'New Art
Riot' EP in 1990):
"Richey must have read books from day one while the rest of us were
watching telly. He's very intelligent! I think he finds it difficult talking to
people who aren't similary educated. He'd sit there quoting things and I'd
be nodding thinking, 'I don't know what you are talking about.'"
Graham Edwards (Richey's father): "I suppose it was a gradual
decline that led Richey to seeking treatment, but when he was at home he
seemed reasonably happy and it was only later that we realised there was
something seriously wrong."
Nicky 96: "Let's face it, you don't need any clues for Richey. Ever since
he carved '4 Real' on his arm, nothing would surprise you. Alcoholic,
anorexic, drugs, self-mutilator...all your favourite things rolled into one."
Nicky 94: "Richey feels everything so fucking intensely. He always had
this vision of purity, of Perfection, a kind of childlike vision, that became
completely obliterated. A misprint on a lyric sheet, or whatever, would
just upset him so much."
James 94: "Richey never had as many setbacks as a kid as me, he's more
acutely intelligent than me, he's more beautiful than me - and yet he has
more problems. Problems that I'd just snip with the fucking scissiors in
two secounds flat really get to Richey."
James 94: "Richey's always been in love with rose-tinted perfection. So
he was always in danger of being let down."
James 94: "Everybody's got a corner in their heart and mind you can't
get into. Richey was always more into books and films than rock 'n' roll,
and I think those artforms are much idealized. I think they influenced the
way he viewed his life, and the way he thought it would be. I think of that
quote in Rumblefish, y'know? 'He's merely miscast to play; he was born
on the wrong side of the river'. He has the ability to do anything, but he
can't find anything he wants to do."
Nicky 95: "Richey was half Ian Curtis, half Iggy Pop."
Nicky 96: "What made Richey the way he was? There is no dramatic
thing, that's the scariest thing of all. To be honest, I think that, if
anything, it's because his childhood was so happy that when he reached
the age of responsibility, he couldn't handle it. He genuinly loved being
young, but when you leave school, that's when the real world hits you.
That's the most traumatic thing, having to grow up and realising - as he
would put it - that everything was shit. Richey used to say 'you're born
unmarked', then he'd look at himself and go, 'now I'm scarred'. They do
say that 27 is the optimum time for males to commit suicide or
breakdown, usually because of a longing for a disappearing youth."
Nicky 94: "Richey just reached a poin where something clicked. His
self-abuse has just escalated so fucking badly - he's drinking, he's
mutilating himself, he's on the verge of anorexia...there's a line in 'Yes' ,
'hurt myself to let the pain out' . Richey just found it hard to say no to
anybody, and that really was his way of letting out pain."
Sean 94: "The only people who are disturbed by Richey cutting himself
are those hwo don't know him. They don't understand...We do know
him, we do understand."
Nicky 94: "The first time I ever saw Richey cutting himself was at
university, revising for his finals. And he just got a compass and went like
that (draws invisible blade across arm). But I knew a lot of people at
university who did that, so when he did '4 Real' , obviosly I was really
shocked."
Nicky 96: "The Priory (the private clinic where Richey was taken after
his first breakdown) ripped out the man and left the shell. These people
say they've got a cure, but that cure is to totally change you personality.
You could see him struggling with this, wondering if this was the only
way."
Nicky 96: "We had so much poetry off anorexics and a lot of it was so
shit even Richey was getting fed up - not another pile of this again. I said
'look I'm gonna have to write a song taking the piss out of their poetry',
and he was laughing. Even though he was one - or at least an half anorexic
- he could still see what I meant. He'd go, 'Oh no, not another fucking
poem about eating an apple in the morning'. Though he was suffering, he
still had it - the cynicism."
Nicky 97: "Richey would always found something 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 93: "Every morning Richey would wake up with a really bad
hangover after drinking a litre of vodka. Then to the gym, exercise, swim,
do weights, have a jacket potato with all his grapes, and then not eat
anything else for the rest of the day until he started drinking again. He
knew full well that in the rock 'n' roll world it's either the food or the
booze in order to keep one's figure. Not both."
James: "In the end Richey is one of those people who will always do the
opposite of what you tell him."
Nicky 96: "If you have a body, you can let it flood out. Anger and grief.
But we were just...suspended. Although the hope is still there, so is the dread. If I get a phone call and
it's a wrong number, or the person just puts the phone down, it can ruin
your whole week."
James 96: "There are two very obvious things which have befallen us this
year which have made me very aware of how things can be snatched away
from you. I'm getting a bit weary of the arbitrary nature of life. I can't
help thinking, 'Richey, if you could just have held on a little longer things
might have been a lot different. Maybe then you could have had all these
things you wanted. You might have been happy.' "
Nicky: "We got one letter wich said 'Why didn't you talk to him?'. And I
spent more time in my life talking to Richey and trying to understand him
than I have done with any other person. He made my life a misery
sometimes, because I was just worrying about him all the time."
NME 1994: "But, however gloriously Nicky preens, however frenziedly
Sean drums and however high James jumps, it becomes increasingly hard
to tear your eyes from Richey. He stands stage left, knees bent,
head thrown back, body twitching as he scrapes haphazardly at his guitar.
He looks so beautiful, so tortured, so ridiculously rock 'n' roll it takes a
while before you notice the blood coursing down his naked
torso. He's slashed himself several times across his chest with a set of
knives given to him by a Thai fan earlier that day. Are the lad insane, or what?"
Sean 1998: You have to want to help yourself..and obviosly he didn't. I
regret that there was absolutely nothing that we could do or say to change his mind. Obviosly 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 media. I think we did everything possible.
There's nothing more we could do.
He Said:
"Depression is just our natural mood. Where we come from, there's
natural melancholy in the air. Everybody, ever since you could
comprehend it, felt pretty much defeated. You've got the ruins of heavy
industry all around you, you see your parents' generation all out of work,
nothing to do, being forced into the indignity of going on courses of
relevance."
"We never minded doing teenage magazines like Smash Hits - which some
bands refuse to do. I just find it incredibly patronising. I know when I 14,
music was the only thing I cared about."
"Every day of my life I feel I'm not as good writer as I could be, I'm not
as intelligent as I could be. I try and constantly read to improve my mind
and get a better perspective on world history. Nobody's ever gonna be
good enough to know everything, but I think I try - which is more than a
lot of people do."
About self-mutilation: "I'm not a person who can scream and shout so
this is my only outlet. It's all done very logically."
"We're the sad victims of the 20th-century culture. The cinema in our
town, which is the poorest and most boring thown in the country, closed
down when we were eight, so what do you do? You go out and pissed and
have fights, or stay in and get on with your boredom. We were happier
We were happier to go along with the boredom."
"My lyrics aren't really 'Baby I love you' , 'baby I miss you' , 'baby come
back' or 'baby go away' which is like 95% of every record in every record
shop in the world. What ever kind of writer you are, it obviosly expresses
something about how you feel. I mean, if you spend your whole life
writing love songs, you know, you probably are psychologically damaged.
If you're that obsessed that everything you put down on paper is always
about relationships, then you must have some deep-rooted flaw."
"It's very nice touring, it's very nice staying at hotels, it's nice doing
concerts, but it's not as satisfying as maybe getting 2 or 3 lines in a lyric
that you think really encapsulate how you feel. That's what's really
important to me, I can look back on a lyric and think 'that's a good song,
that's as good as maybe works that I really respect'. That's what I''m in a
band for."
"Because we're honest, people are gonna always have problem with us,
which is fine."
"I think there's an awful lot of people who work for record companies
and stuff who don't really know music as much as we thought they would.
We thought they'd be fanatics like us, obsessed with music 24 hours a day.
But there are people who just clock into work every day, they could be
working in a sausage factory. That was disappointing, because where we
come from, so many people would die for the opportunity to be involved
in music."
"I worked hard. Got to university, spent all my time in the library, never
missed a lecture. All the time in the bar there were people who were, like,
'I ain't made one lecture this term. I'm so outrageous.' I think if you miss
two or three lectures on the trot you should be fucking thrown out. Or
drowned."
"We're shy people. When we go back home we haven't got this list of
friends. It's not like, 'Waheey, the boys are back!' The four of us have
always been really close, we never saw the point in meeting anyone else,
really."
"Mankind is the worst thing that's ever happened to this planet."
"Everyone has a price to buy themselves out of freedom"
"Unlike man, dolphins did not try to manipulate their environment, they
learned to live with it. They used all their time not to hurt or compete
but to achieve contentment. Dolphins have created and developed
freedom by exploring what is around them. Humans have destroyed it, put
up barriers and laws. They have explored only to exploit and abuse."
"When we started we used to go into NatWest, all the banks, and try to
get a loan. We'd tell them, 'this country is dead musically, there's got to
be a room for an exciting rock band.' We'd show them the New Musical
Express: 'look at that, anything godd in there? Now look at us, we're really
exciting.' We told them we were going to be this really massive rock 'n'
roll band. They couldn't see it."
"People still got this stupid idea that I'm a loud, aggressive person. That
by the things I've done I'd be hyperactive, talking all the time, running
around going 'rrorrarrarr', smashing people in the face, kicking down
doors. Which is not the case. I've never destroyed anything in my life,
apart from a few guitars."
"If I was in a pub and someone attacked me, and I knew I'd done nothing
wrong, I would happily take a beating without doing anything, and feel
really superior. I would never hit someone back. If I'd done something
wrong it's different. But if I was minding my own business, I could easily
take a kicking. I'd think 'I don't give a fuck 'cos you are scum. You're way
down there and I'm above you 'cos I can take it'. It's a bit Biblical, 'turn
the other cheek', and all that."
"I'm much more sympathetic towards older people than towards my
generation - I think they have a lot more dignity, and seem to be able to
take care of their own problems themselves. People of my generation
seem to be so selfish. I'm no exception, because you can't escape from the
culture that surrounds you."
"We can only really make basic, straightforward white rock music, 'cos
we're not patronoizing people to pretend we understand the street, or
understand New York City. You know, we live in a crap little town in
Britain."
"When we do interviews for Japanese magazines they get all upset because
they want us to be all obnoxious and we aren't really. We actually get
faxes from the record company in Japan saying, 'please tell the Manic
street preachers to spit on people'. It's just sad. That's what people want.
It's pathetic."
"Whatever happens to us, at least we'll know 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."
About the '4 REAL' -thing: "I was real fucked off with Steve Lamacq. I
didn't know what I could possibly say to make him understand. How easy
and cheap is it for me to just hit him? I would never want to do that. I
would rather cut myself, because I feel I can justify that. Whereas I can't
justify hitting him."
"As a child, you put your head on the pillow and fall asleep with no
worries. From being a teenager it's pretty rare that you don't end up
staying awake half the night thinking about bullshit."
"Once we got set our minds what we were doing, we didn't play a single
gig in Blackwood, it was straight to London and scrounging money to get
on the pay-to-play circuit. You know 50 for 15 minutes. Next thing was
getting the press to the shows. This is extremely difficult in England
because the music press wields the power to make or destroy taste and
they don't like anything they don't discover themselves."
"I think we're the loneliest people I've ever met."
"I think everybody's first love is themselves. Some more than others.
Some can divide themselves and give something of themselves to another
person, which I've never been able to do becase I've never trusted another
person enough."
From the last interview: "The worst thing I did was to keep trying to
be normal, which is how I ended up in hospital. Now I wake up in the
morning and I know what I want to do - I want to write, it makes me feel
better in myself...I value writing songs, I do regard myself as a good poet. I
work hard. Songwriting is an art and I really try my best at it. The band is
getting better and better, the lyrics are too. I've found better way to
express myself...I don't think I've changed what I say but maybe I'm
saying it in a different way."
"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."
"We'll never write a love song. We'll be dead before we have to do that."
"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."
"The only perfect circle on the human body is the eye. When a baby is
born it's so perfect, but when it opens its eyes it's just blinded by the
corruption and everything else is a downward spiral."
"All you can do to the past is to never want to be like it."
"Philip had a big impact on our lives. He was the first person that ever
believed in our music; the first to respond to all the stupidly long letters
we would send out to anyone we could think of. He said 'I'll come and see
you do a gig in London'. We said we couldn't get a gig in London. So he
drove down to see us in a crappy schoolroom."
"The only beautiful thing about London is McDonalds."
"There is no generation gap, just those in and out of society. "
"We are decaying flowers in the playground of the rich. We are young
beautiful scum."
"Democracy is an empty lie, all we have is each other."
"Psychology rips out your soul, boredom kills your mind."
Scratch my leg with a rusty nail, sadly it heals/ colour my hair but the
dye grows out/ I can't seem
to stay a fixed ideal - Die in the summertime (The Holy Bible)
I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing - Faster (The Holy
Bible)
The massacred innocent blood stains us all - Of walking abortion (The
Holy Bible)
Beauty find refuge in herself/Lovers wrapped inside each others lies -
She is suffering (The Holy Bible)
I've been to honest with myself/I should have lied like everybody else -
Faster (The Holy Bible)
Wasted your life in black and white - Kevin Carter (Everything Must
Go)
THE STORY OF RICHEY JAMES:
Richey grew up in the village Woodfield outside Blackwood in the south
of Wales, and lived in the same house as his grandparents up to the age 13.
He lived in the same street as Nicky, and met Sean and James as he
started school. They all became friends and used to play football together.
He was in the same year as Sean at Oakdale Comprehensive and went to
university (Swansea) in 1986, where he studied modern history and politics.
James, Nicky and Sean had formed a band, The Manic street preachers,
and even released a single, "Suicide Alley", witch cover was designed by
Richey.
Richey became a full member of the band in 1989, after graduating from
university (got a 2:1). He started write the lyrics together with Nicky, and
play guitar, even though he could hardly play.
It was always important for Richey to be taken seriously, and that took
an ugly turn when the band played a gig in Norwich May 15 1991. He was
talking to Steve Lamacq (then writing for NME), and they had a
conversation about where the Manics stood. Steve was sceptical, and said
something like "people may not think you're '4-real' " , Richey was ver
upset by the time, and took a razorblade from somewhere and carved the
message "4 REAL" into his left forearm. It later turned out that he had
been mutilating himself since the university-times.
Manic street preachers released their first album "Generation Terrorists"
in 1992 , Richey didn't play anything on that, because he obviosly found
more interest in playing SEGA-games than practise on his guitar. He was
a bit more engaged in the second album, "Gold against the soul."
By the end of 1993, their manager Philip Hall (who Richey was very close
to) died in cancer. That didn't really make him better. His depression got
worse, he drank about a half bottle of vodka every day, just to get to sleep.
Richey's vision became more and more bleak, and then for the first time
he took the main control of an album. The third one, The Holy Bible, is
the most hardgoing stuff they've ever done.
When they toured in Thailand in April 1994, where the cult of Richey as
an icon for an alienated world had gone complitely out of control, (he got
knifes from his fans, and they wanted him to sign pictures of his mutilated
arm), he appeard on stage with his chest slashed. And sometime in the
summer of 1994 Richey bought a butchers cleaver and looked himself up
in his apartment in Cardiff for two days of physical and mental
self-tourement (some people count this as a suicide attempt). When he
came out, he's weight had dropped to six stones.
He ended up in an hospital in Cardiff for insomina, anorexia and
alcoholism. The other members of the band came to visit him, and they
realised it was not a good place for him. He shared a dorm with 12 very
sick men, all of them doped up, with a doctor only seeing him once in the
eight days he was there. James once described it as a "Cuckoon's Nest -
institution".
The manager, Martin Hall (brother to Philip) found a new place for him
in London, called The Priory in Roehampton. Where he got more proper
care; became an AA-member and started a 12 step recovery programme.
The band said to Richey that he could continue in the band as just a
lyricist, and stop playing onstage and touring. Richey was aware of that
that was what he really wanted, but he thought it would be a betrayal. So
he was released from the hospital, and joined the band again.
It all seemed to be going well in the beginning, but then there was the
European tour with Suede. It started on November 7 and ended on
December 14 when Nicky woke up in Hamburg and found Richey outside
the hotel, banging his head against the wall with blood running down his
cheeks.
Richey played three last shows with the Manics - at the London Astoria.
(December 19, 20 and 21). There was a lighter mood at the time.
The last gig had a strange feeling of finalitly, they smashed everything up.
(Sean: It was like we wanted to destroy all of our equipment, so we could
never play another gig.) It turned out to be the last gig they ever did with
Richey.
On february 1995, he left the hotel where he and James stayed in before a
flight to America, and hasn't been seen since.
His car was found on the Aust service station near the Severn Bridge on
February 14. He'd left passport, Prozac, clothers and things like that
behind, but after contacting Richey's bank, the management discovered
he'd withdrawn £200 per day the previous 14 days.
There has been many sightings all around the world, but nothing is safely
true. He might be alive. Let's hope he's OK, livin' somewhere on a tropic
island and feeling better than ever.
please don't plauge me with rude messages that don't have anything to do with the manics!!!! sheesh!
that rocks.
if your intrested, go to my club