Behind me would be one third of Manic Street Preachers. Please welcome to the Much environment James Dean Bradfield. (performing "You Stole The Sun From My Heart" live) (applause)

James Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers right there on Much Music. "e're going to give you a bit of a commercial break, but don't go away, because when we return, an interview and a video from the Street Preachers. (commercial break)

I don't know if you know this is, but you should know that this is the 1999 Brit awards - Brit album of the year from the 1999 Brit awards, Brit group of the year... i'm talking about the Manic Street Preachers. This is James from the Manic Street Preachers. We have footage of that night, actually. I'm sure you were there, but in case our viewers weren't there or didn't see any of that night, we're going to run a little bit right now.

Best British group... Manic Street Preachers!

Manic Street Preachers! (Applause & cheering)

Thank you so, so much. Manic Street Preachers! Lots of love back home. Good night. (Applause & cheering)

Obviously happy that night?

Yeah, I was. I drank after. I must have been happy.

I know even one award would have surprised a lot of people; two awards surprised even more people. did it surprise you how big the awards were for that night?

Yeah, there were a couple of bands that I felt kind of might win above us to be honest, because we won those awards two years before as well, so I kind of thought - even if we won those awards, there might have been behind-the-scenes skulduggery and kind of might not let us win it again, you know. no, it was a surprise. but i'm not so humble as to say that I don't think we deserved it.

A lot of critics agreed with it. It was on many critics' lists for the album of the year. I remember you once saying - this is going back a few years - the band didn't want to win awards because they didn't want to piss off long-time fans or really loyal fans. Why that reaction to awards, though? what goes with the awards that you don't want people to be upset at, or long-time fans?

To be honest, I don't think it was ever a kind of massive preoccupation with us that we didn't want to win awards. I think it was a bit of a myth really, kind of like didn't really give a shit to be honest. If we won the awards and didn't care who we offended... we're pleased we just won those awards, and we felt as if we deserved them and felt it was a long time coming as well. We felt we'd done enough already to actually win those things. so we never set out to win awards, but we won them and took them home and gave 'em back to our parents as a reward. It was cool.

Is that part of what's been happening with the band that you didn't prepare for ten years ago? The first thing that comes to mind is you wanted the career to be one-album long. you had no idea it was going to be this long-lasting, this successful. There's been a few surprises along the way.

When we started, you were like - our big dream was to be like the Pistols, you know, really wanted to be like the Pistols, have one kind of monument to our history, just perfect album, split up and be remembered as perfect. of course, like, our first album wasn't that kind moment of perfection that we dreamt it would be, so instead of wanting to be the Pistols, we kind of changed plans and tried to become the Clash instead. We didn't think we'd get past the first album. We just wanted to split up after it, but it didn't work out that way. There's been a lot of surprises along the way. I didn't imagine we'd ever win a "Q" award because people that read "Q" are kind of like, you know, traditionally as seen as being a bit more mature, and here we are, Manic Street Preachers, like winning awards like that, so that's kind of a surprise, yeah.

Where did the band go wrong? (laughing)

I don't know... probably wrote too many good songs, I suppose.

Good answer. A lot of critics agree with you. Like I said, this is on the top of many critics' lists. Just listening to it, a lot of words keep popping up that people are describing it as. One of the words - I know you hate the word "passionate," but that word has been kicked around a lot, "intelligent." My first reaction after listening to it is very melodic, almost orchestral at times, and a bit of a departure from the sound you first cultivated ten years ago. Is that just natural evolution?

Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean, averagely, most bands don't get past the third album, you know, and we're on our fifth. i'm not saying that's a big achievement, but if you do get through the initial stage of taking lots of drugs, arguing with each other, and trying to buy a mansion in the middle of the country, if you get past that stage and keep writing songs, you are going to naturally evolve into something else. I've never been interested with bands that are obsessed with staying the same and not wanting to sell out of some kind of notion of what they wanted to be. We never wanted to be a caricature of our former selves. We always wanted to have some natural kind of reflex, where kind of like things would take us by surprise, and we'd just take a new direction. That's just happened because we all grew up with other. we've all been friends before being musicians. It's all very natural for us, contrary to what people might think.

This is the first out of five records without any involvement from Richey's help; even the last one, there were three or four songs written. Now this album is a trio. There's a three-piece. I was hearing rumours - I'm sure the band hears rumours every now and then - every six months he's spotted somewhere. Is that hard to deal with?

No, not really. That's a different level of talking about richey. There are certain things involved with talking about Richey, of course, that are quite painful and kind of like we were very reluctant to talk about them, but on this occasion when you've - richey's been sighted in Goa -

-Spain.

-Canary Islands, Rio, all in the space of two weeks; then we find that funny. You would have to be some kind of secret service genius to get into those three countries without a passport, you know, or whatever. It defies belief. That's the only time we find it funny. It's all that kind of internet misinformation. He was in Rio, Goa... he was in the Canary Islands, you know. That's the funny side for us because it's so stupid. We keep to ourselves now. We've kind of stopped talking about it as much and kind of started to get I suppose - reclaiming a lot of memories that became public domain in Britain. We're much more guarded about it.

And I respect that, and I'm not going to press, but was it difficult - it must have been on your mind a lot recording the record? This is -

-Sometimes.

-now strictly a three-piece.

Sometimes, but the thing that makes it kind of easier for us is the reason why people might think it's so hard: a close friend going missing that we grew up with. At the end of the day, there's still three friends, and we all grew up together. that kind of makes it easier as well; you know what I mean? It's not as if we're three professional band members and we're just in this for the money or whatever. We're all childhood friends. That makes it easier. We haven't got the ego clashes that other bands have. It makes it easier to insulate ourselves against a lot of bad stuff that might go through heads regarding richey, you know. We do kind of protect each other from that.

We have the video coming up for you: "If you Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next." The band's career has been touted with songs with a non-overtly political angle. It does come up every now and then. Is this song political? It is about the Spanish civil war?

Yeah, the song started as a self - almost a self - a song that is almost criticizing ourselves in terms of, you know, asking, "are we a band that kind of always had some kind of political content in our lyrics?" And the song was asking, "yeah, you know, kind of." we do kind of have little political kind of thoughts within our lyrics, but will we actually kind of, you know, lay it on the line as people did in the spanish civil war? People went to fight against something which was naturally affecting them.

From all over the world.

Exactly. so the song started as a soft criticism, really. this is, you know - I didn't think many bands write from that angle. Not many bands write from the angle where they've actually challenged their own beliefs or the way they might represent their beliefs, you know..

Is it almost educating people along the way who are asking about it, their reading of the Spanish civil war? It did take place in the '30s.

I don't know if it's as didactic as that. I don't know if we're that pious in our identity. Writing that song was an education for ourselves because it was asking ourselves questions that, you know, other people perhaps weren't asking at the time.

Even this week, the most recent thing I've read about the band is you refused to play the welsh assembly this week because the queen was going to be there, and you didn't want to have the queen as part of the audience... a statement against the monarchy?

No, kind of, whoop-de-do... that's a big surprise. You know, Manic Street Preachers does want to play on the same stage as the Queen... big shock! Our first album there was a song called "Repeat," and first line was "Repeat after me: fuck Queen and country." I think you find most musicians have no time for even the notion of a monarchy of any kind. It's no big surprise, you know. I mean, that's not a headline as far as I'm concerned.

I agree, but it seems - I think with a lot of friends that I went to high school with years ago, the older they get, the less they care. with the Preachers, it almost seems the opposite. you actually care more the older you get.

I'm not saying -- I'm not saying that we're not capable of hypocrisy because we are; everybody is. That was one thing we felt we couldn't get ourselves down on. If you've got a song like "Repeat," which is, like, a complete kind of - kind of like rejection of any monarchy whatsoever, then, like, we couldn't go back on that. We've always felt very strongly about it. you know, kind of... the Prince of Wales, you know, Princess of Wales, whatever.... they've got nothing to do with wales or where we come from. They have no notion of what that country means economically, culturally or anything. and any monarchy... we have no time for whatsoever. It's not nothing personal. It's just the actual institution of the monarchy.

Is the whole band sort of from the same head space that way?

Yeah, we all are, yeah.

Wow. it's more than a band. It's almost a brotherhood that way, isn't it?

You're making it sound scary now.

It's a gang. (laughing)

It's a gang, man!

This is new for North America. It's been out in the U.K. for awhile now. Are you going to come back and play with the rest of the guys?

Yeah, kind of the cut-price-sale season is over now. There will be three of us next time.

Okay.

We're coming back in the middle of July. I think we're playing Toronto and Vancouver.

Great. Really nice to meet you, by the way.

Yes.

It has been a pleasure. Here we go. Here's the Manic Street Preachers right now on Much. (playing "If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next" video)