Where did you study and what subject?
Swansea University, same as Richey, and I studied Politics. But I went to Portsmouth Poly first. My teachers had predicted really low grades for me because I never tried very hard at my mocks and stuff, so that's all I could get into. I got much better grades than expected, As and Bs. I got to Portsmouth and I was having a thoroughly miserable time, so my mum rang up Swansea and gave them loads of hassle, and they eventually let me in.
Has university served you at all in later life?
As far as the
course went I had read a lot of the books anyway. The problem
always was that I wanted to do things my own way and study what I
wanted, but that doesn't really work at University.
I enjoyed A levels because you had a certain freedom to write
what you liked, and also you had teachers who wanted to teach you,
whereas at university all the lecturers really want to do is
write books, they haven't the first idea how to teach and they
don't care about making the subject interesting, they just
indulge themselves.
But then I wouldn't have met Richey if I hadn't gone to college.
I was already close to James from school but Richey was in the
year above me. He was really into the idea of studying, whereas I
didn't feel I was learning anything I couldn't read about anyway.
I scraped a 2:2 in the end but by that time the band had got
going, we'd got out first NME feature, we'd been on tour with The
Levellers, for some bizarre reason (in fact the night before one
of my finals we played with The Levellers) so I wasn't too
bothered.
A lot of it was three more years of not having to decide what to
do with your life. I've literally never done a day's work in my
life, not even a paper round, so I couldn't handle going to work
in an office. And I guess a lot of going to University is just to
please your parents, and they'd always been pretty good to me.
University was the first time I really became independent, though,
because before I was very much a bedroom boy - it was my
Morrissey period - so I guessed that helped when the band started
and I was away from home for long periods at a time. But for the
first two years at college I must have gone home and visited my
parent every weekend.
Did you get
badly into debt? Yeah. I never spent my money on beer like
all the union crowd, I just used to go down 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.
James used to mail me fivers and tenners, which seemed like loads
then, because he was working in a bar back home. We used to write
to each other three time a week, and the same with Richey and
Sean. But I've never drank or taken a single drug in my life, so
I guess fruit machines took their place.
I was quite proud of the fact that I never went near the union in
the whole three years I was there. So of course I didn't make any
friends apart from Richey! We used to go and play golf all the
time. Not very rock'n'roll I'm afraid!
If you met yourself as you were then what would you think?
"What a dork", probably. I was much more outwardly nervous then. I always had a kind of quiet arrogance, and slight bitterness against the world, but I didn't have the guts to do anything about it.
Did you ever ride a shopping trolley home or nick traffic cones?
No, I always kept well away from that. I never hung around with those kind of people. Although I remember Richey once dressed up as a semen (Yes, semen, not seaman! - Ed) for Rag Week, and painted himself all white. He soon learned the error of his ways.
Did you get involved with any student politics?
No, I was always completely cynical about that. I guess they can do some good but it always seemed pointless at the time.
Did you shop at thrift shops?
No, I was never very interested in clothes back then. I was a bit of a nerdy casual. I was into golf so I even used to wear Pringle jumpers! We did used to get stuff from Oxfam when we started spray painting shirts for the band, but that's different. It was only the rich kids that wanted to dress down like that.