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We're a pretty moody band. One of us is always brooding...
James (1994)
From the age of ten I was very much isolated as an individual, entirely self-sufficient. I live from day to day.
Sean (1996)
It's very working class to want to better yourself. Me and Richey especially were attracted to being clever to prove that we were better than the other...plebs.
Nicky (1996)
I never needed people to love me. I revel in being hated. I just do. Well, not so much any more, but if people dislike me it gives me strenght, whereas perhaps for Richey it didn't. There hasn't been anyone like Richey for the last ten years, with those intellectual demons inside him.
Nicky (1996)
I never consider James and Sean as musicians. They're friends. We're not a band chucked together from the back pages of Melody Maker. First and foremost we're friendsNicky (1996)
I have a very child-like rage and a very child-like loneliness.
Richey (1994)
If you'd have gone into our houses when we were 20, you would have found the same books, the same records, the same videos. We were all attracted to the glamour of suicides and alcohol and beauty. That Rumblefish thing of self-destruction. It's just that Richey took it a lot further than us. Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain were two Richey icons. The Hendrixes and the rest were just
decadent. But Kurt and Ian had meant to do it - took control. That was more fascinating to Richey.
Nicky (1996)
Nick has deliberately made his life simple. The way he conducts his life is almost monastic.
James (1996)
One of the biggest things we needed when we were young was excitement. Music was the most important thing in our lives. We probably are the loneliest people...I think we're the loneliest people I've ever met. Music and videos were everything.
Richey(1991)
We can be pretty stupid. We've always done dumbfuck things - Richey's arm, for instance. We give people more enjoyment than any other band going. The very fact that we were from Wales meant there was no point trying to be cool...
Nicky (1991)
I felt Richey was the oldest and yet the youngest of us all. He'd only experience things by forcing himself into situations. He was quite immature in terms of what he'd experienced in life: never been in a relationship, things like that.
James (1994)
We always open our mouth before we think. But that's part of where we come from, part of having fuck all to do all day and saying things to each other simply to create arguments. It was a way of getting through the day.
Richey (1993)
Things get taken to stupid proportions every time we talk; we come out with Mark E Smithisms. We're so comfortable in each other's company - we're talking about 15 years of friendship - that the whole politically correct mentality, avoiding saying certain things when we meet someone new,
doesn't really apply.
Richey (1993)
People have 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 'rrarrarrarr', 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.
Richey(1994)
I am not stupid. I might come across as stupid. That's nothing to do with academic qualifications. I think there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. There are plenty of people with letters after their names who only know figures and dates. It's possible to know a lot of facts but not know anything at all.
Richey (1994) |
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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 because I've never trusted another person enough.
Richey (1994)
There's always something to be angry about. I think we've all tried to deny it at some point or another, but being unhappy and dissatisfied is part of our make-up. I look at my video collection or book collection and I realise they're all about fucked-up loners.
Nicky (1994)
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 somebody 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.
Richey(1994)
I find the idea of Kurt Cobain taking his own life frighteningly powerful. I've always been a sucker for that.
Nicky (1994)
Nicky and Sean are still true to the spirit of the Manics, whereas Richey and I are tending to lose the plot a bit.
James (1994)
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 (1996)
Nick doesn't feel he has to experience anything directly in order to write about it. It's what I call 'homestead lyricism'. It's about admitting that you still feel wonder at the very basic things in life. When I used to get pissed out of my mind every night, I lost that wonder. I began to realise that perhaps Nicky had it right after all.
James (1996)
There's a poem by Tennessee Williams called 'Lament For Moths', one of the first poems we ever read, which is about how the moths, the sensitive people, will always be stamped on and crushed by the mammoths - that really hit us, the sudden realisation that we were the moths of the
world.
Nicky (1994)
Richey feels things 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, and he got to a stage where he just couldn't stop himself
from doing anything.
Nicky (1994)
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 off with the fucking scissors in two seconds flat really get to Richey.
James (1994)
When we're not working, we just phone each other up at least once a day. We're just big yappers.
James(1994)
I am a melodramatic drama queen, I can't help that. Everything I've ever liked in literature has been along those lines. I guess I identify with victims.
Richey (1994)
The band have never called me Richey. They've always called me Android, or something like that.
Richey (1994)
Richey has always been in love with rose-tinted perfection. So he was always in danger of being let down.
James (1994)
I've always found it hard to express how I feel, even when I was a little child. It's a very British emotion - they keep things bottled up inside them. Some more than others.
Richey (1994)
We've always got a kick out of goading people into thinking we were complete tossers.
James (1994) |