Generation Terrorists

We are just another band in the racks, but with more intelligence.
Richey (1991)

One of our best abilities is to arrive at the same realm of consciousness at the same time, the same mood. That's the way it's got to be. I've got to justify what I do. Just being an entertainer or a singer-guitarist isn't enough. We've got to be a band that has a collective consciousness.
James (1996)

You can maybe ignore our songs but when we walk down the street and you see our song titles on our chests you've got to think of something.
Richey

The more you achieve, the more blasé most bands get... Generation Terrorists went gold in Britain, sold 100,000, but that wasn't an achievement to us because we said we were going to sell 16 million. It does make a better band by putting that continual pressure on yourselves. We're always striving for something more.
Nicky

We've been accused of slagging off every band there is, and we've been told to stop. But our statement is that we hate every other band. We're not interested in them. That's all we can say. I've got no respect for any other band in the world.
Nicky (1991)

Right now I don't want to go out, I don't want to make any friends. All I want to do is make enemies. I've never felt this much contempt for everyone and everything in my entire fucking life. I don't feel the need for anyone to like me anymore. Jesus, it's hard enough to like yourself.
Nicky (1994)

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.
Richey (1992)

We read all the books about the Rolling Stones and Kiss and now the saddest thing is that we do all the things that every other band does but we get no pleasure from it. It's not glamorous, it's not exciting, it's not like being in a Who documentary at all. We had millions of groupies in Cardiff last night, but it's not as good as reading about it in the Kiss On Tour book.
Richey (1992)

We're banning Charlatans fans from our gigs because they all have moustaches.
Nicky (1992)

Seeing Mick Jagger jumping about doing 'Jumping Jack Flash' was the most important thing in our lives. Isn't that pathetic? I'd like to do something worthwhile like Nick's brother who helps people who are dying of cancer - but none of us could ever do anything like that because we'd always be whining 'Ooh, I want to watch a video, put the telly on'. We just feel sad there are no groups like the Rolling Stones any more. We are here at the complete death of rock culture.
Richey (1992)

Neil Kinnock is our MP. His constituency house is on the same street as James' - and he's such a tosser. Party politics always seemed so irrelevant to us. We got obsessed with cultural politics, it seemed more relevant; the real issues like how futile life is, how fucked-up modern society is. In terms of music, we went back and rediscovered the great bands. Everything else seemed boring and worthless.
Richey (1991)

Somebody should build some more bypasses over this shithole (Glastonbury)
Nicky (1994)

Even the bands from the past that we love - the Who, the Stones, the Pistols, the Clash - the way all of them turned out in the end was disillusioning, a letdown. We'll never let that happen.
Richey (1991)

We just totally despise people like Kingmaker, and think we should say that. Bands deserve to be exposed if they're so redundant, lyrically inept, ugly... and that's what those bands are.
Nicky (1994)

I still think Richey carving '4 Real' into his arm was a magnificent gesture. That's just the way we are, unfortunately. At the time it mattered so much to us, being in a band; that's what Richey felt he could do to express it.
Nicky (1994)

I think the bloke from Kula Shaker (Crispin Mills) talks some utter crap, but at least you can laugh. I like (Cast's) John Power: I think he's a bit of an angel, but he does talk some bollocks.
Nicky (1996)

I've never benefited from having a conversation with another band in my life. I'm not interested in being pally with other groups.
James (1993)

I'm not going to pretend that I'm converted to dance culture, because I find a lot of it extremely lazy. They call rock musicians Luddites, but they can't even pick up a pen and write lyrics half the time.
Nicky (1996)

I find Suede's keyboard player (Neil Codling) a bit odd. Everyone's supposed to fancy him, but I can't see Ocean Colour Scene fans fancying him. They'd probably want to batter him.
Nicky (1996)

I absolutely despise John Spencer Blues Explosion with a vengeance. He signed to his major label and tried to lose some weight and look cool, but it's corporate Nick Cave with a pretence of having some kind of edge. He reckons he's incorporating hip-hop: Bollocks! That's like saying just because we get re-mixed by the Chemicals, we're bastions of the fucking dancefloor.
Nicky (1996)

That fucking Bjork remix album: how did journalists ever fall for her? Talentless piece of shit. But you can't even say that because (then-boyfriend) Goldie will probably beat you up.
Nicky (1996)

As far as British music is concerned, there will never be another band as dangerous as us. Bands are too friendly. I detest every musician I've ever met.
Nicky (1994)

No band faces hysteria any more, unless they're Take That. Brett Anderson could walk around Brighton and no-one would bother. People don't care any more.
Nicky (1994)

Beck is vastly overrated. Typical maverick US lyrics that pretend to be intelligent, but deep down mean absolutely fuck-all. I know he’s very credible, but I just don't see it. He's got a good haircut and that's about it.
Nicky (1997)

  

I'm just interested in getting three number 1 singles, pissing off America and making the greatest rock album of all time.
Nicky

The first thing I ever said in an interview with the music press was 'we're gonna set fire to ourselves on Top On The Pops'. You don't say things like that for shock, there's some sort of sub-conscious. I do worry about ourselves as people.
Nicky (1996)

This year's the first time I've actually met people in other bands. It's hard to avoid it when you're at festivals. Before, I've always completely secluded myself. But when you actually meet people, I can't bring myself to go out in the press the next week and take the piss out of them. I couldn't live with myself if I couldn't say it to their face. Whereas before it was all right because I'd just say summat, and never see these people.
Nicky (1994)

We always knew we were going to fuck up. Everyone knew we were going to fuck up. We were really saying, 'Let's forget notions of contradiction. When it comes to bands, everyone fucks up, everyone lets you down'. Contradictions are meaningless, there's nothing to betray.
Nicky (1994)

In the band at the moment, it's a matter of giving ourselves some human grace, the chance to show emotion other than disdain or hate and not be ashamed of it. Breathe a bit more. I think we've survived under a heavy load of self-censorship.
James (1996)

We've reached a point now where we feel as if we've prostituted ourselves so fucking much, just given and given, that we've given everything away, and we've got absolutely fucking nothing left of our own. And we played up to that, you know - 'culture sluts'. But these things catch up with you.
Nicky (1994)

I know what I think made us special. But spiritually for others, I haven't got a clue. Except maybe... too much truth?
Nicky (1996)

We will always hate Slowdive more than Adolf Hitler.
Richey (1991)

Breakfast is always sad on Wednesdays because the music press arrives.
Richey (1992)

If we looked like we felt we would have come onstage like Joy Division. We had to make a massive effort to be a glamorous band, because inside we know we're not particularly glamorous really.
Nicky

In this season of goodwill, let's hope Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddy Mercury pretty soon.
Nicky (1992)

The Stipe comment is one I could be pushed into showing a morsel of regret about. Otherwise, we have a Murder On The Orient Express mentality. We all willingly step forward to stab the corpse.
James (1996)

I've got nothing against Michael (Stipe) at all. I'm just all for bitchin' music.
Nicky (1992)

Everybody knows that the Happy Mondays made some fucking great records, but we could never say that, because it was our blinkered Pol Pot period, and we didn't like what they were supposed to represent.
Richey (1993)

We still read the music papers from cover to cover. On Wednesday that's all we do. That's all we've ever done.
Richey (1991)

All the best bands get really fucked up... we're not saying there's anything glamorous in getting fucked up, we're not saying there's anything glamorous in being dead, but there's nothing glamorous in having a 20-year career either. That's even more sick.
Nicky (1994)

Some 'Cult Of Richey' disciples just won't be happy unless everybody else in the band becomes ill. I'm not willing to fall into that trap.
Nicky (1995)

The only good thing about New York is that it killed off John Lennon.
Nicky (1992)

As long as there are a few people who understand, it's okay. That's why we never minded doing teenage magazines like Smash Hits which some bands refuse to do. I just find that incredibly patronising. I know when I was 14, music was the only thing I cared about.
James (1994)

At the time most journalists seemed to be public school drop-outs. You could pick them off one by one. They'd been put in public school and they'd fucked up because they weren't very intelligent. And we'd come along and we were very bright, we'd stress the fact that we were educated and they didn't want to know. They wanted to make us their playthings.
Nicky

We get compared to the greatest bands ever and are accused of being crap. If you start comparing the music journalists to the greatest writers ever, you soon see how shit they are too.
James (1991)

Music journalists don't even look good. I saw Andrew Collins on television and I nearly threw up. My God, he looked like a Pork Pie Dwarf with a pudding bowl haircut... At least Nick Kent looked beautiful.
Nicky (1991)

When Steve Clarke of Def Leppard died, a man who'd written songs that sold 60 million or whatever, classically cool, why did he get about that much (holds up thumb and forefinger, millimetres apart) in the press? Yet when Shaun Ryder, talentless, brain-dead, has a baby, he gets a page. Why does he deserve it?
Nicky (1991)

30 is a very desperate age; rock music is being done by people in the 30s for teenagers. You get to thirty and look back and realise you've achieved nothing, you are nothing, and you've got nothing coming up.
Sean (1991)

I fucking hate the Beastie Boys. It's so much emphasis put on the quality of a sound loop. If you talked like that in rock about a guitar sound, everyone will take the piss out of you, but people will wax lyrical about Beck no end.
Nicky (1996)

Nick Cave is allowed to get away with writing songs about smashing a woman's head in with a brick - but if a band like us did it, there'd be even more outcry.
Nicky (1996)

The only beautiful thing about London is McDonalds.
Richey (1991)