The Manics: Preaching to theconverted

Tue 19th Jun, 2007 in Features

Eight albums into their career and the Manic Street Preachers are still going strong. Comfortably sitting in the groove of being a three-piece they’ve seen it all: from going it tough and living through oppression and mass unemployment in 80’s Britain, to playing the Millennium stadium in Cardiff as well as playing a highly controversial show in Cuba to the mysterious disappearance of their second guitarist Richey Edwards. Still, all things considered the Manics are as relevant as ever. They recently released Send Away the Tigers to much acclaim and chart success (It debuted at #2 on the UK charts). I had a chat with drummer Sean Moore and discussed the new album, touring and dueting with Swedish pop stars…

The Manic Street Preachers are in the middle of a small-scale tour which has seen them take in most of sunny UK’s theatres. It has been more than two years since the band has played live and they are currently in Leicester. “The reaction from the fans have been really good. The last tour that we did in the UK we finished off with these theatre shows and this time we thought we’d do it the opposite way round; we’re playing arenas in December”, says Sean over the phone, sitting comfortably in his hotel room.

Nicky Wire, bass player and activist posted a detailed message on their website stating that for the recording of their eighth album, Send Away the Tigers, the band approached the recording of this album with ‘youthful idealism’. When asked how it changed the dynamic of the songwriting and recording process Sean retorts: ‘We just wanted to simplify things. Towards the climax of the This is my Truth Tell me Yours tour and the Millennium show we put a little bit too much thought into it. We tried to be something that we weren’t, we felt like we were maybe outgrowing our audience a bit. (For this album) we wanted to be fighting Manics rather than make artistic statements every time we release a record.”

And so Send Away the Tigers was born, a self-confessed mix of Generation Terrorists and Everything Must Go. When asked if Sean agrees that the album has an Americana feel to it he agrees and says ‘We asked Chris Lord-Alge to mix it, and he did Green Day’s American Idiot. We tried to give it a sheen and a real rock sound’

The Manic Street Preachers released two of their most important albums; The Holy Bible and Generation Terrorists in the early nineties, and this is also the time when they won a lot of their fans. When asked if Sean thinks that the fanbase has changed much he says “At the moment it’s almost less young people, it’s like we almost skipped a generation of young fans for the simple reason that we were out for two years, then releasing an album like Lifeblood which probably wasn’t as appealing to a younger audience. As an album it’s lot more gentler and sophisticated. In the past we attracted a whole new generation of fans whereas this time around we missed it. The fans are still there. I mean the whole tour sold out in three hours”.

Indeed the Manics have been facing competition as of late with the new breed of British darling indie bands taking the spotlight. When I ask Sean if he likes some of the bands that has emerged in recent times he answers ‘It’s still a lot of style over substance. It’s easier for bands to get started with the internet and everything else. Perhaps they haven’t gotten those early years where you need to struggle as an artist even if it’s to give yourself some credibility if nothing else. I think that a lot of that’s been lost due to young people having it a lot easier than we did twenty years ago when there were strikes and mass unemployment’
The new single is called Your Love Alone is not Enough and features Nina Persson from The Cardigans on guest vocals. ‘We’ve done it (guest female singers) in the past with Traci Lords on Little Baby Nothing. We’ve collaborated with Kylie on one of her songs years ago and also Sophie Ellis-Bextor so we’ve done it before, but for this song Nick has Nina in mind. We never thought in a million years that she’d accept but she said yes’.
While it might sound like a pop song or even a love song Sean confesses “On a darker side it’s actually about suicide. That’s our dark humour coming through”.

These days The Manics are family men, so touring will always be complicated. When asked whether they will expand the tour Sean states ‘If the record companies are willing then we’d definitely tour. These days they (the record company) are very reluctant to put money into tours. I mean in America it costs $100 000 to keep us on the road for a week. So unless you recoup some money you can’t survive’.
Grim news indeed for Australian fans, but good news for European festival goers as the Manics are playing a range of festivals this season.

Revisiting the year when The Manics played the Big Day Out brings back good memories for Sean ‘I should imagine if we’re invited again we’ll definitely say yes. We had a great time when we played in ‘99.

We can only hope they get asked.