THE WORD: Nicky Wire

Manic Street Preachers first arrived on the scene as a bunch of flamboyantly dressed, troubled Welsh misfits in 1991. Nicholas Allen Jones, better known as Nicky Wire, adopted the position of spokesman with his competitively solemn bandmate Richey Edwards. The tragic disappearance of Edwards in 1995 meant that Wire inherited sole responsibility for feeding the media controversial quotes and slagging off their contemporaries with a wit to rival Oscar Wilde. Here are Mr Carbohydrate’s best quotes.

On Other Musicians
“Morrissey is just a sad, old bitter man who will do anything to get press. He just likes irritating people. I think you’ve got to understand his mind. He’s done everything, thinks he’s done everything. He does it just to irritate people.”

“We were in the studio during ‘Revol’ when we heard ‘Girls & Boys’. And I thought ‘Fuck, we’ve just written a song about group sex in the Politburo and really the biggest thing out there from an indie band is about going off on holiday to Ibiza. We couldn’t be fucking further from the musical explosion than we are now.”

On Domesticity
“I have one (hoover) upstairs, one downstairs and a spare. I’ve still got the original Dyson, it’s the best.”

“Crisps and hoovers. It’s my life.”

“I have a theory about food, because when the food has gets better in Britain, the music’s gets worse. You can tell Keane and Coldplay…they eat well don’t they?”

“I would rather clean a toilet than cook.”

On Sex
“I’ve had herpes since I was 15.”

“I was 18, it was a reasonably pleasurable experience. It was one of those slipped-in-by accident things and I ended up marrying her.”

On Richey
“I walked into the room and he was just there peeling a Satsuma – it was his hangover cure – he just looked up to me and said, ‘I’ve just written a song about orgies in the Kremlin’.”

“I know people are going to think this is about Richey, and really Richey’s in all our lyrics. But it’s not specifically about Richey.”

On Music Festivals
“Someone ought to build a by-pass over this shit hole.”

“It’s full of germs and dirty people.”

“It’s bothering to play in time to anyone else that’s the problem! I put my bass down and started skipping during ‘You Love Us’ at Glastonbury 1999. James was looking across at me, like ‘where the fuck is the bass?”

On Twitter
“Every time I think I should be interesting on Twitter I decide to be bland instead because I don’t want to have to deal with that. It becomes so snide and pitiless. I know if I was still drinking and Richey was around it would calamitous. It most probably wouldn’t have harmed us as celebrities but it would have killed us as a band.”

“Tweets from Boy George + Spandau Ballet – HAPPY DAYS – my childhood pop education + cross -dressing inspiration.”

On Politics and Politicians
“You can’t get any sicker ironies than Tony Blair being a peace envoy.”

“I’m also looking forward to House of Cards season 3, the Rugby World Cup and Nick Clegg’s resignation speech – that odious cunt.”

“Oh give me a break! Their (U2) politics all seems to be over a bar of chocolate or something.”

“I thought the secret police were after me, caught me dressing as a woman. Fidel (had) asked us to dinner. I said I had a plane to catch. He said ‘Don’t worry, I’ll hold the plane.’ I decided it was time I went.”

On an alternative career
“If I wasn’t in a band I would totally go Marlon Brando. Put on 20 stone, wear a nappy, buy an island and eat myself to death.”

“They call me a boring fuckhead/They say I may as well work in a bank/ I tell them I wish I was / They tell that I’m sick in the head.”

On his singing
“He (James Dean Bradfield) said I was no Pavarotti.”

On playing The Holy Bible live
“I don’t need this to end”

“There’s no part of my body that – is not broken and bruised.”

“Basically my knees are held together with gaffa tape today – a real archive of pain.”

 Nicky Delisle
@ManicNicky

Nicky Lee-Delisle

Nicky Lee-Delisle