10/01/2000 - BBC Radio 1 - Jo Whiley

Jo Whiley: I've got someone on the phone answering to the name of Nicky Wire. There is only one Nicky Wire and he's in the Manic Street Preachers. Nicky: Thank God for that.

Jo: Yeah, thank God! How are you doing? Nicky: I'm alright, thanks.

Jo: Good. So Christmas and New Year - how were they for you? Nicky: Nerve-wracking. I felt the whole Christmas was just a build-up to the gig really. I must say it was a very nervous Christmas for me.

Jo: Did you get any good presents? Nicky: Yeah, I got loads. I got the Alfred Hitchcock collection, which was dead nice. I've been going through that, one by one.

Jo: What's your favourite so far, the best Alfred Hitchcock? Nicky: Well the most frightening is Psycho, but I can't watch that because it's too scary.

Jo: You wuss! The Birds does me every time. Nicky: Yeah, The Birds actually is probably the best, especially because of the special effects.

Jo: If you go on holiday anywhere, like St. Ives, the seagulls down there are so vicious, you just get flash-backs to that film every time you go down there. Nicky: I love it, St. Ives. I've never been attacked by seagulls though.

Jo: Don't go down this year because you will, I bet! They get worse every year. So New Year's Eve, how was it for you? It must have been a tremendous feeling playing at the stadium? MancisNicky: It was amazing, you know, we sold 60,000 tickets on our own without announcing the bill, and through everything we kind of said we would do ten years ago when everybody laughed at us, and then going onto this, and seeing this mass, it was just amazing really. I still haven't got over it. Since we did it, we've virtually cancelled everything, we just feel a bit deflated after it, so I don't know what we're going to do next.

Jo: How did you feel when you went to bed that night? Could you not sleep? Nicky: Well James was up till ten o'clock the next morning. I could hear him downstairs. I stayed up till five o'clock, which as you know is very late for me.

Jo: Unheard of! Nicky: And that was just through nervous excitement I think. I've just been getting over it really. On BBC World tonight, they're showing the gig, so I'm looking forward to that.

Jo: Are you having a party to all watch it together? Nicky: No

Jo: I know that's your style! Nicky: Well someone did say on the internet this week that Nicky Wire's stopped going to the Met Bar, which I found absolutely incredible. I won't even have a party at my house let alone go to the Met Bar!

Jo: Are you at home at the moment? Nicky: I'm at home, yeah. I've walked my dog this morning and done the cleaning.

Jo: Very good. If only you lived closer then you could do mine as well. Are you in to decorating and DIY and all that stuff? Nicky: No, I'm not very good at that.

Jo: You get people to do that for you, do you? Nicky: It's a flaw in my personality.

ManicsJo: Listen, the reason you wanted to speak to us on air, you called us up, is to talk about the single at the moment, because I've been reading in the papers that it's a limited edition. 10,000 copies? Nicky: No, it's definitely not 10,000. The NME just made that up basically.

Jo: Surely not! Nicky: Surprise, surprise. It's deleted after today, however many records are in the shops today, that's it. But I know for a fact it's more than 10,000. I think we've got more fans than 10,000. We wanted them to be able to get it. There's not exactly many out there, but after today, that's it, there's no more printed. That's why it's a limited edition.

Jo: So have you been berated in the street or something? Nicky: Yeah, there's been lots of people coming up to me and saying, "Here's three quid. Can I have that record off you?" I could have made a fortune actually.

Jo: There's a thought! Is it going to be appearing on any album at all? Nicky: No, it's only released in the UK, we haven't done a video, we haven't done any TV. This is a world exclusive - it's the only promotion I'm doing for it Jo!

Jo: Thank you very much indeed! So do you love this record? Nicky: Yeah, we had a ball making it. It was like a riot in the studio. We did it really really quick, all three tracks we just bashed out. It's just our idea of having fun I think. If you look back to the past, Blur did 'Popscene' and Oasis did 'Whatever'. There's a lot of good one-off singles that never appeared on albums. The Beatles did it. All the best bands did it, so we wanted to do it.

Jo: Just to join in, be part of the club! So what are you up to personally? Any sporting activities to look forward to? Nicky: It's the Welsh Sporting Personality of The Year Awards tonight, so I'll probably go along to that, if I can leave my house.

Jo: And TV favourites at the moment, recommendations? Nicky: There was a brilliant thing on Sherlock Holmes this week, on how Arthur Conan Doyle started, and that was really good. The best moment last year was being mentioned on The Royle Family, they said, "It's a cross between the Manics and Oasis!" That was like a cultural highlight for me.

Jo: Any bands that you can recommend at the moment, anything that you've heard recently? Nicky: I'm looking forward to Idlewild's new album. I must admit I really liked that 'Little Discourage' single, and I can't wait for the Primal Scream record as well.

Jo: And band activities, when are you getting together to do anything? Are you writing? Nicky: Everybody's on holiday, so I'm just sort of sat around in the house, twiddling my thumbs.

Jo: Nothing to do other than phoning up radio stations... Nicky: Yeah, that's it. I've been left to do the only bit of promo we're doing.

Jo: So when are you going to be doing anything? Is it going to be this year? Nicky: Yeah, people think we're having the year off, but it's just not the case. We'll be recording and writing all day long. The thing is, when you sell records in Finland, Sweden and Japan, you've got to go through the whole process of setting things up. It's not like when we started, we could just put a record out and hope for the best. That's why we wanted to do 'Masses' really, it just felt like a relief not to have to worry about anything.

Jo: It's just one hard slog, isn't it? Nicky: Well, it's not when I'm at home.

Jo: Well, lay back and put your slippers up!