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Enjoying Life To The Fullest - Motor.de, 14th July 2006

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ARTICLES:2006



Title: Enjoying Life To The Fullest
Publication: Motor.de
Date: Friday 14th July 2006


The whole world in soccer fever - just a lonely Welsh sitting in a Berlin office complex - still in sight, and above all, the largest of all imaginable big screen walls - and is a little bit worried about the fact that his national team was in the last World Cup in 1958 . "Pelé has scored his first World Cup goal against Wales," says James Dean Bradfield, 37, lights a cigarette and is ready to discuss the actual occasion of his visit to the current capital of the sports world. The called " The Great Western " and is the first solo album of Manic Street Preachers singer and guitar-player.

Welcome to your fifth favorite city in the world ... [have on its website the Manic Street Preachers top ten lists for nearly every imaginable category - as well as "Favorite Cities" ...]
[laughs] It's quite possible that they now even a I have to admit that if a young band is going touring through Germany for the first time, they do not like it very much. I guess it reminds them too much of the UK. There are similarities in a strange way. And when you get older, you notice that you love Germany! Even if it takes a while ... And if I were offered a tour now and I had to decide between Germany and any other country - I would choose Germany!

'Do you consider a concert tour or a tour?
Oh, concerts!

Well, Germany and Berlin like it so - but it seems like you're in your home part time London became a little tired...
A little, yes. But more than I am fed up with London, I feel a growing yearning for the place where I grew up! It's always something ironic: if you're young, you want to flee from your home - and in the end you'll be back there! This is difficult to explain, but this feeling has settled into many of my songs - this subliminal lure of home. I have an apartment in London, and one in Cardiff, Wales, where I grew up. And in the nineties, I was mostly about 80% of the time in London, and only about 20 in Wales - now it's fifty-fifty, and it seems as if Wales were going to win the fight! If you try to explain this attraction, it sounds stupid - it is hard to comprehend. If I am traveling in the UK, and for a long time no mountains see, I will be depressed! Wales has so many mountains! There I once knew this old man who was always in the pub - and he asked me, "Where have you been everywhere?" And I said, "Oh, I was in Japan, yada-yada, etc." : "And now you're living in London, do not you?" So I: "Yes!" His answer: "Do not worry - the mountains will get you back again!" The way he said it sounded like a Horrorfilm or so. But he was right! Without mountains, I feel frustrated. This is probably the difference between England and Wales - the English can often not be patriotic without feeling guilty for anything. In Wales it looks different - what do these 3.5 million people feel guilty for? Patriotic feelings with the Welsh never change into something scary - and that has something to do with the natural environment in which you grow up there ... These mountains give you a completely different perspective by bringing you to your own small size, meaning and ultimately Also remember your inconsistency. I took my half-life - before I went to London - to go up and down mountains with my dog ​​or alone. This sense of one's own place in society, one loses in London - however great it may be with all its multicultural splendor.

And it seems as if the railways have been quite important in the discharge of this struggle between the new and the old home - and thus also for the album...
I drive this route since 1988. Again and again Cardiff London, Cardiff-London ... When I began to travel more often to Wales, the train became a major part of my life again. I spent so much time on the rails that the train became my office - the only place where I could write lyrics and complete songs. And I just felt that was no coincidence. I did not force it to add any cineastic element to the album or something like that. It just happened that way. This railway line is called "The Great Western." And in all these trains, I was concerned mainly with two things: London and how much it has changed me over the time I have spent; And on the other hand this longing for Wales. And it seemed odd to me that I had used this train once to escape Wales - and now I found myself more and more in it - but in the other direction. To put me to a new challenge, which was basically only the place I originally came from! So it seemed to me to name the album after the train.

How long does a ride take?
Between two and a half and three hours. This is not bad in itself, but if you drive often, it becomes very boring!

The train on the cover is not the actual "Great Western", right?
No, that's just a drawing from an illustrator from Australia whose work I like. I gave her only a few ideas, and she painted the cover and also added little pictures to each song for the booklet. And honestly, when I hear myself, it sounds so crappy seriously and dull! And so I wanted the picture on the cover to look more playful - so that everything is not so dröge and blah-blah-blah... [laughs]

However, some of the topics you are singing on the album are quite serious - for example, the text of the first single, "That's No Way To Tell A Lie".
My parents made me very irresponsible, which is something unusual for Wales. But all these things were told to me early on as "religion is opium for the people", it is superfluous. This made me a little confused, for the first half of my life laughed my heart, so to say, "Do not be so stupid!" Then my heart answered, "But it would be nice if they found a god!" Came up again when the Pope died last year. The way how the story of how the dying pope had been elevated to a superhuman figure was fascinating and fascinated me. Then my brain began to mock my heart again - and also reminded me that the man had actually done nothing significant or good - on the contrary, for example, condemning condoms, he helped in spreading diseases like AIDS in Africa. But my heart was not really convincing - and from this inner duel that tune...

If the title is actually a deliberate allusion to the Leonard Cohen song "Hey...
...That's No Way To Say Goodbye"? It was not intended, but I found myself pretty fast ... And if you were already stealing from someone, then Leonard Cohen is actually not a bad choice, right? But seriously: It is obvious that the two songs otherwise no similarity. The phrase just struck me as I watched this whole media rumble.

With such a serious issue that almost exuberant mood of the song surprised a bit - all the handclaps and backing choirs...
Yes, I'm just - I admire people somehow that pervade their cause seriously and consistently - but I can not do this! In the case of the Manics, the others have always managed to filter out some of my worse musical influences ... I grew up, for example, as a fan of ELO [Electric Light Orchestra] - and whenever there were any traces of it in the Manics music, they said strictly: "No!" And now that I'm doing something alone, I wanted to have all these things back, wanted to make a little more sense of humor and ease. So that it is representative for me and for what I like - and so it can be easily distinguished from the coming Manics album!

It seems the way, as if ELO just about to come back into fashion...
Do you really? I'm not so sure... [laughs]

I know that, for example, John Frusciante her name like calls of the Red Hot Chili Peppers times as an influence...
Really? Motherfucker! You are my band!

[Laughter]

Okay...You've just mentioned a next Manic Street Preachers album - so there should be some fans will be relieved of a huge concern...
Yes, we announced a two-year break, and we will comply! It also takes care of everything; We started the break last year in April, and last week we met to work on new songs - until it becomes an album, it certainly takes until April or May 2007. I think, incidentally, that our solo Things [bassist Nicky Wire pulls in September with his debut at the beginning] the Manics have done well - when we played together the other time for the first time in a long time, it felt pretty damn good! More rock than ever ... When it came to the last album, I was almost ashamed to play a guitar singer - "Okay, here we go again ..." - but last week in the studio I just enjoyed it and thought to myself: "Shit on it, who cares? I'll do it the way I want! "

Speaking of "do what you want" - though the album sounds in shades unlike the Manics, but it is not, shall we say, a jazz or hip-hop album become...
No, and no grime plate [ Laughing]...With the Manics it was never about reinventing ourselves, like the bands like Radiohead for example - from which I have all respect! We just wanted to make good rock records that sounded to us. And when it came to the solo album, I simply allowed myself a few "guilty pleasures", so to live out all the things I just mentioned - the Motown influences, the whole little gimmicks...But, of course, Manics because the bottom line but only I'm just singing there and playing guitar...

and for the first time also wrote nearly all the lyrics himself...
Yes, it was not easy - I have always with Nicky and Richey [James , The manish guitarist disappeared without a trace in 1995, both of which were great lyricists. And I had to accept the fact that I can not write as I did. I think the two wrote about things that they understood - well, I probably write to understand things. That's a big difference! And when I had explained and arranged that I could not write in the same way as she did, the whole thing became easier for me.