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This Much I Know - The Observer, 8th October 2006

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ARTICLES:2006



Title: This Much I Know
Publication: The Observer
Date: Sunday 8th October 2006
Writer: Michael Odell
Photos: Tim Gutt



Observeroct06 (1).jpg Observeroct06 (2).jpg



Singer, 37, London

I'm twitchy. Always have been. I jerk my knee and rub my hands and smoke. I've got two tattoos. One of them says 'Anxiety is freedom', which is Kierkegaard, I think. The other one is of dolphins. I wanted to look sensitive.

My dad wanted me to be cool. He wanted to call me Clint Eastwood but my mum said,'No way.' They settled on James Dean as a compromise.

I was aware early on that I'd need some pretty good survival instincts. At school I was small and I wore thick Woody Allen glasses with an eye patch.

Sport saved me. Once I'd done a bit of cross-country running I filled out a bit. Then I could look after myself.

Question Time has a lot to answer for. My parents rowed every Thursday night when it was on. There would be a question and before anyone round the table had answered, my mum and dad would be at it.

I'm lucky in that I had a mixture of gender role models. My mum was into beer and darts. She was county darts champion. My dad cooked.

Thank God for Billy Bragg. I was a hot-headed teenager during the Falklands War. I whooped when the Belgrano went down. I even nearly joined the army. Then I heard Billy Bragg and I realised how short-sighted I was being.

Sometimes instinct will guide you over logic. Derek Hatton spoke at our school once. He had everyone in the palm of his hand but Nicky (Wire) leaned over to me and said, 'He's wearing a Pringle jumper.' That was it. We couldn't embrace him. We thought he was a bullshitter.

'The English' meant arrogance and the reckless exercise of power when I was a kid. I remember the miners marching when I was 16. I was listening to The Clash, who were from London. When we discovered Joe Strummer was once a grave digger in Newport we claimed him as our own.

In my year off before poly I busked. My regular spot was where these drunks used to sleep. One morning one of them rolled over as I started to play and said, 'Oh fuck, not the manic street preacher again.'

In the Nineties I was Mr Macho. I thought women had nothing to say, I drank myself stupid and thought, 'Fuck everyone else.' Sooner or later someone tells you you're being an idiot.

Richey should have left the band after The Holy Bible. We should have told him, 'That's as close as it gets to your perfection. Now go and do something else.' That was the problem. He thought he could attain this unattainable beauty through the Manics and he couldn't. He thought staying in the band was the best thing for him and it wasn't.

Richard Burton said, 'Show a Welshman a million exits and he'll choose the one marked self-destruction.' I believe that. If you're Welsh and creative it's there. You just have to deal with it.

Sex changes when you marry. When you're in a band it's just there, it's fun. You get older and you want it to mean something.

I'm worried about becoming a dad. But I'll do it. I won't name my child after an actor, though. My wife's already told me that.

There are only three places in the world where my knee stops twitching and I can relax. Southerndown beach, South Wales, Laugharne - where Dylan Thomas lived - and Tokyo. I believe there are landscapes which call you back. Wales calls me home.