Rocks from the nineties are coming to Manic Street Preachers in the Czech Republic. The British are lacking in community and losing to each other, says James Dean Bradfield, leader of the band. "I had friends, books and movies, and money did not matter much, but for the young, everything is money today, and when they cross the threshold of a house, they find themselves in a world where they can not build relationships."
Few rock bands are in the 90's as Manic Street Preachers. In the last decade, however, the Welsh quartet has disappeared. The "Manics" will perform on April 25th in the Great Hall of Prague Lucerne, for example, the Briti will not. "In December we played our last concert in Britain and we do not want to go back for two years now. We decided to withdraw from the public space, "said James Dean Bradfield, lead singer of the band.
At the end of the past, you said you would not be in Britain for a while, why did you miss the country?
She skipped our skepticism against the time we live in. The record industry has changed and the digital music market has restricted the creative element in music. They stopped doing hits. Songs like God Save the Queen from Sex Pistols or Bring the Noise from Public Enemy, which have been portrayed as "hit" with rock band aesthetics, are no longer worth it. You can not find anything similar in the list of the 40 most played songs in Britain today.
Why did rock music come up with themes?
Rather people cease to be interested in everything connected with the nineties. Of course, we are changing. Even I stopped at the age of forty, and I was the same. A man sets up a family, has children, he becomes more responsible in his personal life, and the rock band is, as a result, easily institutionalized. For example, he stops taking drugs and drinks, and rather, instead, he likes to watch sports in his spare time. I have been Manic Street Preachers since I was fifteen, today I am forty-three. This explains a lot.
Do you believe in a middle-aged crisis?
When I try to write texts over the last few months, I realize how I have come to terms and how easy I can make myself. The person loses contact with the environment for so long until he happens to write a trivial stupidity and is excited about it. I suppose I think this is related to one process in adolescence: sometime around the age of forty-four people are definitely losing the remains of childish innocence, and that is how deep skepticism comes. At least I did.
Can not that feeling be related to the current local company?
I'm not optimistic. When the governments took Tony Blair with New Labor, they thought it was enough to have the heart in the right place. But every policy must be done so that society does not lose its values. This party wanted to solve the social tensions in Britain by building cafes and internet access at every corner. But people have just started to lose each other.
Is your personal feeling too weak?
I feel similar, even though I grew up in Wales among the people who had to work their hands every day. They understood the world through a hard robot, and in mines and factories they were close to those who drew next. It created the community, people had the same interests and problems, and knew how to communicate with them. Nowadays no one is responsible, the work is mostly virtual and you often do not know what to say to the neighbor because you are closer to someone from the opposite corner of the world. People have ceased to be attached to the place where they live. And actually fools.
Now are you talking about the street looting that London experienced last August?
I understood the violence in the eighties when the miners were struggling because the conservatives were trying to prepare them for work. That was the real reason. But those boys who went downstairs last year have more than we do. I was playing sports, reading books and going out with dogs for excursions, while these frenzied children spend time with their game consoles, branded clothes and phones. And by the way, everyone is well-eaten! So they are secured from the material page, but since they lack the community and what can not be bought for money, they lose themselves. They say their generation has no prospects. As I grew up, the unemployment rate was the highest in history, and the Tory people constantly destroyed all working people in Wales. Vari we had prospects? It also bothered us, but I went outside, I had forests and meadows, friends, books and movies, and it did not matter for the money. But for the young, everything is money, and when they cross the threshold of the house, they find themselves in a world where they can not establish relationships.
On the subject of linguistics, in Trutnov, Czech, they conducted an interview with Ivan Magor Jirous. He asked why you played with the band on Cuba?
So I remember this dissident. In the midst of the interview that our bassist Nicky Wire did behind the scenes, nothing came of a "guy" and he began to ask outright why we support communism when he destroyed much of his life. It did not even figure out in the dialogue because the guy said we were British ignorant. And we, the proud Walesians, have not responded any further.
But Welsh pride aside - as if you explained it to him?
To us the word socialism means something other than the authoritarian, oppressive and mutated regime you know from Eastern Europe. Because in Britain socialism was completely different. Whoever did not experience it has a distorted idea about the other. We, in short, associate socialism with more uplifting ideals. I'm not advocating what is happening in Cuba, but I do not want to even demonize the idea of socialism. And as far as Cuba is concerned, I see a lot of changes in the last half of the year for the better: a start-up reform of agriculture, the beginning of a private business...
Okay, but let me take a picture of Fidel Castro?
You will come to Cuba, someone will shoot you, like a second you stand next to Fidel, and it looks like you are supporting authoritarian regimes. We were openly told that we were going to play the Cubans, not their government. And that it hinders us from limiting the freedom of speech or the persecution of same-sex couples. We said that aloud and nobody hurt us. For example, in America, there are still states where I would not say so loud about my views on the right of women to abortion. I could fall worse than on a photo with Fidel.
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