In 1985, the Manic Street Preachers had their first rehearsal and wrote their first song, Aftermath, about the miners’ strike. How does it feel to be on the cusp of 40 years’ active service, asks MOJO, when checking in with James Dean Bradfield? “To be honest,” he says, “I feel an immense sense of freedom.”
This sense of open vistas is ingrained in their forthcoming, as-yet-untitled new album. The group convened at their Door To The River studio in Caerleon outside Newport in late 2022, working in chunks of time as gigs, family life and bassist Nicky Wire’s 2023 solo LP Intimism took precedence. That said, Bradfield adds, “we started with a bit more urgency than usual. Without knowing it, we had five or six demos already… maybe it was that subconscious threat of time running out after Covid.
“There was no MO,” he adds. “Sometimes we played live together in a definite band environment, other times it was more isolated, where I just laid a guitar down to a click [track], or Nick [Wire] put a vocal down with a click, or I’d do a really rough acoustic version, and we’d build from those. So it was about two years of intense, scatterbrained work.”
Produced by regular foils Dave Eringa and Loz Williams, and mixed by Caesar Edmunds, the album was finished in February after a month recording Sean Moore’s drum tracks and other overdubs at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth. “We played a weird parlour game when we’d finished,” says Bradfield. “It was, ‘What do you hear in this song?’ And the answers were 10,000 Maniacs, Weather Prophets, Shriekback, Waterboys, Bangles, Dalis Car… not that we were trying, but they were all references.”
Stay free: James Dean Bradfield, Door To The River studio, Caerleon, Wales.
As well as the aforementioned ’80s groups, he also mentions Manics faves Skids, Echo & The Bunnymen and Big Country. “Their message was delivered so forcefully, they weren’t bleak about it,” says Bradfield. “All those people from the ’80s were teachers. Whenever you reference the past, you’re still inspired by it… to be part of a future that you know is kind of trying to dispose of you.”
The let-it-happen approach meant there was no preconceived concept for the album.
“Sometimes just to have your best songs is enough, just putting a record out and not trying to describe a big overarching concept, even though there is a thread there,” says Bradfield. “We wanted to sing, play, be free, and for what Nick was writing lyrically to have a place to shine.”
Bradfield wrote three of the 12 lyrics: main lyricist Wire sang three songs. “Nick’s trying to analyse his position in the world and reconcile his antagonism towards modern-day politics or beliefs – his song Critical Thinking talks about empathy and the well-being industry, whilst we revel in other people’s destruction. My three songs were optimistically looking for an answer in a more pragmatic way. I’ve got a song called Being Baptised, which is a postcard from the past about a fucking lovely day I spent with Allen Toussaint, basking in his wisdom and judgement and talent. So that’s the dichotomy they have.”
Unlike previous albums, this time there aren’t any name guests – “I suppose our guest vocalists have been replaced by Nick singing three songs,” says Bradfield – though touring guitarist Wayne Murray’s partner Lana McDonagh appears on one song. “Perhaps we will have to use this sense of freedom to challenge ourselves on the next record,” he concludes. “Looking for that other version of yourself sometimes involves somebody else. But with this album, this is definitely what we wanted.”
Main picture: Alex Lake