The thrill of it isn’t stardom. It’s not all down to ego, ‘cause I lost a lot of ego a long time ago. the thrill is that we’re going to be playing to all these people on the tour. Just the fact that you think ‘I could do something tonight that might change somebody’s life’.
If literature or music can make you think or become aware, then it’s done something. That’s what we’ve always wanted to do, just ignite sparks in people’s minds. We can’t offer a manifesto of how to make your life better.
If you met your 15-year-old self in the street, what would you tell him?
NW: To think more about what he says. Control his mouth. I’ve realised lately that we polarised people’s opinions very early on, which is good, and it’s what we set out to do, but Motorcycle Emptiness would’ve been a massive hit if the first line wasn’t “Life lies, a slow suicide”. Slagging people off for having moustaches. The Glastonbury bypass comment. We were a trifle too honest at times. And never to smoke dope. Not that I have, but it kills the brain faster than anything else, and people don’t realise how boring they are when they’re doing it. Spiritual enlightenment? Absolute bollocks.
No-one has given us credit for a sense of humour since This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. When you get big, you can get po-faced and serious, and we’ve been guilty of that. But if you know us as people… I mean, look at what I wear onstage! I understand why people think we’ve got no sense of humour, because we were just so bizarre and ridiculous when we started that we could get away with anything.
There’s a poem by Tennessee Williams called ‘Lament For Moths’, one of the first poems we ever read, which is about how the moths, the sensitive people, will always be stamped on and crushed by the mammoths - that really hit us, the sudden realisation that we were the moths of the world.
Everyone mellows when they become older. If you don’t mellow you become a sad old tosser, who’s reliving their youth. The last thing I wanna do is end up like Neil Young. Everyone goes ‘Oh Neil Young’s great, he still wears short shorts and sings Rockin’ In The Free World’. I’d rather fucking retire than inflicting all this shit music for the past 15 years. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re good!
What are we fighting for?
For the truth. Within the band, it’s been a lifelong struggle to find some kind of truth for ourselves and for everyone else. I think that’s the ultimate reason of any band. When Philip Hall, our first manager, passed away with cancer, that was almost more traumatic than Richey’s disappearance. He’d remortgaged his house to help us start and he never saw us getting big. So it all has to mean something more than just hedonism.
I think about every bit of music, every bit of artwork, everything on that record, every bass note, every guitar line, we were considering…you know and I know it’s a pretentious thing to say, but for the previous two albums we were, you know trying to make music that would sell to the world, but with this record we were trying to make a piece of art.
If you could be a woman for 24 hours,what would you do?
Nicky: It would be blissful. I’d go to women’s shoe shops - their shoes are so much better than men’s. I’d like some Jimmy Choos.
