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A couple of shows were still to be played before Christmas. On 7 December, the Manics were in Lisbon when they heard the devastating news that Philip Hall had died after a two-year battle against cancer. The rest of the band's 1993 arrangements were cancelled and they flew back to the UK.

'I phoned Hall Or Nothing to check if it would be OK to play a Manics track dedicated to Philip on that night's Evening Session,' recalled Steve Lamacq. ?An hour or so later I got a call back from Nicky Wire and we went ahead with a short tribute on the programme.'

Philip Hall's funeral was held on 14 December 1993. This was the first funeral that Nicky Wire had ever been to. Richey Edwards took it all very badly. At the time it was a tragic event, but with hindsight it was a tragic event that signalled the start of a traumatic twelve months for the band ? and for Richey in particular. With the loss of Philip Hall, things would never be the same again.

The Deer Hunter won five Oscars in 1978. It was more than just another film about Vietnam and the problems of coming home after the war. It was a film that confronted suicide and mental illness. The movie starred Robert De Niro ? one of Richey Edwards' key icons, especially after the actor's performance in Taxi Driver. The Deer Hunter has many memorable scenes, one of the most famous of which depicts a game of Russian roulette played in Saigon. The set-piece ? a steeply seated arena inside an old warehouse filled with sweaty men screaming and waving fistfuls of bank notes as the two ?contestants' sit face-to-face across a small wooden table ? has been etched into pop culture to the extent that a chocolate manufacturer used it as the basis for an expensive advertising campaign.

The first mention of Russian roulette in the film occurs when the Americans are captured and forced to play it in a waterside hut. After they escape, Christopher Walken's character Nick decides to stay in the city and earn vast amounts of money by managing to stay alive in the Russian roulette circuit. When De Niro's character, Michael, returns from America to find him, Nick's mind has gone AWOL, and he can only concentrate on the game. While Michael watches, his friend's luck finally runs out. These sequences were actually filmed in the notorious Pat Pong district of Bangkok, an area said to have a vice for every taste.

In 1994, the Manics visited Bangkok. With a flotilla of journalists in tow, whacking their expenses on the plastic, Richey Edwards held court in Pat Pong at the centre of the red light district. Among the middle-aged businessmen, sex tourists and curious couples, Edwards then vanished into the night, returning with tales of
young prostitutes and hand jobs. Momentarily, he had lost sight of the big picture and concentrated on a different game. Luckily, for now, he was back in reality, having avoided being strung out for top tourist dollars or being accosted by Iadyboys. His own private hell was only weeks away, this dip into the dark side of life an indication of what might lie ahead.

IX

BANGKOK

January to June 1994

Like many cities with riverside areas or docks, Cardiff started regenerating its run-down waterside areas in the early 1990s. Old mills and warehouses were swiftly converted into wine bars and blocks of apartments for yuppies (they still used that word back then). Other buildings were torn down and new developments shot up. Brigades of high-rise cranes provided a new cityscape like an advancing army of H. G. Wells' Tripods. Back in 1994, these new developments seemed like the future of modern urban living. Atlantic Wharf is a large development in Cardiff comprising living accommodation, business premises and bars/restaurants. Early in the year Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire were having a drive around the new developments, out of curiosity more than anything else, but before they left Richey had decided on a new third-floor apartment almost as an impulse buy in the way most people would purchase a book or a new coat. Wire had been living with his in-laws until buying a house when he had married in the previous autumn. Edwards had been in a similar position. 'I lived with my parents until I was twenty-five,? said Edwards. 'I was never bothered about being a homeowner or anything like that. I saw my flat one day, and I bought it the next, just like that. I hadn't thought about it before. I was just passing by, and Nick said, "Oh, let's go and have a look at these", and I thought, "This is all right." I asked her how much it was, she told me, so I said, "I'll buy it." And I just moved in. I didn't really know what to do, I just paid the bills."

Photos of Richey in his apartment show a taste in interiors that probably indicates someone else bought his furniture for him, too. The floral sofas certainly aren't the kind of thing a mid-twenties male in a rock band would be assumed to buy. His walls were plain magnolia, although later he would decorate them with ever more dense collages and pictures. A wall of books and CDs framed a signed picture mount of Elizabeth Taylor, while another wall featured a large poster for Apocalypse Now.

During one of my own South Wales visits I checked into the hotel across the road from Atlantic Wharf. I sat on my bed, laptop on lap, looking at Edwards' old flat. He lived in part of tin Admiral's development with each building getting the name of a historic seafarer: Jellicoe, Anson, Nelson, Keyes and Howard. Each block has its own keypad entry system. You can't even buzz the occupants of a particular flat, so I went for a walk around instead. I found the spot where, crouching by the waterside, Richey had his photo taken. The whole area now seems to be a little bit run down. The 1994 new-builds were made to look like old waterside buildings, but it's all fake: you'd find the same glass and plastic in Liverpool, London, Dublin and elsewhere.

After first moving in, Edwards didn't have a telephone installed for several months. He used the apartment and its views of the water for solitude. It was a place where he could quietly read and drink. ?I enjoy being away from people,? he told Raw Power magazine in early 1994. Occasionally he'd go down to the quayside and feed the birds. Despite having a fitted kitchen, be didn't figure out how to use the washing machine. Instead, he drove his laundry to Blackwood once a week for his mother to wash.

The loss of Philip Hall hung heavy over the band, and Richey in particular took it very hard. 'The last time I interviewed Richey I did see a huge deterioration in him,? recalls writer and broadcaster Tania Alexander. 'It was shortly after the death of Philip Hall, and Richey just seemed as though he was trying to grin and bear his way through it all. He looked really terrible, but he was still so incredibly polite.?

Things were up and down, however, and Kerrang! writer Paul Elliott found Richey on good form later in the year. ?The last time I bumped into Richey was at a friend's wedding in 1994.' he says. He was there with his friend and press officer Gillian Porter. I remember becoming involved In a lengthy argument with him regarding the coverage of rapper Snoop Dogg in the UK music press. I couldn't help feeling that Richey enjoyed playing devil's advocate in the discussion, gently stoking up the argument, although it never became too heated. The discussion ended when a four-year-old girl interrupted us, looking for her mother. This is my last memory of Richey ? a rock star you could invite to your wedding. There aren't many of those.'

It was during the first half of 1994 that Steve Gatehouse ran into Richey Edwards for the first time in about four years. 'My dad had just died and that seemed much more important than petty squabbles,' he says. 'Richey was always asking how I was coping and at the time I thought this was partly due to embarrassment on his part ? the successful pop star meeting the grieving son. I now wonder if his questions were partly about how to cope with the depression that he was also enduring.? The two soon hooked up their old friendship and had a few nights out together. 'One incident I remember seemed to sum up the disillusion he was feeling with pop stardom,? says Gatehouse. "We were leaving Metros club in Cardiff when a girl recognised him and literally begged him to take her home. She said he could do anything to her, it didn't matter how he treated her. It was one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed and Richey looked aghast. It exemplified what he'd told me earlier about groupies. At first, it seemed fun but then the levels that girls would stoop to just seemed pathetic, especially to someone who'd always respected women so much.?

These stories neatly encapsulate Richey Edwards. Someone who was upset with life, but who would just as soon enquire about someone else's problems. Someone who would rather try to grin and bear it, than cause a scene. Someone who was incredibly polite and reserved, despite having strong opinions on many topics. The depths that humanity could stoop to ? whether it be a girl offering him her body in a nightclub or a bloody massacre in some far away country ? saddened him deeply. For now, however, he had to put that behind him as the Manics were heading out on tour again at the start of 1994. The grinding routine was starting up yet again. Alongside The Wildhearts, Compulsion and Eve's Plum, they had sped through Leicester, Southampton, Brixton, Bristol, Hull, Middlesbrough, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff and Sheffield by the first week of February. Then, during a four-week break, Richey finished working on the series of lyrics that would define the band's next album and, to many people, his own legacy.

While previous albums had seen writing duties shared fairly evenly between Edwards and Nicky Wire, this time Edwards had been prolific and would be responsible for around three-quarters of the next album. Wire, newly married and having just bought his first house, was in a 'happy place'. 'The references he was coming up with I can't pretend to know half of them,? said Wire. At the time he was reading five books a week. I was still stuck on Fred Truman's autobiography. I just wasn't on my game so much.' As usual, Edwards had distributed his writing to Moore and Bradfield so that they could work on the music before the sessions began. They were surprised and confused by some of the writing put before them. 'I remember getting the lyrics to "Yes",? said Bradfield, 'and thinking, "You crazy fucker, how do you expect me to write music to this?'" The singer had to work out ways of getting inside Edwards' head. Some of the words were autobiographical and some were written as Edwards seeing things through someone else's eyes, making it a step more difficult.

Before getting really stuck into the new album the band played a one-off benefit show at London's Clapham Grand for Cancer Research in memory of Philip Hall. The Pogues provided the support, as they were long-time friends of the Halls. The show was obviously an emotional one, coming just three months after their manager's death, and this seemed to energise the band. Richey Edwards gave it his all, flailing boisterously around his side of the stage, jumping up on the drum riser, his single earring flapping wildly about. When Suede?s Bernard Butler joined the band for three songs, the presence of extremely gifted young guitarist only highlighted the deficiencies in Richey Edwards' own playing. But the show was considered a huge success in that it raised £20,000 for Cancer Research.

Soundspace studios were located in Cardiff's red light district, just half a mile from Richey Edwards' flat. Having turned down the opportunity to record in Barbados, they chose the £50-a-day studio that they had previously used for demos and 'The Theme from M*A*S*H'. James Dean Bradfield described the thinking as being 'method recording', as opposed to 'method acting', in the hope that the atmosphere of the very basic studio and its seedy location would transfer into the music they were recording there. There were no visits from the record company or management. The band was taking back control of their own destiny and self-producing the sessions. No one was pressurising them into doing anything they didn't want to do, and the studios were so bare that there were few distractions. They could slip in and out of the studio with parkas pulled up in the driving rain, which seemed to stay for the duration. Richey wanted to rewrite the Ten Commandments in relation to the dirty businessmen and prostitutes he saw going about their daily routines. How hypocritical would this turn out to be in light of events later in the year? For three of the band, the sessions were almost a nine-to-five routine: Sean Moore and Nicky Wire would go home to their women after being dropped off by Richey at the station. Edwards saw the happiness that his bandmates and the Halls had enjoyed by being in stable relationships, and seemed to equate that with the only way to be a happy, fulfilled adult. He told Terri Hall that he'd be married by the end of the year and that he would then be happy. She pointed out that he didn't even have a girlfriend yet, let alone a fiancée.

After the others had gone home, James Dean Bradfield spent additional hours in the studio with engineer Alex Silva. The atmosphere around the actual studios, the oppressive nature of the songs,[28] and things happening outside the band made the experience a potentially draining and difficult one. The first day of recording was 14 February ? Valentine's Day ? and after completing a new song about a young girl wasting away - '4st 7lb' ? James Dean Bradfield bumped into his ex-girlfriend (she'd recently dumped him). He'd also found out that his mother had cancer. 'We started writing it last summer [1993] and some of the early songs were written quite a while ago,' said Richey Edwards after the sessions were completed. ?I think it was a difficult time for everybody really. There was lots of things happening outside the band, personally. But I think it's our most complete album, by a long way.?

The music that was going to influence the band's thinking for the new record was different to what it had been in the previous few years. They went back to the music of their youth and spent time listening to the post-punk of Wire, Magazine, The Skids, PiL, Gang Of Four, and ? most importantly for Richey Edwards ? Joy Division. Edwards had also been listening to a lot of Nirvana, including their most recent album, In Utero.

On some days Richey would walk into the studios at around lunchtime, often having already started drinking. He would lie down for a sleep before wandering off for a walk in the afternoon. Having passed the lyrics over to his bandmates, he once again had little input into the rest of the process. He made himself feel a little more involved by driving some of the others around, a throwback to the days before he joined the band. Sometimes, when Wire and Moore had departed, he would head out into Cardiff for the night with Bradfield. '[We'd] have a really good drink and stuff, go to the dodgy disco, and we'd have a good laugh,? says the singer. ?A bit of pullage, all that kind of stuff. Try and get girls. Really ordinary things.?

At the time of recording the album, which was to be called The Holy Bible, the Manics were a long way from the high targets that they'd initially set out with. With singles charting lower than they had hoped and a growing backlash against some of the band's more outrageous statements, any failure with the next album might condemn them to being seen as little more than a cult band. How were they ever going to sell sixteen million albums with Britpop about to wash away everything in its path?

?I think we did it badly in that we alienated a massive record-buying public before we even had a record in the fucking shops,? admitted Richey Edwards. 'There's a certain type of indie fan who was going, "I'm not buying their records, they're cunts." We can really understand that.' They were also quick to disown their previous album. 'The others mightn't necessarily agree,? said Bradfield, 'but I thought a lot of Gold Against the Soul was shit. We were under enormous pressure ? both internally and externally ? to produce a big hit album and allowed ourselves to become self-indulgent. Most of the songs were based round the theme of lost innocence and as that's precisely what we were experiencing at the time, we tended to look inwards rather than outwards.?

?I don't agree that we turned into Guns N' Roses but we were listening to too much classic rock and those influences didn't sit comfortably with what we'd done before. The Holy Bible took four weeks as opposed to six months to record and the stuff that we were playing on the studio hi-fi was The Clash and Joy Division. That's more where we're coming from.'

As the sessions drew to a close and mixing began, the band set up meetings with journalists and photographers. James Dean Bradfield was really pleased with what they'd achieved, and thought that, 'If this is our last album it's a fucking brilliant album to finish on.?

While the band were partaking in a photo session on London's Fulham Road, Richey Edwards was filling in a questionnaire for DV8 magazine. 'Self-mutilation is a very different issue to suicide,? he wrote. 'It is a controlled pain personal to you, allowing you to live/exist to some degree.' When one question asked what he would say to the next inhabitants of the world he replied, 'I'd cut off my cock, nail it to the wall with a message. "If you can live without this you might do a better job than humanity.'"

The mixing of the Holy Bible tapes took place at the Britannia Row Studios in Islington, where, in 1980, Joy Division had recorded Closer, an album that had been part of the sonic backdrop to the Manics' recordings that spring. After the Closer sessions, Curtis was suffering epilepsy seizures and a lack of sleep. These problems were affecting his on-stage performance and he made a drug-overdose suicide attempt on 7 April 1980. Several Joy Division shows were cancelled while Curtis recovered before a planned trip to the United States that May. Curtis pretended to be looking forward to the trip, but the day before he was due to leave he returned home to Macclesfield. On 18 May, he hanged himself.

While Richey was sitting in on the Holy Bible mixing sessions at Britannia he heard the news that another of his musical heroes, Kurt Cobain, had killed himself In Seattle. When asked about it for the NME, Nicky Wire replied, ?I find the idea of him taking his own life frighteningly powerful. I've always been a sucker for that.' The band would cover Nirvana's 'Pennyroyal Tea' at festivals that summer. For Richey Edwards, it was the latest in a list of depressing events. After the death of Philip Hall, he'd also heard that an old university friend, Nigel, had committed suicide. Now, it was Cobain. The previous year he'd been upset at the death of actor River Phoenix and had told a story about hearing the news on the car radio. Apparently he'd been so shocked and upset that he'd almost crashed his car into a ditch.

With these problems lingering in the background, Richey began exhibiting ever more unusual behaviour. As a dedicated dog lover, his comments about animal testing were surprising, to say the least. The sensational headline of 'I Don't Care If Chemists Slaughter 10,000 Beagles!' greeted the readers of Metal Hammer. ?I've never really understood our fans, to be perfectly honest,? he ranted. 'Even the ones that have been seeing us at our earliest gigs. They've got very strange views. They go on about vivisection and fox hunting and I don't give a fuck about that! I'm quite happy for every beagle in the land to be killed. Man is the dominant animal, we are part of nature just like everything else, and if it's [not] for something as petty as eyeliner or hairspray then that sacrifice is worth it.' With his beloved dog Snoopy now suffering through signs of extreme old age, these were strange comments indeed.

Around this time he'd become friendly with the Journalist Emma Forrest. ?The reason he liked hanging out with me was because I was young and he thought of me as non-sexual,? says Forrest. 'But I was starting to feel sexual, so to be around this beautiful man who I know had absolutely no interest in me was just so tortuous. I did stay up all night talking to him, or slept at his hotel room, but again these were entirely non-sexual things. I was learning from the wise master, how to be a teenager ? how to be miserable and self-loathing, how to be totally selfish and self-obsessed.?

?I remember seeing all these fresh cuts all over his arms. He was always so flip about them, almost boastful. And like a retarded teenager, I said, "Wow, those are so cool!" And he was so angry. That night, he was so drunk that I think I saw a level of honesty I never saw before or after. He said, "That is not cool. It's pathetic." Actually, after that, we never had any profound interaction. Maybe it's because I'd seen behind the curtain.?

Before the night described above, Forrest and Edwards were invited by Julie Burchill to a dinner with American writer Douglas Coupland. Edwards arrived at Burchill's house wearing a pink T-shirt with 'Fairy' written across the chest. Edwards asked Coupland who his favourite writer was. When he got the answer, 'Joan Didion?, he was upset because he didn't know who she was. When the party moved to the Groucho Club, Coupland asked Richey, 'So what do you do then? Are you part of Generation X?' Richey was reported to have shunned the question and made a show of turning his chair around so that his back faced the Canadian. He later told Nicky Wire that he thought Coupland 'was a complete fuckwit. I hated him. I thought he was empty and fucking thick.? I don't think he told Wire that he'd never heard of Coupland's favourite writer, though.

***

Reserved, monarchist Thailand was not a place you might expect to embrace the Manic Street Preachers, but that's exactly what it did. Gold Against the Soul had shifted fifty thousand units, earning the Manics a platinum disc, and they were eagerly awaited there in the spring of 1994. With The Holy Bible completed and ready for distribution, the band flew out in late April for a pair of shows at the MBK Hall in Bangkok. Tagging along for the trip were several journalists and photographers. With the press on hand, you just knew something was going to happen. And it did. Several times.

The band members were greeted like returning heroes. Sony had set up a meet-the-fans autograph session under a banner that read 'From Despair To Bangkok'. Richey Edwards was met by women bearing garlands of flowers that were then placed around his neck.

The band were warned that any anti-monarchist rhetoric wouldn't be tolerated and could even lead to execution. They were also told not to play 'Repeat' at any of their shows because of the line 'Fuck Queen and country'. Around three thousand fans had gathered to get the band's signatures on CD sleeves, posters and glossy A4 photos of Richey's infamous '4REAL' image. Other fans wanted Richey to sign '4REAL' on their own arms in marker pen. One fan spoke to a British reporter and had a stark message for Steve Lamacq. 'We understand why Richey did what he did,? they said. 'We have a culture of self-mutilation in this country. If Steve Lamacq ever comes here, we will?kill him.?

During the first show the band did, of course, play 'Repeat'. It was like The Beatles at Shea Stadium: young girls were crying and screaming and pulling their hair. The hall rocked so much that officials were worried the floor would give way and asked the band to play more quietly for the second night.

Girls had been hanging around the band's hotel since they arrived, with Richey being the favourite target. As well as asking him to pose for photos and sign autographs he was bestowed with presents including an oversized stuffed 'Snoopy', which he carried around on the trip for a while. Before the second show, a female fan approached Edwards and presented him with a box that contained a set of ceremonial knives. She said they were for Richey to cut himself with on stage that night and she requested that he look right at her while he did it. Edwards didn't like the idea of someone else calling the shots and cutting himself on stage while everyone looked on. He did like the idea of doing it in private, however. Part way through the set he got his chance as James Dean Bradfield performed a solo acoustic section of the show and the others retired to the dressing room for a few minutes.

Photographer Kevin Cummins was backstage at the time. ?He?d left them in the dressing room,? says Cummins. 'He said it was tacky and he wouldn't do it. Towards the end of the gig, when James was alone on stage singing 'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head', I went backstage to get some shots of the band slumped around in the dressing room. Richey was standing there with blood dripping down his chest. The cuts were pretty superficial. I took him in the bathroom and took some photos with him looking in the mirror. When I asked him why he'd done it he simply said, "Because they asked me to.'" In the photos, Sean Moore can be seen just sitting there next to Richey as though having a band member cut himself open was the most normal thing in the world: an everyday occurrence in the world of the Manics. The others returned to join Bradfield on stage with Nicky Wire now wearing a floral dress that was quickly ripped to pieces by the fans. Richey returned bare-chested with a slew of horizontal lines dripping blood down his torso.

With the press pack in full attendance the band used one of their nights off to hike the tourist trail around the notorious red light districts, except for Nicky Wire who was homesick and unhappy with the local food. He returned to his room for an early night. The mini-van used to transport the rest of the band loaded up and headed for Pat Pong, famous for pole-dancing, stripping, massaging and fucking, not to mention its huge AIDS risks. After watching a selection of teenage girls pole-dancing, Richey Edwards said he was bored with it all and went off alone for a walk. When he resurfaced, hours later, he had a tale to tell. He'd wandered streets that were exactly as they had been portrayed in The Deer Hunter; a mass of humanity swirling around neon light and clubs, women at every doorway touting for business. Richey had been approached by a young girl and followed her inside. For seventy bahts she would undress you and offer massage; for more, she'd undress; for more still, a hand job; for even more, she would have sex. ?I'm not a very sexual person,? Edwards said. 'I don't need the physical closeness of a relationship. And I'm afraid of the pain that goes with it, to be honest. I think it's more of an animalistic urge. Every man masturbates, it's something you just do, two or three times a day. It's not the same as lust. Every time I've slept with a groupie, I've always felt dirty afterwards. It's very functional. I know for a fact that I could go downstairs now and come back up and fuck somebody. I don't like doing that, so if I go and pay two thousand bahts at a massage parlour and have a bath and get jerked off, to me it's preferable. For me, everything is very carefully thought out. This is the way I choose to live my life. I'd never been with a prostitute before and I've never had a girlfriend so I wasn't being unfaithful to a memory. It was something I wanted to experience to see whether it would make me happy, and it didn't really. I couldn't really expend any emotion on it. It just helped pass a few hours.?

If nothing else, the Thailand trip served to highlight some of the issues that Edwards was struggling with. Later, his band mates would pick out Bangkok as a turning point and a sign that things were getting worse. His self-harming was once again out in the open. 'When I cut myself I feel so much better,? he said. ?All the little things that might have been annoying me suddenly seem so trivial because I'm concentrating on the pain. I'm not a person who can scream and shout so this is my only outlet. It's all done very logically.? His inability to forge relationships with women was now all over the press in light of his public use of prostitutes and his interviews relating to the subject, plus his drinking was under the spotlight.

Early in the year, Richey had talked quite openly to Melody Maker about his drinking but stopped short of saying that he was an alcoholic. '[An alcoholic is] someone who wakes up and needs a drink straight away,' he said. 'My need is more functional. By about midday, I need a drink to stabilise me, but I've got to drive the group to rehearsal, so I can't have that drink. But on tour, I drink all day, just so I don't have to think about going onstage. I get paranoid about not being able to sleep and if by about eight o'clock at night I haven't had a drink, I get massive panic attacks and I'll be awake all night, and that's my biggest nightmare. I know that until about one in the afternoon I'm going to be shaky and have cold sweats. By six o'clock I feel good, but by eight it starts coming around again. I can't stomach the thought of not sleeping. That's why I drink. It's a very simple choice.' By May, it was getting more serious. 'Nicky and Sean are still true to the way we were, true to the spirit of the Manics,? admitted James Dean Bradfield to the NME. 'Whereas Richey and I are tending to lose the plot a bit.'

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 458