A MAN WHO WOULD MUTILATE HIMSELF

October to November 1994

Against medical advice, Richey Edwards had checked himself out of the Priory in early September. The band agreed that it would be better for him to come on tour with them so they could keep a close eye on him and so he wouldn't feel dislocated from his only meaningful purpose in life. What soon became apparent was that he'd changed. He had managed to stop drinking, but he was smoking to excess. He would also talk about religious texts and carry Bible quotations around in his notebook, talking about them to anyone who would listen.

He might not have been 'born again', but it was clear that some religious event had happened to him. Despite saying he was going to use nature, not God, as part of the twelve-step process, he increasingly seemed to be using religion. Had he really found God in the Priory without wanting to admit it? He was also following a new motto each day, he would pray before each gig, he wrote 'Love?on his knuckles, and he said he wished he'd written Prince's 'The Cross'. He would soon add further tattoos with religious overtones as well.

'It's something that interests me,? said Edwards, when asked about religion. 'You've only got to look at our name, we've got Preachers in our name, I was made to go to chapel till I was thirteen, on our first album you've got "Crucifix Kiss", a cross on the cover, a quote from Nietzsche about Christianity, so it goes deeper.' ?I don't necessarily understand the contradictions myself,? Edwards tried to explain to Melody Maker. ?In Ecclesiastes there's a line, "All is vanity", and I do really believe that. I think everybody's first love is themselves. Some more than others. Some can divide themselves, and give something of themselves to another person. Which I've never been able to do, because I've never trusted another person enough to do that. I don't feel strong enough that I could cope with the rejection if they left me. A lot of people don't cope with it, if something like that happens. I would not allow myself to be used like that.'

By the middle of the month it was still unclear whether Richey would be touring or even if the tour was going to happen, in light of comments that the others wouldn't do it without him. Publicly the PR machine said there was nothing to say, but everyone around Edwards knew he was still on the edge of needing hospitalisation.

The band moved into Blue Stone Studios to rehearse for the upcoming concert dates. Set in the Pembrokeshire countryside, this converted farm was a perfect retreat. Richey was trying hard to learn how to play the new songs and although he was cutting himself, he was eating fairly well. Later, the band allowed journalists and photographers to visit the farm for interviews about the album and tour - and, of course, the health of their rhythm guitarist. NME sent writer Stuart Bailie and photographer Kevin Cummins to meet the band. Bailie was perhaps fearing the worst in Edwards, who he'd known for a few years. 'The cheeks are sunken,? he wrote, 'the gaze is maybe more abstracted than you remember, but Richey, freshly released from hospital, looks alright.?

Edwards explained to Bailie that he was no longer to be called 'Richey' but was now to be known as 'Richard'. 'That's my name,? he said. 'It's always been my name, ever since the day I was born.' Was it symbolic of some personality change? 'No, nothing like that. The band have never called me Richey anyway. They've always called me Android, or something like that.?

Edwards drove the entourage out to a nearby beach for a photo session with Kevin Cummins (for the 1 October 1994 issue of NME), and then back to the farm. After some cajoling, he agreed to pose for more photos alone and the shots of him at the farm hugging a statue have become almost legendary. 'It was bloody cold that day,? recalls Kevin Cummins. 'Richey was pretty withdrawn by then. James only really wanted me to shoot band shots but I talked them into doing some pairs. Then when we got back to the recording studio I saw the statue. I was only going to use it with Richey standing slightly behind it but he clung onto it and transported himself somewhere else. It was a very harrowing picture to take and I doubt that he was even aware I was shooting it by the end.?

For his interview, Edwards and Bradfield sat in Edwards' room while Bailie asked the questions that had been on everybody's lips. Edwards admitted that he had locked himself away in Cardiff for two days before being hospitalised. He also explained why he'd stopped eating. 'You could say that I had an eating problem. Because if I ate too much, and I was drinking, I got all puffed up and blotchy. And I'm too vain to be like that. I am a vain person. I couldn't handle looking like that, I couldn't look in the mirror. All is vanity.?

The first leg of the tour was intensive. The band flew to Paris, then performed ten shows in eleven nights. It was a test ? one that tentatively Richey Edwards managed to pass. He kept himself to himself, he wasn't drinking, and was pretty much left to his own devices while the band kept an eye on him from a distance. 'The first day, I was really, really nervous. I was so on edge,? said James Dean Bradfield. 'I kept thinking, "If you cut yourself up now, son, everything will be wasted." He has wanted to cut himself on this tour already, but hasn't. And that's a first.

'We have to watch how we govern ourselves now. Without being corny, Richey and I were, if not quite birding and boozing buddies, something like that. We'd go out or stay up after the gigs. We can't do that now. I wouldn't want it for him. As far as his agenda is concerned, it's just not on the agenda. We don't want to be unfeeling dickheads.? The band, as ever, were sensitive to Edwards' plight, but not exactly sure how they could help. Edwards'

Prozac ingestion helped to smooth out his highs and lows, but he was left with a feeling of semi-numbness. The filing down of the rough edges had left a different man to the one that had started the summer: a different man to the one that the band knew and loved. It was like having an alien in their midst ? although they all loved him, it unsettled everyone.

?She is Suffering' was released as a single in early October. James Dean Bradfield flew over to Ireland for promotional interviews and a solo TV performance. Sitting behind a desk with the Irish presenter in a neat white shirt, the opening banter was pretty banal ? questions about how he liked Ireland ? before the presenter casually tossed in, 'Oh, by the way I was just reading about Richey Edwards. What's the situation now with him?' Bradfield was slightly taken back, although he was no doubt used to being quizzed like this. 'Oh, he's alright,? he stalled. 'All his vital signs are flashing, he's fine, he's breathing.' Difficult smiles followed, and then Bradfield gave a solo acoustic performance of 'She is Suffering'. The video for the single showed Edwards filmed earlier in the year, playing with the band in a room filled with gothic candles on elaborate stands. As lightning flashes, Edwards tilts his head back and looks to the heavens.

'I was worried that, because Richey's undergoing treatment, he'd turn into Peter Gabriel, lyrically,? said James Dean Bradfield. 'He's living on a different proverb a day at the moment and I didn't want our songs to turn into psychobabble. But he's kept his own voice, which is admirable. It hasn't weakened us. But I'm not prepared to say, hey, it's made us stronger.'

The UK dates began on 5 October in Glasgow. 'It's a well known fact that anorexics try to cover up their condition with baggy clothes all the time,' says Nicky Wive. 'And on the first day of the British tour, Richey walks in and he's wearing the tightest pair of girls' leggings that I've ever seen in my life. He still wanted the rest of the world to know that he was completely fucked up. Everyone knew already. I said, "Why are you doing that? You haven't got to prove that you are whatever you are?.?

The band played thirteen shows in sixteen nights and then moved on to Ireland with support coming from the female-fronted bands, Sleeper and Dub War. Edwards was the thinnest he'd been since the Manics had achieved fame. He dyed his hair ginger and had it cut into a fringe/wedge. As well as wearing skin-tight leggings, he walked around in a skinny-rib T-shirt that displayed the slogan, ?THEY FUCK YOU UP, YOUR MUM AND DAD? . With his emaciated looks, very public personal problems and history of a private cult of fans, it could have been expected that he'd draw more extreme fan worship than ever before. More people were appearing at the band's shows and hotels, in ever more extreme make-up. Fans were reported to have broken into his hotel room, drunk from his used coffee cups, stolen his partially used bars of soap, and rolled around in the bed he?d slept in.

Mojo's Keith Cameron was at the Norwich show on 7 October. The autumn gigs saw the band use a Martin Hall idea and make their entrance to the theme music from the TV series The World at War, but on this occasion the CD skipped and a German 'oom-pah' band started up just as the band was about to walk on, totally ruining the atmosphere and tension that had built up. Cameron reported that the band went ballistic and Richey just stubbed a cigarette out on his arm. On stage, Edwards' return was noticeable to those who had heard the summer shows without him. The guitar sound had more solidity and the Bible songs were more threatening for it.

After playing Manchester on the thirteenth the band had an off-day before a show in Sheffield on the fifteenth. Richey Edwards used his free time to get some more tattoos in Sheffield. These tattoos seemed to shed light on his spiritual awakening in the Priory: one of the new additions was a ring of vines and roses, inside which were smaller circles. The words around the next smaller circle read ?Hemisphere of Land' at the top and 'Hemisphere of Water' at the bottom. At the twelve o'clock position it read 'Jerusalem' and under a line below that was the word 'Hell'. At the bottom of the inner circle was a triangle with the legend, 'Mount Purgatory'. This all comes from Dante's 'Inferno' in the Divine Comedy, a massive work of twelfth-century Italian literature. In his 'Inferno', Dante divided the world into two hemispheres: one of water and one of land. Jerusalem was the centre of the world and below was the inferno, like a giant cone, at the point of which was Hell at the middle of the planet. If you were to pass through Hell and out the other side you would reach Mount Purgatory in the hemisphere of water. The Divine Comedy suggests that no man can live a 'right' life and must pass through Hell before eventually getting to Heaven. This would be done by ascending Mount Purgatory, made up of seven steps, with each one representing one of the seven deadly sins.

The second tattoo was equally heavy in terms of its subject matter. Another circular design, it included the words 'Caina', ?Antendra', 'Ptolomae' and 'Judecca'. Again, this concept comes from the 'Inferno' ? this time, from the Ninth Circle of the Inferno: the one closest to Hell and Satan himself. The Ninth Circle contains four types of treachery and the souls captured here are cased in varying amounts of ice. Some have only their faces above the ice, some have tears frozen to their faces, some are covered completely. The rest of this second tattoo read, 'Traitors to their lovers, traitors to their guests, traitors to their country, traitors to their kindred'. These words tie in directly with 'Caina', 'Antendra', 'Ptolomae' and 'Judecca' ? the four types of traitors captured in each of the four regions.

These new tattoos held worrying signs: Richey had felt the need to map out on his arm the journey through Hell and the reminders of the Ninth Circle's areas of treachery. He'd labelled himself as a traitor. It looked as if he was expecting to have to pass through Hell before reaching his own salvation.

***

In November, the tour headed back to mainland Europe with Suede. Playing just a couple of shows in each country before moving on meant that it was a hectic schedule. The pressure was bound to come to a head. ?It was possibly the worst time I've ever experienced in my life,? said Nicky Wire. '[Richey] was on the verge of madness. And James just didn't stop drinking.' So much so that one night when Wire had had enough and told Bradfield that he was quitting the band, the singer couldn't even remember having the conversation the next day. After each show, Bradfield would go off drinking and partying away from the rest of the band ? partly because he didn't want to get drunk in front of Edwards. They would rarely see him again until the sound-check for the following night's show. Nicky Wire was feeling homesick, had lost some of his luggage and had to fly home at one point for some medical treatment. When he got back to the tour, Richey Edwards had taken another turn for the worse. He'd read an interview with Dub War in which they'd discussed the earlier dates with the Manics and they'd made a couple of negative comments about Edwards. One statement was that he wasn't drinking as much as had been previously reported in the press ? well, he was now a member of Alcoholics Anonymous ? and another said that he and Nicky Wire walked around Blackwood as though they were big stars. Neither comment was particularly nasty, but for Edwards it was another body-blow. His fragile mental state was struggling to cope with even the smallest upset. Richey was also driving Wire crazy with his constant smoking in their shared hotel room. Edwards' day-to-day existence was limited to hotel rooms, tour bus and concert venues. He never wanted to try and explore the towns and cities they played in, saying that one day was not enough to understand anywhere. He and Wire would stay in a hotel Ibis each night. 'The only nice thing was waking up together and having breakfast together, with a bit of French bread and apricot jam,' says Wire. 'That was the only smidgeon of normality during the whole tour.' It was rare to see Edwards without a cigarette and a cup of coffee in his hands at any time of the day. Everyone in the band had their own problems and everyone seemed to be dealing with them by keeping themselves to themselves, each in their own little world.

Writer Simon Price joined the band for a couple of the French dates in Lyon and Paris. On the bus, Edwards was usually wrapped in a blanket ? either watching videos or playing Sega games. One night Price was warned by James Dean Bradfield not to go on the tour bus as Richey was 'teetering'. Price asked if Richey had gone to bed, and Sean Moore replied, 'Richey doesn't go to bed. He goes to the abyss.' In Paris, the band agreed to do a group photo session with Tom Sheehan at the Montparnasse Cemetery. Edwards was wearing the over-sized boiler suit that he'd been wearing on stage. On the back he'd scrawled, 'Once, I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed. Alas the gospel has gone by! Suppose damnation were eternal! Then a man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?' Then they headed into the Catacombs. Edwards was initially taken aback by the sight of hundreds upon hundreds of bones and skulls. He told Sheehan that he could take his picture as long as he didn't have to touch the bones, but by the end of the session he was rubbing his face across the wall of skeletons and even kissing them, smiling as he did so.

From France they moved north for a show in Amsterdam. The show wasn't the best they'd ever played, but afterwards Richey Edwards seemed to be in a good mood. Throughout the tour Nicky Wire had had a routine of asking Edwards to lift his shirt up each night before bed so that Wire could check if Edwards had been slashing himself. This night he had been: there was a vertical slash down the centre of his chest. The sight of the blood depressed and angered Wire, who sat down and talked to his friend for hours, bat all he could get in response was, 'I feel alright now'. Unfortunately, Edwards wasn't alright: he was far from it. He'd been reading about Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark who had suffered such bad stage fright that he'd smashed his hand so that he wouldn't have to go on stage. Richey Edwards slipped away to the shops and returned to the tour bus with a meat cleaver. It was thought that he was considering chopping off some of his fingers so that he wouldn't have to play. The band and crew talked him out of it and got rid of the weapon. There were other unreported problems, too. At the end of the tour, an unnamed member of the road-crew quit because being required to kick down a toilet door and retrieve Edward's body was not part of his job description. 'In retrospect I think it was the wrong decision,' said Sean Moore. 'Touring, especially on that European tour with Suede, proved to be very detrimental to his health and personality.' He was right: the damage that had done was probably deeper than anyone imagined.

The American Psychiatric Association describes depression as 'a disorder of mood, characterized by sadness and loss of interest in usually satisfying activities, a negative view of self, hopelessness, passivity, indecisiveness, suicidal intentions, lost of appetite, weight loss, sleep disturbances, and other physical symptoms.' Most of these characteristics were exhibited by Richey Edwards prior to 1995. They were also shown by Sylvia Plath. Plath, like many others, would only gain widespread fame and recognition after her death. Mainly known as a confessional poet, she broke through to prominence as a novelist. She had a history of suicide attempts and mental breakdowns, some of which she wrote about in The Bell Jar (initially under an assumed name), which was based on her work experience from college at Mademoiselle magazine in New York. She was committed to a mental hospital and underwent electroshock therapy. She married and had two children, but the short marriage broke up when her husband had an affair and she was left in London trying to earn enough from various writing assignments to survive.

Despite having two young children to mother, she seemed inept at the basics of life, always needing help.[33] She was also known to turn her frustrations in on herself and once she'd sliced off the top of her own thumb. She wrote about this incident in Cut.

At Christmas 1962, she was left caring for the children in a London flat: it was a miserable time. All three of them fell ill, and she had no central heating while the country was gripped by an icy winter. But, during January, she seemed to snap out of it, even managing to attend a party. During these final weeks, she embarked on a flurry of writing and she had a stack of poems finished by the middle of February.

On Sunday, 11 February 1963, she carefully left some bread and milk for her children's breakfast even though she would have known they were too young to feed themselves. Plath opened the children's bedroom window and sealed the kitchen door with towels and tape, then she turned on the gas oven, left a note on the pram and put her head in the oven. She was thirty-one years old.

It is now considered that a good portion of Plath's work was an elongated suicide note stretching over many years. 'That such a final, tragic, and awful thing as suicide can exist in the midst of remarkable beauty is one of the vastly contradictory and paradoxical aspects of life and art,' says Kay Redfield Jamison in the book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. 'Recent research strongly suggests that, compared with the general population, writers and artists show a vastly disproportionate rate of manic-depressive illness.'

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Date: 2016-06-12; view: 259