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"The only interests he seriously seemed to have led nowhere really. To great art but not further on a humane level. When he stopped drinking, to try and get better, a massive piece of his life was taken away. There was a definitely joy to that part of his life. Negative, but we’ve all got crutches. If he was around today he would be, on some level, a true in-the-public-domain star. He was a genuine star. In a non-showbiz, totally real way.” 

 - Nicky about Richey in 2009, from the book I'm Not with the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music by journalist Sylvia Patterson

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Richey’s 1994 looks

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We’re actually the only alternative rock band that gets featured in Gay Times, and we’ve got more gay fans than just about anyone other than Jimmy Somerville. There’s one gay couple who follow us around everywhere, and they just came backstage and said, ‘Ooh, you’ve been naughty boys,’ and gave us Christmas presents. And Richey’s virtually bisexual anyway - after the gig he was snogging Andy Cairns from Therapy?!

Nicky Wire, Melody Maker, December 19 1992

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my life isn’t in a very good state right now but at least i can proudly say that i don’t ship gaming youtubers

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@manics  Goodnight xxxxxxxxx

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The Priory ripped out the man and left a shell. They say they’ve got a cure in places like that, but all they do is completely change the person you are. I don’t think that’s a cure. And you could see him struggling with this, wondering if this was the only way. They loved him in there, because he’s so intelligent and sharp-witted, and he got into it, played along with them. But they ripped the soul out of him. The person I knew was slowly ebbing away.

Nicky on Richey’s stay at the Priory. (via die-in-the-summertime)

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I think what he would have really enjoyed is the interpretation of the words. I think there’s a real fragile acoustic side to Richey as well as the dirty power side. He would like the naked beauty of Facing Page: Top Left, because it’s just James and a harp. I think All Is Vanity too, which is probably the closest song which could have been on The Holy Bible. It’s just got that feel about it; a hint of menace. We’re talking completely hypothetically here; sometimes he had really bad taste in music! He loved Tool and Pantera – not that that’s bad! But we’re not going to make an album which sounds like Tool!

Nicky Wire, on what tracks Richey might have liked off Journal For Plague Lovers, from a Kerrang interview

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“I like a more casual approach, but with it bolted down, so maybe you might have nice lighting or something. Or, you set-up like you’re in a studio, because I’ve got some lovely pictures of Rich in the Hall or Nothing kitchen. But, it isn’t a kitchen - you know when you get those big cupboards that you open and in there there’s like a kettle and a sink and all that, but you can’t actually get into it, that was their kitchen! So I opened the door and put up a roll of paper and put a light on it, then I put Rich there and put a light on him. There’s some really nice shots where he’s got a dark black or blue jacket on, with a red pin-stripe, no shirt and he’s wearing round glasses and a hat, which was almost like a padre hat. It was just a series of colour and black and white shots, all the same virtually, although he’s got a fag on in some of them. But, he looks cool! They’re nice candid pictures, and that’s what you can do when people know you and trust you and vice versa. Like, ‘What are you going to do? Well, I’m going to do nice portraits and it isn’t going to take too long.’ I like those shots actually, but the thing is, I can’t have my thoughts and my love of the pictures go towards Rich, because it will create that silly myth thing. But obviously, he was a fucking lovely, lovely chap!“

-Photographer Tom Sheehan on this shoot via R*E*P*E*A*T Fanzine

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Whoa, really? I love Thinking Sideways (though I haven't listened for a while), and a few months ago I was just thinking that they could do something on Richey, though I wondered if he was famous enough for Americans. Not sure I want to listen to it now though, 'cause I've obsessively read so much about Richey that I get super irritated at the misinformation that always gets spread around (though those guys usually do their research well!) Like the thousands of pounds of cash he supposedly took with him, even though his sister has said he didn't have that on him.

Very odd - one of my favourite podcasts, Thinking Sideways, has this week put out an episode about Richey Edwards.

For those of you who don’t listen, Thinking Sideways is a podcast covering mysteries and the unexplained - so the guitarist in a rock band going missing and never being seen again is totally within their realm, I totally get it. But it just feels so weird to see a story I’m so familiar with end up on a podcast like this.

I almost didn’t listen to the episode at all, because I was worried they’d turn what is a very sad but ultimately fairly normal story about a missing person into a big “aliens did it” style conspiracy, but it’s ultimately a pretty respectful episode from people who don’t have the faintest idea who the band even are. There are a few niggling factual errors, but that’s par for the course with these podcasts.

What really pleased me though was that during the episode, the hosts made a big deal of how hard the other band members tried to help Richey, how they continued to pay his royalties into a bank account for him and what good, decent people the guys are. It’s something any Manics fan already knows, but to hear people who aren’t familiar with the band acknowledge what good guys the Manics are was really great. Hell, I even felt vaguely proud of them. Even though I don’t listen to the band all that much anymore, I still love them because they are ultimately lovely people.

Anyway, at the end of the podcast they discussed (and discounted, obviously) a theory that Richey was killed off by the New World Order, which is probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Podcasts are fucking great.

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This interview with the Manics is really really good but the interview asks when Nicky was told Richey was missing and what his initial reaction was and Nicky kinda goes all crackly and quiet and starts his reply with “it’s something I prefer to block out to be honest”

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ウェンズデー・チャン/Wednesday-chan via Twitter

“最近ホーリーバイブルをよく聴いているので”

“Because I’ve been listening to The Holy Bible a lot recently…”

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His “hairless, pale, adolescent-like” comment had some people calling him a dodgy geezer.  More like he’d just been reading Frisk and thought the line sounded good.  You know what he’s like with his books.

I’ve noticed he plucked out lines from a novel and slipped them into an interview many times.  I’d flick through some books and try to find them, but I’ve kind of got other things to do.

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possibly my favourite scene from anything ever

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Q&A with Richey in ‘Catharsis’ fanzine 1992.

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On Friday 26 April, the Manics warmed up for two further Oasis gigs at Manchester City’s Maine Road stadium with a low-key show at the downstairs bar of the Haçienda club. (…) [Which] was a regular haunt of the Manchester’s pop élite and before the gig, New Order/Joy Division bassist Peter Hook approached Sean Moore to say: ‘Sorry to hear about Richey … at least we had a body!’ The gallows humour was warmly appreciated.

Simon Price (taken from Everything - A book about Manic Street Preachers)

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“The secret Marquee gig, we were called Generation Terrorists, the only time we played ‘Wrote For Luck’ Richey played one chord through the whole song and danced like Ian Curtis” - Nicky Wire, 

From Forever Delayed By Mitch Ikeda