These days it is difficult to envisage the Manic Street Preachers as anything but the bloated magnolia bores they became towards the trumpet-end of the 20^th century, yet in the early 90s they were the most exciting British band operating in the dusty gulf between The Stone Roses and Oasis.


The dynamic of the band was that of an artistic democracy, with vitriolic polemical lyrics by Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire banged into glam-punk musical bitch-nuggets by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore, and it was a system that worked well as both the artistic and musical halves of the band grew up together and strived from different starting points to arrive at the same destination: escape from a mudane existence in  Blackwood, Wales.


Early albums ‘Generation Terrorists’ and ‘Gold Against the Soul’, released in 1992 and 1993 respectively, performed well and produced ten Top 40 singles between them, but it was the band’s next that would be their magnum opus. In August 1994 they released seminal third album ‘The Holy Bible’ and set their sights on the world. A Top of the

 
Pops performance of furious lead single ‘Faster’, during which the band donned army uniforms and James Dean Bradfield sported a balaclava, had once again courted controversy for a band made infamous by that encounter with then-NME hack Steve ‘ligament face’ Lamacq. Lamacq had expressed doubts as to whether a cynical public would believe in the post-glam punks' ideals. "Some people might regard you as just not for real", remarked Lamacq, casting doubt on their credibility and belief in their own message. After the interview during another conversation between Lamacq and Edwards, Richey began carving the words ‘4 REAL’ into his arm with a razorblade produced from his pocket. Lamacq didn’t know what to do - he was dumbfounded by the calmness with which Richey mutilated himself while eruditely articulating a reasonable contrary viewpoint. "He didn't look in any pain whatsoever,’’ said Lamacq, ‘’He could almost have been writing it in Biro." Seventeen stitches and a trip to A+E were needed, during which Edwards insisted everyone with genuine injuries received treatment before he did. He also phoned Lamacq the next morning to apologise. A photographer had taken a picture of the incident resulting in one of the most enduring and iconoclastic images of modern music. Seen at the time as a vulgar pine for publicity, history will show this act as the most public example of a deep-seated and long running private problem.

After returning from a well-received tour of Japan in support of The Holy Bible, in the last two weeks of January 1995 Richie James Edwards withdraws £200 daily from his bank account to a total tune of £2800. He throws three quarters of his lyric-filled notebooks into a river and gives the rest to bandmates Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield. They think nothing of it; Richey often passed entire books filled with notes, ideas and songs to them and the large number presented on this occassion were seen as further evidence of a particularly prolific period. On February 1^st  he is due to meet up with James and the two of them are to fly out to America for a 30-date tour with fellow Manics Nicky and Sean Moore. This tour is tentatively touted as the final push that will break the band in a country still starved of angst-fuelled punk in the wake of Nirvana’s tragic and sudden dissolution less than a year before.

Richey leaves a packed suitcase, a few books, assorted medication and a note saying “I love you” (believed to be intended for a long-standing unrequited love) in his room at The Embassy Hotel in Bayswater, before driving his silver Cavalier to his flat in Cardiff Bay. There he leaves his passport, credit cards and his prescribed course of Prozac before getting back into his car and driving away. Nothing further is seen, heard or known of him until the car is discovered by police sixteen days later at a service station in close proximity to the Severn Bridge – a known hopspot for jumpers. It had been parked there since Valentine’s Day.

Spurious reports and sightings between February 1^st and the 17^th trickled in: a German friend of Richey’s received a postcard from him dated February 3^rd. 19 year old David Cross had a conversation with a man he believed to be Richey outside a newsagent in Newport on the 5^th regarding a mutual
acquaintance and on the 7^th a taxi driver ferried a dishevelled man resembling Edwards who spoke with a ‘fake sounding’ cockney accent around before finally dropping him off at Aust services, where his car was eventually found.  Over the next six months increasingly patchy sightings were reported in Skipton, Cambridgeshire, Brighton, Reading, London and Liverpool but Richey is not officially presumed dead until November 2008 after over 13 years of almost-sightings, conspiracy theories and grim descoveries of possible partial remains.

While belief still persists that Richey is alive and sunning himself on a secluded island in Thailand with nary a care in the world, with the band themselves still paying royalties into his bank account and maintaining that there is a place for him in the Manics should he ever return, his state of mind in the years leading to his disappearance unfortunately painted a picture of tragic inevitability.

While studying political History at university in Cardiff he became reliant on alcohol to help him sleep, eventually eschewing food for vodka and plummetting down to an emmaciated six stone. It would also be at university  that he would first experiment with self-harm. He once said, "I never shout at anybody, so if I cut myself or stub a cigarette out on my arm, to me it's a release."  Once he joined the Manics his self-destuctive streaks had resulted in forced stays in health parks including the now obligatory stint at The Priory but once back out into the real world his old habits would always return and intensify. He still relied on vodka to lull him into a self-described "blank sleep", away from nocturnal thoughts from which he sought to escape, but following the death of the band’s manager and Richey’s 17-year old dog Snoopy and prior to the Holy Bible’s release he was diagnosed with annorexia and clinical depression and was prescribed a potent course of Prozac medication.

Richey had written three quarters of the lyrics on The Holy Bible and had overseen all the artwork; it would later come to be regarded as his album as his politically socialist soundbites had given way to savage confessional introspection: ‘Die in The Summertime’ detailed his unhappiness with new-found adulthood and the bleak but brilliant ‘4st 7lb’ documented Edward’s own experiences with anorexia, but instead of providing catharsis for the guitarist the album came to be regarded as the suicide note he never left.


No conclusive remains were ever found, but in 2002 a fisherman discovered decomposed feet that had washed up in the Severn estuary not far from the Severn Bridge and it was suggested that they belonged to Richey, before tests revealed the trainers in which they were found were not manufactured until 2001. Nicky Wire wished the media would leave the speculation alone, saying “If he is dead there's going to be nothing left, and 90% of missing people never make contact again."

It is with cruel irony that Richey, as the member who wanted the Manics to sell two million records and then implode, never got to see the multi-platinum selling validation the band achieved with his absence yet in his shadow. By no means a natural musician (his guitar was famously turned down for a number of performances except one: the sound engineer mistook him for  the lead guitarist and turned Richey right up, resulting in a famously shambolic gig) it is testament to the level of Richey’s artistic input how much the band changed when deprived of his words and presence. Some Edwards lyrics featured on the follow-up to 'The Holy Bible' (the Manics' most successful album to date, 'Everything Must Go'), before his remaining lyrics were used only once more on recent album ‘Journal for Plague Lovers’, which is seen as the band’s final send-off to the friend they have delayed saying goodbye to for over fifteen years.

"We don't display our wounds, we shove them in people's faces. We are the decaying flowers in the playgrounds of the rich. We are young, beautiful scum pissed off with the world. There is more self-hate in this band than you or anyone can realise. We hate ourselves totally." - Richey James Edwards, 1992

 

Posted In Features, Sep 19 2009. Words - Luke