MANIC STREET PREACHERS recorded new album ‘KNOW YOUR ENEMY’, without rehearsing any of their songs, and singer JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD has admitted to feeling “more scared than usual” in the build-up to its release.
Speaking to Radio 1, Bradfield said it seems “strange” they have now recorded as many albums without missing guitarist Richey Edwards as with him.
He said: “It’s just really strange…we feel a bit more scared than usual. We are press addicts, and when I read the press these days there are so many young journalists who take a pop at the band just because we’re older. I think the press is ‘Yankaphilic’ and love anything from America, but British music seems to have to work harder to gain affection in the British press.
“I think we work better when we feel a bit scared. We haven’t sat down and said ‘We’ve had two million- selling albums in Britain and now we have to do it again’ – if we did that we’d fail on every level.”
Elsewhere, he said the Manics made the decision to go into the studio to record ‘Know Your Enemy’ without rehearsing any of the material. He continued: “The premise we set was we wouldn’t rehearse the songs, so when we started in the studio that was the first time we played the songs. So there are songs on the album which haven’t been rehearsed, and there are songs on the album which have only been played about four times.”
The first single from ‘Know Your Enemy’ is strongly tipped to be ‘So Why So Sad’, released on March 5.