Manic Street Preachers ’ Nicky Wire has said he is still “emotionally floored” by the loss of his bandmate, Richey Edwards , almost 30 years to the day since he disappeared. The Welsh guitarist – described by The Independent as “the heart and bruised soul of the rock group – vanished on 1 February 1995 , aged 27, and is widely presumed to have taken his own life. However, his body was never found, leaving behind myriad unanswered questions and a lack of closure for his surviving bandmates.
He was legally declared dead in 2008. Ahead of the release of a new album, Critical Thinking , on Friday 31 January, Wire and frontman James Bradfield found themselves reflecting on Edwards in an interview with The Observer . “There are so many myths in rock’n’roll and we were steeped in them,” Bradfield said.
“I remember Richey going missing, and then two weeks later, just thinking, ‘Oh, is this it? Are we that story now?’ These things happen in rock’n’roll. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, it’s us. F***.
It’s us.’ “And then you reproach yourself and you go, ‘No, it’s his parents, it’s not us. It’s his sister, it’s not us.
’ It was just...
‘I can’t believe this. I can’t actually f***ing believe it.’” He said he believes the band made it through because of their work ethic: “Find the chord, dig in.
The simplest answer. We went through a lot, but also it was like, ‘You signed up for a tour, son.’” Wire revealed that he still thin.
