Brett Anderson and James Dean Bradfield tell Chris Evans they 'never felt part of the Britpop thing'

Virgin Radio

11 Oct 2023, 11:52

Ahead of Manic Street Preachers and Suede embarking on co-headline tour next year, James Dean Bradfield and Brett Anderson joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch to talk all about it. 

The UK and Ireland tour - which begins in June - won’t be the first time that the two bands have hit the road together. They played a sold out run of US shows last year, and are playing several dates in Asia together next month. Also, they toured together back in the day. Manics’ frontman James said: “We toured with each other in 93. We were supporting Suede in France and throughout Europe.”

He continued: “We definitely had a kinship and back then, we saw ourselves as outsiders. We didn't see ourselves as part of any kind of movement. We saw ourselves as the slightly scrappy, glamorous underdogs.”

Whilst both bands were popular during the mid-90s Britpop era, Suede vocalist Brett told Chris: “What's good about The Manics and Suede, about how the dynamic works, is that we never felt part of the Britpop thing. So obviously, other contemporaries from the 90s would be more of a Britpop sort of thing. 

“We always felt separate from that whole world.”

James added: “We felt slightly co-opted into it, even though it was good to be along for the ride."

Brett said: “It was lots of fun and everything.” 

He added: “It's a strange one isn't it? I think Suede, in lots of ways, started it, and then sort of felt rejected by it, and it rejected us, and it was a weird dynamic.”

James told Chris: “And it's simple maths as well. I think we’d had quite a lot of albums out before Britpop happened. A lot of our benchmark songs had already been out for four or five years before Britpop happened. But it was still a good time.”

The Welsh musician recalled a recent occurrence in Cardiff, saying: “I was out one night. I think I'd been to the rugby. And a kid came running up to me, and he was obviously at university and he's about 21. He pointed at me and went ‘You're from the 90s, aren't you?’

“It made me feel quite authentic, to be honest.”

Speaking more about being in a band in the 90s, the Manics’ frontman said: “Growing up in an age when there was a weekly music press, in the 90s, it was vicious. You would get judged on a weekly basis, and if you put a record out that the NME, Sounds, Melody Maker didn't like, they'd let you know about it. 

“Now, that arena isn't so spiky. And I came to the conclusion that, at this point in life, when you're closer to the end, rather than the beginning, perhaps as we are Brett, it's more important to keep friends rather than make enemies, I suppose. 

“I've lived through that 90s arena, where everything was really, really combative. And now we just want to savour the experience a bit more.”

Brett added: “I don't think either of us would do this if we were just going through the motions. It feels like both bands really have still got something to say and are still making great records. This isn't doesn't feel like a retro thing, for me. It's just a different way to present our music, and to a different audience.

“I think there’s an interesting dynamic between the two bands. If we were doing a tour with someone like Pulp, or something like that, that would immediately be a Britpop tour. And I wouldn't want to do that. No disrespect or anything like that. It's just that this feels like a strange combination of bands that seems to work somehow, and it kind of takes it somewhere else, but takes it somewhere that feels right.”

James said: “There is a kind of underdog glamour to what we did. There was a slight outsider element to what we did when we started these bands. And I still think we've got that narrative in our new records. And when we just met up this morning, we both started asking each other about how the new stuff is getting on. So it isn't completely retro. We're both concentrating on new records.”

Manics are currently working on their 15th album. Suede released their ninth studio album, Autofiction, last year.

Read more about what James and Brett had to say about their joint tour here.

Manic Street Preachers + Suede’s 2024 Tour: Tickets on sale this Friday 13th October at 9am at gigsandtours.com.

For more great interviews listen to  The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.