For a band who came across as an impenetrable gang for their first few years, the Manics have dished out a surprising number of visitor passes over the course of their career. As singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield said to this writer recently, the number of Manics songs featuring a guest has now reached the stage where they could even do a specially-themed gig. “Nick was saying that we could do a whole concert based on our duets,” he said. “We’ve done the set list, it looks amazing!”
One reason that the band like welcoming other artists into the fold, Bradfield explained, is that they have been together for so long. Their dynamic is well established so it’s good to mix things up now and then. “I'm the singing guitarist in the band, the audience has been listening my voice for 15 albums,” he said. “You realise that when somebody else sings, if you get two people to sing the same song, it can be a remarkably different result. A different singer does sometimes give new life to a song more often than not. That's why we've always done it, because we've been together so long and sometimes you think, ‘What angle have we missed on this?’ Ah yeah, getting some other fucker to sing it!”
