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The disappearance of Richey James Edwards in February 1995 is one rock's great unsolved mysteries. Last week the Manic Street Preacher was finally declared dead by his family. When Simon Witter of Sky met him in 1993, Richey talked eloquently of glamour, androgyny, and lost childhoods.-- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

ON A GREY afternoon, in a faceless apartment above a West London studio, a genial, petite Welshman rests his winkle-pickers on the coffee table as he liltingly unravels his peculiar world-view. Re-styled, skinny-thighed denim flares and a white-on-black polka-dot shirt, its cuffs dandily open, point to the unusual profession of our protagonist, but nothing in his sweet, unrufflable demeanor hints at the anarchy and anger for which he's become famous. Richey James Edwards is the 25-year-old lyricist and linchpin of Britain's most tabloid-friendly rock band, the Manic Street Preachers.

In the two years since they delivered their raging calling-card, "Motown Junk," his group have become the darlings of the old journos who want to put the punk back into rock, to believe that guitar bands can still mean something. They've jammed, glammed and scammed their way around the world, striking enough poses and delivering outrageous statements to--almost--obscure the fact that they write good songs. And now, on the eve of the release of their second album, Gold Against The Soul, Richey is taking stock.

Behind him, several thousand pounds-worth of Sega games surround a Megadrive console and, mysteriously, a Nintendo Super NES deck. Nothing else in the flat betrays the character of its inhabitants, save in Richey's room, a cramped three-bed space which is decorated with five mural montages, each bearing testimony to the boy's influences. Marky Mark, trousers at half mast, is framed by Egon Schiele portraits, while Marilyn Monroe is outnumbered by copious Kate Moss clippings. Richey has only spent 30 days at home this year, and cutting up books and magazines is a favorite way of killing time on the road.

"I just think she's pretty," Richey volunteers when pressed about his Kate Moss shrine. "She looks delicate, that's what I like about her. I'm not the kind of person who could like Cindy Crawford. That's not my type of look. Our idea of glamour is far removed from most people's. Keith Richards in 1972 was glamorous, but I don't mind flicking through magazines for beautiful, vacuous images. To me there's no contradiction between reading Sylvia Plath or Primo Levi and sticking a picture of Kate Moss on my wall. It's something to look at, no big deal."

The waif-like androgyny of Kate Moss fits in perfectly with the Manic Street Preachers' fake rock 'n' roll drag. Not that you can expect Richey to agree. "The makeup and androgyny things was really overplayed in the press. Boy George and David Bowie were androgynous, but a bit of eyeliner and some eye shadow is not my idea of androgyny. People say we wear a lot of make-up, but Kiss wore make-up. We wear black kohl eyeliner--Boots' own or anything--and use a bit of powder to make our faces pale. It's nothing subtle or time-consuming.

"People in Bradford or South Wales walk around looking like a hangover of a really casual Stones look," Richey rants on. "Not so much any more, now that techno is the music of the working classes. There's no Moschino or Gaultier shops in the valleys of South Wales, so you're left with cheap market clothes. Your jeans might even be stretch-fibre KS jeans, rather than Levi's. There's just nothing. I still shop like that. This shirt cost £8 at Shepherd's Bush market, and I got these jeans second-hand, and had the tops of the legs taken in so that they'd look like jeans I've seen Iggy wearing in pictures."

Trouser-styling isn't the only thing Richey has in common with Iggy Pop. While the lead Stooge used to cut himself regularly with bottles during his act, Richey notoriously slashed the words "4 real" into his forearm with a razor blade during an interview a couple of years ago. Internalizing your rage and taking it out on yourself seems to be an aptly feminine thing to do.

Richey concurs: "Coming from where we come from, everyone puts up with a lot of sh*t, be it on the dole or in the factories, but they it in. Then on weekends they go down the pub, drink as fast as they can and end up having a massive fight. If they can't find anyone to pick an argument with, they end up having a big fight with their mates. That's one thing we've never done and never would do. When we get really pissed off, we never scream at each other, we just leave the room and go be on our own. What I did that day was similar, only more extreme than things I have done before. I'd rather do it to myself than go and do it to somebody else. If you've got nothing left to say other than going and smacking someone in the face, what's the fucking point? We never regret anything. There's no point, once something's done."

What everyone's waiting for, of course, is the group's new 10-track album, Gold Against The Soul, due out next month but currently held up while they get clearance to quote a Primo Levi poem on the sleeve. I don't even have to ask Richey what it's like before he's off: "It's about the loss of innocence. Childhood pleasures are more natural and real. When you're a child, you always want to grow up and do adult things, but when you get those things, it doesn't increase your enjoyment of life.

"Most people look back on their childhoods with more fondness than their early 20s or their teenage years, which are pretty horrendous. As a child, you put your head on your pillow and fall asleep with no worries. From being a teenager onwards, it's pretty rare that you don't end up staying awake half the night thinking about bullsh*t."

It seems a bit sad to be looking back already at the age of 25, but it doesn't seem to worry the nothing-if-not-pragmatic Richey. "I'm not nostalgic. It's more a general statement of fact. I don't wake up every morning and wish that I was 10 again. I just know that I was happier then."

I'm musing about old heads on young shoulders, but by this time Richey has already moved on to how the Manics started out.

"Every review of our last album talked about the meaning of the band in the scheme of things," he offers. "We came out at the height of Madchester, when technology had supposedly done away with the electric guitar. All we ever wanted to be was a really obvious British rock band like the Who, the Stones, the Clash, Led Zeppelin.

"We wore white jeans and white spray-painted shirts, had pretty poor equipment and could barely play, and our songs didn't last for more than about two minutes. So I suppose people would've seen us in those terms. But we did find it odd, because we'd come up to London listening to Springsteen in the van and then get compared to all these groups we'd barely heard of. When you come from a place like we do, you're more likely to find Janis Joplin in the local Woolworth's than the New York Dolls."

One of the best stories about Manic Street Preachers is that one of the record companies they visited before eventually signing to Sony believed they were such a heavy-metal band that they invited them to smash up their offices. "They said 'Look, if you wanna come in and chuck everything out of the window...' So we didn't sign with them,' cause they just had no idea at all. They thought a rock 'n' roll band should do things like that, which is so pathetic."

It doesn't seem like a very upbeat note to end on. One last try at a different approach: So, I ask, are you really just a miserable bunch? Don't you ever have a laugh?

"The most obscene thing in this world is how everyone always pretends to have a good time." Oh dear. "That really annoys me, when people go on about how they're having a good time and their life's going really great. Most people are deeply unhappy. If they weren't they'd lead a healthy life, but nobody does that. Most people can find 50 words to describe being unhappy, but only one or two for happiness. People always moan. We f**king do anyway."

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