Manic Street Preachers discuss Glastonbury 2014

Will they play The Holy Bible? What can we expect? Icons reveal all...

Wednesday 18th June 2014 by Andrew Trendell | Photos by Press

Manic Street Preachers have spoken out about what to expect from their upcoming set at Glastonbury festival 2014 - and responded to the rumours of them playing The Holy Bible in full.

Watch our video interview with Manic Street Preachers discussing Glastonbury above

The band, who are gearing up to release their incredible new album Futurology, will be appearing on The Other Stage at this year's event - 20 years since they first played there with missing guitarist Richey Edwards.

Speaking to Gigwise, the band responded to comments they made last year about wanting to play their seminal 1994 album The Holy Bible in its entirety at Glasto.

"That was slightly tongue in cheek," laughed bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire. "I think Jack White is on at the same time as us at Glastonbury so we're not expecting the biggest crowd. We'd probably clear the whole field.

"We couldn't do that anyway, because can you imagine if we did all of The Holy Bible at Glastonbury and then all of our hardcore fans didn't get to see it? They'd hate us forever. We'll chuck a couple in, that's for sure."

Frontman James Dean Bradfield continued: "I'm not sure that 'The Intense Humming Of Evil' is going to work in a big field."

When asked if they agreed with comments made to Gigwise by their friend and collaborator Richard Hawley about 'Glastonbury losing all meaning', James replied: "The one thing I do know is that when you're just about to play Glastonbury, you do feel the pressure - it starts looming. There is expectation and pressure, the actual magnitude of the task starts hitting you because people ask you about it all the time. There must be something there because everyone talks about it for at least two weeks up front, maybe a month up front. It does feel different to every other festival."

Wire drew parallels between their set next week with that of their infamous 1994 slot - were he told the crowd 'I say build some more fucking bypasses over this shithole'.

"It's 20 years since we played for the 'bypass' gig," said Wire. "We're on the same stage, the same sort of time slot, hopefully it'll be as good as the first time. The best thing about the first time is that Channel 4 were broadcasting it and we used to have this problem a lot where they thought that Richey was the lead guitarist and a lot of that footage is his guitar. That really did his head in, but he looks brilliant"

In true Wire style, he added: "I think all festivals are as bad as each other. I fucking hate them all."

Manic Street Preachers will be performing on The Other Stage at Glastonbury at 7.30pm on Saturday 28 June. Futurology will be released on 7 July, 2014.

- Check back soon for more of our full interview with the Manics, and read our track by track of their new album Futurology here

Below: Photos of Manic Street Preachers live in Manchester