Behind every great musician is…another great musician! Someone who has inspired them with their musical prowess, their attitude, their values or perhaps all of the above. Everyone has that one artist that comes to mind when we’re asked ‘who are your musical heroes?’
Our new series here on Punk Rock Philosophy asks that very question, giving space to those in the punk scene to talk about a band or artist that have contributed to their creative life and to tell us all why!
In this first post in the series we asked Neil Armstrong, bassist from band Striking Thirteen, to think back over his musical journey and tell us why Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers have had such an impact on him.
You Love Us
“There’s a meme that says something like ‘I’d describe my music taste as all the songs I live, and not the ones I don’t.’ Which is rather cliched, but also very true. My iPod contains some very heavy extremes (Kittie, System Of A Down), some more traditional alternative things (Jimmy Eat World, Manchester Orchestra) and some damn good pop songs (don’t care what anyone says, ‘I Want It That Way‘ and ‘Bye Bye Bye‘ are certified bangers).
I play bass in a local band named Striking Thirteen, which is obviously a literary reference, but more on that later. I’ve taken to describing us as “intellectual britpop”, which I like because of how pretentious it sounds, but it’s also very accurate, given that our singer and guitarist Sam loves Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene (amongst others) and I love Manic Street Preachers, Suede and Pulp.
Like most people of my age, my introduction to the Manics came in the late 90s. I’d heard of them before I got into them, but I hadn’t quite discovered “my” music yet, so they were a bit off my radar. When I turned fourteen, and started discovering things that I properly liked, a school friend lent me a copy of ‘This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours‘, and said, “you’ll like tracks five and eight.” Turns out… he was very right. ‘Tsunami‘ is still to this day one of my favourite Manics tracks, and ‘You’re Tender & You’re Tired‘ is an underrated gem on their most successful album.
Full disclosure, I’ve always been a bit of a nerd. One of the things that the Manics did, particularly in their early days, was constantly provide reference points of things that influenced them. Whether it be literary quotes from George Orwell, JG Ballard, Brett Easton Ellis in their lyrics and interviews, or musical reference points such as The Clash. There was an intelligence and an intellect to the band that I really identified with at a time when other bands were singing about cigarettes and alcohol, or girls who like boys. That’s not to say that every lyric has to be a profound essay on the state of society and the downfall of civilisation, but I think there should be something more meaningful in a song that “all I need are cigarettes and alcohol.” For me, the lyrics have always been as important as the music, if not more so, and the Manics were- to fourteen year old me- the perfect encapsulation of that.
I very much like this multi-faceted aspect of the band. You can enjoy the songs at face value; catchy melodies and great musicianship with a bit of sloganeering, but there’s also the reward of the other things the band can introduce you to. I myself might not have ever bothered listening to The Clash at the point I did if it wasn’t for the Manics introducing me to them.”
A Design For Life
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I start writing my own lyrics around the same sort of time I started getting into the Manics, albeit the stuff I was writing at that age is absolute garbage and will never see the light of day. The Manics- the style and the way they wrote- heavily influenced the way I wrote, and still do write to this day. Indeed, the first song Striking Thirteen wrote and worked on as a band contains references in the lyrics to: Brexit, the band Idlewild, working at Sainsbury’s and having to take part in some corporate “moment” for reasons that I’ve long forgotten, and the lyrics of the Manics themselves.
Other lyrics of ours take in successive UK governments attitudes to refugees, my own struggles and issues with mental health, American gun culture and the fact that the UK education system doesn’t teach the full truth of the darker side of British history. That’s just a few examples of things we’ve covered, and I would not write in the style that I do without the Manics being a big part of my life in my formative musical years.
Their lyrics cover some of the most intensely personal issues, from Richey’s anorexia in ‘4st 7lb‘, to the loss of parents in James’ ‘Ocean Spray‘ and Nicky’s ‘Concrete Fields‘. They are also, very famously, a very left-wing band in terms of their politics, although not without some less obvious viewpoints, such as Richey seemingly calling for the death penalty on ‘Archives Of Pain‘, or Nicky’s railing against things that he sees wrong with modern life on the title track to their most recent album, ‘Critical Thinking‘, which includes “body positivity” in a rant that leads up to the phrase “fuck that!” For a band that wrote an anthem of feminist empowerment in ‘Little Baby Nothing‘, it’s a surprise to have a lyric that seems to cast body positivity in a negative light. That said, this is proof of two other things that I’ve always admired about the Manics: firstly, the idea that life isn’t always as simple as right or left; wrong or right; and secondly, the idea that people change and grow as they get older.”
The Everlasting
“I admire their resilience as both a band, and as people, to carry on after Richey’s disappearance, and this has obviously been a massive influence on, or a shadow hanging over, their career ever since. I feel a lot of music fans don’t appreciate that the bands they look up to- particularly bands that inspire such a passionate following as the Manics once did- change and grow as people, and are therefore disappointed when every new album doesn’t sound like ‘The Holy Bible‘. Could men in their fifties (as the Manics are now) write something so angry and nihilistic as ‘Faster‘? That said, the angry twenty-somethings that wrote ‘The Holy Bible‘ could equally never write something as world weary as ‘This Sullen Welsh Heart‘, nor something as resonant as ‘International Blue‘.
The Manics longevity as a band is something to be admired, and they’ve only been able to do that by changing and adapting from album to album as they’ve aged. For me, the Manics are at their best when the guitars are loud, the slogans are blaring and there is almost a backs-against-the-wall mentality, so their mid-career lull of ‘Lifeblood‘ isn’t an album I return to often, nor is 2013’s ‘Rewind The Film‘. What’s great about the band is that they’ve not been afraid to try different things over the course of their career. The results have been varied, and the band will tell you as much themselves, but for me, they continue to represent and demonstrate everything that music could, and should be; fine musicianship, intelligent lyrics, catchy melodies. Music that means something.
The variety of material that they have produced in their career, and still continue to do, makes me very grateful for that moment in school where I was given that CD. Very much a sliding doors moment for me, and it’s given me a hell of a lot of enjoyment.
In 2022, a Manics fan twitter account asked for submissions for a top fifty tracks from the fanbase, to try and come up with a definitive list of the fans’ favourite tracks. Looking at my list three years later, I’m still fairly content with it. I shan’t list the whole thing, but I’ll give you a peek at the top ten!”
1: ‘Motown Junk‘
2: ‘A Design For Life‘
3: ‘Motorcycle Emptiness‘
4: ‘Send Away The Tigers‘
5: ‘Prologue To History‘
6: ‘Automatik Teknicolor‘
7: ‘The Masses Against The Classes‘
8: ‘Suicide Is Painless (Theme From MASH)‘
9: ‘Forever Delayed‘
10: ‘Faster‘
Thank you so much to Neil for penning this piece for Punk Rock Philosophy!
If you are a punk musician and would like to talk about your musical inspiration and formative music experiences then get in touch! Contact details on the ‘About’ page.
