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GALLERY: Kevin Cummins' Manics Shots
Danny Riley , November 13th, 2014 15:45

Before tQ editor John Doran interviews him at Manchester's Louder Than Words festival this weekend, Kevin Cummins talks us through some of his best shots of the Manic Street Preachers from his upcoming book, Assassinated Beauty

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Group Polaroid shot from 1993 (JDB in Mickey Mouse shirt)
We spent all day in the studio doing those. It's quite a complicated treatment; it's a Polaroid transfer. What I like about this one is that you get bleed, because you're rolling it onto wet paper, you're not really sure what you're going to get and it can be quite hit and miss. Richey's almost become part of the background, his skin's the same colour as the background. Because of that it has quite a ghostly effect; it's quite a strange shot. When I gave it to the NME like that they didn't know what the hell to do with it.

I think they were provocative, but musicians should be, they should challenge. They'd come out of an era where everyone was making music on ecstasy, and in a way they were shaking up that complacency like The Jesus And Mary Chain had done a generation earlier. Obviously they would try to come out with outrageous statements to upset people, but they're a band, not politicians. When the Manics came along they weren't easy to categorise and they were divisive but they shook everyone out of the complacency of just going to clubs like the Hacienda and listening to the same kind of music.