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He's the flamboyant, feather boa-wearing bassist whose opinions are even louder than his dress sense.

And, as the Manic Street Preachers huge gig at Cardiff Castle draws ever closer, we whet our appetite for the festivities with a round-up of our 24 favourite choice quotes from the outspoken Blackwood rocker from across the decades.

“You don't half f****** stink, you lot”

...to the audience at the 1992 Reading festival

"Whenever I missed a day at school, I’d say I had a bad stomach and I’d sit on the bed with her…stealing her hairspray and sitting at her dressing table and dying my hair. It was just really peaceful. I genuinely used to just enjoy it."

...talking about using his mum’s makeup

"I wanted to ring everyone and tell them I was number one but then I realised I didn’t have any friends."

...on his reaction to If You Tolerate This getting to number one

Related: When are the Manics performing at Cardiff Castle? Are there tickets left? Will it be on TV?

"I have a problem that I tend to get rid of my underwear very quickly. Not a medical problem! It’s just something I do all the time: I don’t like underwear that has hung around."

...in Uncut magazine 2006

(Image: Matt Crossick/PA Wire)

"[My daughter] just keeps saying that if I was as good as Ed Sheeran I’d be happier."

...www.bbc.co.uk 2014

"I always try my missus clothes on - don't tell her."

...to Kerrang magazine

"I’m not pretending the past was any good — I'm just saying the present is worse."

"It seemed a marriage made in heaven really. I found someone who believed in the same ideas as me, and was even worse musically."

Nicky on Richey Edwards

"Right now I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to make any friends. All I want to do is make enemies. I’ve never felt this much contempt for everyone and everything in my entire f****** life. I don’t feel the need for anyone to like me anymore. Jesus, it’s hard enough to like myself."

...Nicky in 1994

"I verged on meltdown at Glastonbury - its was like the Gazza moment in the 1990 World Cup where Lineker says 'Get him off'. I could see James doing that to me."

...in 2007

(Image: Matt Crossick/PA Wire)

"Someone should build a bypass over this s***hole."

...that 'Gazza moment' at Glastonbury, a few months earlier

"I look at some pictures of me when I’m four foot in the air with my legs apart thinking: ‘If I tried to do that at home, I’d never get up.’ I’d be in a heap on the floor calling my wife. ‘Call a f****** ambulance’! And yet, I put a pair of white jeans on, get on stage, and it takes me to a different place altogether."

...Hotpress interview 2014

"I have a gigantic collection of hotel stationery. Also hotel flannels, which, to me, are like a comfort blanket — I probably have 900 flannels. It’s all filed year-by-year and with the stationery. You can definitely see the quality, it’s got loads better."

...in Mojo magazine

"At one point we did start to get a few nasty letters and people down the front shouting for Richey, but we’re going to miss him more than those people ever will. They don’t miss him coming round for tea. They miss him as an icon. They’ll miss the picture on the wall."

"God definitely created humans as the dregs, we have all the greed and the despicable acts. Humanity, worldwide, is now at its lowest ebb. Depressing, isn’t it, so let’s not get started on THAT."

...in Smash Hits, 1993

"We all decided that from the start, me and Richey can’t write music but we can write lyrics and look pretty tarty."

Related: Nicky Wire swaps feather boas for rugby scarves as he opens up on the band's surprisingly sporty side

"I often fantasise about going into the jungle. I’d like to go in there and be as miserable as possible and refuse to do any of the tasks and we’d all starve to death. And everyone would despise me. So on that level I quite fancy it."

...talking about I’m A Celebrity... in 2006

"Throughout the first year of the band I was only drinking Babycham; it’s so un-rock & roll! Then, as we were driving over the Yorkshire Dales or the Lancashire Moors, I just turned into a blubbing heap, I just wanted to go home and see my mum. I still feel like that a lot now, really."

...on being the Manics’ party animal in 2012

"There’s no problem mixing style with socialism - Fidel Castro was stylish!"

...Uncut 2006

"The odd time I dip my toes backstage the reassuring thing is that no one knows who the f*** I am. I’m proud that everyone looks at me like I’m an alien. Those people are just vacant, imbecilic empty vessels and I pity them."

...in 2007

"A journalist in one of the Sunday papers called us ‘little trolls’, because we’re Welsh. Well, I’m 6ft 3in and I’m the sexiest rock star in the world."

...in 1998

"There’s a poem by Tennessee Williams called ‘Lament For Moths’, one of the first poems we ever read, which is about how the moths, the sensitive people, will always be stamped on and crushed by the mammoths - that really hit us, the sudden realisation that we were the moths of the world."

...in 1994

"Everyone mellows when they become older. If you don’t mellow you become a sad old tosser who’s reliving their youth. The last thing I wanna do is end up like Neil Young, still wearing short shorts and singing Rockin’ In The Free World’. I’d rather f****** retire than inflict all this s*** music. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re good!"

...in 1999

"I could never write something like (Radiohead's) ‘I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo’. I 'd write something like ‘I’m a cricketer, I’m boring, I’m a gardener, I'm a hoovering housewife’."

"The internet is the grandest illusion ever created. It makes people think they’re popular, they have loads of friends, they’re part of a community. And they actually have a voice. They don’t actually realise that like all of us, they’re completely f***** and powerless."

Thanks to nickywiresays.tumblr.com for the quotes