Manic Street Preachers' 'difficult period' won't be made public

Manic Street Preachers. Photo / Supplied

Manic Street Preachers have material "no one will ever see".

The group penned several tracks in the aftermath of guitarist Richey Edwards' disappearance in 1995 but bassist-and-lyricist Nicky Wire doesn't feel they were "very good" as they tried too hard to replicate the style of their critically-acclaimed 1994 album The Holy Bible.

Nicky said: "There was a difficult period before 'A Design For Life' of stuff that no one will ever see. It was a pretty traumatised place and there were a lot of lyrics that were confused and not very good that we were trying to be like The Holy Bible and then Design gave me a chance to write in a different voice."

The group are preparing for the release of next album Postcards From A Young Man and have promised it will be very different to its predecessor, Journal For Plague Lovers, which consisted entirely of lyrics left by Richey, who was declared presumed dead in 2008 though his body has never been found.

Nicky explained: "We were lucky with Journal For Plague Lovers, we loved being the band that we can only be when we use Richey's words. The worst thing we could do is try and do another one of them, because my words are not like that."

-BANG! Showbiz