Julian Brown: "I can remember how it felt, it seems so long ago. It seemed a long time even after a month."

Gill Armstrong: "Also, it's difficult to believe he's actually dead because he's on MTV all the time. It's almost like he never died."

Mark Thomas: "And Nirvana are still in the Melody Maker virtually every week ..."

Becky Craig: "And Courtney [Love] doesn't act like he's dead, she's out there flirting all the time."

Ben Stud: "And you don't approve of that?"

Becky Craig: "No."

Julian Brown: "Well, I think she's right, I think she should get on with her life - he's the one that got out, isn't he?"

Ben Stud: "Why do you think he did it?"

Julian Brown: "Because he couldn't stand the pressure. He couldn't stand the pressure of what was coming. I think he felt he couldn't live up to it. All the touring, all the expectations people had of him. I think he was too sensitive for it all, it had nothing to do with the drugs or anything."

Martin Carr: "I think he was going to do it anyway whether he'd been in the band or not. I don't really think it was much to with the pressure or the drugs, but they certainly didn't help much."

Ben Stud: "People, fans and journalists have called him a nihilist. Does anyone agree with that?"

Julian Brown: "No, not at all, I think he was on optimist, he was beaten down by what he'd been through."

Andy Saunders: "Questions about optimism, pessimism and nihilism are irrelevant. The truth is that, like many people, he was clinically desperately depressed. The sad thing is that, because of what he was and what he did, the media have attached spurious significance to it, mythologised it. Fame - the pressures of fame - do not kill, despite what Ben claimed a month ago in his Radiohead piece. There are an awful lot of people who suffer far greater pressures than Cobain did and they do not kill themselves. Cobain's problem was that he was clinically depressed, and maybe nobody realised if or was interested in it, or worse, they realised it and exploited it.
"This is an issue that ought be addressed. I mean, when on artist is that ill, why aren't the management and record company doing anything about it?"

Ben Stud: "From the letters received after Kurt's death and Richey's disappearance, it would seem that no one, not record companies, not PRs, not even family and friends, take clinical depression as seriously as they might."

Julian Brawn: "But that depression is precisely what made him successful and sadly what killed him. You only have to read the lyrics to know that. Jesus, look at the song titles..."

Andy Saunders: "NO, NO, NO, what made him successful was the quality of his songs."

Martin Can. "I agree with Andy. I mean, it's true that songs come from the inside, but it's not your psyche or problems that sell five million albums. Whatever had been doing, he would have felt the same way and the result would have probably been the same."

Ben Stud: "Andy, you said Kurt's problems were mythologised. Isn't that inevitable, isn't that partly what pop is all about, partly what your job as a press officer is about, partly what my job is about, to mythologise pain, excess, suffering and all the other stuff that makes for such good copy?"

Andy Saunders: "It's partly what pop is about, for sure, but the fans and the media should constantly remind themselves of the fact that stars are also people. That being a star does not preclude many of the ordinary day-to-day pressures."

ROCK 'N' ROLL SUICIDE
Ben Stud: "How do you think Cobain's death differs, if at all, from previous rock 'n ' roll deaths- Keith Moon, John Bonham, Jimi Hendrix and the rest ?"

Julian Brown: "They all did themselves in because of their lifestyles, drink and drugs and all that. He died because he was just too sensitive."

Martin Carr: "It differs as well because we were all there. John Bonham and stuff, well, some of us weren't even alive then, and those of us who were don't remember it. It's just history, not something you feel and experience."

Andrew Mueller: "There was something unequivocal about Cobain's death. Unlike Bonham, Hendrix and the other people you mentioned who simply pushed their luck too far, Cobain's death was a matter of choice. It was premeditated."

Ben Stud: "So you're saying his was the first real rock 'n' roll suicide."

Andrew Mueller: "Well, er, yes. Other than lan Curtis, of course."

Michael Ransome: "Well, I would say that Curtis' death didn't have much to do with rock 'n' roll."

Andrew Mueller: "Well, yeah. That's what I was coming to. I would argue the same about Cobain."

Julian Brown: "Kurt's death was to do with rock 'n' roll: lan Curtis' was much more personal."

Gill Anderson: "They're all fucking personal!"

Julian Brown: "Yeah, yeah, they're all personal, right, but Kurt's was about rock 'n' roll."

Andrew Mueller: "No. I don't agree with that at all."

Ed: "I think it was down to heroin..."

Andrew Mueller: "So, how do you account for the hundreds of rock stars and junkies that didn't kill themselves? Deliberately, that is..."

Julian Brown: "But the thing about Cobain was that he was too sensitive to handle the rock 'n' roll thing being a rock 'n' roll star. Curtis killed himself because of his personal experiences."

Andrew Mueller: "Yeah, right, the thing is that Cobain's personal right, experience was being a rock 'n' roll star."

Ben Stud: "Cobain honestly believed that the nature of pop, the way it glamorizes suffering and elevates depression, is ultimately demeaning. The appalling irony for Cobain was that his most naked and vulnerable moments were rendered anthemic, that he himself rendered them anthemic. Now, I would imagine that if you were to realised that the single thing that you were good at, great at, reduced your darkest feelings to a photogenic consumable pose, you would feel pretty fucking bad. So, while I would agree that rock 'n' roll wasn't what killed him, it must surely have contributed to his depression."

Russell Senior: "Jesus, the man wanted to be a big rock star, you have to accept the pressures that go with that. I have no sympathy whatsoever with people who complain about those pressures. As for his songs being demeaned by pubic acclaim, that's bollocks. If you love your music and you believe in it, you are going to want people to hear it."

Louise Wener: "I also think you have to know that when you go into this, that writing songs is not some kind of therapy. It's never going to be. I don't have a need as a songwriter for everyone to understand exactly what I'm about. I don't expect that, and don't expect people to expect that of me."

Gill Armstrong: "Yeah, OK, but you're obviously different to Kurt. I don't think he could put up what was expected of him, because people expect so much."

Michael Ransome: "I can definitely see what Ben was saying. I mean if you're fucked up and think your only salvation is to be in a rock band to be a rock star, and then you discover that being a rock star actually takes things from you, then it's certainly not gonna help your state of mind."

Julian Brown: "Yeah. He must have thought he was a complete failure."

Sophie Patterson: "I think he achieved everything, but believed there was still something more. He couldn't find it, and he ended it all."

Andy Saunders: "Don't you think that that's tremendously selfish?"

Gill Armstrong: "It's not so much to do with selfishness as with desperation. There really is no other way out. I'm sure he probably thought about what he was doing before he did it, but decided there really was no other way."

Andy Saunders: "Isn't he thinking about it the point? I mean, blowing your brains out takes a certain amount of organisation, and this bloke had a wife and a kid-- that's what made it such a selfish, futile gesture."

Ed: "But when you're feeling the way Kurt obviously did, responsibilities can only make things worse. Yes, he had a wife and a kid; he also had a band. They were his band, and that must have rested very heavily on his mind. I mean, he overdosed in Italy and, a couple of months later, he killed himself. Now, in those couple of months, he'd come off heroin. He was at his most fucking vulnerable. He needed people near him. Now what I wish is that I could have been with him every minute of every day to make sure he avoided picking up a gun or a needle. And that's partly what our song, 'Turning Back Time', was all about. What I'm trying to say is that the guy had so much on his fucking plate. It really was a question worse of 'Where the fuck do I go now?' I'm bitter that this multi-million dollar machine didn't have someone to stick by him like fucking glue. I mean, we're all here and were all missing him, but some fucker should have been with him."

Andy Saunders: "I agree with Ed. The record and management were a big contributory factor I work with a lot of very volatile artists and we have to be very aware of the pressures that they're under."

Michael Ransome: "Ed is right in a way. A man of Cobain's stature ought to have had someone to look after him. The fact that he lay dead for so long, without anyone noticing, is disgusting. That proves how little people around him gave a fuck. But, at the same time, if you ore determined to kill yourself, you will make sure that you provide a little space to getaway ham all the people around you. If you want to do it, you will do it. You literally cannot walk around in someone else's shadow 24 hours a day."

Back to front, left to right: Louise Wener, Martin Carr (Boo Radleys), Ed Borrie (S*M*A*S*H), and Russell Senior (Pulp)

MANIC DESPAIR
Ben Stud: "With appalling synchronicity, the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death has been marked by the disappearance of Richey James. Richey's disappearance has inspired more mail than Cobain's suicide-a very different kind of mail. To begin with, hardly any of it has been cynical in tone; in fact, quite the reverse. The letters this paper have received have revealed a genuine concern. The writers have also been mostly women and, perhaps more to the point, have written about their own sense of inadequacy, their own stake of depression and how the Manic Sheet preachers and Ricky's lyrics and interviews have mirrored those feelings. Firstly, I want to ask the girls here why they feel so strongly about the band."

Jamie McCredie: "The Manics are one of the few bands who talk about how proud they are that girls come to their gigs."

Andrew Mueller: "This is what I thought was so interesting about the letters, because the traditional view of pop fan is that males are supposed to aspire to being like their heroes, whereas women are supposed to admire more passive heroes and none of the letters about Richey were like that. Obviously, a lot of them expressed admiration, but it was the intense identification with him that struck me."

Andy Saunders: "Why did the Melody Maker ask for letters from Manics fans ? What was the point there?"

Andrew Mueller: "Because having received so many letters about his disappearance, we wanted to do a piece that would discuss readers' reactions in more detail than they might otherwise have been afforded in the Backlash pages. We were amazed last year when Kurt died, the response was extraordinary, and yet it wasn't reflected in the mainstream press. I mean, the biggest rock star in the world kills himself and he gets a paragraph underneath the fishing results column, if he's lucky. Now, Richey, in the grand media scheme of things, is not famous. Is not a celebrity. And the coverage he received in the mainstream press was derisory. Since we have begun to take an interest, not just in him, but in his fans, the very same media has suddenly started taking it very seriously indeed. The Times are this week running a piece about this piece, and Radio 4's "Today" show interviewed me this week, and I have done more than 30 interviews in the last week on the subject of Richey [fore, among others, the BBC1 and ITN news] and his fans. Most of them, of course, have got everything arse about it, they all want to run a piece on Richey's crazed wrist-slasher-cult. The reason Richey disappearance has had so much more of on effect than Kurt's death is because a) no one knows what the hell has happened to Richey and b) because, when Kurt died, he was so famous. Plus, the whole thing with him and Courtney had become so much of a soap-opera that he was a cartoon."

Ed: "He was a soap-opera in Britain but he wasn't in the States. His death probably had just as much effect over there as Richey's disappearance has over here.

Andrew Mueller: "Yeah, fair point. Richey's British. But I've been talking to South African bloody radio about this."

Gill Armstrong: "Also, a lot of the fans have actually met him. I've met him between 20 and 30 times, and when he's-taken away a big part of your life goes."

Julian Brown: "I genuinely believe that Richey's disappearance wasn't have been as significant had Kurt not killed himself."

Everyone: "N000... That's bollocks... No way."

Ed: "It's like a Ruth Rendell mystery, innit? He's not dead, he's not alive, he's just missing. That's what is so fucked up about it. The thing is that, assuming he is alive, are we applying more pressure to Richey Manic by talking about him, by talking about him in print ?"

RICHEY MANIA
Ben Stud: "The main reason we're all sitting here together today is not so much to do with either Kurt or Richey but because their experiences have forced many of our readers to admit, confess, whatever, that they also have considered killing themselves, mutilating themselves and disappearing. Up until now, however, their letters suggested they believed that, if they were to express these feelings, they would not be taken seriously." Andrew Mueller: "That's right. We felt we had to do something because it wasn't being taken seriously anywhere else. And it is our readers particularly, because the first letters we started receiving were in November. Simon Price had lust interviewed Richey after he had come out of clinic and he talked bravely and lucidly about his anorexia, his self-mutilation and his depression. For our readers, this was a kind of outing. People now felt able to out themselves as depressives. People who no longer feel ashamed about coming to terms with the fact that they have a problem. Sadly, what the tabloids have been trying to say over the past fortnight is that kids are killing themselves because of Kurt Cobain and mutilating themselves because of Richey. That's bollocks. The fact is that, because Richey was brave enough to come clean, he has empowered people. Everyone else who has felt the same way, has said "YES!"

Michael Ransome: "That's what's so healthy about today. It's a way of brining these problems out into the open. Please let's not bury it under the carpet and make it a taboo subject, like it has been for so long. Everyone is scared to talk about it, and therefore doesn't get any help. The minute you start talking about something is the minute you start helping yourself."

Andy Saunders: "But the problem is, we are talking about pop stars, and I think many people live vicariously through pop stars. We want our pop stars to do the excessive things we would never dare to do. Now I'm not necessarily talking about Kurt or Richey or anybody present today. I'm just talking about a pop star that leads a cartoon life, any pop star who has become an icon rather than a person."

Gil Armstrong: "It's probably a better way of living. You know living through someone as opposed to living it."

Taylor Parkes: "The thing bout the Manics is that since their genesis, they've been aware of that. Kurt Cobain never was. Nirvana were all about certainty. Certainty of failure, certainty of success, a certainty about the workings of the rock 'n' roll machine. The Manics, on the other hand, are all about doubt on every fucking level, even down to Richey's sexual ambiguity. Which is why it's so horribly appropriate that Kurt shot himself and Richey just went missing."

Gill Armstrong: "Yeah, the Manics are a question mark."

Ed: "The Manics were aware of the workings of the machine. They were very well educated, very sharp. Kurt wasn't so well educated, he was more blunt in his approach."

Louise Wener: "Perhaps the Manics were too aware."

Julian Brown: "They understood the media completely. And it didn't help them one bit."

DESPERATE DAYS?
Ben Stud: "Is there at the moment a culture of despair? People are certainly talking about one, and perhaps they're right to do so - after all, we've had "Nevermind" and "In Utero", we've had Pearl Jam getting blacker by the minute, we've had the Manic Street Preachers' "Holy Bible", Hole, Babes in Toyland, not to mention S*M*A*S*H and Radiohead's new album..."

Gil Armstrong: "I don't necessarily think there's a culture of despair, because that implies that it's kind of fashionable. What I do think is that people are more open about their problems, less ashamed."

Andy Saunders: "What are we talking about here? Because if we are talking the general mass of people that buy pop music, then they just don't give a fuck."

Ed: "I think they do, because music is enlightening and instructive and exciting..."

Andy Saunders: "For some people, Ed, for some people."

Andrew Mueller: "It's not for everybody."

Louise Wener: "For a great deal of people, music is just escapism. They don't care about what was said, they just care whether it was loud, or something."

Andy Saunders: "Louise is right, the vast mass of people who listen to music do so hedonistically. They like a fast, competitive drug. A lot of music is speed, it's like cocaine. The brilliant thing about the Manics is that they understand all sides. The hedonism, the vicarious kicks and the death. And they make all the bits look and sound like one and the same thing."

to be continued....