The Manic Street Preachers, a band synonymous with intellectual fervor and sonic evolution, achieved a monumental feat when their single “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” stormed to the top of the UK charts. This wasn’t just another chart-topper; it marked a significant departure for the band. Abandoning their signature power-chord driven sound, they embraced acoustic guitars, evocative string machines, and experimental synth effects. This bold sonic shift, orchestrated under the guidance of producer Dave Eringa, cemented their status as innovators and resonated deeply with audiences. Let’s delve into the intricate layers of this iconic track and understand how it redefined the sound of the Manic Street Preachers.
The journey of the Manic Street Preachers is anything but conventional. In a landscape where UK hit singles referencing the Spanish Civil War are exceptionally rare, their willingness to defy norms has been a cornerstone of their enduring appeal. Emerging in the early 1990s as a raw, energetic punk band channeling the spirit of the New York Dolls, they quickly evolved. They delivered “The Holy Bible,” an album of stark intensity and lyrical darkness, a testament to their unflinching artistic vision. The subsequent disappearance of lyricist Richey Edwards cast a long shadow, leading many to believe the band’s trajectory was over. However, 1996 saw their triumphant return with “Everything Must Go.” This album was both a critical darling and a commercial success, propelling their impassioned and intellectually charged rock music to an unprecedentedly vast audience.
The resounding success of “Everything Must Go” created palpable anticipation for the Manic Street Preachers’ fifth studio album, “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours”. To navigate these heightened expectations, the band turned to Dave Eringa, a producer whose professional journey had mirrored their own ascent. Eringa’s association with the band stretches back to their early days. “I was making tea on their very first single,” he recalls with a laugh. “I even played a bit of keyboards back in 1990 when they were still with an indie label. Then I played keyboards on their first album. When I was 21, they asked me to produce their second album, which was a massive break for me. I contributed to ‘Everything Must Go’ and when it was time for this album, they were ready to work more closely with me.”
The recording sessions for “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours” were split between two distinct locations: Chateau De La Rouge Motte in France, where they collaborated with Mike Hedges, the producer behind “Everything Must Go,” and Rockfield and Mono Valley studios in Wales, with Eringa at the production helm. Eringa explains the fragmented approach to recording: “They were working in sporadic bursts. They laid down five tracks in France with Mike Hedges and then three with me at Rockfield. They had moved away from recording entire albums in one go. They preferred to work on a few tracks, let them breathe for a while, and then revisit them. We spent two weeks at Rockfield working on three songs, which felt like a luxurious schedule to me, though I think the studio considered it quite rapid!”
Eringa’s affection for Rockfield Studios is evident: “I think Rockfield is simply the best studio. I absolutely love it. It’s not pretentious; you feel comfortable enough to just put down a cup of coffee. There’s just something special in the atmosphere there, a wonderful vibe. Without sounding too pretentious, it fosters creativity. Plus, it’s conveniently located far from the record company. The Manics are with a great label, but for many bands, being a two and a half hour train ride away is a definite advantage!”
“If You Tolerate This…” emerged as the initial track tackled at Rockfield in January 1998. Eringa reveals the song’s unexpected trajectory: “Initially, nobody envisioned ‘Tolerate’ as a single. It was seen more as a potential B-side, to be honest! Another track from that session, ‘Be Natural,’ was generating more excitement, while ‘Tolerate’ was just something we were working on in the background. I just thought it was a classic Manics title! We saw it as a warm-up exercise, you know, get the sounds dialed in with ‘Tolerate,’ and then move onto the ‘important’ tracks… It turned out to be the most organically developed song I’ve ever been involved with.”
Crafting the Drum Sound for a Manics’ Anthem
“If You Tolerate This…” was still in its nascent stages when the Rockfield sessions commenced. Bassist Nicky Wire and drummer Sean Moore were yet to finalize the arrangement. Before any recording could begin, Moore meticulously set up his drums, a process crucial to capturing the desired sonic foundation. “We had a disastrous first day,” Eringa recounts. “The studio has several drum rooms, each with distinct acoustics, so we spent the entire day relocating the drum kit. They were incredibly particular about the drum sound for this album. On ‘Everything Must Go,’ the drums were positioned further back in the mix, but for this album, they had a very clear vision. They wanted drums that sounded dry yet expansive – a snare drum that was powerfully present, taking up significant sonic space, and a bass drum that was deep and resonant but devoid of excessive ambience. We eventually settled on the fairly live drum booth at the lower level of the studio. There is a very resonant room, but setting up the drums there didn’t work at all, even though it sounds amazing for big rock sounds.”
Manic Street Preachers ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ single artwork showcasing the band’s visual aesthetic.
Eringa details the soundproofing techniques employed: “We significantly dampened the room using duvets on the floor and numerous screens. We also placed Sean on a drum riser to isolate the kit from floor resonance. This allowed us to achieve a ‘close-but-big’ feel, a roomy sound within a controlled acoustic environment.”
Moore’s extensive drum collection presented another challenge. “Sean is the ultimate gear enthusiast,” Eringa observes. “He owns around 20 or 30 snare drums – an absurd number – which isn’t conducive to quickly finding the right drum sound! We ended up using a 7-inch Noble & Cooley wooden snare drum that I absolutely love. I’ve used it before, but he refuses to sell it to me at any price. Nobody else seems to use them, but it’s a fantastic drum, offering both depth and crispness. It was Sean’s first high-end snare drum after they signed their record deal. Sean was an early adopter of DVD technology and every gadget imaginable. He has to spend money to live!”
The drum miking setup was equally meticulous. Shure SM57s were used on both the top and bottom of the snare, with an AKG C451 taped to the upper SM57. An AKG D112 and a Neumann U47 captured the bass drum, while AKG C414s were employed for the toms. Vintage valve Neumann 56s served as overheads, with Neumann TLMs capturing room ambience and a PZM microphone positioned on the ceiling. “I also used a Decca Tree,” Eringa adds, “which is a configuration of three Neumann U87s. One is placed in front of the bass drum, one about three stick-lengths above the center of the snare drum, and one to the right, over the floor tom, ensuring they are equidistant from the snare drum’s center. It’s called a Decca Tree because Decca Studios historically used this method for recording drums. It provides a very natural balance, and you can compress it aggressively and layer it behind the other mics.”
Arranging and Structuring the Song
Once Moore’s drums were finally configured to everyone’s satisfaction, the crucial task of developing the drum part for “If You Tolerate This…” began. “It was a process of jamming to create the part,” Eringa explains. “Sean had barely played the song before, so he had to come up with the drum part on the spot.”
The distinctive drum pattern Moore devised, characterized by its syncopated hi-hat rhythm, initially raised concerns. “I remember thinking at the time that it felt really jerky, not smooth at all,” Eringa admits. “I thought it was quite strange, but I wasn’t overly worried because at that stage ‘Tolerate’ wasn’t considered a key track. I thought we might need to add something to create a better flow. But Sean always considers percussion when developing drum parts. He immediately envisioned a shaker and recognized that the acoustic guitar would contribute significantly to the song’s flow, with the tambourine accentuating the chorus. As soon as Sean had the drum part down, he outlined the roles of the shaker and other percussion elements and suggested bringing in a percussionist.”
With guide tracks from guitarist/singer James Dean Bradfield and Wire, Moore’s drum performance was recorded into Pro Tools for editing, and percussion parts were added immediately. “Pro Tools was a major step forward for me,” Eringa reflects, “and this was the first project we used it on. Up until then, I had always worked with tape and razor blades. But Mike Hedges had three 32-track Pro Tools systems in France, putting my setup to shame in terms of available technology. I had to dive in headfirst – and it’s just so user-friendly! You can learn the basics in a day and start working on sessions without wasting time. Obviously, there are deeper levels to master later, but I prefer the pure Pro Tools operating system, rather than using Logic or anything like that. I now use it for much more than just editing.”
Nicky Wire’s Bass and the Minimoog Magic
Sean Moore’s meticulous approach to drumming contrasted sharply with the more spontaneous recording style of Manics bassist Nicky Wire, who recorded his bass part next. “He warmed up for a couple of takes and then just nailed it in one take,” Eringa recalls. “I suggested we go back and fix a couple of minor bits, but Nicky said, ‘Oh no, I’ve got a migraine now Dave, that’ll have to do!’ But it was fantastic – the feel was perfect, and that was what mattered most. I probably would have just gone in and tweaked a few things that ultimately would have made absolutely no difference!”
Wire played a Fender Jazz bass (“He has an extra pickup installed between the two standard pickups. It’s the same type as the other two pickups, but it’s positioned where he often strikes the string. He had it custom-installed in a rare moment of technical curiosity!”) through an Ampeg SVT2 amplifier. The bass was recorded using a U47 and an AKG D12 on separate speakers. “I’m quite meticulous with amps,” Eringa admits. “I like to run white noise through an amp and then use headphones to move the mics around, finding the speaker’s sweet spot. By monitoring with headphones while adjusting mic positions, you can ensure they are in phase and avoid any signal cancellation.”
Eringa also incorporated a Minimoog into the bass sound. “With bass,” he explains, “I like to introduce a Minimoog. I take the signal from the amp and route it through the Minimoog, pushing the filter input into heavy distortion, filtering out the unwanted distortion frequencies, and then taking the output, compressing it, and adding a significant amount of subsonic frequencies. This creates a really solid, consistent low-end, making the bass sound fuller and easier to balance in the mix. The Minimoog’s input has a very distinctive distortion – it’s more ‘valvey’ than transistor-based distortion and more ‘transistory’ than valve distortion, it’s a unique middle ground. I should really buy a Minimoog, as I use this technique frequently, but it’s a significant expense just for bass processing, and there’s always something else that takes priority! I’m really looking forward to hearing the new Moogerfooger filter. If it truly captures the Minimoog filter in a pedal format, it will be incredible.”
Acoustic Guitars and Synth Strings: Shaping the Soundscape
With the rhythmic foundation of bass and drums established, Bradfield recorded his rhythm guitar track using a Gibson acoustic guitar miked with an AKG C28 (“another fantastic microphone I’ve only encountered at Rockfield!”). “At that point, James was reluctant to play electric guitar,” Eringa remembers. “So many tracks on the album were starting to feel quite ‘pastoral’ rather than ‘rocky.’ He was definitely leaning towards a more minimalist approach, whereas on their earlier albums we would routinely double-track everything and use multiple amps for a single guitar part.”
The sweeping, filtered sound prominent in the verses of “If You Tolerate This…”, often mistaken for an electric guitar with a wah pedal, is actually something quite different. (Refer to the ‘Pheeeooow! Sound‘ box for details). The only electric guitar on the track is Bradfield’s 12-string Rickenbacker, which makes its entrance in the song’s middle eight section. “He didn’t want to spend too much time on the sound,” Eringa recalls. “He just wanted to experiment and see what he could come up with and – assuring me it would be fine – he plugged it into a Trans Am amplifier he had bought from a catalog when he was 16! It was his very first guitar amp. He insisted, ‘No, honestly, the Rickenbacker sounds great through this,’ and surprisingly, it did.”
“After adding the electric guitar, we addressed the string sound in the chorus. The Manics were determined to avoid being stereotyped as always using live strings and wanted a sound distinct from ‘Everything Must Go’. While some strings were eventually used on the album, initially they wanted to avoid them altogether. Time was also a factor – it was clear the chorus needed some kind of ‘lifting’ element, like strings, so Nick Nasmyth, their keyboard player, used a Mellotron string sample. However, it sounded too clean, so James instructed us to run it through his Boss delay pedal and crank up the input gain to introduce distortion. It sounded brilliant – an icy synth sound reminiscent of an old ARP or Solina String Ensemble. It was clearly not real strings, but all the reviewers just assumed they were real because it was the Manics, which slightly annoyed us! It lacked fullness in the low-mid frequencies, so we added some Hammond organ, which also provides a subtle passing-chord element in the chorus; a very understated hook.”
Capturing Bradfield’s Vocal Performance
“James wanted to record his vocals using a handheld microphone. He had started to feel that pop shields and large condenser mics were a bit confrontational and preferred to sit down, hold a mic, and sing. He had recorded with a Sennheiser microphone in France that he particularly liked, but he wanted to record the vocals immediately, and we didn’t have one readily available. We ordered one for the remaining sessions, but the only mic we had at hand was a Shure SM58, and he sounded fantastic through it. So, the vocal track is simply him moving around the room, fully immersed in the performance!”
“He recorded the vocal in three takes; he’s such an exceptional singer. During the second album, we would spend ages obsessing over vocal details, but now he just performs it straight through. We usually do three or four takes, and then he says, ‘Right, let’s just take the best parts.’ After the lead vocal, we also recorded the backing vocal pad at the end. It’s entirely James, and every harmony is triple-tracked to create a really shimmering texture.”
From B-Side to Chart-Topper: An Unexpected Ascent
It gradually became apparent, at least to the record label, that what both Eringa and the band had initially considered a throwaway B-side was actually one of the standout tracks on the new album. “When the record company representatives visited a couple of days later and immediately declared, ‘That’s the single,’ I thought they were crazy. I couldn’t see it at all – I still perceived it as really jerky, but they absolutely loved it.”
“James was applying pressure at the time. He believes I perform best under pressure; it’s his way of constantly challenging me! Rob Stringer [head of Epic and the Manics’ A&R representative] was waiting in the living room at Rockfield, and the band informed him they had a magnificent new track. James walked in saying, ‘We’ve told him it’s brilliant, you’d better make it brilliant!’ We had five minutes to create a monitor mix and, by sheer luck, produced a good one.”
Mixing at Air Studios: Refining the Anthem
Manic Street Preachers ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’ album artwork.
Although “If You Tolerate This…” was recorded in January, it wasn’t until May that Eringa and the band took their material to Air Studios in London for mixing. By this point, Eringa had produced two other albums, including Three Colours Red’s “Revolt,” which featured their global hit “Beautiful Day.” This extended period between recording and mixing contributed to rising tensions during the “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours” mixing sessions. “I remember the Air sessions being incredibly demanding,” Eringa says. “It was the longest album they had ever worked on, and everyone was quite exhausted. James had a very clear vision in his head, and you either grasped it or you didn’t. By this stage, ‘Tolerate’ had emerged as the frontrunner for the single, and we were starting to agree it was a good choice, so when we started mixing it, the pressure was immense. It also took longer than usual: I typically mix a track in a day, but a couple of tracks took over two days, which felt excessively long and I’m slightly embarrassed about it!”
“That initial monitor mix became the foundation for our work at Air. James insisted on the drums sounding identical to how they were at Rockfield, so I was constantly A/B-ing with the DAT tape to replicate the snare drum sound from that monitor mix, while working in a completely different studio environment!”
“For drums, I monitor through a Tubetech LCA2B stereo compressor from the very beginning of sound creation. This constant compression adds vibe right from the start for the performers. It’s like mixing as you go along. We also used plenty of EQ. Air Studios has a vintage Neve console from the ’70s, which is an exceptionally special desk. The EQ on it is absolutely fantastic, so we didn’t need a lot of outboard EQ.”
“The primary difference between the monitor mix and the final mix, aside from the arrangement, was that the guitar didn’t sound ‘glorious’ enough when it entered the mix. The song’s climax didn’t quite explode with color. So, I routed the dry guitar sound through a Leslie speaker on its fast setting, not using the Leslie effect directly in the mix, but sending that signal to the Circles patch on the Eventide H3000 and adding copious amounts of reverb. So, the guitar itself didn’t have any Leslie effect, but the effects processing did.”
“The drums are completely dry; there’s no subtle reverb on the snare or anything like that, just the room ambience balanced in prominently. The bass is heavily filtered and low in the mix, the acoustic guitar is very dry, and the Wurlitzer sound is heavily processed with reverb to create a sense of three-dimensionality. There’s a touch of reverb on the vocals from an old valve plate reverb unit at Air, and the backing vocals were processed with Dolby A – a ’70s technique of running vocals through Dolby A encoding as if recording them, which makes them sound very bright and shimmering. It’s not like aural excitation. There’s no distortion element to it; it’s very clean.”
The most significant change made to “If You Tolerate This…” during mixing was the addition of a third chorus, at the record company’s request. “There were some rhythmic complexities between the beats, which made it easiest to edit in SADiE during the mix. Rob Stringer came down, and we just kept cutting it up in SADiE until we arrived at an arrangement everyone was happy with,” Eringa recalls. “Looking back, it’s a very straightforward structure. It essentially follows a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middle eight/chorus/outro format.”
“If You Tolerate This…” was mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Chris Blair. “He’s a God!” Eringa jokes. “His mastering suite, aside from the Sonic Solutions system, is pretty much unchanged from the ’70s – filled with gorgeous EQs and compressors. It just sounds incredibly natural.”
Chart-Topping Success and the Steps Threat
After a challenging four-month journey, “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” was finally released in August 1998. Eringa’s dedication, and the band’s collective effort, were rewarded with first-week sales of 156,000 copies in the UK, propelling the single straight to the top of the charts.
Even during release week, however, Eringa couldn’t fully relax, as the Manic Street Preachers found themselves in direct competition with another major single of ’98. “You get midweek chart positions and sales figures throughout the week, and this was my first potential number one single, which is incredibly exciting. Every day the situation seemed to worsen; I was becoming increasingly anxious. If it had been released the same week as a Nirvana or Oasis record, you’d just have to accept it – ‘c’est la vie’ – but the horror of losing out to Steps would have been unbearable!”
That ‘Pheeeooow!’ Sound: Unveiling the Mystery
With drums, bass, acoustic guitar, and a guide vocal recorded, it became evident that the verse of “If You Tolerate This…” needed an additional sonic element – but its nature remained elusive. “Eventually,” Eringa recounts, “James declared that something should be going ‘pheeeooow,’ and then left me and Nick Nasmyth, their keyboard player, to figure out what that might be!”
The sound Nick and Dave devised was ultimately almost unrecognizable as a keyboard part. “All the reviews of the single mentioned ‘this spectral guitar effect in the verse’,” he laments, “but it’s actually a Wurlitzer electric piano, processed through my Korg MS20, distorted beyond any resemblance to a piano and filtered live using both the low-pass and high-pass filters, with the resonance set extremely high to achieve that extreme distortion. It was a live, organic process – Nick playing the chords and me manipulating the knobs! Because the filters would sweep too far, we had to record chords one and three, and then go back and record chords two and four separately. We disciplined ourselves to perform the entire part live. It’s too tempting to simply copy and paste a good take in Pro Tools, but it loses the organic and earthy quality.”
“The ‘pheeeooow!’ sound is also heavily EQ’d. We were monitoring it with such extreme EQ settings that we ended up bouncing it to other tracks with EQ and then EQ’ing it again, just to make it sound as abrasive as possible. The ‘pheeeooow!’ sound, the string sound in the chorus, and the electric guitar all went through the ‘Circles’ patch on the Eventide H3000, which is a patch consisting of 12 260ms panning delays. The 12 taps pan from left to right across the stereo field – the first one is hard left, the second more centrally located, and so on. It’s a fantastic patch that creates a real sense of spaciousness… it generates a ‘swirling circular soundscape,’ for lack of a less pretentious term!”
Remixes: Reinterpreting ‘Tolerate’
Several remixed versions of “If You Tolerate This…” have been released as alternate tracks and B-sides. Dave Eringa describes the remix collaborations: “We did a swap with Massive Attack – they remixed ‘Tolerate,’ and we remixed ‘Inertia Creeps.’ I particularly love the ‘Inertia Creeps’ version we did. It was just me and James at Abbey Road, and we created a New Wave Punk rendition of it. Pro Tools was invaluable for that: James played the drums, which he doesn’t do often, and we edited a drum loop. Listening back, it sounds like a chaotic Jesus And Mary Chain track. 3D from Massive Attack apparently loved it!”
“The Massive Attack remix of ‘Tolerate’ is very atmospheric. As expected, it features a single bass drone throughout. Nicky loved it immediately. I often find remixes challenging to appreciate fully because I’m so familiar with the original, but I like this one; it has a really captivating atmosphere. David Holmes also did a remix of ‘Tolerate,’ which is also very atmospheric and well-crafted – but I don’t think he used any of our original elements! He’s recently done a remix of a new Manics single, and it’s genius. He’s changed all the chords! They still work, but the vocal sounds completely different, and he brought in a live drummer who sounds like Keith Moon falling down a drum kit.”
