Ideal have defended their track, "Richey Is Dead" - a song about missing Manic Street Preacher guitarist, Richey Edwards - in the wake of a national outcry.
The five-piece from Cheltenham circulated the song - which includes the line, "You've got to know by now he's thrown himself over" - on a three-track demo to a number of publications and record companies. A freelance reporter who heard the track sold the story to the tabloids; leading the Mirror to report the story as: "Sick song row over lost Richey".
But Ideal have hit back. Will Hutchinson told NME: "It's not having a go at Richey. It's a conversation between a man and a woman and he's saying, "Richey is dead, you know. Get over it."
The song was never intended to be a single, although the band have apparently received offers for it to be released after the publicity it received.
A spokeswoman for the Manics made no comment about the record, although the band were quoted in the Mirror as saying: "Thanks for thinking of his family. We hope it never happens to Ideal or their families."
But Hutchinson said: "He's a public figure and it's a modern myth. It's not something that we're not going to touch and be reverential about. We played the song in Cardiff to an audience of English-eating Welsh fans and they loved it. We also had it out with a Manics fanzine and at the end of it I think they understood."
Ideal play on May 1 at London Kentish Town Bull & Gate.