Stereophonics Interview

They’ve been quiet for a while, but with a new album ready to drop this month, Stereophonics are back. We grabbed a chat with Richard Jones and his strong Welsh lilt to find out what’s been going on and why the Stereophonics have stood the test of time.

Hi Richard!

How are you?

I’m good thank you, how are you?

Yeah all good thanks. All good.

I’m out just west of London, out in High Wycombe. Nice bit of the countryside.

So what have you been up to this week?

We’ve just been on a promo trail this week, ‘cause like the album is going to drop immanently and ‘Indian Summer’ the new single is taking off, so everyone wants a piece of us. Over the last two three weeks, it’s great to be wanted, so it’s nice to slowly get back into it.

Your last album ‘Keep Calm And Carry On’ was released in 2009, so what have you been up to over the past few years?

We finished touring that album in November 2010, and we built our own studio, just in like a terrace house in Shepherds Bush, and that took about three-four months to complete over that winter. Then we went back in February to start recording this batch of songs. Basically we finished about 25 tracks, up until the summer of last year. Then it was just a question of us sitting down and figuring out how to release it. The music world’s changed so much, we didn’t just want to drop singles to radio stations just to see how they do. We wanted to gently get back into things, we wanted to release music with visuals. So Kelly directed a couple of videos for the first two tracks, and that steadily whet the appetite of everybody for ‘Indian Summer’ and it’s kind of worked really well, and we’re pleased with what’s happened.

So the title track, ‘Graffiti on the Train’ what’s the story behind that?

The album drops on 4th March, then ‘Graffiti on the train’ will go to radio a couple of weeks after that. But it’s the title track off the album and it’s the inspiration and theme behind the album. Kelly had two lads, jump on the roof (he’s got a flat roof where he lives in London) and he thought they were trying to break in through one of the upstairs windows, he shouted at them, and they said ‘No we’re just trying to get to the railway tracks so we can do some graffiti on the trains’, and what have you, so he kind of thought of that question, why would someone want to do that. So he wrote a screenplay about two kids, and the rights of passage between them. You know like one’s stuck where he’s at, and the other one wants to move forward, and their using adrenelaine rushes, so when it comes to thrill seeking, there’s a lot of that involved, and graffiti plays a part in that.

So yeah all the lyrics on each song on the album, comes from situations that those characters get in, and relationships they’re in. And it’s all slowly making sense to everybody and hopefully in a couple of years time, the screenplay will be put into production and hear the music, and the film will be complete then. So hopefully fingers crossed, that’s the master plan.

‘Take Me’ on the album is quite different to the other tracks on the album, who’s the vocalist on that?

That’s Kelly’s partner that is, that’s Jackie. We cut the track in the studio, and Jackie’s good, she done singing in drama school, and we had the idea of doing a female answering vocal on that track, and asked Jackie if she could lay a version down, just as a demo for us. And it sounded really good, and we thought well what’s the point in changing that if it sounds that good.

I like it, it reminded me of Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue…

Well yes that’s the vibe we were aiming for, with the ballad.

‘Catacomb’ is a lot heavier Rock, what would you say about the overall versatility of the album as a whole?

With each of the tracks, we wanted to see how far we could take them in their own sense. And then when it came to compiling ten songs for the first installment, we wanted to take people on a bit of journey. One type of thing running throughout the album, is that we wanted to create a bit of excitement and drama. All these things you can do with music, and the lyrics putting pictures in people’s heads. That’s kind of what we were aiming at with each track. We think we done a really good job at putting that across, so when people get to hear it, they agree hopefully.

It’s a great album, this is your eighth studio album, how does it feel to have come this far?

We’ve just always been focused on creating the next thing for the band, and we’ve always just had the same goals in mind. We want to make the Stereophonics the best band it can possibly be. And it’s not about resting on your laurels and taking it for granted when you’ve had a couple of hits. It’s about creating a catalogue of work which will stand the test of time. That’s what we’ve tried to do, and that’s what we’re still trying to do really.

What’s some of the Stereophonic’s craziest moments?

Moments like playing in front of the Live8 crowd, and your playing in front 300,000 people in this park, but you could be going out to a worldwide audience of like a billion people. I think stuff like that kind of blows your mind a little bit. And meeting people who were God-like for us, like David Bowie and The Rolling Stones and Neil Young, meeting those people and realizing they are just people at the end of the day. They’re just creating things that inspire so many other people. I guess stuff like that is stand out moments for us.

You’re touring around the UK in March, but what have you got planned for the rest of 2013?

We’re doing the UK and Ireland in March, and Europe. Then we’ll do Australia and Asia probably late April, early May. Then getting back over here for the festivals, then probably America towards the end of the year. Then hopefully whoever wants us back, we’ll start picking up the reigns again and get back to the places of whoever wants us back. And then after all that’s done, then we’re probably going to drop another volume of work.

Where’s your favourite place to tour?

Touring America still feels like the Wild West to us. It’s so fast, and you’ve got to do it all. And you can’t fly between cities, so you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere half the time and in middle America. But then flying half way around the world and doing gigs in Jakarta or Singapore. You’d never imagine playing there when you form a band, and then a couple of years down the line, you’re there doing a gig for a few thousand people. And you’re like how did this happen, how did these people manage to hear your music.

By Hannah Shakir

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