TIMES INTERVIEW 25TH NOVEMBER

What’s this? Stereophonics have cheered up and chilled out, on the eve of their stadium tour? Dan Cairns reports

For someone with a well-known allergy to music journalists, Kelly Jones is doing a good job of hiding it. Far from the surly, monosyllabic grumpster conjured by the cuttings, the man taking a break from rehearsals for Stereophonics’ sold-out arena tour is affability itself. In fact, getting a word in edgeways proves a problem.
It wasn’t always like this. Back in March, the music press’s favourite whipping boy released the single Mr Writer, a bitter little ditty that made itself perfectly clear on the subject of pop hacks. “Are you so lonely?” Jones sang. “You don’t even know me/But you’d like to stone me.” And, like a red rag to a bull, the song provoked a torrent of critical abuse.

“All the music journalists took it personally,” Jones recalls. “And my opinion is, if you take it personally, then you’re the guy in the song.”

Aside from stirring up an already healthy feud between the Welsh three-piece and publications such as NME (“Like U2’s With or Without You, only sung by an ox”, it wrote about one single), Mr Writer became the sole talking point about the band’s third album, Just Enough Education to Perform. Another track, Have a Nice Day, is used in the current Sunday Times advertising campaign.

“We thought we’d gone into the studio and made a very different- sounding record,” says the 27-year-old front man and guitarist, “but because of that one song, nobody noticed.” Jones will hotly deny that the critics’ reaction bothered him, but, judging by the amount of time he continues to spend on the subject, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. “When the album went straight in at No 1 and sold 140,000 copies in the first week, we were over the moon,” he says, only to flip back into moan mode. “People like Radiohead and the Manics, all these bands who have a way of getting critical acclaim, I don’t think they say as much as we do, on the street.”

In a sense, though, Jones and his raw nerve are givens on the music scene. As is the vitriol heaped on his head. Indeed, so stale and self- perpetuating has all this become that it is more interesting to cross over to the other side of the critical fence. To ask not: “Why are Stereophonics such rubbish?”, but rather: “What makes Stereophonics good?” To locate these open pastures of objectivity, you have to first negotiate a minefield of invective — much of it, it has to be said, uttered by Jones himself, even if he has merely been giving as good as he gets. But something about the trio, all of whom were born and grew up in the south Wales village of Cwmaman, does seem to get up people’s noses.

Partly, perhaps, it is to do with how critically bulletproof the band are. Each of their three albums has sold more than its predecessor (in total, more than 5m copies to date worldwide), while their tours sell out in a matter of hours. And the at times workaday music they produce — described by non-believers as “lumpen and predictable” — is almost heroically unfashionable. Guitar, bass (Richard Jones) and drums (Stuart Cable), plus Jones’s gravel pit of a voice, combine to create a sound that makes no concessions at all to today’s musical genres, and instead uses as its touchstones the blues-rock beloved of early 1970s British bands such as the Faces and Bad Company.

But that is only part of it. The other factor is Jones himself. For this pugnacious, pint-sized Welshman isn’t, appropriately for a one-time junior boxer, one to say no to the chance of a good fight. He’s a lippy beggar who has a habit of letting his mouth get him into trouble.

“If there’s a leader in a band, people always assume they’re going to go solo,” he says, referring to the speculation that surrounded the one-man acoustic tour he undertook shortly after completing the third album. “But if you look back in the history books — Sting left the Police, Richard Ashcroft left the Verve — when you leave, what do you lose? You lose your fans, because they don’t want to listen to you being a jazz musician, or writing love songs about your wife.”

The sessions for the third album were a rocky affair, with Jones’s perfectionism causing a rift that ended with Cable briefly walking out. It was the culmination of a workload that had seen the childhood friends slog around “toilet” venues in search of fame and fortune, and then, when they found it, not daring to pause for breath lest it be snatched away. What Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie once attacked as “careerist rock’n’roll”, Jones would see as sheer determination.

“I think we’ve all come out of the other end of the tunnel,” he says, looking back on the period 12 months ago that began with the band in danger of breaking apart and ended with them stronger than ever. “If you’re a kid and you get thrown into this lifestyle, everybody wants a part of you — you’re doing 30 interviews a day and going inside your head so much. Of course you’re going to lose the plot. You’re going to punch people and shout at people, and become a prick.”

What all of this — the alcohol-fuelled intraband spats, the sarky, narky Mr Writer, Jones’s rather admirable refusal to play the PR game — obscured, though, was that, with their third album, Stereophonics took a significant step towards a new musical maturity. After the fast and furious, instant gratification of Word Gets Around and Performance and Cocktails, Jones’s immersion in albums such as John Lennon’s Imagine and Neil Young’s Harvest bore fruit.

And six months after its release, the album cleans up remarkably well. The subtler and more complex tracks such as Lying in the Sun and Watch Them Fly Sundays, and radio-friendly pop songs such as Have a Nice Day, could be seen as staging posts to a truly great fourth album. Not that Jones would thank you for the observation.

“Obviously, you want critical acclaim and all that,” he says, with a visible expression of contempt, before adding cheerfully, “but we’ve never had that anyway.”

Another piece of the PR puzzle that Stereophonics have never been identified with is the “excess all areas”, London-centric media circus. Indeed, you sometimes feel that Jones could solve his image problem at a stroke were he to confess to a drug-fuelled, five-in-a- bed lifestyle.

“If I was, the papers wouldn’t know,” he says, “but I’m not. Anyway, I’m sick to death of reading about every pop star, every soap star. If you start telling people your life story between every record because your sales are going down — well, who gives a f? It doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody’s famous for being famous.”

Nor, despite owning a flat in London, is he about to start hanging around with the in-crowd. “It’s almost like peer pressure: they want you to do cocaine, they want you to go into rehab, they want you to shag supermodels. Well, I’ve met so many people who’ve moved to London and done that just to fit in — and they end up losing it.”

You get the feeling this was never an option in the Jones masterplan. Critics may deride such caution as evidence of a calculating efficiency that has no place in rock’n’roll, but Jones really couldn’t give a fig. He’s selling lots of records, fans flock to see Stereophonics live, their new single, a cover of Rod Stewart’s Handbags and Gladrags, will storm the Top 10 — and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

“Other people can do anarchy, rage, whatever,” Jones concludes. “All we ever wanted was to be a really soulful band that could write stuff that lets you escape for three or four minutes.”

The question is — is that ambition talking, or pragmatism?

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TOTP interveiw april 2002
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SuperBeing: Have any of you ever made a major cock-up on stage?
Stuart: Oh yes, lots of them, especially me. On the last European tour we did, which was only about a fortnight long, I think I only played one show without making a mistake! It's a bit of an embarrassing one, but we're only human after all. It's usually "Oh, butterfingers again!"

Alex Akers: Kelly - I hear you're writing a screenplay - how is it going and does it mean you'll be taking a break from the music?
Kelly: It's going alright - I've been doing it for years really. It doesn't get in the way of what we're doing at the moment with the band. It's based on one of the last hanged men in Britain, so it's a drama...

Ella: Out of all the songs played live, which to the lads get most fed up with?
Stuart: Probably "...Tramp's Vest" It's one of the songs we vowed we'd never play again, but it being one of the anthems from our first album everybody wants to see that song live. It's one of those catch 22 situations because you've got to play it, really. It's only 3 minutes long though, it's not that bad! We've cut it down, though. It'll probably end up on the next tour being about a minute-and-a-half!

Lianne Rollins: Are you planning on touring this year apart from the summer festivals?
Stuart: No! Just the festivals with us. We're just gonna get festivalled up and have a good time. We like playing in the sun, for some strange reason. We're looking forward to it. We planned on taking a break anyway, Kelly's writing some new songs, we'll probably be recording the new album October-time. So we'll just get some festivals done. This is the first time that we'll be headlining V2002 and Slane Castle. We've played 'em both before, but never headlined, so it'll be good. Looking forward to it.

Melanie May: Do you get annoyed being hounded by autograph hunters and girls hanging around waiting to see you?
Stuart: I wish I had girls waiting around to see me! It's alright, actually. It's more so when we go back home to Cardiff. 99% of the time people are very nice, they ask for an autograph and they go on their way. But it's the ones that want to stand and talk for three hours are the ones who can get on your nerves. Fortunately there's not many of them, which is quite nice. If they've had a few beers you get some who'll come over with something to say, but it doesn't happen that often really. They're pretty cool.

Lulu Bragg: Do you still spend a lot of time in Cwmaman?
Kelly: Yeah. We were back down at the weekend actually. We just go to the working men's clubs which has a differnt type of atmosphere. You're drinking with the older boys, really, and you get to keep yourself to yourself.

Kenny McCartney: Did anyone influence you to write 'A Thousand Trees'?
Kelly: No comment - it's too long a story. There's too many names. It was a big story going on where we came from, and the song was inspired by that situation. It's a bit deep for 6 o'clock!

Philippa Studd: Do you think that the guitar riff on Oasis's new song 'Hindu Times' sounds like the guitar riff on 'Same Size Feet'?
Kelly: Noel doesn't! I've asked him about it, but he doesn't seem to think so. You can ask him yourself, he's next door. I've nicked plenty from him myself...

Suprvixen5: What's your fave single that you’ve ever released and why?
Kelly: 'Mr Writer'. It was exciting coming back with a song which didn't really sound like anything we'd done before, and it became a bit controversial because of the journalist side of things. And we did a video dressed as clowns and stuff. So it was probably the most different comeback into a new record that we've done. That was pretty exciting and different. At that point, the press tried to turn everyone against us and the people didn't, so it was a funny time. Most of the stuff I write is the observational type of writing, which is about different people and myself. This is just one of the characters we run into now and again, so I just wrote a song about it.

Gerard Jackson: How did you feel when the drummer from Feeder died? You were touring with them weeks before...
Kelly: Strange. You get to know a guy. We got to know the band doing the British Arena tours. Jon was a nice guy. We were talking to him in the last week and he was saying he was tired and that he was looking forward to taking time off over Xmas and then the next we heard he'd died. The first thing is disbelief, the same as when anybody dies. He was a friend, and being in a band just makes it more awkward because people keep asking you questions and you keep commenting on it and it's not a very easy thing to talk about, really. We knew Jon - we weren't best mates, but we got to know him. When you do a gig every day with the same band for six weeks you become friends passing in the corridor every day. But you don't expect something like that to happen. But I know nothing about Jon's personal life or why he would do such a thing. It's sad for the boys in the band, sad for him and his family.

Lee Searle: Do you treat your guitar like a woman, Kelly?
Kelly: No! Not at all... I don't even know what to say. I don't really treat my guitar with that much affection really...but then I don't treat my women with that much affection either.



Sarah: I've just started to teach myself how to play guitar and I was wondering how long did it take you to get so good?
Kelly: It's the never ending thing isn't it. If you play an instrument, I think you'll find you always push yourself to learn something new every so often and it's an ongoing development. I don't think you ever quite achieve what you want. And when you work with so many musicians and see as many bands as we do, it keeps inspiring me...Just play with as many musicians as possible.
Stuart: It's the same with the drums, you can play in your bedroom all your life but it's when you get out on the stage that it counts.

Ruth: How come you lot don't have massive beer bellies? Is it a Welsh secret?
Stuart: We have but we're just very good at disguising 'em!
Kelly: Wear black and eat on the weekends...A pickled egg and a bag of crisps.
Stuart: There's lots of people in Wales with big bellies, but there's lots of people in Wales with small bellies too.
Kelly: Most of the alcoholics I know are skinny.

Mary M: What did you want to be when you were a teenager?
Kelly: Astronaut.
Stuart: Brain Surgeon.
Kelly: I wanted to be an astronaut, but I'm claustrophobic so it wouldn't really work.
Stuart: We just did what we did really, and plugged away. Obviously the dream was to become what we became but in the back of your mind I don't think you ever thought you would get there. Being confident is a different thing, in the back of your mind you know there's always room for failure. Thankfully it didn't happen to us.



Steve: Kelly, do you have to do anything special for your voice - singing lessons or something?
Kelly: 500 hundred fags and a bottle of whiskey, sawdust, sitting in a really dry room...No, I've never had a singing lesson. I went for one when we first got signed but she told me to go away again. She told me to stand up straight and sing in a certain way, but then she realised I couldn't do it. She said I had a natural voice. I've been singing since I was 12, and it's just got better, or worse, depending on your taste in vocals. I don't really do anything apart from pace yourself.. If you're going to go out on a bender, you drink lots of water the next day and sleep. All your throat is is a muscle and if it gets tired it doesn't work.

Katie Thorpe: Kelly, you having a bad hair day today?
Kelly: I've been having a bad hair day for the last 4 months! I'm growing my hair and you won't want to see the in between stages. I'm going for the full Stuart, but it's not that curly, I'm more like Rod Stewart! I got really bored with having the same haircut for quite a long time so I decided to grow it a bit. I look like a cross between Adolf Hitler and Georgie Best at the moment. I look like a real '70s footballer...
Stuart: Mines just there. Go to bed, wake up in the morning and it's there. It doesn't really go anywhere, there's not a lot you can do with my hair. It needs to do its own thing.

Ashley Hamilton: What bands really get on your nerves?
Kelly: I'm not saying anything. I'm sick of getting quoted as slagging off as many bands as there is, and I always get misquoted, whether I mean it as a joke or seriously, so I'm saying nothing.
Stuart: Being who we are, we like to play live and that's our niche. We're a good live band. Well, people tell us we're a good live band...
Kelly: Little do they know we're miming all the time!
Stuart: So the kind of stuff that's not written by themselves and don't play any instruments, that kind of gets on your nerves. But there's room for everybody in this industry. Some people have got to play the game, and thankfully we haven't. We've got this side to us where we can disappear for a couple of months and nobody intrudes in our lives. You can spend time with your family and kids. That's the good part about it. I wouldn't want to be like one of these popstar where people are camped outside your door.

Debra Welch: How do you feel about new bands such as the Strokes and the Hives?
Stuart: Very good. Rock stuff is coming back...big guitars...
Kelly: Nice to see someone doing something exciting again. When you watch it on TV, you can see how it is. It's great to see the Hives the Strokes and White Stripes on TOTP. It's how it should be. It shouldn't just be polished sounding television. There's so much cheap TV, people don't even employ actors any more, it's all docu-soaps and all that. It's about time that a bit of talent came back. To give people something to go away and think about!


Rachel Jepps: Kelly, does Stuart get jealous by your 'sex symbol' status?
Stuart: No. We just treat it as 3 friends. Kelly gets more attention as the singer and we've always known that anyway. But as far as sex-symbol goes - well, he's not a sex-symbol to me.
Kelly: The crew get more women out of it than we do.

Shirley Kennedy: Do you ever run out of ideas for songs or anything like that?
Kelly: Yeah, from time to time. The harder you try, the less you can write. If you can let things happen naturally, that's the best stuff. At the moment, things are going quite well. We're writing and demoing and it's going good. We all go back in the studio later on this year after having a bit of a break. I think the standard of songwriting gets better to be honest, because you've got more experience. Whether it's better in the opinion of people listening to it is a different situation. I think as a songwriter you can only improve because your standards get higher every time you make a record. You always want to improve, so in your own head you're always gonna try and get better. Your ability is better, your talent should be better because you learn so much. It's a matter of choice then if the people listening to it feel the same.

Harry: What's the best piece of advice you have ever been given?
Stuart: Don't eat yellow snow.
Kelly: If you're on a bike in the night, wear white!

Jenny: You've known each other since school - so come on, who's got the worst habits?
Stuart: Definitely me! I don't wash that often. I wash my underpants in the sink on the tourbus after I've been to the toilet and wiped my arse in them - I was very drunk by the way!
Kelly: I think every male's got the same dodgy habits. Some people can do more in front of people than others. Stuart just likes to do everything in front of everybody. It's not a problem, we're all used to it. Me and Richard are a little bit more discreet about where we wash our pants.
Stuart: I don't think Jayne Middlemiss was ever the same since I farted live next to her. I think I ended her career here on TOTP!


Fave drink: double Jones shot and Cable chaser
Gibson: When you were starting out how did you make money and what did you spend it on?
Stuart: We were on the dole so we made money by playing gigs. It was a big circle for us.
Kelly: And then the money went into travelling to another gig. So we didn't spend it on anything really...petrol...drinking it, siphoning it, putting it back in the bus...
Stuart: It was a big circle for us. Making money, then putting it back into the band.
Kelly: I'm not saying we were eating cabbage leaves out of dustbins! We had a few quid for ourselves. I saw this lady when I went home and we used to give her the keys for our rehearsal room and give her £6. When we didn't have it, we used to slip the keys through the letterbox and spend the money on three pints of lager down the pub. And she caught me on the weekend and said I owe her £6, so I gave her a tenner and said "keep the change!"

Mick: What is the least glamorous part of your work?
Kelly: Talking. Interviews. Not in a nasty way to the people doing them but that's the least glamorous bit. I don't think it's natural to talk about yourself all day. It's not why you get into a band in the first place. You get in a band to be a rock star, or the best songwriter in the world or play live every day or do gigs, travel in a tourbus and have a good craic with the crew. That's what you get into it for. The least glamorous side to this music business is the business. That's the truth!

TOTP: That's all we have time for. Here are Kelly & Stuart with a final word...
Stuart: Thanks for logging on. Captain's log!
Kelly: Thanks for supporting us for the past 6 years and stay with us for the next 6 years...then we'll assess the situation and see where we go after that!