Stereophonics have new ‘burst of energy’
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Epic Welsh … Stereophonics are now a four piece and frontman Kelly Jones is making movies.
Source: Supplied
THE last time Stereophonics were in Melbourne was also the second time they’ve ever cancelled a show in 19 years.
Frontman Kelly Jones had health issues which saw him axe the show on doctors orders.
“I was right pissed off,” Jones says. “I went to the cinema instead. It was crap.”
Not the film, which was The Great Gatsby, in case you’re wondering.
“It was colourful and all that, but obviously I would have rather have been doing the show. I did have a nice ice cream though.”
Cancelled show aside, that 2013 Australian tour was rather productive. While in Sydney, Jones wrote the next Stereophonics single, I Wanna Get Lost With You.
What’s that? … Kelly Jones has kept the new Stereophonics album deliberately short and sweet.
Source: AFP
Ironically on the tour before that, in the very same Sydney hotel, Jones wrote We Share the Same Sun from the album Graffiti On the Train.
“I think it’s the jet lag,” Jones says. “When you’re zoned out, your subconscious comes into play and the barriers go down a bit. It’s helpful.”
Keep the Village Alive, their ninth album, was partially written around the time of Graffiti On the Train. “They’re like brother and sister,” Jones says of the records, released two years apart.
Lead single C’est La Vie didn’t fit the “cinematic” Graffiti but was dusted off for Village.
“That song fell out of the sky in an hour,” Jones says. “God knows where it came from. It’s an amazing burst of energy. I just wrote the lyrics on the recording desk, went in and sang it thinking it was the demo and that’s the version on the album. There’s no red light syndrome.”
Keep the Village Alive is also an economical record, at just a whisker over 40 minutes.
“Attention spans are short these days,” Jones says. “You go over 45 minutes and people just zone out now. The intention was keep it short and immediate so once it’s over you want to put it on again.”
C’est La Vie has found the band a rash of new fans, attracted to its brash, punky feel.
“We bring out certain songs like Dakota or Indian Summer or C’est La Vie and there’s 15-year-old kids who discover the band for the first time,” Jones says. “You see them at the shows thinking we’re this brand new thing, then they go back and listen to the catalogue and realise we’ve been making music probably since before they were born.
“Then there’s the people who’ve been following us for all that time. The more we do, the longer we’re in the game the more we can go back to the catalogue and refresh the show every night. So it doesn’t get boring, there’s a lot of stuff to pick from, a lot of different styles.”
The new material is also being rapidly embraced by Stereophonics covers bands who including the brilliantly-named Stereoironics and Stereophonies.
“People show me on their phones Stereophonics tribute bands playing our new songs before we’ve even played them live,” Jones says. “They pick them up pretty quick. They even dress like us. They come to the shows a lot, they film the songs and they go away and learn them. It’s pretty flattering that they go to that effort. We’ve got friends who see them play in small pubs in Wales.
“They make a good living out of it,” Jones continues. “20 years ago that could have been us. We were doing Jimi Hendrix tributes, Jam tributes. Where we grew up in Cardiff they’d only book tribute acts in the 90s.”
Over the last few years Jones has started directing Stereophonics videos, including C’est La Vie and I Wanna Get Lost With You.
“It’s a good laugh,” he says. “I don’t operate the cameras or anything, but I do storyboards. It’s a little step further than what the lyric is to me. The songs are very visual, I’m just trying to make the visuals as accurate as I can.”
Jones has also written a screenplay for a movie which he’s started pitching to backers to get made.
“It’s a slow process. You can’t just be a unit like a band, you basically have to ask a load of people to invest in your idea and they’re probably never going to get their money back. They need to be like-minded. And be very rich.”
He admits after reading the film back it touches on his life in the band and the death of original drummer Stuart Cable.
“It’s about two young boys who lose a friend and go off on travels around Europe.” Jones says. “It’s about self discovery, ups and downs, trying to run from stuff and face things. The more and more you delve into the writing of the screenplay you figure out a lot of it is autobiographical. To me it’s a form of storytelling, it’s something I’d love to evolve into. But not to replace the music.”
HEAR Keep the Village Alive (Stylus/Warner) out tomorrow.
