Stereophonics

Stereophonics im Gespräch mit students.ch

Welcome back to Switzerland. Do you know anything about Switzerland?

Oh yeah, we’ve been here a couple of times, we played this festival in St. Gallen and we were in Zurich some time ago. We also remember The Delilahs, they were very good, good music. Do you like them?

Well, not really, they’re not developing. Anyway, isn’t it weird to travel around without playing any shows?

Well, of course we’d like to play but this promo tour is part of the job. We will set up everything and we’ll be on tour soon.

Your new record is coming out soon. Was it different to record this one?

Every album is different to record. This one was more spontaneous and we didn’t record everything in one studio. We recorded for two weeks and then we had two weeks off and then we recorded again. We told the record company that we’re only recording demos but the three of us knew that we’re gonna record a new album. We just didn’t want anyone to come in and stick in their noses. We were surprised how quick all the things came together.

How can we imagine Stereophonics writing new songs?

Well, I’ve got the dictaphone and I always record my ideas. I’m writing all the time, at home, on tour, while we’re recording, really everywhere. Sometimes I bring the songs to the studio to record a demo, sometimes we go to a rehearsal room to jam it out. Sometimes they’re finished, sometimes they’re not.

For me, 'Pull The Pin' is soundwise a best-of album with new songs.

That’s pretty accurate. We think, we have a lot of different sounds on the album that covers everything we’ve done in the last ten years, but still it sounds like where we’re at right now. We would describe this one as rock’n’roll extravaganza.

Pull The Pin

How did you come up with the artwork?

There was this photographer Miles Aldrige who had a photo of a woman’s tongue coming out of her mouth that we wanted to use. But then we thought we could have a photo to incorporate the title. But the two girls they picked had remarkably small tongues. So they couldn’t do it and they did it with their teeth which looked better in the end anyway.

How did you start with your solo projects?

Again very spontaneous while we were making 'Pull The Pin'. I had a lot of songs that didn’t fit on the record but still I wanted to release them and didn’t waste the songs. We did about 10'000 copies just for the music’s sake. Making the album really influenced us.

Your songs always remind me of movies, they have a lot of pictures in it.

I think me writing songs was just an offspring of me writing scripts. I didn’t really write good lyrics until the time I was 18. And then I started to write songs like 'Local Boy In The Photograph' with this dialogue-style like in a script. Suddenly, people started listening to what I was saying.

Are most of the songs invented then?

Well, 'I Stopped To Fill My Car Up' is about something that really happened to a friend of mine but I didn’t see him again so I didn’t know how the story ended and I had to make up an end.

Aren’t you tired of the album-tour-album-tour cycle every two years?

Yes, sometimes. But you usually dictate yourself. After a tour, you need to find something else and then you go back to the studio. When you’re in the studio, all you want to do is play gigs. The tour we had planned with Oasis was something to break this cycle a bit. Noel and me talked about going on tour together for fucking years and then we finally nailed it down. But then a close family member got quite sick and I couldn’t play for six or seven months because I had to take care of him. It was just unfortunate but I’m sure the opportunity will come again. It would have been a great few weeks, very messy.

Is it important for you to be a Welsh band in the British music scene?

It’s important because that’s what we are. We never denied that. And to be part of the British music scene right now is an exciting thing. There are lots of great bands.

Why are there hardly any Welsh bands in the NME including you?

Well, we had a lot of coverage in the beginning, for the first three albums. We were on the front cover maybe three or four times a year but then we had a kind of fall out with the NME and we weren’t a new band anymore. But for the last album, we spoke to them for the first time in years and they gave us a great review. But we never liked each other very much, so it’s okay.

You seem to be a band that doesn’t care too much about charts and the business stuff. How important was your first No. 1 song 'Dakota'?

It was the timing of it. 'You Gotta Go There To Come Back' was a great record for us but unfortunately, that was the tour where Stuart and us split up. And we changed management and lots of people in our crew and there was a lot of legal shit. It became very messy for two or three years. And 'Dakota' was the first thing that came after all that shit when people already thought that we were over. It was nice to achieve that after five albums because most bands have their glory in the first two albums. We’re more relaxed now and more confident and full of energy.

Also the live shows are full of energy compared to the last years. What can we expect?

Well, 'Just Enough Education To Perform' and 'You Gotta Go There To Come Back' were kind of songwriter and acoustic songs, even the rock songs. But the last album and this one are more energetic and garagy. It will be the three of us again with a friend who’s playing the guitar.

I’ve seen you twice in London (Earls Court and Alexandra Palace). In what way are the UK shows different to other European shows?

Oh, you saw us in London. I think it’s the production that makes it. In bigger venues you can have much more lights and screens and everything.

So what are your plans for this year and 2008?

It’s pretty much touring, touring, touring. We’re in Germany for a short tour and then an arena tour in the UK and Japan, Australia before we’re doing some European shows next year. We’ll come to Switzerland probably in January or February and then some festivals in the middle of the year. So if you want us here, we’ll be here.

Good luck with the new record and see you soon in Switzerland!

Thanks mate.

'Pull The Pin' erscheint am 28.09.2007.

Links

• www.stereophonics.com
• www.universalmusic.com