Shooting from the lip

Anyone who’s familiar with the area around London Bridge Station will know that it isn’t one the English capital’s more salubrious postal addresses. Even so, it’s a mite disconcerting when three different men in Ali G-style attire accost me separately to ask if I’m in need of some "rock".

Having informed them that "No, I’ve plenty of loud, guitar-driven music at home, thank you," I continue in my quest to find the rehearsal complex where Stereophonics are preparing for their upcoming Dublin Castle extravaganza.

Well, two-thirds of them are. Thanks to a happy accident of birth, drummer Stuart Cable is home in Wales recording the latest batch of shows in his Cable TV series. It’s a shame that the family name isn’t ‘Primetime’ but, hey, a gig’s a gig!

Having failed to get directions from a friendly local – "Buy a fucking map, mate!" – I eventually find Terminal Studios hidden down a laneway that smells of pee. Inauspicious surroundings for a band whose last two albums, Performance And Cocktails and Just Enough Education To Perform entered the UK chart at number one. Venture inside, though, and the floor to ceiling stack of flight-cases bears testimony to the serious rock ‘n’ roll business that’s going on in the establishment.

David Bowie, Foo Fighters and Courtney Love are all regulars, and there’s a gaggle of girls outside waiting to glimpse this week’s other star occupants, Blazin’ Squad. There are no boy banders in yet, so Kelly Jones, Richard Jones and myself have our pick of the rec room sofas for our natter. Current world events leaving no room for frivolity, let’s start with a serious question: "Kelly, what’s with this Gallagher-esque new haircut of yours?"

"I didn’t know I was being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman," he deadpans. "I phoned Posh Spice up, asked ‘Which salon does your David go to?’ and made an appointment. £200 later, here I am."

You don’t think our readers are going to allow you to bend the truth like Beckham – do you, Mr. Jones?

"No, it’d grown really long while we were in the studio," he explains, "so I went to the same woman who always does it for twenty quid and said, ‘Sort this fucking mess out!’ I didn’t bring a picture of Liam with me or anything!"

Have any of his showbiz chums passed judgement on it yet?

"Paul Weller said he liked it and he’s not somebody who spares your feelings when it comes to matters of style."

Indeed, I remember Noel Gallagher telling me that he’s afraid to meet Weller because there’s always some part of your appearance he rips the piss out of.

"His stock line when he sees Stuart (Cable) is, ‘Still got the joke shop hair, then!’ Liam, Noel, him and me did a thing with Roger Daltrey for the Teenage Cancer gigs he organised in the Royal Albert Hall last month. It was opening for Richard Ashcroft and started with Noel and Weller playing two Jam and Oasis songs. I was up next with ‘Traffic’ and ‘Step On My Old Size Nines’, followed by Liam doing ‘Songbird’ – and all of us backing Daltrey on ‘Magic Bus’. It went remarkably well given the previous night’s carry on."

Which was?

"I brought Weller back to my apartment and he ripped up the potted plants that my missus had bought to make the place look nice."

Any particular reason for this foliage-related vandalism?

"They were outside the lift, so I think he thought he was in a hotel and therefore honour-bound to smash something up. It was a real pinch me am I dreaming? few days. Between them Roger Daltrey and Paul Weller have written 30 or 40 of the best British pop songs ever but there’s not a hint of arrogance about them.

"The only part of the experience I didn’t like was the panic that gripped me when Daltrey announced in rehearsals that he wanted to do an acoustic ‘Who Are You?’ I’m a lot of things but I’m not Pete Townshend. Those chops are fucking impossible to play!"

There’s more rubbing shoulders with rock royalty on the way in July when Stereophonics open for the Rolling Stones in France. It’s an outing the Jones boys are looking forward to. And then there’s Mr. Cable.

"We’re doing the two Paris shows in Bercy and Stade de France which, being a big rugby fan, Stuart’s wetting himself over," Jones resumes. "We watched them doing a gig for Global Warming in LA and they were unbelievable. It was a real stripped-down, minimal production job and it fucking rocked! They were teenagers running around in a 60-year-old’s body.

"Ronnie Wood – who I know through singing on his solo record a couple of years back – insisted on introducing us to Mick and Keith who were like, ‘Hello lads, grab yourself a beer’. Or in Keith’s case, a quadruple Jack Daniel’s with just a dash of coke! The wet, fizzy kind, that is – although, from what I’ve heard, he’s still full-on when it comes to partying. Ronnie, on the other hand, was off the sauce completely and drinking cranberry juice. After the gig, he gave us a ring and we all ended up in his suite in The Four Seasons watching Wes Montgomery videos.

"He also showed us this portrait of Rod Stewart that he’s done for Rod’s new album. I asked him, ‘Has he seen it?’, and he said, ‘No, but he’s coming into town tomorrow, do you want to meet him?’ "

One of my own favourite rock ‘n’ roll moments was gabbering to Ronnie Wood and Slash after they’d played together at Vicar St. That cross-generational alliance, according to Jones, is about to be expanded.

"We’re in the studio the following day mixing a track when the phone rings and it’s Ronnie saying, ‘I’ve booked a table for us, Rod and Slash who’s sitting beside me and going to give you directions!’ It turns out that the three of them are recording an album together that’s going to be released after the Stones stop touring.

"Anyway, we go for food and there’s this amazing feeling of mutual respect. Slash, who’s a lovely bloke, can’t believe he’s sitting down for dinner with two of The Faces and Rod’s blown away because he’s with the guy who played the solo on ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. Take away the platinum American Express cards, and they’re both hopeless music fans."

That view is backed up by Richard Jones.

"You think, ‘He was in Guns ‘N’ Roses, so he’s got to be a complete egotistical bastard’, he says, "but what Slash is in real life is a nice guy who wants to talk guitars and record collections."

Rod, Slash, Ronnie, Mick, Keith, Paul Weller, Roger Daltrey and the Gallagher brothers – say what you like about the Stereophonics, but they keep exalted company. And why not?

From a standing start seven years ago, they’ve sold four million albums in the UK alone and packed out some of the biggest venues in the world. Most bands of their ilk would regard Glastonbury as the ultimate in headliners, but good Celtic lads that they are, the trio have other ideas.

"It’s a three-way tie between Marfa Castle, Cardiff Arms Park or Slane last year, which is exactly how a festival should be," Kelly Jones enthuses. "Having spent four hours getting there by road when we supported Robbie Williams, we helicoptered in and got a police escort the rest of the way, which impressed my parents no end! They hadn’t been on tour with us before and now think we play to 80,000 people every night!

"The Charlatans and Counting Crows being there was great because they’re mates of ours and we were able to hang with them backstage.

"It’s mad, we came off stage and an hour-and-a-half later were sitting in The Clarence. It was the perfect end to the J.E.E.P. tour and, apart from a couple of acoustic things, the last time we were on-stage as a band."

While Richard Jones prepared for his nuptials and Stuart Cable did his Alan Partridge impression, Kelly flitted off to Sri Lanka for what proved to be something of a busman’s holiday.

"It was supposed to be a total break from music," Kelly resumes, "but we came across this weird woman in a place called Candi, who was the inspiration for our new single, ‘Madame Helga’. She was a big, old Indian living in what I think may have been a brothel, but I’m not sure. She had all these Dalmatians, a Chelsea accent – which was weird ’cause she’d never left the country – and pictures on the wall of her three husbands and countless lovers. The proverbial tart with a heart!"

‘Madame Helga’ is released on May 16 and is the first track to be lifted from their You Gotta Go There To Come Back album, which follows precisely two weeks later. While instantly recognisable as the Stereophonics, the 13-track collection finds them augmenting their trademark sound with loops and beats. "Sly And The Family Stone gone glam rock" is how the singer described it when the band emerged from the studio in November and, well, he’s got a point.

"You’ve gotta freshen things up or otherwise you turn into Reef," he reflects. "We’ve gigged with them and they’re nice guys, but you can’t keep re-making your first album. Or taking five years to record your next one, like those lazy fuckers Supergrass! Unless you come back with Achtung Baby, you’re dead in the water after that length of time. We’ve toured every album for two years but still had a new one ready to go at the end of it.

"Some people like staying where they are, whereas we’re always looking to move up a level. I’ve seen what U2 and the Rolling Stones have been able to achieve and want a bit of it for ourselves."

Whether this means that Kelly Jones is planning to start dating Jerry Hall we’re not sure, but we get his drift. The prize that has so far eluded Stereophonics is breaking the States. Unlike Coldplay, of course, who can do no wrong with our transatlantic cousins.

"Jammy posh bastards!" he spits. "Not only have they sold 85 billion records but that cunt managed to pull Gwyneth Paltrow. No, good on him, he’s written some decent songs and persuaded a lot of people to buy ’em. Which doesn’t alter the fact that in my opinion they’re not a real rock ’n’ roll band. What Stereophonics have, and the likes of Coldplay and Travis don’t, is variety in what we play. We can do the sincere, emotional slow stuff and then, boom, go into some seriously dirty funk.

"Come to one of our gigs and it spans from 14-year-old girls in the front-row to 55-year-old blokes at the back fucking listening to Neil Young and Tom Waits records. That’s what we’ve always wanted to do."

I always have this mental picture of somebody standing over Coldplay in the studio and going, "That’s great Chris, but a bit too exciting for the young, dinner party attending ABC1s we’re targeting. Could you try it again with a little less umph?" Songs from the heart, sure, but how it beats is carefully monitored.

"Yeah, there is a sense of their records being made to come out with the Ferrero Rocher," he chuckles. "They’re kind of like Queen, but not!"

Members of Coldplay Jihad should remember that it’s Kelly Jones making these comments, not Stuart Clark. Woh. That’s me saved.

Interestingly, You’ve Gotta Go There To Come Back – great title by the way – is the first Stereophonics album to be produced in its entirety by Kelly. He does a sterling job, but might they have drummed up more publicity if they’d done a Starsailor and hired an alleged murderer?

"The only reason Phil Spector ended up producing Starsailor is that his daughter saw them gigging in LA and said they should work together. He didn’t fucking know who they were. At the end of the day, what’s Phil Spector going to give Starsailor besides sandals, wigs, sunglasses and a gun? He’s the last person you want behind the desk when you’re developing your own sound – as they’ve acknowledged by ditching most the stuff he did with them."

Unlike the Manic Street Preachers, who insist they’ve given up on America – "It’s America giving up on them, isn’t it?" says Kelly dryly – Stereophonics are prepared to do whatever it takes to get the dollars rolling in.

"Everybody says this I know, but we really have been dogged by bad luck over there. Heads of label changing when we’re about to release a record, A&R people leaving... it’s been one fucking disaster after another. The company managing us now, Nettwerk, also handle Coldplay, Dido, Sum 41 and Avril Lavigne, so we’re in with a bit more of a radio shout. It’s always going to be about right song, right place, right time. You can only force the issue so far and then it’s up to people to decide if you’ve got anything they want to buy."

It was supposed to be a secret, but big gob Kelly Jones couldn’t resist telling his dad Oscar that there’s a picture of him and Kelly’s older brother, Kevin, on the You Gotta Go There… cover.

"I was going through the family photo album and found this great black and white shot of him and Kevin, when he was seven, sitting in a pub called the Ivy Bush, which was at the end of our road," he explains. "I just thought it was a really pretty, working-class image and took it back to London to show my girlfriend. I didn’t have any notion of it being an album cover until one day I stuck it on top of Supergrass’ I Should Coco and thought, ‘Fucking hell, that looks brilliant.’ I shouldn’t have said that ‘cause now they’ll want royalties!"

Although linked to a number of big anti-war gigs, Stereophonics never actually appeared or went public with their opposition to the Iraqi invasion. Kelly remains somewhat circumspect on the subject.

"Fran Healy from Travis was trying to organise something but we were in LA mixing and, anyway, it’s a bit dangerous for bands to start talking about politics and stuff when they don’t really know enough about it. We get to see 20 minutes of CNN a day and think we’re fucking experts on the Middle East. The British media’s saying one thing, the French another. Who do you believe? I’m not going to preach to people unless I’m 100% sure of my facts."

Call me a silly old conspiracy theorist, but I can’t help thinking that there’s a connection between Robert "3D" Del Naja being arrested on alleged internet child porn offences and the fact that he was involved in organising the biggest anti-war rally in Britain since World War One.

"I can’t imagine that it would be too difficult for M15 to stick somebody’s name on a list of credit card payments," Kelly reflects. "What’s really crap is the police saying that they’re not going to prosecute him because of ‘insufficient evidence’. That’s sort of saying, ‘We know he did it, but we can’t prove it’. There’s an inference of guilt which is totally fucking unfair.

"The same bunch of boys doing our new video did Massive Attack’s and they told me that 3D was really nervous, going into the shoot. They gave him the respect he deserved, of course, but I’m sure other people are going to look at him funny."

On a slightly less serious but just as important note, any more offers to get the Jonesian lad out? (If you don’t know what the ‘Jonesian lad’ is, dear readers, stay with us. All will be revealed. Or not, as the case may be – concerned Ed.)

"Not since the Cosmopolitan one, no," he chuckles. "I think it was £40,000 they offered me but, unless the new album bombs, the tackle’s staying in."

Sorry girls!

First impressions

The Hot Press critic-on-the-spot gets a sneak preview of the Stereophonics’ You Gotta Go There To Come Back. this is what we found…

Help Me (She’s Out Of Her Mind)
Six minute Zep-retro riffola, with optional Fender Rhodes/clavinet and Lenny Kravitz wah-wah. An enterprising opening.

Maybe Tomorrow
Breathy backing vocals, Santana type noodle bar guitar over a soft-shoe shuffle, as Kelly plays the po’ boy, long way from home.

Madame Helga
The single: songs about tarts with hearts of gold are a staple part of the rock lexicon. Steve Marriott is in here. So are The Black Crowes. You’ll be hearing lots of this on the radio.

Climbing The Wall
Strumalong country rock concerto for horns and strings. Think Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance with a guest appearance by Rod the Mod, and you have an idea where this is coming from.

Getaway
‘Here Comes The Sun’, as rewritten by Billy Corgan for the Britrock crowd. Mr Jones sings into his shirt with the ingrained regret of a bad drunk. This couldn’t be autobiographical, then, could it?

You Stole My Money Honey
More broken-hearted rock with a dash of Spector echo on the Lennon-like vocal. Hey Kelly, cheer up. Things can’t be that bad.

Jealousy
Scuzzy rhythm guitar, shakers and a vintage Farfisa mixed up with handclaps and black gospel backing vocals. Decidedly ’90s in feel – but don’t hold that against it.

I’m Alright (You Gotta Go There To Come Back)
The title track is the album’s most modern moment, with trippy beats underpinning sober piano and a slanty-eyed, doped-up lyric. Intriguing.

Nothing Precious At All
On this, a Tom Dowd style production-meets-Let It Be era Beatles

Rainbows And Pots Of Gold
Recriminatory love-gone-bad ballad in waltz time with strings and flute sweetening the lyric’s bitter pill.

I Miss You Now
Weightless, languorous Floyd-ian drift through the sepia evening. Evocative.

High As The Ceiling
A gospel-drenched hard rock aerobic exercise, halfway between The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion and Give Out But Don’t Give Up. Take me higher!

Since I Told You It’s Over
A final, guilt-ridden exercise in acoustic chagrin for the road. Enter Ronnie Wood, stage left, to add to the melancholy mood on which the album closes.