Stereophonics interview for The Indie Shop
February 16, 2001
4:30pm, The El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles CA
Cast of Characters:
Kelly Jones - singer, guitarist
Charles - Indie Shop host, interviewer
Berny - show co-host, assistant interviewer
I must first thank Jennifer Jones at V2 records in New York. WIthout her kindness there would have been no interview. I must also thank Berny for coming along and helping in the transcription of this interview. Berny and I arrived at the El Rey theatre in Hollywood, CA several hours before their acoustic performance. After waiting a short time for Kelly to appear, we were escorted to the backstage dressing room where we were offered drinks and places on a couch. Kelly was patient throughout the interview, chewing slowly on the plastic ring top from his bottled water. We were able to ask Kelly many questions, several of which were submitted by fan sites such as LocalPhonics submitted, the answers to which you can find below. I've included the full transcript from the 30 minute interview. Your comments and suggestions are ost welcome, as I'm always interested in improving my interviewing skills.....
Stereophonics Interview
Charles: Welcome to LA
Kelly: Thank you
Charles: Could you introduce yourself?
Kelly: Hello, I'm Kelly from Stereophonics and I'm at LA
Charles: Its always strange to ask someone to do that…
Kelly: It is really weird, yeah.
Charles: So how was trip, this brief tour.
Kelly: It's really good. Were only here for a few weeks doing some acoustic shows. For a couple of
reasons. We gotta few new musicians in the band so it gives us a chance to work things out with them.
And our drummer just had a baby boy, so he's off having maternity leave.
Charles: Is that the reason?
Kelly One of the reasons. It's just like a preview of the record before it comes out really. I did a few
acoustic shows back home and it worked really well so, once the record company sees that something
works really well they ask you to do it all over the world.
Kelly: It seems kind of funny that you guys are touring now when the album doesn't come out for another
two months.
Kelly: Yeah, we've never done that before. Not in America anyway. We're coming back in May to do it
with a proper band, the five of us, electric. So, this is just a chance to fill a few holes and remind
people that we're still there.
Charles: How has the response been?
Kelly: Great. Every gig's been sold out. We started in Atlanta. We did New York, Boston. One show in
Toronto which was great in the opera house. We do San Francisco tomorrow then we go back to
London and start a British tour up there.
Charles: Do you notice the difference between American fans and those back home?
Kelly: Not so much on the acoustic shows because everybody kind of sits down and listens. Its less of a
different atmosphere because the acoustic show can only go one atmosphere anyway because it's very
mellow, listening songwriting kinda thing, apart from Minneapolis where it was a very very small club
and everyone just stood up anyway. But it's pretty much similar on this tour so far.
Charles: I have a host of questions from fans over here. There is someone named Tuulia in Finland and
she's curious when you might be touring there.
Kelly: Finland? No idea. I've got no idea. We've never been to Finland. Not been to Iceland either.
Scandanavia's as far as we go.
Charles: She seems kind of rabid in her desire to see you play.
Kelly: There are a lot of places we haven't played. We havn't been to India or anything like that either, but
have done a lot of Asia and Australia and America and Europe.
Charles: Is there a place that you haven't toured that you would like to?
Kelly: I think we're going to China and Hong Kong for the first time. It's interesting to see what Hong
Kong's like. We went gold in Hong Kong and never even been there, so that was a good sign. I don't
know how much gold is in Hong Kong.
Berny: Ever thought about South America?
Kelly: Rio and stuff. A few Januaries ago we were supposed to do a few shows with Oasis in Rio but it fell
through, because of album release dates and stuff. But we've never done any of that. Hopefully in a
few years we can do the Rock in Rio thing. It should fall right for us in the next year if the albums
gone well.
Charles: Do all the places seem familiar after a while? I can only imagine how busy you must be. You only
arrive in the city and you have all these interview with people such as myself, people want to talk to
you and everyone wants something. You have a chance to do the sound check and then there's a show
afterwards.
Kelly: It's as much of a routine as any other job, but it's a routine that we like doing. If you keep coming
back to the same town than hopefully the venues keep getting bigger. That's what happened in Britain.
If you play Liverpool you start off at the Lomax which is a little club than you go to the (Lomax 2)
which is a bigger club and than the Royal Court than before you know it you're playing the
Manchester Apollo. So of you keep coming back and the venues keep getting bigger….that's kinda
what we had over here with the acoustic tour. It all sold out really quick and it's just acoustic stuff and
the records not out. So it's a good indication of how you can go with the support of radio and stuff
hopefully.
Charles: There are quite a few bands in England that would like to do well here and it seems like there's
this big barrier between skill and the success they have in the UK as opposed to how they do over
here. It must be real intimidating to come over here and not get the same treatment that you get there.
You have to approach everything in a totally different manner.
Kelly: To a point there's only so much you can do yourself really. We play the same show and talk the
same talk. We can only do the same thing. We release records and make records for ourselves.
Sometimes being on a small label can be great in some countries and not so great in other countries.
It's a brand new label, sometimes we're like a guinea pig and sometimes we're very much a priority.
In America it's very dependent on radio and MTV and stuff like that as in Europe it's very dependent
on press. You end up doing like 30 interviews a day and talking and getting through to a lot of people.
Plus touring is much easier to do in Europe than it is in America because it's smaller. It's just different
boundaries and not many American bands are breaking England either. It goes both ways really. I
think a lot of it is that record companies take a long time to work it out, market a band in different
markets. Sometimes if a band in Britain is successful in Britain they get lazy and don't want to leave
the country because they get complacent or aren't very successful in other countries. I think we've
always wanted to try and do it over here, so you just keep on coming back. In a lot of ways we're
probably a bit more international sounding than most British bands because we're not doing the
Cockney accent thing and all that. A lot of the influences we've got were pretty much American bands
and such. Very seventies influenced anyways.
Charles: Do you have a different mind frame when you come over here? While we were waiting for you to
appear we see you get out of a cab and get your own bag out of the back. It's totally different from
what I would expect.
Kelly: I get my own bag out of the car no matter where I'm playing. I've been onstage with The Who at
Albert Hall and flagged a black cab, I'm not the kind to gets a limo everywhere, no matter how big the
venue is. And the people who work for us never get the getaways right for us anyway.
Charles: It helps to keep you levelheaded.
Kelly: I like carrying my bag. I know it gets there. If I leave it to one of these to it always gets lost.
Charles: That would be a good song title.
Kelly: Hmmm, I always carry my own bag, hmmm. People are always surprised by that. I don't know why.
You cant win though because if you see a kids in airports and stuff and they see you carrying your
own bag they start laughing that you're carrying your own bags, but if you weren't carrying your own
bags they call you a fuckin' dick. You can't really win so you just be yourself.
Charles: Another question that goes along with seeing people and being in public, when you become more
famous do you find it more of a job to even go in public? As far as, you're probably on of the better
looking men in the music business, do you find that you have to keep up appearances or can you just
go out and not worry about cleaning up? Hair all messy.
Kelly: I wish my hair could get a lot more messy but it wouldn't go.
Charles: I'll trade with you.
Kelly: I don't take that side of it that seriously. I don't lose sleep about, no more than anyone else who
wants to look ok. I don't just because people start to write about the way you look and we've never
been that type of band. I'd much rather people write about what I write about or the way I sing of the
way I play than the way that I look. You can't do anything about the way you look. No, I don't try to
keep appearances no more than anybody else does. You look in the mirror in the morning and pull
yourself right as you can and than you leave.
Charles: So it's a pretty big attempt to be yourself?
Kelly: No, not really. In England we get recognized in different places, more so now than ever before.
There's been a lot of tv stuff lately with Christmas and stuff like that, I do quite a lot of tv shows. I
never used to get recognized that much in London but it's a little more than it used to be now. Cardiff
is a little more difficult in Wales and stuff. You know where to go and not to go. And if you're going
shopping you get what you need and leave.
Charles: How did it feel the first time you started to get recognized?
Kelly: A bit weird, when you're in a shop cubicle and your trying on a shirt and there are people outside the
cubicle waiting for you to sign their receipt. That's weird, because if you're on your own it can be
quite intimidating because you don't know what to do. It's embarrassing more than intimidating. If
you're with a gang of boys it can be really funny because you can take the piss and everybody has a
laugh but if you're in a restaurant and you want to be on your own it gets a bit weird.
Charles: I read something in a Select Magazine interview that you really have to know what you're doing
and what to get, rush in and rush out.
Kelly: It's not so much rushing, you can't window shop as much as you used to. London's alright, it's a big
place. But Cardiff is just a fuckin' nightmare. Not in a bad way, just as a waste of time, you get
nothing done.
Charles: I have a few more questions from fans. A girl named Chris asked what inspired you to be a
musician?
Kelly: My father probably. He was a singer and from a really young age I used to go into the clubs and
watch him sing. I used to like the way that people in working class clubs didn't give a shit when he
walked into a room, and they way he won over an audience by picking a really good set and the way
that he paced it all and by the end of the night everyone is standing on a table. I thought to be able to
do that is really an amazing thing. In a very casual way he started getting me interested in music by
buying me a cheap guitar and if I wanted to learn I'd learn. He didn't force it on me. Plus there was
always a lot of music being played around the house. A lot of soul music like Otis Redding and Stevie
Wonder and stuff, whereas my brothers were playing Crosby Stills Nash and Young and Bob Dylan
and Creedence and stuff like that. So. It was all songwriting soul kind of stuff.
Charles: It must be nice to speak to your father now and share stories.
Kelly: Yeah. At first he was worried because he knew how much bullshit was involved in the industry and
had dealt with quite a lot of it. Being a solo artist there was a lot more to deal with as there wasn't a
band around. The record label made him dump his band as they weren't good enough to play on
records. It became a bit more weird for him so he just ended up knocking it on end as it wasn't fun
anymore. He was surrounded by a lot of people in London that he didn't really know, so he kind of
lost the plot with that.
Charles: Going back to the music itself, a lot of the new music has a different approach. Much like the
music that's being played now during sound check, it's much more laid back, mellower. Do you see it
as a maturation process?
(Richard Jones walks in for a second)
Kelly: I was just killing time 'till you got here! The album, right. It just became much more musical. We
toured for five years as a three piece. Got a little bit jaded by it, bored. It became less about the music
the last six weeks in of the American and Canadian tour became just about drinking. People were
losing the plot of it as what we were doing on stage wasn't making us exciting any more. I had written
over nine songs by that point so when I went back into the studio I wanted to make it more ambitious
and creative musically rather than all the songs being filled with loud guitars and drums and stuff and
quite a loud voice. I wanted to add pianos and harmonicas and gospel singers. Just make it a more a
record that I would buy than make and not be afraid of how to reproduce it live. Now we've got the
opportunity to take extra musicians whereas before we couldn't really do that because people wanted
us to be seen as a three piece and we couldn't afford it.
Charles: Lyrically you've always had more about stories and what you've seen around you and it seems to
come across better with the new songs.
Kelly: There's more space to hear the lyrics. I think a lot of lyrics that have been written in the past have
been missed because the band is being too loud. Even the quiet songs were loud, the way Stuart was
playing drums. We all just sat down and talked and decided to be less of a rock band and more of a
proper band. We had been bluffing for five years. After you tour with people like the Red Hot Chili
Peppers and Beck and The Black Crowes and people like that you just want to be a better band. We
decided to try that.
Charles: Has this helped to reinvent your passion for the music?
Kelly: Yeah, and doing the acoustic thing back home was just doing it for the fun of it and it became the
most fun I had on stage in probably a year and half. I'm ready to go electric again now mate. It's a
nice way to mix and match really. It keeps you fresh and you can learn more about the dynamics on
stage. These songs are less of three minute songs where they start here and finish there. There's a lot
more freedom to try different ideas and different versions of things, they don't have to be identical to
the album. It's a nice thing a you're not restricted in that way. If the people like it that's great
obviously, but we don't know that yet.
Charles: How will you present these songs when you go electric? You've done venues that are quite large
like Wembley….
Kelly: We're gonna start off small in places like Shephard's Bush Theatre and seated theatres, half seated
half standing, of about 2000 people then work up to the bigger shows throughout the summer and than
to the end of the year. The acoustic versions are quite different from the album versions and the
album versions will be pretty much like they are. When we go home from this tour we'll have two
weeks to ready ourselves with Stuart. I'm just looking forward to playing it. We haven't played it
since we recorded it, and the album was finished in August. By the time it comes out it will have been
nearly a year. We'll be ready to make another one by next August.
Charles: So you've already written some songs?
Kelly: Yeah, a little bit. You don't tend to write a great deal until about six months after a records released
as you can't let it go. Once it's out there you know there's nothing more you can change about it so
you just gotta realize that it's done and you make a new one.
Charles: With this new sound will you have to give up your award from Kerrrang?
Kelly: Nah, the first song was for Kerrang. We did the first song to keep in with Kerrang. They've given us
a cover actually, so they still like us. Kerrang actually came to the acoustic tour and reviewed the
acoustic tour. I've got no idea why we always were in Kerrang, but they seem to get on with us really
well and give us awards every year. I think it's because we're always talking about AC/DC and
found a soft spot for us.
Berny: I've got this one where there's this little blip from when Performance and Cocktails came out and
there's a picture of the guy from Metallica on the front with Stereophonics in the corner. How did they
get in there?
Kelly: They started reviewing us with the first album and they knew we were into a lot of old rock bands.
They've been reviewing us ever since so they've always been very supportive to us. Given us a few
front covers and lots of awards.
Berny: Maybe they brought some hard rock fans over
Kelly: The weirdest thing with the band is that we can be in every magazine from Smash Hits to Loaded to
NME to Melody Maker to Q to Mojo. We've never understood where our audience is whereas bands
like Ash have only got a student audience and when they grow up they haven't got an audience
anymore. We've been from 15 to 55 and we really know which songs they like. That's why the albums end
up being so varied
Charles: Is there a few that with the new sound you might lose part of that audience?
Kelly: Not really. I'm not scared about that. I'm not gonna be playing More Life In A Tramps Vest or stuff
like that anymore. It's like the Beatles playing Hard Days Night the rest of their life, you can't do it.
You just fuckin' can't put on that cheeky little smile on anymore. You just get bored with it and it
doesn't excite you to play that song. When you write is great, like a Kinks little punk pop kinda song,
that's fine but you gotta kinda move on and keep yourself excited. If you look bored on stage they're
gonna be bored. I'm sure we'll be playing a lot of songs they know anyways.
Charles: So you hope that your passion translates.
Kelly: Hopefully the audience grows with us, that's the theory really. Same as all the bands and people we
lookd up to like Madonna or U2 or REM. They're people that kinda change with the times and you've
gotta try to be one step ahead of yourself all the time, cause if you start repeating the albums you do
than people will see through that. Especially in Britain you can be a band like Supergrass who is a
band we love that have gotten to the arena stage and they didn't do much to change, they didn't really
put much work in and they ended up going backwards and playing the Forum and stuff again.
It's not really something we wanted to do so. We've seen all that. We got signed on to the back of the
Brit Pop stuff, and we've seen the fuck-ups that Oasis did and Blur did and we've seen how they got
back out of those fuck-ups so we didn't fall into it hopefully. Well, we try not to anyway, the album
hasn't been released yet. You try to see forward a little.
