A Decade Down, The Word's Still Around - Stereophonics

“One thing I’ll say about Stereophonics is if people love us or they ****ing hate us we’ve always sounded like us. We’ve never jumped on a bandwagon; we don’t give a **** what’s fashionable and what’s not fashionable. If you don’t like us change the ****ing channel.”

Kelly Jones has never been one to mince his words. He is as open and true to himself today as he was ten years ago when he told an audience at the 1998 Brit Awards: “It’s about time we got some ****ing recognition,” as his band received the award for Best New Group. Today, they are one of British music’s longest serving bands and are preparing to release a greatest hits compilation, ‘Decade In The Sun’. Kelly is sat talking to Gigwise alongside bassist Richard Jones in the boardroom of a London record company. Both dressed in warm black jackets shielding them from the winter elements outside they join us for a soothing chat.

It should be pointed out that Kelly’s comments were not made in a manner which depicts a petulant, frustrated man. In fact, the nonchalant character and ease of both Kelly and Richard when we meet is a testament to their attitude in life and within the music business. This is why they have managed to make it to a point in their career where the prospect of a greatest hits album is taken with relieved enthusiasm rather then aggravating monotony.

Coming under the radar throughout their career and staying clear of flavour of the month tags has also allowed Stereophonics to sustain such longevity. Their initial coming to light was at the tail end of Britpop and Kelly is thankful they avoided the fame and traps of the scene at the time. He says: “We saw what happened to Robbie Williams, we saw what happened with all these bands shouting off in the papers but not actually coming up with the goods and I think subconsciously we learnt from a lot of that. We went to all the same parties and all the same piss-ups with all the same people but we didn’t really want to become celebrities. I don’t think we’d be very good at being celebrities.”

 “It’s like if you’re a good actor you don’t want to be seen buying milk and sausages. You want to be seen on the cinema screen being somebody else. Soon as you see someone buying sausages why do you want to hear his lyrics – it doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t want to see anyone buying sausages, unless it’s some fit bird bending over and you can see the back of her knickers – show me the picture. I don’t want to see Bob Dylan buying ****ing sausages. Or milk or bread, doesn’t have to be sausages,” finishes Kelly with a roguish grin that’s mirrored on his bandmate.