Stereophonics Drink With Oasis

Welsh rockers Stereophonics are a lot like The Tragically Hip: they're considered Wales' quintessential band and have an impressive 25 top 40 hits in the U.K. But step outside that sphere and people barely recognize their name.

CHARTattack caught up with Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones and drummer Javier Weyler backstage at Toronto's Virgin Festival to talk about their former love for the Canadian band, their solo albums and how they love drinking with Oasis.

CHARTattack: Your latest album, Pull The Pin, was released in the U.K. almost a year ago, and it's now just being released in North America. What's it like promoting it here as a new album, when it's been out for so long already?
Kelly Jones: It's a bit strange, really. But unfortunately, sometimes these things happen. The record company was sold the week our album came out in the U.K. The album went to #1 and stuff, but then it kind of petered away because we didn't really have a record company.

So now we're on Universal and Mercury Records, and they've wanted to release it now and then relaunch some of the back catalogue just to lead up to the greatest hits package [Decade In The Sun: The Best Of The Stereophonics, which came out on Nov. 18], and then we just do a new record next year.

Kelly, you recorded a solo album, Only The Names Have Been Changed, around the same time. Why did you decide to do that?
KJ: I just had some songs left over, and I was enjoying recording them in a different style to the rest of the album. And then it kind of took on the theme of the girls' names, and it was nice to release a record without the expectation of making big singles or chart success or marketing or videos. It was released two weeks after it was written and recorded, so it was a refreshing way to do things.

And Javier, you also recorded a solo album, Lagrima, under the moniker Capitan Melao. How is the sound on that album different from what you play in Stereophonics?
KJ: It's a salsa record!
Javier Weyler: It's a Latin bonanza. Actually, everything was happening at the same time, to be honest. We were doing Pull The Pin, and I was like sneaking out and doing some recording for my stuff, and then Kelly started recording some of those demos that were potentially songs that we could probably work on.

But it was a very creative process. And also because we had probably quite a big gap between actually making the Pull The Pin record and the time it was going to be released that we got busy and got time and wanted to do those things, and kept us doing some creative and interesting stuff.

When you first started out, you performed under the name Tragic Love Company, which is an amalgamation of your three favourite bands at the time: The Tragically Hip, Mother Love Bone and Bad Company. Are they still your favourite bands today?
KJ: No.

Who are your favourite bands now?
KJ: I like Kings Of Leon, I like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, I like The Strokes. I like the Razorlight record and The Kooks record — the first ones, when they came out. Everybody, really. We buy and listen to new music all the time, but anytime anyone asks me that question, I completely forget what's on my iPod.
JW: We always go back to the classics.
KJ: It's like I've got a programmed answer in my head about which bands I listen to, and they're all about 40 years old now.
JW: The thing is, nowadays, we just change the iPods around and flick music for music, so you don’t really listen to anything particularly for a long time. You go through songs.
KJ: Impatient.
JW: Yeah, we are quite impatient.
KJ: Or drunk.

Who are some of your favourite bands to tour with?
KJ: We had a good night last night. It was good to see Oasis and Paul Weller. We went out for some food and too much to drink…. We went to an Indian restaurant called Aroma on King Street, and it was good. There wasn't a lot of eating going on, but there was a lot of drinking.

You guys feeling a little hungover today?
KJ: I am, actually. I'm feeling a little bit worse for wear — feeling a little bit vulnerable like I need a cuddle from my mum.

Check out the bad-ass boozehounds in video form and see if you can spot Jones' hangover here.