Stereophonics: 'We never wanted to be a flash in the pan type of band'

Such is their current schedule, it’s a little hard to keep track. “We were in Brussels yesterday afternoon and then Antwerp last night,” says the 51-year-old musician. The previous weekend, they played in Warrington. “That was our first UK festival of the summer and also the first time we could show an audience our full production for this tour through Europe,” Jones says. “When we were in North America and South America it was basically theatre shows which we couldn’t take our full production into. But it was really good in Warrington – typically with the northern weather, it was raining as well.”

Hopefully, it will stay dry for their forthcoming headline show at the John Smith Stadium in Huddersfield on Saturday. Jones says there is something special about outdoor gigs. “What I particularly like about the festivals is you’ve just got one chance,” he says. “It’s instant, basically. There’s no soundcheck, you walk on, the adrenaline is slightly more elevated rather than a show where you’ve got everything planned, so you’re on edge a little bit more which I think gives you more energy. I really like the festivals. Also, you get to see quite a few other bands as well, which is good, and sometimes you get a surprise from a band you might not have heard from.”

Their run of UK dates has been christened the Stadium Anthems tour – something that Stereophonics have specialised in for the past 30 years. “They always a nice big headline to sell tickets,” Jones says, smiling. “People are going to expect a nice big show and that’s what we’re putting out there. It’s going to be pretty much all the big hits, we’ve got a great production, we’re pulling all the toys out for this one. It’ll be a great tour, we’re looking forward to it.”

Jones feels that the band are in a fortunate position with 13 albums’ worth of material upon which to draw for their set list. “We’re established artists, we’ve probably got 120 songs to pick from, from all the albums,” he says. “We’re really lucky that the fans have been good to us, they’ve supported us, they’ve really jumped on board with our songs. Some of those songs have become fan favourites – and that’s basically what we’re doing on this run.”

However, he admits that “it’s getting more and more difficult” to represent all their albums live. “Even in the headline shows we’ve only got two hours to play with,” he says. “The new album (Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait) is probably 40 minutes long. Over the course of 13 albums it is hard to pick songs from every single album, but we are rotating them.

“We’ve got a handful of songs within the set which we rotate, but the really big songs we keep in there – Maybe Tomorrow, Dakota, Local Boy in the Photograph. Stuff like that, you can’t really leave them out, people expect to hear those when they come to Stereophonics shows, so we’re going to give them what they want.”

Jones says that it isn’t difficult to keep things fresh as a band. “Because we’re such big fans of music, our taste is not just one thing, it varies from almost hard rock all the way down to country and soul and everything in between,” he says. “We like electronic dance music and stuff like that, so we try to show that we’ve got those interests and we try to introduce our influences on each album, we try to find a different sound to Stereophonics on each album.

“We never wanted to be a flash in the pan type of band, relying on one or two big hits; we always wanted to be a band who were still pushing forward, showing people that we’ve got more to come – and that’s what we like about our favourite bands as well. They’re always involved and always showing people they’ve got a new side to them – artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, David Bowie, they kept on changing and keeping themselves relevant.”

Having released the sprawling, 15-track Oochya! album after the Covid pandemic, this time the band to keep Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait to a succinct eight songs. “With this one, we wanted to make it nice, short, concise, just like the albums like the albums we used to buy when we were kids,” Jones says. “Four songs on each side, nice and snappy, and within that, you want to put it on again and have another listen. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, it takes you on a journey​​​​​​​ and if you want to go on that journey again you just put it back on.”

Frontman Kelly Jones has suggested that the album includes ​​​​​​​ingredients from everything the band have done before but it still pushes forward into areas that they have not yet touched. ​​​​​​​Richard Jones, who has known the singer since their childhood days in Cwmaman, South Wales, concurs.

“When we’re in the studio, we’re always aware that if something sounds like something we’ve done in the past too much then we don’t do it because it’s just repeating ourselves,” he says​​​​​​​. “But ultimately it’s the song which dictates what’s needed. We get the song into the shape that it’s told us that it’s wanted and then we find these little bits which take it to a different place.

“There’s a song on the new album called Seems Like You Don’t Know Me and that song took about three or four days for us to figure out what it needed to get to where it should be. It was just as simple as a synth sound that we found that laid the foundation for that song and then we knew exactly what it needed to come out like it has.

“For us, that was the refreshing part of making the album: finding these little bits that sometimes you stumble upon, sometimes you’ve got a clear vision but when you find them it’s really satisfying – that’s the ingredient, that’s what makes it, and that’s what sets the tone for a lot of the rest of the songs as well.”

Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait became the band’s ninth number one in the UK when it was released last month. Jones says that chart positions are not the be-all and end-all to the four-piece, but it’s gratifying to see that they still have a strong fanbase.

“When you’re writing and recording the chart position is probably as far from your thoughts as it needs to be; it’s only release week that you start thinking about it,” he says. “As soon as figures start coming in and the management company and record company start giving you the ‘we could have this, we could have that’, that’s when you start getting excited.

“We never take anything for granted, but we realise that people are still interested in the music that we’re making and what we put in front of them. It’s really nice knowing that we’ve still got a really good fanbase.”

Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait is out now. Stereophonics play at the John Smith’s Stadium, Huddersfield on Saturday June 14. https://www.stereophonics.com/