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What the future holds for Stereophonics
(From left to right), Rhythm guitarist Adam Zindani, lead singer Kelly Jones and bass player Richard Jones of the Welsh band Stereophonics perform at Java Rockin’ Land festival last week
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(From left to right), Rhythm guitarist Adam Zindani, lead singer Kelly Jones and bass player Richard Jones of the Welsh band Stereophonics perform at Java Rockin’ Land festival last week. JP/Ricky Yudhistira
Stereophonics are something of a rare commodity in today’s music business. The Welsh rock band is long lasting.
The future of the UK’s biggest bands — if not the whole Brit rock movement — was jeopardized after Jarvis Cocker of Pulp announced that he was leaving and Damon Albarn of Blur has moved on to his monkey cartoon project, Gorillaz. And after struggling to make themselves relevant for the better part of the decade, Oasis called it a day earlier this year.
While many bands from the mid 1990s have already disbanded or toil in obscu-rity, Stereophonics are still playing stadiums and headlining major rock festivals.
In the past ten years, the band has headlined many of the UK’s high-profile music festivals, including Glastonbury in 2002 and the Isle of Wight twice in 2004 and 2009. In June, the band played the Cardiff City Stadium in front of a sold-out audience of 30,000.
Late last week, Stereophonics were headliners for the Java Rockin’ Land concert, Southeast Asia’s biggest rock festival, and gave a performance that relived the glory days of the Tony Blair-era Brit rock when Britannia was still Cool.
There was an unmistakable sense of economy in the band’s Java Rockin’ Land performance, when lead singer and guitarist Kelly Jones cranked out the distorted riffs and power chords that had become a trademark of the band’s recent releases.
It seems that just like Pearl Jam — who cranked up the volume of their recent records to prove that they can still rock, albeit to diminishing returns — Stereophonics decided to go loud to appeal to new fans who had missed the band’s prime moment, back when they played ballads and slow-burner songs.
And to the delight of these new fans, Stereophonics promised to play that kind of high-octane music for a while.
“I’d love to do this until we are in our sixties. I don’t see any reason not to do, as long as we can remain relevant to the audience and we enjoy it,” bass player Richard Jones (no relation to lead singer Kelly Jones) said in a pre-gig interview.
On the band’s longevity, Jones said it was the product of friendships between band members that predated the founding of Stereophonics.
The founding members of the band - Kelly, Richard and Stuart Cable - grew up in the village of Cwmaman, Wales, and the trio started a cover band called Tragic Love Company in their teenage years. Cable left the band in 2003 to pursue a career in the media.
He died earlier this year, hours after Stereophonics played the Cardiff show. He was replaced by Argentinian-born drummer Javier Weyler.
Jones said that part of the secret of Stereophonics’ longevity was that band members loved what they did: writing music and playing in front of audiences.
What about people who showed no love for their music and critics who trashed their records?
Ian Cohen of Pitchfork.com said the band’s 2008 record, Pull the Pin, was “a phenomenally forgettable record so steeped in post-grunge that it’s almost impossible to believe it came from Britain in 2008.”
Adam Moerder of the same web site said that the band was “Britain’s cancerous version of Creed, Guns N’ Roses, and Stone Temple Pilots rolled into one.”
Stereophonics don’t really care about what the critics say. In fact, the band had anticipated the media onslaught in “Mr. Writer”, a song from their third album, Just Enough Education to Perform, released in 2001.
The band also does not seem to mind that they have failed to crack the American market, the most coveted prize in the music business. While some of their releases made it to top-ten lists in Britain and a number of other European countries, they failed to make a dent on the American charts.
“America itself revolves around radio airplay. If you are not on the radio playlist it’s very difficult to be recognized. Besides, it’s a very big country,” Jones said.
Steering clear of America, Stereophonics are now more than happy to go to places where they are well-received by fans.
“The good thing about what we do is that we turned up in all these countries and people want to see us live and later download our music. This is why we are in Indonesia, we never thought we could reach such places as Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong,” Jones said.
At a time when the music industry has become so professional, it seems that relentless touring would do little to put pressure on the band. So many great bands in the 1960s and 1970s broke up after band members grew sick of one another.
“If you have a good environment around you, you can certainly enjoy [being on the road]. If you have a good environment you can change the way you organize tours. Even though you go to the same country, you kind of experience difference things,” Weyler said.
They always have good music on their side. “I travel a lot so the only way to carry music is through mp3 files. I have a huge collection of mp3s and vinyl records. And I hope one day mp3 is good enough to surpass the quality of vinyl,” Weyler said.
