![]() Largely well-received by the critics, the LP was stuffed with Kelly Jones’ observational, human-interest story songs, many of which centred upon the vagaries of life in Stereophonics’ home town, Cwmaman. Their debut LP, Word Gets Around (released in August 1997), shot to No.6 in the UK Top 40. With Britpop holding sway and a group of exciting, if relatively disparate young Welsh acts such as Super Furry Animals, 60 Ft Dolls and the aforementioned Catatonia scooping column inches in the rock weeklies, Stereophonics’ raw, but melodic guitar pop chimed with the times. The band’s initial rise to prominence was timed to perfection. With Brand handling management, record companies began taking an interest and, later in 1996, the band – now known simply as Stereophonics – became the first artists to sign to Virgin Records’ new offshoot label, V2 (now part of Universal Music UK). The band’s demo helped secured them further local gigs and also bagged them a manager, John Brand, who first saw the group perform supporting another up-and-coming Welsh act, Catatonia, at Aberdare’s Coliseum Theatre in March 1996. Overseen by Bird and Bush, the band demoed one of Kelly Jones’ self-penned songs, ‘A Thousand Trees’, and changed their name to The Stereophonics reputedly after Cable had seen the manufacturer name “Falcon Stereophonic” on a hi-fi system. After a lot of slogging, they secured a support slot to the long-forgotten Smalltown Heroes, at London’s small but well-respected Borderline Club (off the Tottenham Court Road), where they met a suitably impressed production team, Marshall Bird and Steve Bush. In rock’s tried and tested fashion, the band began working the local club circuit under the name Tragic Love Company, in 1992. Their new project suffered from the inevitable round of personnel reshuffles because Jones and Cable initially wanted to enlist a second guitarist, yet, after another Jones was drafted in – Kelly’s friend Richard Jones, who brought his reliably hard-driving bass-playing with him – the group decided to remain a trio. Indeed, their roots are actually traceable back to the mid-80s, when the band’s guitar and vocal frontman Kelly Jones and original drummer Stuart Cable recorded an initial demo in their first band, Zephyr.ĭuring their formative years, Jones and Cable lived on the same street in the small town of Cwmaman in Mid-Glamorgan, and, while Zephyr soon blew away into history, the pair eventually joined forces for a second time. Overviews of the band’s career often suggest they arrived fully formed and ready to conquer with their 1997 debut Word Gets Around, but, in reality, Stereophonics endured a decade of setbacks and potentially soul-destroying dues-paying before they finally emerged as contenders. One of the most consistently successful Welsh rock’n’roll acts ever, Stereophonics have a stellar CV which, to date, includes six chart-topping studio albums and 2008’s well-received Decade In The Sun: Best Of Stereophonics: an extensive, platinum-selling 2-CD career anthology which remained in the UK Top 100 for a staggering 165 weeks.
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