Kelly Jones of Stereophonics on trans rights, playing Slane, and his Co Clare wedding
Kelly Jones, second from right, and the other members of Stereophonics.
When Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones married his girlfriend Jakki Healy at St Senan’s Church, Kilrush, Co Clare, in December 2013, the assembled guests included a who’s who of rock and showbiz royalty. Paul Weller was there, along with Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, comedian Rob Brydon and actress Anna Friel.
“I always remember Ron saying the guy in the car hire place in the airport was wondering, ‘what the f**k is going on?’ It was was very funny,” laughs Jones.
Jones is 47 but seems to have been cut from an older strip of rock star cloth. He’s close with the Rolling Stones, and Weller, and has duetted with Rod Stewart (in 2001, The Stereophonics famously covered Stewart’s Handbags and Gladrags, originally written by Mike d’Abo).
“Most of the people we’ve become friends with are the people that came before us,” says Jones from his home studio in London. “And they from a generation where you have to work your bollocks off to get to that point. I think we were one of the last bands to come through in that way. So there’s a little bit of a connection and an affinity with that work ethic. And the drive and the commitment to the art, really. That’s prevalent within all those people I’ve come in contact with along the way.”
Jones is in an upbeat mood, which is not surprising considering Stereophonics have just released one of the strongest albums of a career that stretches all the way back to the Britpop boom of the mid 1990s. Oochya began life as a lockdown project to mark their 25th anniversary of their 1997 debut, Word Gets Around. The sessions quickly a life of their own, becoming a fully-fledged LP – one which has just gone it at number one in the UK charts.
Oochya is exactly the sort of long player Stereophonics fans would have hoped Jones and company would make a quarter century into their career. It’s brimming with old-school rock action, conveyed by Jones in a sandpaper croon that sits equidistantly between his pal Rod and Oasis’s Liam Gallagher.
There’s lashings of mid-life melancholy too. On the track Right Place, Right Time for instance, Jones pays tribute to Stuart Cable the Stereophonics drummer who passed away in 20010. “You got drums, I got a guitar,” sings Jones. “And we made up a band, who knew we'd go far?”
“If there's any song in the record that’s come from the pandemic, that's it,” he explains. “That song is definitely a reflection. It’s not about the pandemic as such. But it’s one of those ‘how did I get here?’ kind of things. Destiny, serendipity or what was meant to happen. It was quite a fun song to write. The verses could go on forever as it’s about all the people I met along the way. I wouldn’t say it was painful. More thoughtful, really. More, contemplative.”
Lockdown was a strange time for Jones. Or at least that is how it started. The Stereophonics had the ill fortune to be touring in March 2020, just as the great retreat indoors loomed. In the 11th hour before the world came to a crashing halt, footage circulated of the group leading a mass singalong at a gig in Cardiff. Social media being social media, the clip went viral.
“That whole situation was a bit crazy,” he says. “We had three shows left in the arena, tour. Nobody knew what the thing [Covid] was. And it was Friday, Saturday and Sunday remaining. Manchester, Cardiff, Cardiff. Boris Johnson came on the news on the Thursday night with the two scientists for the first time. We all sat there, the crew and the band because we thought, ‘well that’s the end of the tour. And he came on and said, everything should remain…all events continue to go. And we thought, ‘all the gigs are going to be fine then. Finish off the tour’.
“What happens was the Premier League decided to pull on the Saturday. And then rugby Six Nations decided to pull. Which gave the impression to the public that everything was off. But the actual official lockdown didn’t happen until the following Tuesday. By which time the tour was over. I had my parents at the show, I had my pregnant wife at the show. I didn’t know what was going on on social media. I don’t follow social media. I went to Wales to see my family. I got back and was told, ‘Piers Morgan has been having a pop at you’. I didn’t even f***ing know. He has a pop at somebody every week. It was our turn.”
Jones also had the experience of finding himself bang in the centre of the conversation over trans rights. In 2020 he revealed his son Colby was transgender. He spoke about it on a podcast and was astonished by the response. And while it was not his intention to become a spokesperson for parents of trans people, he acknowledges that it can be helpful for mothers and fathers to know they are not alone.
“I thought if anybody else is going through this – if this helps, just for one day. I've got children from two different mothers. I know friends who've got that. I've got people who have been in a band since they were kids. I know people I can talk to about that. But something like this, I had no f**king clue. I had no idea. I had to do all this research. As I say, nobody’s out of the woods yet. We’re going through stuff. We’ve got four kids. We’re all doing different things. It’s Colby’s story. I’ve talked about it briefly at the start. It’s his life to take on. We’re supporting him as much as we can.”
Even before he tied the knot in Clare, Ireland has played a significant part in the Stereophonics story. Jones, as pointed out, is friendly with Ronnie Wood and has partied at the guitarists home at Digby Bridge in Kildare. And, famously, The Stereophonics headlined Slane in 2002, joining an elite rock’n'roll club that includes U2, Queen and Springsteen.
“It was only our third album. It was on the back of Performance and Cocktails [their second LP] really. It was still a bit blurry. There was so much going on. To be headlining Glastonbury literally four years after playing in a pub. It was quite insane. And to do Slane in the same summer. I do remember our booking agent sitting us down saying ‘look, you've been offered to headline Glastonbury, Slane, and the V-Festival. I think we should wait and do one this year. And one the next. And one the next. I said, ‘F**k that. We might not be popular next year. Let's just do them all’. And we did.”
- Oochya! is out now
- Local Boy In The Photograph, 1997: This early single, from Word Gets Around, announced the arrival of The Stereophonics as a blue denim rock group who would soon give Oasis a run for their money.
- The Bartender and the Thief, 1999: The full-ahead Britrock anthem that made the Welsh group stars. It sounds like an amped-up Gallagher brothers and could not be accused of subtlety. But it put Jones and the gang on the map, reaching three on the UK singles charts. The lead single from Performance and Cocktails, it set the Stereophonics up for further success, with the follow-up album reaching number one in the UK and three in Ireland.
- Handbags and Gladrags, 2001: The Stereophonics take on a song originally recorded by Chris Farlowe in 1967 and Rod Stewart in 1969. The Stereophonics version was recorded “for a laugh”. But it went in at three in Ireland. Handbags and Gladrags achieved a slice of sitcom immortality around the same time when a version by Big Band leader Big George used as the theme for Ricky Gervais’s The Office.
- Have A Nice Day, 2001: Their enduring anthem? Or naggingly unavoidable MOR? Opinions will differ. But there is no doubting the impact of the song, from their 2001 album Just Enough Education to Perform.
- Dakota, 2005: Inspired by a drive across America, the 2005 single is widely regarded as Stereophonics at their best. It was certainly a remarkable pivot from their Britrock sound, with its melancholic synth line and yearning vocals. Today, it's the tune they are asked for most often.
