RIFF059 - Stereophonics - Performance and Cocktails

The intro with all the bass and stuff is Richard drunk falling over his guitar really,

but we use it as a good intro.

The album sounds a lot bigger than what it gets around and that was the obvious first track to come on there really.

Influenced by a club that Huey from the Fun Living Criminals told us to go to called Shine in New York.

Lots of strange people on trapeze naked with pig's heads on and all sorts of weird stuff going on.

So it definitely left the mark and in the end somebody handed me a business card and it said Shine Performance and Cocktails.

Hello!

Hello, slightly different intro with a bit of a Kelly Jones quote there.

Are you?

Which introduces the album title, it introduces the first track on the album and it introduces our podcast which is called Riffology.co and I'm Chris.

Are you going to tell everybody how organised you are today?

You're on Neil.

See what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, I know everything.

You do, you've done all that.

So for those of you that are used to the show, Chris normally does a lot of faffing.

So we get in and normally I'm greeted with, what is it?

And then we talk about that and then we go on to discuss it and then it takes about five hours normally to go from, what is it?

To the podcast.

To the joyful show that you hear.

I came in today and I've done everything, all the interviews, everything's done, it's all great, I'm listening to it, it's brilliant.

Yeah.

It's a bit weird.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The whole world's weird this week though, isn't it?

I feel like I've wandered into the wrong, you know, you're in the wrong universe.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's happened this week.

There's definitely been a sort of universal shift into another realm.

It's been a funny week, hasn't it?

Yeah.

In a positive way, I think, just everywhere is playing Aussie and Black Sabbath.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's good.

Yeah.

And it annoyed me at first because Radio 2, like people that are not allowed to.

Do you know what I mean?

Like rock and metal.

Yeah.

Like Radio 2 aren't allowed to do that.

Yeah.

Because that's mine.

That's, you know what I mean?

Yes.

They're allowed to play Moby.

Yeah.

They're not allowed to, or I don't know what else they're allowed to play.

Radio 2?

Yeah.

They're allowed to play.

Florence and the Machine.

Florence and the Machine, yeah.

Very occasionally counting crows.

Yeah, only the new stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They wouldn't play, or they'd play the new Goo Goo Dolls, but they wouldn't play anything

like from the, yeah.

Yeah.

But they're not allowed to play Aussie.

No.

And they're not allowed to play Black Sabbath.

No.

But they are.

They are.

Right.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Interesting.

I like this.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

It's quite, as I was popping out earlier, Lizzie had got the Radio 1, Radio 2 on, because

she loves the Radio 2.

And they were playing Crazy Train.

There we go.

Right.

And I was like, I could get used to this.

But it'll stop wearing it soon.

Do you know what I mean?

They're only pretending.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But Crazy Train as well.

Also, he's like both the meanest and happiest song at the same time.

It's Aussie.

Because it goes from that do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-

and you know flowery stuff and hear some squeals yes and then it was like that and it was so you

had you had aussie singing about you know oh it's all really bad in it yeah and then you had like

you know jakey lee or zach wilde going willy willy willy willy willy that's what they did

incredible so i've learned i've enjoyed that this week that's good now because of time because i'm

not you know about me and time time's complicated because we did black Sabbath didn't we was that

last week no it wasn't last week no last week we did carcass heart work yeah and it was before that

we did paranoid yes so we did that podcast yeah obviously before he passed away which is obviously

a new thing yeah well we did that because we were encouraged after the back to the beginning show

yeah which was like two weeks um absolutely extraordinary there um yeah i mean clearly

he was a lot uh sicker than you know i think people thought but yeah yeah i mean imagine how metal is

that though oh it is essentially to like play your own funeral yes like you know i mean it's a

yeah like how like total control of that you know i mean it's like yeah new crack new what's going on

yeah everyone showed up to party had a great time mega did a massive show yeah well i think on his own

terms yeah do you know i mean it wasn't like it wasn't you don't get to do that normally no i mean you

don't get to choose how you how you go out yeah bloody brilliant i think yeah so anyway yeah odd

week um i have been mostly listening i've i've been listening to this record it's such a good record

oh my god this do you know um it's like a comfort this record for me like a comfort blanket this so

we're doing we're doing performance and cocktails and i i i went to see them live on

oh they're 2015 i went on this tour oh did you saw them in birmingham yeah

nec it was probably called at the time but yeah that's where that's where we went we went me and my

friend martin book um which interestingly i was thinking about martin book today yeah he was my best

friend at school yeah and we were like though we were inseparable he was one of those i've probably

not seen him since you know what i mean he's like one of those yeah friendships where you sort of bump

into each other after yeah school but we were literally like in each other's pockets pretty much

for the whole of school and um there were three two or three albums yeah which were very defining

of our friendship and this was one of them so there's this one there was um eels um which i'd love

to do at some point yeah electro shot blues um and no effects oh yeah yeah probably probably

heavy petting zoo but um but also um so long and thanks for all the shoes whatever it's called

yeah yeah you know um but yeah the the the but this one in particular yeah was what we did now the

reason i wanted to talk about martin book and i only remembered this today because you know like

time and memory yeah stuff disappears we used to make little radio shows no way so we used to get

a you've got it you've got to find a tape yeah yeah yeah so it was a tape yeah um like a obviously a

standard cassette yeah and we'd have like a recorder you know the old ones that used to have a little mic

on them yeah yeah we just used to record daft sketches and like like weird adverts and we had a

if i remember rightly we had a little band that we made up called powerhead powerhead powerhead yeah um

and what would what would we have been like 13 sounds like a cartoon powerhead doesn't it yeah

something like that and it would sort of create this fictitious kind of thing to do that so it's

just interesting you know when your life goes like you know 30 years later here we are sat doing a

podcast doing pretty much the same thing just making stuff that we made same crap yeah i yeah i went to see

them um on the 2015 tour keep the village alive right yeah and i didn't know i mean i knew the

band i didn't know them particularly well uh but there was like um uh the photographer that would

normally have covered like this kind of stuff was sick or whatever and so i said someone said i do you

know do you want to go and do it and i thought yeah why not you know yeah yeah um and it was interesting

there are there are a band that made a ton more sense when you watch them live yeah and it was um

that you know often often in the studio and studio records there's there's a lot of layers of stuff

right and it's to make them sound bigger and things like that whereas when they did it live obviously they

can't do quite the same stuff yeah and kelly's voice seemed to be just let you know larger than

life do you know what i mean and and especially he's got to be one of the best vocalists on the

planet i can't you know yes it's incredible yeah some vocalists are not as good live as they are in

the studio and i think him were well i yeah i don't think his vocals were suddenly better live but i

think the fact that there's less like stuff fighting for your attention and there are tracks like just

looking yeah and you you know his voice was just like you know it was a big arena show

it was extraordinary and then i remember um dakota came on and i they're a band that like everyone

knew every word yeah yeah yeah and it was extraordinary you know like uh for those that are

like i know when when when you're shooting a band like that if you're in an arena you're told where

you're where you are and aren't allowed to stand you can't just like wander around so you're kind of in that

in that gaps if you push your way right to the front and you get to the metal bar

like photographers live between there and the stage it's not a couple of years

um and and we were allowed to be in certain places but they were recording a

a dvd or blu-ray or whatever they were recording right they're recording something and we said we

weren't allowed in certain spaces and there were only two of us as well there are only two photographers

there so they'd kind of given one guy one side of the stage and one yeah um so i was standing like

when and as dakota started i was standing against like they didn't have line arrays it was like you

know the big kind of wall yeah like wall of speakers so i'm standing in front of that and dakota

starts and my trousers are flapping a little bit from the speakers yeah and then the crowd start

singing and then i'm suddenly aware that the the actual larger sound is coming from behind me

wow wow wow wow wow and it's oh yeah you don't get that very often it's you know there are very few

bands that um i guess get that and it was incredible they were kind of lots of bits in their set where

they would uh you know properly tone things down yeah yeah just take them on a journey and yeah the

other thing is he's such a good storyteller i think that came in the first record yeah that first record

puts you in like a council flat in wales yeah and you know you know what it's like to live in a little

village in wales and the stuff that happens and everybody was like i remember listening to that record

thinking because i grew up in a little village yeah and you just kind of thought that do you

mean that yeah it resonated yeah everyone talks about each other and yeah there's gossip and yeah

exactly and then what i love though is that they it would have been so easy to repeat that yes for this

album yeah um and it's it's still the storytelling still there yeah but they're telling different

stories suddenly yeah something else yeah it's like yeah they suddenly had their eyes open to this

bigger world it's you know outside of you know this little town in wales they've been on tour and

they've done all this bigger stuff and so you know the subject matter changes a little bit but the

storytelling is still really cool yeah yeah but i think he's always had that even even obviously this

is a 1999 album isn't it and this is a few years ago now but he's always retained that ability to tell

stories through songs a few years ago five years ago at least five years old but um for me and i'm gonna

i'm gonna make a bold claim which i sometimes do oh yeah god i think this is one of the greatest ever

standing records it does say the sound is is just it's big yeah but you can hear everything and it's warm and it's

beautiful and it feels that for me like i said i'm not joking it feels like a comfort blanket it's like

all of the best everything's right everything is i don't know how they achieved this because you you

can listen to this in the car yeah and you can wind up to 11 and it sounds mega now normally albums like

that yes they don't have nuance and detail to them right so you know you go and you go and grab uh i

i don't know like a motley crew record you can wind it up to 11 and scream your heart out in the car to

it but you put like a you know really expensive pair of headphones on and listen for the nuance and the

details and they're just not there yeah it's it's compressed it's it was designed to you know do the

the disco thing and get you moving this is bizarre this one you can wind up to 11 in the car it sounds

great it's got a stomp to it put the headphones on and you pull out all of this air and breath and

detail in in kelly's voice and then the some of the acoustic guitar some of the um uh you know uh

instrumental stuff it's it's got lovely texture yes to it that it's bizarre you feel like it's so big

and and and loud you think how how has it still got the detail but extraordinary um and recorded across

like four different studios it's not recording in one place it's no it's all over the place no it's just

what i don't know what they've done they've done something to make it utterly for me for me i'm

gonna use with the word flawless i think it's a flawless record i think every performance is spot

on um every nuance every details there but at the same time as you said it sounds absolutely humongous

even the ballads even the ballads like kick in you know they do i was just looking where it was where it

was recorded it was like it was recorded at the courtyard sutton courtney um park game catsfield

real world and bath and rockfield in in monmouth of course the rock with the the rockfield connection

is why we ended up yeah well we're here are we doing this in the first place yeah uh yes i think

it's bonkers to get something that that sounds this big across all of the tracks like you know

recorded in all these different places because normally you can tell normally yeah if it's

something that's been recorded in a bunch of different places it's really obvious yes it's

yeah it's not but this one doesn't know it's so coherent is it yeah yeah yeah yeah sounds um sounds

really really cool to me i think it helped as well being um it had uh the backing of v2 which was

richard branson yeah virgin richard branson say it had um uh they had a bit of funding i think

to do it but um yeah and it was at the time where there was money around that's the thing yeah just

at the end wasn't it i would say just at the end of um so this was napster year yeah okay 99 was napster

year so the world fell apart after this so this was um like the year before you'd have had like lime

wire and stuff yes a couple of years so if you wanted a virus in your in your music you'd have gone to

lime wire um but yeah you know you then then napster came out and that took the world by by storm um

and no one paid for music again no well i i remember you know having a uh a wallet full of cds which were

line why downloads i've still got the cds that's in my house that's what of mine yeah have you got it

yeah oh it's in my house i keep threatening how did that happen i can't i can't remember how it

happened but i it's in my house i keep threatening to bring it in one of these days i'm going to bring

it in yeah and then make you pick one from it and we'll do that album there's loads of albums i have

weird taste as well you did you had is this some all kinds of weird stuff like new worlds yeah i loved

all that there's loads of that stuff i got into bonkers absolutely bonkers it's like you know but um but

yeah that's yeah it is it is where it is you know and um this 99 was a weird time this album saw 1.7

million copies in a time when no one bought albums yeah which is pretty impressive yeah the record

afterwards just enough education to perform 2001 also sold 1.7 million yeah um bad mr writer on it

though didn't it that was a big song it was a big record that sold the same number of copies so it tells

you i think this that steady decline in you know their band's popularity so stereophonics got bigger and

bigger yeah but the sales didn't go up and up and up no because people were downloading crap and and

weren't doing it the other interesting thing i think about this one is that uh word gets around is a

clubs tour so they were touring you know um thousand seater clubs yeah maybe a little bit smaller yeah and

then performance and cocktails within within by the end of 99 they were doing arenas so that all of the all of

that tour were upgraded yeah and again that's like unheard of like bands that were doing i mean this

is i mean there's examples of that but like guns and roses did it uh where they booked them but they

booked the guns and roses tour before they released the album yeah yeah so the ticket sales weren't high

yeah and then the album came out and then that the album came out like mid-tour as i remember yeah yeah

and then all of a sudden everything changed yeah yeah so there was there was a few really lucky

people that saw guns and roses in these tiny little venues and yes and then all of a sudden you've got

to go to wembley yeah yeah and the same was true with stereophonics you know you you got that they um

supported i'm trying i i i should have uh i wrote an article for louder than war about yes it's coming

back to me a little bit but um that first tour that they did they opened and supported for like tons of

tons of bands um and then on the the tour that that i saw them on they had a bunch of those bands back out

and support for them um and i just thought it was really nice yeah you know they they were kind of

supporting bands that were you know probably on the downwards part of their downward spiral if you like

of their career and um and they would just go up and up and up you were pulling them out on on on tour

so yeah i went for a a a pee and uh and tyler was in the cubicle kind of leaning forward like that and

he was doing a slash and i i thought i looked in i said hey steven i said thanks for us having on the bill

uh today and he goes uh stereophonics i said yeah i said oh man it's pleasure it's a pleasure i said oh

thanks very much and like i had a carried on with what i was doing and he went out and as i opened

the door my girlfriend at the time her mother was going out with since i was like 14 she was standing

against the wall with her head like this this is what's the matter with you like she said i asked him

could i shake his hand and he pinned me against the wall and stuck his tongue in my mouth for everything

you you read a lot of weird stuff about kelly about you know being a bit of a prima donna and stuff

but i don't know just it felt like a nice thing to me yeah totally i yeah it's weird because i've never

sensed that i know that he was very forthright in in opinions perhaps um and knew what he wanted and

that kind of thing and maybe i don't know there's there's a few things where you listen we go maybe

maybe he was misquoted a few times in interviews or they took a little bit that they knew like the early

stage of clickbait yeah where they'd find something that he could say that he knew we knew would wind

something up i remember i remember reading something about him saying something to do with like

oh if it's if it's not got a guitar and it's not real music yeah and and it said everyone whappy

yeah you know and because he was really into the guitar and and that but that but i think that's

what he was trying to say is like for me the guitar is music because and and i think maybe that i think

there's a bit of that going on like where words get twisted that was almost like in the media

training that they the bands must have got back then right yeah i was reading uh an article this or no

it wasn't it was on the performance pod was it the performance podcast wrote a success podcast it was on

the podcast yeah one of the ones i quite like um and it was james blunt okay yeah talking about noel

gallagher and oh the blur guy yeah he was he's the brain coxson no the the big blur guy oh damon

damon alban yeah um now apparently they were all on jules holland so james blunt yeah uh no gallagher

yeah and damon alban yeah with a bunch of others and there's a a um like a a thing right where they

all have a photograph taken with jules um because then they were on the show yeah they were all on the

show and there's a thing where at the end at the end of the show they all have their picture taken

together yeah and damien alban and uh noel gallagher who famously hated each other racking them if you

remember back in the yeah they were just constantly like fighting with each other both of them refused

to have their photograph taken with james blunt really so like the common enemy yeah they forced

him to wait and they both said we will not have our photograph taken with james blunt so so james

blunt was made to stay in his um you know dressing room they had all the photographs taken and then

damien alban and noel gallagher went off and did their damon did their thing damon alban yeah what

did i call him damian damian damon i wanted a picture up but he did he said his wife so i don't

and anyway so so they went off yeah and did the thing and then and then james blunt was allowed to

come out that's incredible and they had gone so yeah that's wow isn't it yeah i i i don't know

people are weird aren't they yeah um can we also take a moment a brief moment to to to remember the

joy of the bartender and the thief video yes now yeah yeah was that the bridge over the river quiet one

it was the apocalypse now yeah yeah yeah kind of oh but that's right sorry it was yeah um i i i'd forgotten

the joy of that i i as i was doing the blog this morning yeah um the i watched the video

and it's properly like there's bits in there that are epic so they're on this like like boat on a river

somewhere in thailand or wherever yeah then this kind of you know this this um this this video this this

video right and and um it's kind of daytime when they get on it and then and then it gets darker and

darker right and you can see in the distance there's a stage and there's a bunch of people there and

they're floating down the river towards it and then there's this as the song the bartender and

the thief kicks in you know because bang bang yeah yeah these like pyrotechnics yes go off like proper

like enormous things yeah and you can see the whole band like do you know what i mean yeah there's a

there's a bit in there that's definitely not scripted i'm not sure they knew that was going to happen

yeah they all look like oh and then you know then they kind of meander down and go on and play it's very

apocalypse now the video commissioner in v2 was a guy called pinko and he used to get us all these

directors and all these video treatments we never liked any of the video treatments we never liked

any of the directors but we loved him and we loved our ideas so what we used to do is write as many

ideas as we could which involved three people and they could rip off a film because then we would

have a reference that it would look good so we did the italian job easy rider apocalypse now and

we just put everything in here and um surprisingly whatever we went on tour we made a video so it was very cheap

very filmic and it was the first time we got on mtv and it worked you know you have to remember as well

the time that came out there was a lot of pop records on the radio like s club seven and steps and all

stuff like that so we were on like sm tv and stuff amongst that and it was like motorhead ace of spades

coming on the tail you know so it was it was a very different sound and um and we went down to the

river quiet to shoot the video and all over with the thai army and it was uh the apocalypse now rip off so

it was like three days and it was raining for most we had to wait for these little pockets of dry to do

the shoots yeah i just remember us sending these little little thai boys off on scooters to buy bottles

of vodka and then just them coming back like three hours later these drinks so it was it was a good

time steward was moaning throughout the old thing because he couldn't stand it because it was too often

too wet

when you think about it he's watching every word he's saying

day is and when he sussed you up he comes up and archie comes and hassles us

yeah

uh

the bartender and the thief i love us steal what they need like sisters and brothers

left in a chance tonight to remember robbing the graves of our business member

he watched the last guitar to kiss the girl but mostly tough

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strangely i record a lot of songs and i never listen back

to the dictaphone um like i record a little snippet here a little snippet there and

you've i'm very conscious to know it when the red light should be on and just record it

but my main flaw is i never listen back to what we've done so i mean two days before we went

in to make perform some cocktails i had even heard bartender and the thief and i was just

checking the tapes the day before and i found bartender and the thief i found stopped to fill my car up

um and i found pick a part that's new and i didn't even know

that they were on the tape so there was this melody do-do-do-do-do-do and all that and

and then on my film shelf there was that film the thief to cook the concubine or

whatever it is the thief to cook or whatever that film is and i just thought

something like that and then i remember this half story that happened in new zealand with this

girl being in the bar and just completely where i got bodies dismembered and robbing graves and all

that i do not know i'm enjoying the edit of this show you've been you've done some magic haven't you

yeah i like editing what what our listeners might not it's it always sounds this show to me like we've

done it in one go yeah because you like you like stitch bits together don't you just like imagine

like a magic little like voodoo pixie yeah and just connect connect bits together but what is what is

what i always feel a little bit unnerving about this is that um i have seen things that you've done where

like we've been talking then something's gone wrong and then i've had to go back and start

speaking again and you stitch it together and i can never hear you've done it and i'm thinking you

could make me say anything do you know what i mean yeah yeah well i actually made you call

damon damien i did say damien because that's his name um but do you know what someone else did this

week as well which i thought was really scary it took 10 seconds of their voice speaking uploaded

it to a website and then had the website transcribe them uh speaking a talky talk thing right and it

sounded just like them really it's all ai oh it's getting clever now we just don't so you know we

don't even need to be here we could say you know oh listen to the previous podcast we might this might

not be us it's been scraped yeah so so someone's scraped i've always we're actually dead yeah um

yeah yeah yeah by the bartender the thief this is the superhuman the super the supercomputer of the

future yeah and it decides to go and do this yeah i do love the idea of an ai coming back in the future

and like you know in a version of you no like like um you know like the ais go off and scrape

everything yeah that's how they know it but obviously um the ais don't know what's true and

what isn't true yeah yeah so they just take everything yeah and i love the idea that we

would say some nonsense and it would be like 50 years in the future yeah that's the actual fact

that's the fact it's a you know biblical but like bill and ted yes it's a bit like that yeah where they

you know i just i i love that idea yeah yeah it's like you know somebody you know somebody you find

like um when people either go and do metal detecting yes and they find like a like a metal object and

like what is it and it's like oh it's what victorians used to pick turds out of their ass

and they're like do you know what i mean but they're like do you know what i mean oh we found

this lovely artifact is the most amazing thing i just i love all that it's even got a bit of turd in

it yes i just i i we i did two things this this week yeah which you'll be amused by one of which i

went to the jorvik viking center in york yeah which is excellent you should go there they've got a real

human poo yes in a glass cabinet yeah and you like poo in a case is this in a jar they've got a

poo in a jar it's just like run by five year olds it's just like you know of all the amazing things

they've got sores i've got everything i'd put get the poo in there get it lit up properly and it is

it's like it's like the top of a glass cabinet with like little led lights yeah and it's like this

is a human so what was it like either the boneless is poo or something yeah and it was but do you

you know i was like i was talking to my like my youngest is 10 over the poolers

but inside just i was like i was like a biondy come on look at this what is it it's a poo and he

went oh what do you mean that's the best thing ever it's a poo poo in a glass jar um so so there was

there was that which was brilliant obviously uh then we went through the you do like a uh a time machine

thing yeah you go in like a little railway car thing and you go through this old street which

smells of poo yeah yeah so that was great my kids loved that obviously um and then we went to the

railway museum okay uh which i loved it was properly nerdy and geeky and there's lots of you like trains

no well not really i mean it's all right but i i liked the engineering of it okay right

you know like like i i guess ostensibly my degree was engineering but i didn't do much i did mostly

acoustics and maths but yes strictly speaking in engineering student um i like trains so there's a

lot of that but they had like japanese they had the bullet train there yeah yeah i like that i like that

one that does the tilt in yeah the tilt and train they had like maglev stuff there they had old stuff

there they had we we live uh in uh in gresley church gresley in near swaddling coat and sir nigel

gresley yeah designed the mallard which held the speed record for trains and got that in there oh really

yeah which was great and they got a train that had been chopped in half and it showed you how the steam

works and all that so there's loads of train stuff around there oh it was brilliant yeah but it was it

was really really cool anyway they had like um this this area where the kids can go and do

you know interaction with with things and it was brilliant um just spent the day there with lovely

lovely cake uh lovely cup of tea yes nice got back in the car ask my youngest what what was it

was it all right it's just full of trains so there was that as well which was great and i like you know

when you're just thinking i'm doing i'm doing the best thing educating my children yeah yeah actual real

real experiences seeing them in the flesh you know it's not on a textbook it's real trains what was

like it was just all trains yeah

so there you go kids that's like trying to take my my wife to a guitar shop

it's just guitars guitars no no no but look at this special ones it's like my family really

properly the minute will you stop looking at porsches

like every every i've wanted a porsche 911 until i was five yeah yeah and i go through phases and i'm

in i'm in a proper phase at the minute where every excuse like and then when i see one on the road

yeah i'll be like oh that's yeah that's a 996 oh okay so you know that you know all of those things

they don't like that at all that's like no no interesting shut up it's just purple one yeah

shut up weirdo a lot of that yeah so yeah but no it was good i i did enjoy it it did it did make me

feel um i don't know i quite like um i see that i like the humor in that you know that kind of stuff

where you yeah you try something you try and do something really hard and then it just doesn't land

don't care yeah i do i do love that i think it's brilliant reminds me a little bit of jack you know jack

d yes you used to have that um uh tv show called lead balloon oh i don't remember that that um

that's the same kind of humor yeah i think you know with that proper deadpan yeah just trains in it

yeah yeah i like that a lot yeah but yes i if i had space and time and money yeah i'd definitely have

one of our massive like railway sets you know oh yeah people have the controllers yeah would you go and

no no no no i'd get a ready built one but could be a buzzer build it what's your favorite train um

i think i like that that tilting one do you i also actually like through this is for a real life

experience i like the underground uh elizabeth line that i like those those because they're nice

elizabeth lines the new one isn't it yeah that's all they're all built around here they are that

doesn't smell of wee at all no no does it like the northern line actual aircon on it yeah the northern

line just smells of wee and then it does didn't it yeah i remember my first first week in london as a

consultant and um i had to travel it was 30 degrees celsius above london yeah and i wasn't prepared for

that i was like it's just you know i was hot toasty obviously that was back in the days when i owned a

suit yeah i had to travel from like you know one bit of london to another they'll go down there i'm on the

the northern line and you you go down like the five million flights of stairs and it was honestly

it was like hades it was like and it just smelled like it honestly it was like someone just urinated

on the floor and the stench was extraordinary um and it's not but no one mentioned no one goes like

absolutely stinks of we in it no it's just totally just accepts it that's it yeah and then you get out

the other side and it's like somebody's like you've been in a bath you know i mean it's so hot you're

sweating and you just yeah i didn't like that very much no i do i went on the elizabeth line to

paddington it's beautiful and i was like i could just stay here yeah we do our office is in paddington

it's our office yeah so so i i could i go down to euston so tamworth to euston yes quite like that

yeah i like that one and then i go from there on the tilting one yeah on the tilting one yeah i was

on one of those i was on one of those that stuck tilted really yeah that was brilliant they made us

get off right we weren't allowed on the tilted bit because apparently they said it might make us sick

yeah but that's part of the fun isn't it surely i don't just can i not make that decision

i don't need you with you stupid bloody did they have a clipboard yeah tabard there we go

with it i don't know excuse me you can't stay here i think you find a car you know you've got to get

off get off the train you've got to get off this carriage oh just just go away um but yeah that was

quite cool um but it's nice i like that journey and then and then on the elizabeth you got on the

elizabeth line from paddington um if i go down to battersea or whatever it's from there yeah it's

nice nice part of the world yeah yeah yeah it's lovely yeah we're not very good at trains so i

was reading that hs2 would cost 100 billion pounds oh and it wasn't we have not got it but it's fast

ones i like the fast one like the faster like i don't china's they've got a fast one haven't they

i don't know sure japan did all the fast ones yeah they did the bullet trains i i want i want

trains like they've been designed in a thunderbirds yeah yeah that's what i want i want to have a big long

nose that should definitely go under the sea as well rockets yeah i don't want i don't want

something that's all electric and quiet yeah no i want something that's like maglev yeah and then

somebody had a countdown and then rockets fire off the back and it yeah yeah yeah yeah or what's that

telescope's a conductivity thing that's maglev isn't it is that maglev yeah yeah yeah yeah no that that

or or that thing that musk was on about ages ago where it's about transporting people through the

hyperloop yeah the hyperloop yeah yeah yeah yeah that's gone quiet hasn't it yeah yeah that might

have been harder than it sounded yeah it's one of those things you know why why has no one done this

before yeah yeah wasted holes under the ground before do you know oh that was the other thing at the

transport museum this has gone off topic a little bit just a bit the other uh transport museum thing um

was lots of videos and footage of the the england the channel tunnel to france yeah that was good

and how they did all that and yeah yeah that was they had the things they had the the um

i don't know enough about trains to tell you but the things yeah that were involved in making the tunnel

so the cutie things out the the yeah but not the cut so like the labyrinth the houbliette that thing

that comes down the track not the cutie head things but the things that took the things from the cutie

head things out oh okay a bunch of other things that were there and apparently they those cutie head

things are just left really they they um i sound like an expert in this now but i i only read it on the

plaque they apparently you've enjoyed your plaques this week haven't you yeah the thing that was that

they were so big and so heavy and knackered yeah what they do is they just turn them 90 degrees and

drive them into the tunnel wow and then concrete them up really so there's like the ghosts of those

those things in there in the thing yeah i wouldn't i i was going to try and bring the show back on track

to music and then i was thinking what i wonder what they'd have listened to they would listen to acdc

yeah of course they would back in black on which uh was that today or yesterday it was the um

anniversary yeah but they would have had an they would have had uh back in black on one yeah yeah

yeah i think um as far as tangents go yeah that's i think this is this is the best one yeah that was

a really good tangent that good i've forgotten what we're doing to be honest should we do some facts

yes let's do some facts let me switch my um i want to switch my ipad on but i've not got my ipad i've

still got my samsung um which i'm still learning to love if i'm honest um i do miss my ipad so this

album the making of performance and cocktails by stereophonics i'm going to read some crap off

our blog from riffology.co so if you're interested in this kind of stuff uh that loads of people looking

at that at the minute they do i'm gonna listen to this what is this for you have to be honest like

loads of people are we at our uh we're uh i heart radio are playing they seem to be playing tons of

our stuff but we but we can't listen to it no because we're uk yeah it's a us it's a us thing

so if you listen to us on i heart radio in the united states of americaland thank you very much thank

you very much you're very very cool people um and you know we're sorry about the um the the meandering

we'll be able to talk about the tube yeah it's really important yeah yeah yeah if you live in

you know yeah when they come over they'll know now they'll go they'll go for it we we were actually

increasing tourism here there we go this is this rachel reeve's plan i know we'll get to we'll get two

lads with the podcast to to encourage people on the tube by telling them that it's smelly it stinks of

we and it's red hot but the the elizabeth yeah that's the one to go you can go there yeah as

long as you want to go somewhere on it yes that's right this album uh performance of cocktails released

on 8th of march in 1999 in the uk had a release in 27th february in japan uh which i think that's

earlier yeah it's a bit weird i'm not sure i i was going on with that with that but maybe there's

some special wales japan deal that they did rock british rock music's always done really well yeah

it has yeah that's true actually yeah that was a big thing um actually at that time there was it was

huge they're like like imports were a thing yeah we always used to i remember you you'd always be

looking for the japanese imports because they'd always have an extra track on there that you wouldn't

we wouldn't have got in the uk um genre um uh according to the mighty wikipedia it's post brit pop

post brit pop i don't know what that means it's got synth in it it's alternative rock post brit pop pop

rock yeah so there you go at runtime 50 minutes which is acceptable 13 tracks that's the right number of

things that is that's a good good it's a lot of tracks for me but it's all i saw i i this is an

album that i like as an album i'm a 13 14 track guy honestly yeah yeah i i do like this one this is one

that is um yeah it's okay they did it's got it's full of remasters and stuff on the various streaming

sites so it's quite hard to listen to the album that that came out it's all like seven cds worth of

like demos and other bits and pieces which are great but no one ever listens to them so yeah um but yeah

very cool um released on v2 records which is it was virgin it was richard branson's label um

reasonably well funded um recorded over three studios courtyard parkgate and the mighty rockfield

in monmouth um produced by um steve bush and marsh two people isn't it yeah bush and bird yeah bird and

bush yeah i don't know bush and bird there's a saying about birds and bushes isn't there there

i don't know what it is a bush is worth four birds or something

oh it's gone wrong hasn't it i don't even know what the saying is

it's something about bushes and birds yeah i let's just let's just go with that that's great um

this album uh performance and cocktails was the one that launched the band so yeah they there was stuff on

um their debut record which was great but um didn't sell mega uh this one on the other hand went like

for a british band for you know for boys from uh you know a tiny town in in wales this this one went uh

like absolutely off it um fairly quickly as well yeah yeah yeah um it was interesting i think at the time

imagine 99 um like brit pop was kind of on the way in yeah you know like so you had oasis and uh and blur

but um but there was definitely a welsh contingent yeah like you know there were bands there were bands

there was definitely a wales thing going on wales has always been quite i think for this kind of music

yeah it's always been good you have um uh oh what name of the festival they have a festival don't they

in wales where there's like a hard rock festival steel thingy yeah yeah yeah and that was it's amazing

yeah it's really really well i think and they get a ton of uh really really cool stuff in there um

uh so um musicians on the records kelly jones for lead vocals uh he did most of the songwriting as

well yeah richard jones was bass and harmonica um stuart cable uh drums and percussion um uh sadly

no longer with us i remember listening to his uh kerrang radio show yeah he was really super cool guy

really really passionate about rock music really knew his stuff very very cool um marshall bird uh was the

organ and pianos and keys so the producer played on the record yeah malatron as well and then astrid did

backing vocals on i stopped to fill my car up astrid's yeah yeah astrid did vocals on a ton of things

actually astrid did vocals on counting crows um

oh oh sullivan street oh no way yeah yeah i love that that tracks mega um

uh oh uh yeah album title so there's a lovely interview bit that you've got about the album title

um uh so it came from uh a business card essentially but then they used that business

they used that line in their track roll up and shine and then take that for the album which they did on

their debut as well yeah which is which was quite cool i think um the cover art showing the couple

and the girls there um that was shot by scarlet page uh under the westaway in london um the image was

inspired by an annie leibovitz photograph uh became pretty iconic um lucy joplin was the model in the

full name um later as she said that she'd been paid 75 quid and had stayed up all night drinking

absence and taking opium before the shoot somehow that comes through yeah yeah i mean she just looks

like i couldn't care less yeah she's got that yeah she's definitely somewhere else yeah very very very

very cool i think um um some of the mixing al clay did some of the mixing ian cooper mastered it

um i don't know where the sound comes from whether it was bird and bush whether it was stuff that uh

that ian did or whether it was our clay um it's incredible though isn't it it is not much sounds

like it it doesn't sound american no no it doesn't sound british it's got this this is totally his own

beast it is but it's big and brash and yeah and beautiful it is it's got this um it's got this texture

i think which is just it's just pretty pretty epic um sessions a lot of it was done live uh in a few

takes that's interesting you see i'm done there's a bit of this at the minute where i'm sort of

exploring recording a lot and you know certainly from my most recent studio experiences everything's

layered everything's overdosed yeah you know tracking one thing at a time yeah and there's a bit of me

going i don't know he's missing something that's mot lang mot lang that's how he records yeah um and

it is yeah and bob rock doesn't like that as well yeah but i think it depends on the type of music

yeah yeah you know i think some bands that suits yeah you know like uh i'm trying to think of good

examples of where that would work really well but yeah you know it's it's stuff where that that

technicality is important yeah yeah yeah yeah but this is the band the band's a band and you need to

the band need to play together to get the chemistry yeah if you've got a rock and roll band i think it

should fish yeah i don't know it shouldn't feel i've got i've got a kind of a bit of a hot take

on yeah where ai is going with this but i yeah i think

i'm going to back up a tiny bit because i also saw on sunday i went to see tim minchin oh yes

i'm a big fan of tim minchin yeah yeah yeah a big fan of tim minchin yeah very very clever very great

very like cool musician as well um and he kind of started me off thinking about some just something he said

but um that this this ability of ai to uh synthetically create stuff i think will drive

people back to live yeah i think you're right experiences yeah yeah i think where where they'll

go and do authentic yeah and where like you can't i mean you can play to click it was interesting because

you could hear the like tim's band there was a bit in there where they made a mistake and the backing

track you could hear the click yeah you know that kind of that like wooden donk donk yeah oh god i

can't i couldn't do it i couldn't do this so that's quite normal right that's yeah you know the idea

that there's a there's a schedule and a show and there's countings yeah like everything's been so

meticulously planned yeah that you'll have someone saying like okay okay speak to the audience in two

three four you know and then suddenly right okay hi how's it going and so the whole the whole show is

scripted to click yeah and i couldn't do it mate and i'd put my guitar and go home i can't honestly

i can't imagine anything worse it's more like a play yeah at that at that point yeah it's very scripted

um but it was anyways interesting and it kind of had me thinking for for a couple of days after that

you know like how bad is it going to get you know what what's the point in anything when you

can just go to the ai you know create me a new i want a new i want a new heavy metal album a bit like

you know i don't know massive reality and a bit like you know south of heaven can you merge them

two together and create me a new band please yeah and it goes here you go and it's music you know

when you're in that situation what what value does music have and it'll be totally brilliant yeah

absolutely soulless yeah that's the thing isn't it is there's music's a soul thing it is it's a bit

but then it kind of it was it hit me a little bit you know as i was thinking that uh you know uh

watching tim and his band plays band are awesome really really cool it's because of the click

but i think they were cool there was a lot of improvisation they were they were mucking about a

little bit and and there was a lot of stuff where um you can see you know when you're going to know

what a band's supposed to be like you could see where they were there's a lot of like oh and then

there were a lot of turning around looking at each other kind of what are you doing kind of you know

i mean there's a lot of that happening um but i think that's what's going to happen my gut feeling is

people can be drawn to that human connection because people don't care about machines

not very you know you can see it already yeah people go i don't want ai in my world i don't want

this i don't want ai created music in my world i don't want ai created this in my world yeah

um and i think it's going to drive people back to live music because and it's because i think it's for

me it's because it's not uh perfect yeah it's you know what i mean there is this kind of uh oddity to

authenticity to it um so i i wouldn't be surprised if we see a return to that for live for uh studio

recording yeah where the ai is going to really struggle to simulate yeah vibe yeah like you

playing you know what i mean so um anyway uh uh for this record a lot of it was like that um uh there's

a lovely quote from kelly jones saying that they'd just come off the road so they were like uber tight

yes they go straight in the studio there was no gap they went straight off the road straight into the

studio um and everybody was like on it yeah just just bashed it out so um i think that that must feel

incredible yeah you know what i mean when everything's good everyone's firing on all cylinders and you just

you know smash it out so um it debuted at number one on the uk album chart sold 120 000 copies in its first

week which is a big number british record 99 yeah that's like i don't know it's pretty mega the big

single was the bartender and the thief yeah uh which we've talked about the video for it's worth going to

watch the video if you've seen apocalypse now uh you'll recognize it look for the bit where the pyro goes

off yeah i think it's stuart cable kind of literally just like it's the deck ducking it's very funny um

well most of this record funnily enough was was written while stuart was trying to take uh wales to

the world cup final on fifa 97 downstairs and i was upstairs writing just looking to pick apart this

new on the bus so most of it was written on a tour bus um and a lot of we took wales to the world cup

final three times yeah that single went bonkers i remember that being played like absolutely yeah

i think i spoke maybe a couple of weeks ago about um a hard rock covers band that i had with justin and

uh darren and called a hero to zero oh yeah you did yeah bartender was another song that was in that

set it's such a good song to play it's never learned the words it's gonna it's like bombastic isn't it

never learned the words properly um other singles uh just looking yeah which is one of my favorites and

pick a part that's new um the album spent 101 weeks in the top 100 in the uk that's so so

and that's the thing is that because there's so many different vibes of songs on it you've got your

big bartender but then you've got like a a sort of ballad-y sound like hurry up and wait or something

like that hurry up and wait you get kelly's voice just yeah it's beautiful incredible so it carries

that song but it's it is yeah yeah yeah and then just just looking which which i think is just one

one of the best all-time songs like i play that in if i go and sing in the pubs and all that sort of

that that's ordinary in the set crew into the drunk moms yeah exactly yeah um so i would say chris is

awesome at doing this i'm very happy making fun of them

the things i want

there's things i think

i want

there's things i've had

there's things i wanna have

do i want the dreams

the ones we're forced to see

do i want the perfect world

but perfect ain't quite right

shopping every day

yeah

took it back the next break

you see the more you fly

the more you risk a lie

you see the more you have

and i'm just looking

and i'm just looking

i'm not buying

i'm just looking

i'm just looking

it keeps me smiling

i'm just looking

i'm just looking

i'm just looking

i'm just looking

i'm just looking

There could have been

You drenched my head

And said what I said

Said that life is what to make of it

Yet most of us just fade

And I'm just looking

I'm not buying

I'm just looking

It keeps me smiling

I'm just looking

I'm not buying

I'm just looking

It keeps me trying

And I'm just looking

I'm not buying

I'm just looking

It keeps me smiling

The things I want

The things I think I want

The things I've had

The things I want to have

Is that life is what I want

I'm not buying

I'm not buying

I'm just looking

It keeps me smiling

It keeps me smiling

I've got a little Tanglewood in the house

Which is, my old man brought me there

For 60 quid in Merth of Music

Before, you know, about 1994

I wrote all of WordPress around

And performance copies on that

And it's a bit of a dog to play

But it's written a lot of songs

Literally, you know

This footage of me on tourbuses

Writing, just looking

And stuff like that

With Agitar

I didn't really think about it

Until the other day

But yeah, that is

That is probably the one

That's got the most stories

I guess

The album was in the top 100

As late as 2004

So it was in the charts

Five years

After it was released

Which is, I mean

Yeah

Absolutely bonkers, I think

It won Best Album

At the 99 Karang Awards

Yeah

Which, it was interesting

Again, it's one of those albums

That kind of had a bit of crossover

With kind of the metal community

Yeah, but Karang at that time

Was really, like

It was a mess, wasn't it?

It was metal

It was new metal

It was rap metal

It had everything in it

It was rock

It was post-Britpop

Yeah

Yeah, that is

Some of the stuff that happened

In 1999

Right

Napster was launched

Yes

He said Napster

Yeah, yeah

Which made everything

I mean, essentially

Made everything free for music

No one paid for music

After that

You had

Woodstock

99

I was a documentary about that

Recently, wasn't there?

Offsprings

Why Don't You Get a Job

Spent 11 weeks

Wow

The number one

In the UK

Metal and Singles chart

Rage Against the Machine

Had albums

Def Leppard and Skunker Nancy

All had big, big albums

That time too

Touring off the back of this

They did all kinds of stuff

So they went on a big tour

One of the big things

They played in the Swansea Stadium

To 50,000 fans

Yeah, I remember this

Which was bonkers

It was later released on DVD

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Which is

You made fun of me for last week

For saying that the Aussie concert

Should be released on DVD

Yeah, everyone knows what I mean

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah

Bass and Max

1999

Guess how many concerts

They played in the year

Oh, loads

When they were

93

Really?

Two a week

Give or take

That's good going that

That's mad

Yeah, good going

Yeah, yeah

For a year

That's bonkers

But

So they had support slots

Support slots

For the Charlatans

They then

Were

Toured with UT

As well

Stereophonics

Played with

Ash

The Black Crows

The Crockett's

Day at the Races

Festival

They supported U2

At Madison Square Gardens

Just

I mean

Just mad

They were

Like

They grafted

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Over that year

Yeah, I think

Just absolutely epic

What did I get to down here

Oh, it was shortlisted

For a Mercury Prize

Right

Yeah

Which was

I think was interesting

Media and television

It's been in a bunch of stuff

That I've never heard of

It's been in a series

Called Long Way Up

I don't know much about that

I don't know what that is

No

That wasn't that biking thing

Was it?

I don't know

With

With Ewan McGregor

I don't know

On like a bike tour

I get it

I get it from a website

That tells me where stuff's been played

I don't know this

I did a movie in 2000

Called Whatever It Takes

And then there was a few more episodes

Used

A few more tracks used

In Long Way Up as well

It could be

Maybe it's documentary

Yeah

It could be

Documentary

Critical reviews

Sorry

Everyone just

Like gushed over it

And said it was

Said it was really really cool

Except for

The NME

Who gave it

6 out of 10

What do they know?

What do they know?

It's weird isn't it?

Yeah

Bit bizarre

We got a 4 star review

We did

We got a review

Yeah

That's the end of the facts

By the way

I've finished with facts

Oh good

That was good timing

Sorry

That was me blurting

Doing my blurting thing

And my tablet's gone flat

So

We have had a review

Yeah

I'm gonna

I'm gonna

I sent you

I'm gonna have to go

And look on my phone now

Because I've forgotten

Where we got a review from

It's really

Thank you for reviewing us

Yeah

Podcaster

Reviewer person

Where did I

I sent you a

Yeah

The podcastgeek.blog

Yeah

Gave us a lovely review

And said

Obviously

Actually listened to it as well

Oh yeah

I mean quite clearly

Somebody's listened

Somebody's actually listened

To the show

All the way through

A few episodes

Commented that the show

Should be even longer

That's gotta be good

Hasn't it?

Yeah yeah yeah

And

Yeah which is great

Which is really nice

It was fantastic

Did you write it?

But do you know

Do you know

The bit

So

It was amazing

Gushed it

Said the podcast was amazing

Which it is

Yeah yeah yeah

And gave us

Four stars out of five

Give us five

Just change the stars

Do one more star

I know

But what happens

When you have five stars

What's after that you see

There's nowhere to go from

Where do you go from there?

Yeah where do you go from there?

There's nowhere to go

No no no no

You've got to go

Yeah I'm so excited

Six stars

I'm so excited about

New Spinal Tap

Yeah yeah yeah

Are you excited for that?

Yeah definitely

I can't quite

Yeah I hope they nail it

There are some things

I hope they get budget

Yeah

And I hope they get freedom

Oh yeah

To use that budget

And nail it

It's not the budget really for me

It's about

Just making sure

The storytelling's not lazy

Yeah

Do you know what I mean?

And it's got to be

Because there is the same people

Yeah

So it'll feel

Yeah

Right

I think

And it's just got to be

I don't know

You've got to imagine

Where those people would be

And the things that would have happened

Yeah

In their lives

And I just

I don't know

It's got the potential

That's got the potential

To be

Just glorious

Yeah yeah yeah

Just to be

Do you know what I mean?

Just this

Uplifting

Funny

I don't know yeah

Don't screw it up

Because that will

I'll be crushed

If you

Just can't go on

Can't go on

Can't do work today

Because Spinal Tap

Wasn't very good

But yeah

I'm dead excited

So excited

It reminds me

How excited I was

For Top Gun

Yes

I was very excited

For Top Gun

And the F1 movie

Yeah

And you were like

Both of those

Didn't you?

Yeah I do

Yeah

The thing is

I'm quite easily

I'm quite easily

Pleased

You know

I'm a bit miserable

Yeah

But I quite like them

So I've got high hopes

Yeah

And I've loved

Their social media stuff

They did the Coldplay thing

Yeah

You know the Coldplay

Kiss Cam thing

Yeah yeah yeah

And they said

Yeah everyone's seen

So the Spinal Tap

Social media thing

Said

You know

If you're worried

About going to gigs

Because you're cheating

On your partner

Come to a Spinal Tap gig

You know

We'll burst your eardrums

But we won't send

We won't take pictures of you

So they've been quite funny

I think lately

Which I quite like

But yeah

Hopefully that's

Hopefully they nail it

Yeah

I didn't know

I didn't know

They're doing social stuff either

Yeah

They're funny as well

Very funny

Yeah

My favourite

My favourite tweeters

Is Spinal Tap

James Blunt

Yep

And Ryanair

Right

That's all you need

That's like the Holy Trinity

Just yeah

If you're new to X

Let's assume

That you went away

From it

When Twitter

You know

When Elon Musk

Went bonkers

And bought everything

It's like an

Eight year old billionaire

Isn't it

Yeah

It's just like

Having a tantrum

And oh

I'm buying this

I'm going to smash my guitar

Whatever

So we

So we only bought that

If you left at that point

And you think

Oh do you know what

I might come back

And have a look

They're the three

To follow Spinal Tap

James Blunt

James Blunt

Rhino

There we go

That's all you need

Or Aldi

Aldi are quite funny as well

But yeah

No politicians

Get rid of all of them

Block Elon Musk immediately

Because he's a bit bonkers

I'm sure it means well

But it's just not very funny

Do you know what I mean

Yeah

It's very serious

I remember the days

Where he used to be quite funny

Yeah

He would say things

And do things

That you thought

That's quite funny

Yeah

You know what I mean

But now he's a bit

I don't know

No

There's too much ketamine

Probably

Yeah

Whatever

But yeah

But Ryanair are really funny

Right

Because people complain

People genuinely complain

Yeah

And say like

You know

So-called air

Line

Blah blah blah

You know

I went on here

And they'll

They'll just

Absolutely

Rip them to pieces

Yeah

And it's just

What do you expect

For 20p

They're very very funny

Yeah

And then

There was somebody

Complained

About

They were sitting

On a plane

So

I booked a window seat

And I've not got a window

And they just

Ripped him apart

Good

We'll get on that

Right

What we're doing next

Should we put a song on

And then

Do that

You've not thought about this

Have we

No

Were we going over

The back of the pond yet

Yeah

Yeah

We were going to

Come back over

The Atlantic

Were we

Yeah I don't know

Are we finished

Here

Are we done

I think so

We've got the

Stereophonics

Is there anything

We could do a Queen one

We've done Queen

Haven't we

Yeah we've done Queen

We don't need to do Queen

We'll do some more Queen

I quite like the idea

Of going back

And doing a bunch of stuff

From like the 60s

Classic stuff

Yeah that I

Like I know

I know the albums

But I love the Rolling Stones

But I don't know

The Beatles

Catalog very well

Like I know David Bowie

But I only know like

One or two albums

I don't know

Well enough

So it would be good

An excuse to kind of

Dive into that

But yeah

I think we said

We were going to go

And do something

Like big and thick

And American

And kind of

Yeah

Do we do something

Let's put a song on

And then we'll discuss

Yeah

Stop to fill my car up

Being the last song

Was a song

Like I wrote on a piano

And I can't play the piano

But I could write a few songs

In it

And Marshall

Who's one half a bird

And bush

Who produced the record with us

He taught me how to play

Imagine by John Lennon

On the piano

And then I

Turned it back to front

And stopped it for my car

But I had a little piano

Off a woman in an air dress

As I swapped for a t-shirt

And it was like a

Roald Dahl

Twilight Zone episode

In my head

And the song came out

Very fast

And it became

Like a massive fan favourite

We used to close the show

With it

He was like a bit of a

Massive attack

Kind of drum loop

Sort of sounds

And stuff like that

But it didn't sound like

Anything else on the record

But I do remember

Playing that to Stuart

For the first time

I was in Real World Studios

And we were down there

And when you're in Real World

There's lots of bands

In other studios around you

So like Robert Plant

Might be in one

Johnny Marr

Might be in the other one

And Ethan Johns

Might be in the other one

And you all meet at dinner

So you're having dinner

With all these massive stars

And you're quiet in the corner

And I said

I've written a song on the piano

And he said

Come and play it to me

And they made me go upstairs

To like Peter Gabriel's

Like grand piano upstairs

And play this song

And I just went

Stop to fill my car

And Stuart just started laughing

And he said

Come on

Play it then

Go on

I said

No that's it

That's just how it starts

And then he goes

No no go on

Go on

Go on

Start again

Start again

I'm sorry

Because he was tanked up

And then

And then it became

One of his favorites

Because he loves lyrics

Stuart

Stop to fill my car up

The car felt good

That day

I didn't know where I was going

But it felt good for a change

A file in a pocket full of silver

I paid the lady not change

And then it started to pass down

I started driving again

And then I looked up

And looked in the mirror

Behind me

And then I looked up

And looked in the mirror

Behind me

I'm on round forty

In the backseat

Must have stepped in

When I was empty

So was he sat there

Just waiting

Like clean and smash my face

He had a bike full of money

He said just drive me away

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

Yet it felt good to be strange

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

I didn't know where I was going

He stepped down from the car

He pulled a gun from his jacket

He said I was going to die

Said I was going to die

I didn't know where I was going to die

It gives me so much satisfaction

I didn't know where I was going to die

I didn't know where I was going to die

To get your attention makes me smile

I never looked up

But looked in the mirror

Behind me

I never looked up

But looked in the mirror

Behind me

Well I remember

I went to a cinema

In Cardiff I think

And I was driving back

On this A road

It's quite a dark road

And as I was driving through

I'm not sure if this is a Roald Dahl story

But I remember reading a story

Where a car was driving

And he sees a pram

In the middle of the road

And the guy stops

And he gets out

To move the pram

Because he thinks there's a baby

And as he does that

Somebody jumps in the back of his car

Now I did that story

But also my mate in college

Told me

He came to college one day

He said

I was driving along

I stopped at an apparel station

This guy jumped in the back of my car

And he had a gun

And he had a bag

And he told me to keep on driving

And he told me this story

And I'm like

Are you serious?

And he's like

Yeah yeah

And he's telling me

He's trying to tell the story

And then something else happened

And he went

And I never ever got to hear

The end of the story

I only heard the end of the story

About two months

About six months ago

When he came to Cardiff

Which wasn't as good

As the end of the song

Because at the end of the song

It just says I made the story up

But I think that is

Definitely influenced

By that kind of Roald Dahl

Kind of twist and turn

Kind of thing

And atmospheric kind of track

And that was a very different track

For us to do

At that point

There's not even any guitars

On that song

I think

So we've chosen

We've chosen what's next

But before

I just wanted to

When I was doing the interviews

And it's been quite hard

To figure out

Where to put this in the show

So I wanted to sort of

Put it in now

But I know that

Obviously

Kelly referred to Stuart

Cable in that last interview

And that

You know

This ended up being

His favourite song

Yeah

And one of the interviews

That I found was

You know

Of the day where

Where Kelly found out

That Stuart had passed

Yeah

And

I think there was always

This thing about them

Having this huge falling out

And

Yeah

You know

It being quite a

A nasty kind of

Break up

When Stuart was kicked out

Of the band

And there was like

A lot of

Heartache

As a result of that

But it transpires

And I think it's important

To put this interview in

Because Kelly was like

Yeah

We sorted that out

Within a year

Yeah

And we've been really

Great friends ever since

And I just

I think it's just good

To have that context

You know

About the relationship

You got that from

His radio show too

Where I remember him

Talking about the band

Yes

And he still loved it

He still loved the band

He was still

The friends

And

Absolutely

The fan

And you know

They went to

Birthday parties

And that sort of thing

So

Yeah

I think

Yeah

I don't know

The media love

A story don't they

Yeah

It doesn't take a great deal

And you know

Yeah

And even in this interview

You can sit there

Trying to lead him down

Certain paths

And he pulls them back

So

Yeah

Stuart's brother

Foned me

Half past day this morning

And I'm already

Getting ready to go

To my uncle's funeral

And

I spoke to Stuart on Saturday

He was asking me

What time

Reece's funeral was today

So I was going to see him

Today for a pint

Wish him happy birthday

Last week

He was 40

Told him I couldn't

Get down to the party

So I think me and Richard

Are just a bit in shock

Really

We've been speaking

For the last five years

I mean we played together

In our sound engineers

Wedding

Together again

Now the split was done

We all held our hands up

And who was responsible

For the split

I mean

Stuart probably would be

The first one to admit

What happened in the split

I mean

So we've all spoke since then

There's no

There's no regrets

Or anything like that

I mean we're all friends

I mean we're all friends

Like I said

I was speaking to him on Saturday

Wished me good luck

For the gig in Cardiff

And

His girlfriend

Asked me to go down

To his 40th birthday

A couple of weeks ago

And I couldn't make it

We had commitments in London

So I texted him on his birthday

And said

Happy 40th

And he said

I never thought I would make it

To 40

And I

I said

Well you'd live to London

So that was one of the last things

We said to each other

Which is quite

Strange really

But

Just character

All I've been with Stuart all my life

Did our first show together

When I was 12

So

I've been with him

More than I have been away from him

And

You know

Obviously when people

Break up in bands

People

Think it's all this and that

But

You know

Between me and him

All our differences were settled

Within a year of all that

So

I mean

I still can't quite believe it

To be honest

I'm a bit in shock

There's been a lot going on today

So

I want to go and see Mabel

And

His mother

And Paul

And

I'm going to go from there really

I mean

Me and Stuart

Used to go to that club

Every Christmas day

We never bought each other

Christmas presents

I would buy me a bottle

Of Newcastle Brown

He'd buy me a bottle of lager

And we used to walk down the club

And that was it

I mean

I can't even begin to tell you

What we've been through together

As friends

And as

Bandmates

And ups and downs

And all

You know

But

And

Just going to the crematorium

From Ankle's funeral

I'd like to pass his house

So

It's pretty surreal

To be honest

Yeah

Sorry to end that one

On a samba

No

But I just

I don't know

I couldn't think of where else

To put that interview

And I think

I'd wanted to put it in

Might put it there

That's it

It's done

And we figure out

What we're doing next

Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters

It's the 30th anniversary

Of the debut album

July the 4th

5th

So a few weeks ago

Yeah

But I kind of felt

That's quite a nice thing to do

We've not covered

Anything

We've not really talked about

Foo Fighters

No

So we talked about Nirvana

We've covered

Never mind

We did

In Utero

In Utero

And In Utero

In Utero was the first

It was our first

In this

In the

Riffology

Yeah

We did Nevermind as well

And so I think

That'd be quite nice

To do

To do that

And it's the 30th anniversary

Which is good

And we used to do

A lot of anniversary stuff

Yeah

So we'll do that

And then

I think I'd like to go

And do something

From the 80s

Like Master of Puppets

Yeah

Or Ride the Lightning

Yeah

Or

Just one of those big

Steps us back over

That way doesn't it

Yeah

Something a bit big

And meaty

And angry

And we've not really

Covered much of

I don't know

Then we'll figure out

What happens from there

Yeah

Yeah

Sounds good

Sounds good

It'd be sweet

Got a plan

We've actually got a plan

Didn't need to do any

Tricking the keys in the air

Or anything

No

Yeah

It's not easy

It's great

It's fantastic

Great

Well we'll see

We'll see where the

Foo Fighters leads us

Foo Fighters are an

Interesting band

I think

I like the history

Behind it

I like

The

I like the

The change in style

Yeah

Of them

As Dave Grohl finds his feet

Yeah

But I do love

I love the secrecy

Of it

That he did it

And was scared of

Sharing it to anybody

Yes

Yeah

And then

And then eventually

Shared it

And everyone was like

No you should release it

And Dave was like

No I don't

I don't

People will laugh at me

Yeah

And I love

We've talked about this before

Where

Really talented people

Have had this

Like

Total lack of confidence

In their own ability

I don't know

I'm not sure if it's reassuring

Or whether it's the kind

Of human condition

Or whatever

But there's something

I

There's something I find

Really

Empowering about it

Yes

Do you know what I mean

Everyone has those flaws

Everyone

It's not just me

Everybody

Even Dave Grohl

Feels like it

Yeah

Do you know what I mean

Yeah

I don't know

There's just something

Super cool about it

So

You're looking forward to it

It's a great record as well

Wonderful record

It's a really really cool record

It's very

It's poppy isn't it

Yeah

But then it's poppy

And grungy

And alt-rocky

Great songs on it

Great riffs

All the things

Yeah yeah yeah

All the things it's got on it

So

Yeah looking forward to it

Yep

But thank you for listening

Thank you for sharing

Your time with us

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As long as it's not a four star review

For only five star reviews only

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And I hope you enjoyed the show

And if you want to talk to us

We're on X mostly

But we're on threads now as well

Can you ask me what

We're like

At Riffology

At Riffology

At Riffology pod

Something like that

Yeah yeah

Just

Riffology.co is the main website

Go on there then

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You'll find your way

We're on

We're on there

We're on

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You know

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Yeah

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Scrambled album covers

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Like each

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Like the most popular

Stream tracks on Spotify

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Alt and metal

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And then we'll see you next week

Cheers bye