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.
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.
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
the last
is
the last
is
the last
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
i'm not buying
i'm just looking
it keeps me smiling
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 just looking
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?
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
Yet it felt good to be strange
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
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
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
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
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
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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At Riffology pod
Something like that
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Just
Riffology.co is the main website
Go on there then
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Yeah
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Cheers bye