Stereophonics talk Oasis, new music and survival: “The shows keep getting bigger and the audiences get younger”

Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones has spoken to NME about new album ‘Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait’ – as well as the secret to their longevity and thoughts on the reunion of Oasis.

The latest record (released today – Friday April 25) is the follow up to the Welsh rock veterans’ 2022 album Oochya! and has already seen two singles shared – the anthemic ‘There’s Always Gonna Be Something’ and the synthy, soothing ‘Seems Like You Don’t Know Me’.

Jones revealed that after he wrapped up his 2024 solo album ‘Inevitable Incredible’, he was asked to come up with two new songs for a potential compilation record – but ended up recording a whole new album.

“The record company heard a few of the demos and everybody really liked them and they said would you consider doing a studio record?” he explained. “The one thing I learned from the solo album was just doing eight songs was really interesting to me because it’s like four songs on each side of a vinyl, it’s about 40 minutes – which is roughly people’s attention span. So I just wanted to make something that was very concise, very compact, very melodic, very much how the Stereophonics sound in 2025.”

He added: “It’s got ingredients from everything we’ve done before but it still pushes forward to a place we haven’t quite touched yet.”

Stereophonics are set to hit the road for a massive ‘Stadium Anthems’ tour of the UK in the summer culminating in a huge hometown gig at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium and a headline slot at this year’s Isle Of Wight Festival alongside Justin Timberlake and Sting. We caught up with the charismatic frontman to discuss their 13th studio album, the band’s enduring legacy, their chances of playing Glastonbury again and the second coming of Oasis.

Hello Kelly. ‘Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait’ is quite a mouthful for an album title. How did you come up with that?

Kelly Jones: “One of the guys who lectured us when I was in film school used to scribble it down on my pages a lot and it was a phrase I’d had in the back of my mind for a long time. It’s basically an arc of a story I’ve probably used in setlists and stuff like that. You tell people a funny story, then you do something quite moving, and so on. The title has kind of a subliminal underbelly in a lot of the stuff I’ve done and it’s just reared its head I guess.”

What stories lie behind the songs?

“‘There’s Always Gonna Be Something’, is a song that a lot of people can relate to today: everybody is always looking for a clear deck, a clean table, but there’s always something coming onto it whether that’s personal, social or political. That song had been written for a while, the verses and the poetic lines: ‘Bayonet tongue of silence / Whispering just to remind us’. But then I had that chorus line written on a piece of paper on my desk at the studio and I didn’t think it would fit but then it juxtaposed quite well, almost like an old Rolling Stones title. It was quite a happy accident, joining the two ideas together.

“The song ‘Backroom Boys’ is a story about when I was a kid leaving my girlfriend’s house and I was supposed to be going home but my brothers would always take me into these old pubs and bars where I could watch all the old bands playing and be surrounded by older people, doing older people things that I shouldn’t be seeing. Being 14 or 15 in amongst all that with people doing all sorts and live music banging on, that was definitely a huge part of my upbringing.”

You’ve got a huge stadium tour coming up. Stereophonics are one of the biggest live bands in the UK. How have you managed to maintain that for nearly 30 years?

“We never managed to get to the extent of Chris [Martin] and Coldplay where you’re playing the same sized venues all over the world. Stereophonics have always been different in every continent really. We’ve never really been arenas in one place and stadiums in another place. But the shows keep getting bigger and bigger wherever we go and the audiences get younger, three generations, two generations, people who followed the band back in the day but there’s also people who have just discovered us now, which is amazing.

“Maintaining the crowds is down to the [back] catalogue we have. We’re on our 13th album now, so there’s a lot of songs, a lot of big songs out there. Each record has had at least two or three hits which has been amazing for us because we’re able to duck in and out of some really important songs for the fanbase but also for ourselves, so it keeps it fresh. I couldn’t think of anything worse than having to play your first album over and over. I’m proud of the work we’ve done from day one and I love it when some kid comes up to us and says he only discovered us in 2016.”

You’ve said previously that you’d like to headline Glastonbury again. Do you still stand by that?

“Yeah – we did it in 2002, headlined the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday and a couple of times before that. I did it with [side project] Far From Saints in 2023 in a tent [Field Of Avalon] which was quite interesting because it was the first time I’d been back since I’d headlined it with the Stereophonics and we had this little dressing room with one fucking wicker chair. You couldn’t even fit the band in there but to be honest with you, it was the best fucking time I’ve ever had there. We all hung out, had a few drinks and all got a bit lost there.

“But I’d play it, yeah. It’s something that is kind of hard to come by once you’ve done it once unless you’re Coldplay. There’s not many people that get a second chance to go back. I’d like to do it now because that last time was a bit of a daze. We’d headlined Glastonbury, the V Festival, Slaine Castle, our album had gone to Number One twice in a year, it was a fucking head fuck, you know? There was a lot going on so I’d like to do it now with a mind set where I could maybe be a bit more present.”

Oasis are touring around the same time as you. Are you pleased they’ve finally got back together? 

“It’s good that they got back together. It’s taken a long time. The band aside, just the magnitude of those shows and the magnitude of people wanting to be at shows is an amazing thing for musicians to be part of and for them to have that second bite of the cherry after everything that’s gone on, it’s pretty amazing really.”

What are your memories of touring with them in the past?

“Pretty messy but good fun. We toured while we were in Japan with them. We were on the same bill as them on Fuji Rock [in 2001] and we used hang out in this bar in Tokyo called Abbey Road where there’s a [Japanese Beatles tribute] band called The Parrots who used to play four sets a night. Noel has always been a good mate as well, he took me under his wing from our third album [‘Just Enough Eduction To Perform’]. I remember him picking me up from V2 Records and driving me to the first Teenage Cancer Trust gig in his car [in 2000]. He introduced me to John Entwistle, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey and he set me up onstage with a cup of tea to do my first soundcheck with them. That was pretty fucking surreal.

“Funnily enough, I found some old pictures of me and Noel rehearsing when he used to have a studio down in Windsor recently, just before we toured America. We were having a laugh about them and I asked him what he’d been up to and he said he’d been doing some writing in the studio. I’m assuming he’s doing some writing for either his stuff or if they’re [Oasis] gonna bring out a couple songs, I don’t know.”

Do you think their reunion is good for music? 

“Whether it will feel the same as it did back in the day, I don’t know. The ’90s and 2000s were a bit like the 1970s really, it was a completely different culture. It was kind of chaotic and mayhem but it was all very joyous. It was a very, very different time but whether the music live environment will be anywhere near that, I mean our gigs are, everybody has a good time. So I’m sure it’s gonna be amazing. It’ll be what it’ll be like in 2025 which is even kind of more exciting in a way. I know a lot of people my age who’ve got kids who can’t believe they’re finally gonna get the chance to see them.

“There are more people listening to music now than there ever has been in the history of mankind. But I don’t think people are engaging in a concentrated, polarised way like we were. They don’t care who the singer is in this band, they don’t care what the song title is. They don’t really give a shit what album it’s on. If it’s a good song they’ll take it.

“That’s why the live show is so exciting because the band is still in control of that. That’s why it’s amazing that bands like Oasis, bands like ourselves, bands like whoever, watching somebody else’s huge show and the energy they’re putting into the world on a nightly basis whether you like their music or not, it’s an energy that’s being put to fucking thousands, hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis and that can only be a good thing no matter who the performer is. People need it now more than they’ve needed it in a long time.”

‘Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait’ is out now and the Stereophonics ‘Stadium Anthems’ 2025 tour kicks off June. You can find any remaining tickets here.

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