Stereophonics

Stereophonics are a Welsh rock band, consisting of Kelly Jones, Richard Jones, Javier Weyler and Adam Zindani. Since their debut album, Word Gets Around, which peaked at #6 in the album chart, they have had 5 consecutive albums reach #1 in the UK album charts. Described as "classic UK rock with whiskey vocals", the band has enjoyed considerable success in the UK, with 25 singles reaching the top 40 of the UK Singles chart. In 2005, their song Dakota became the band's biggest hit, reaching #1 on both the UK Singles chart and the UK Downloads chart, and becoming the band's first single to chart in the US, reaching #34 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.

Kelly and Richard grew up together in the village of Cwmaman, near Aberdare in South Wales. Along with original drummer Stuart Cable, they began writing and performing music in working men’s clubs together in 1992 as a teenage cover band known as 'Tragic Love Company', a name inspired by their favourite bands (Tragically Hip, Mother Love Bone and Bad Company); although they were initially known as "Blind Faith", they quickly renamed after discovering that a band of that name in which Eric Clapton played had already existed. The band later changed their name to "The Stereophonics", named after the manufacturer of then drummer Stuart Cable's father's record player.

The band released their third album, Just Enough Education to Perform in April 2001. The album included the critical track "Mr. Writer" which was widely disliked by critics due to its lyrics targeting the media. The song caused controversy which in turn caused a lot of bad publicity for the band by the main stream media. The album also contained one of the band's most famous tracks, Have a nice day which reached #5 in the UK charts.

Their fifth studio album Language. Sex. Violence. Other? was released in March 2005; it marked their first recordings with their new drummer, Javier Weyler. The band grabbed their first number 1 hit in the UK singles charts with the album's first single, the punky, upbeat "Dakota". The second single from the album, "Superman," was a growling rocker. This song however did not repeat the success of "Dakota", peaking at number 13 in the charts, partly due to limited radio airplay. After "Superman" came "Devil", which featured a controversial video and reached number 11 in the charts. The album was nominated for a Pop Factory award at the end of the year, losing out to Feeder's Pushing the Senses.

On October 9, 2007 the band saw the US release of their retrospective DVD entitled Rewind: The First 10 Years. A double disc with a runtime of nearly four hours, it traces the entire band history with live and behind-the-scenes footage dating from their earliest gigs to sold-out arena tours. The eagle eyed fan will notice that much of this footage was recorded around the time that the "You Gotta Go There" Album was being recorded. This is because a similar band history DVD was listed for release shortly after the album's but was never released due to the departure of Stuart Cable. This explains Kelly's hairstyle (circa 2003/2004)in the interview footage and the appearance of Stuart and the rest of the band freely talking about their togetherness and soliditary as the original 3 members. This original footage was updated by adding further footage to the end, updating it to the band's fifth album when the DVD was released. Stuart does not appear on any of the extra footage, niether to discuss his departure or otherwise.

In 2007 Lead singer Kelly Jones released a solo album titled "Only the Names Have Been Changed" while recording the band's sixth studio album, Pull the Pin. The album contains 10 tracks (all named after women) and features a simple arrangement of guitar, piano and subtle strings. The album also includes the song Jayne, a previously unreleased Stereophonics track featured on the live album Live from Dakota, and the Rewind DVD.

Drummer Javier Weyler also released a solo album titled Lagrima in 2007 under the persona Capitan Melao. "Lagrima" is the name of a composition by the famed art rock guitarist Phil Manzanera which appears on the album 801 Live with Brian Eno and others. The name Capitan means captain in Spanish and Melao is a Latin American slang word for swing, rhythm or soul.

The band also performed the original opening theme tune for the TV series Long Way Round. The lyrics were altered slightly for the follow-up series, Long Way Down.