Interview – Fireflies 2004
Author: John Picardo
Date: 27th November 2004
Link: Fireflies
How’s the tour going? It’s been awesome. Best tour we’ve done so far”.
When it comes to Lost Prophets, this is no mere platitude; having toured their first album “The Fake Sound of Progress” for a gruelling three years, its unsurprising that the current crop of gigs should be a refreshing, enjoyable experience as the Welsh pop-metal band promote new record “Start Something“. The new songs go down very well… you can really tell. The last album was a snapshot of where we were – I wouldn’t really change anything about it – but I think we kind of knew our place more [on this album]… we know we’re basically just a rock band!”
Sprawled on the floor backstage at the Ambassador, the band maunder on about Eric Valentine [the producer of SS], the recent Metallica documentary and the “hilarious” spoonerisms “Pig Benis” and “Wig Bank”, before bassist Stuart Richardson responds to a query about the backlash suffered by LP in the press: “I think we just stuck around too long, we didn’t bring any new material out.” “It was more frustrating than anything,” suggests Mike Lewis, “we felt like we’d changed as people anyway and we were still being judged on singles that were three years old. It kind of pisses you off, like when you look at an old passport photo and you’ve got a mullet there! I think if we’d come back and we didn’t better our first album, it would be over.”
Growing up in Pontypridd in South Wales, with members having briefly played in “pre-hardcore” outfit Public Disturbance, the band initially involved a revolving cast of about twenty people before the sextet emerged as the group proper. Having recorded a demo that received a 10/10 review in Metal Hammer, two further demos ensued and the band became the subject of major label interest, eventually resulting in a deal with Sony and, of course, the gold-selling album “TFSOP“. And now the band are delighted to look back on their “illustrious career” and reflect on how well things have turned out: “The highlights? There’s been a lot actually… Our first headline tours of the States, touring with Metallica which was like touring with our heroes… our first arena shows, playing Reading, Leeds… going to Australia for the first time… we’re kind of tired now! Sometimes you’re just like ‘Fuck This!’ But you have those days every day.”
An interesting turn of phrase indeed, but for a band many have described as – to be euphemistic about it – intellectually challenged, Lost Prophets are surprisingly eloquent about the group’s attitude to making music. “If every song sounded the same, we’d get bored as fuck, you know? We’re always changing things… it’s like we’ve got Attention Deficit Disorder or something!” And their live cover of Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River” is further evidence of their wildly digressive musical tastes, ranging from Joy Division to Pantera to Michael Jackson. “When you do a Zane Lowe show you have to do a cover… so we thought it’d be cool if we made it sort of funny and sort of do the song justice.”
As for the future, the band are looking forward to a tour in Japan, some time off and then writing and recording their new album for a 2006 release. At the moment, however, they’ve a new single (“Goodbye Tonight“) and album “Start Something” to promote, and they’re generally upbeat about the whole process. Any final thoughts before the gig? Drummer Mike Chiplin leans over the microphone: “Big Wank!” So we’ll take that as a “no” then…
