DragonNinjaDotCom

Author: Laura Smith
Date: 17th February 2004
Link: One Louder Radio

I’m sitting in the low-lit Rock City basement on a Tuesday evening waiting for Stuart Richardson, the bassist from Lostprophets. The interviews are running late as a result of a meet and greet that finished late. The late finish was a result of vocalist Ian Watkins being mobbed by almost everyone in attendance, to the extent that one over eager fan tried to follow as Watkins was led away by their tour manager, a man known only as George.Stuart is the last to arrive, and strolls over to greet me with a huge smile and a warm handshake. “Hello again” he says, clearly recognising me from the meet and greet about half an hour before. He sits down beside me “make yourself at home” he says as he sprawls his tall frame out across the seat and table in front of him.

Your new album, Start Something, came out very recently and went gold in ten days, how did you feel about its success, was it what you expected?

“Pretty fucking good, we didn’t expect it to happen. Everybody told us that we’d fucking failed on our last album, and everybody said that we weren’t gonna come back so we believed it. We knew we had a good record but we just thought ‘ah nobody cares about us anymore so…We were like, lets just play shows and enjoy ourselves. It felt like the pressure was off us. You know, coz everyone told us we’d fucked up…*Stuart goes on to talk about a well known weekly music magazine that have been particularly harsh towards his band and their new material, especially considering the fact that the same magazine couldn’t praise them enough when they first became famous* So we released the album, booked this tour, and the tour sold out and then the album went in at number four, and we were like ah well, fuck (insert name of well know music magazine here), fuck everyone who said we’d failed. On a personal level its really good to fuck everyone over, coz ya know, revenge is sweet.” Stuart declares with a laugh. “Its awesome, its awesome”

How’s the tour going?

“It’s fucking great, really cool. All the shows have been fucking awesome, you know, the kids are really, really cool. The Bronx are amazing, Avenged Sevenfold are really fucking cool. Super cool guys to hang out with, we just keep partying every night and having a laugh. It’s been the first tour where all the bands have been like hanging out and partying every night. Its been a really good laugh.”

What’s your favourite song to play live?

“We started playing ‘Sway’ like two days ago, we were kinda worried how it would go down live, everyone seems to just stand there and I was like ‘ they hate it’ but at the end the applause is huge for it. That’s probably my favourite. Playing ‘Last Train Home’ is cool coz it’s the single, and you play it and everyone goes fucking crazy, so that’s really cool. I like playing them all, apart from one or two. I hate playing ‘Shinobi (versus dragon ninja)’ it fucking sucks.”

Is there anyone you’d like to tour with that you haven’t toured with yet?

“I’ve always wanted to play with Metallica, we played with Metallica on the Big Day Out. I met James Hetfield, which was fucking amazing. I dunno, these guys are party animals. You couldn’t wanna party with any better guys. We just wanna tour with people of like minds and people who are just cool, and not up their own arses. It gets to the point where you don’t wanna tour with people in a certain band, you just wanna tour with people who are cool. Duran Duran maybe, or INXS if you could bring back the singer.”

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to as a fan?

“My first show I think was Anthrax in like 1988, when I was fucking that big. *He holds his hand about four feet from the floor* I saw them in Cardiff, that was the first time I’d been near anyone famous. Anthrax were my favourite band then, 1989, something like that, I was like thirteen or something, it was amazing. They played all my favourite songs, I got one of his plectrums. I got to meet Scottie, he was super cool. (No matter) how tired I am, you meet some fans and you’re really tired and you don’t want to talk, but they don’t know you’re tired and you cant be a dick to them. He was cool to me, so Scottie keeps me true. Anthrax! Amazing!”

Is there anybody you’d like to meet?

“Meeting James Hetfield was fucking amazing. People I’d like to meet now is people like Johnny Depp. People who are like, really fucking interesting. I think I’ve met all my idols. I’ve met all the cool new bands as well. Like we partied with The Strokes, got drunk with those, it was cool but so what? Know what I mean? I’m sure some people would be like ‘you lucky fuckers’ but to me it was like, so what? Yeah Johnny Depp, fucking Hunter.S.Thompson. People like that, you know what I mean, nutters! Someone who’s got a different worldview to me. Like I would have thought The Bronx would have been, well not so much The Bronx but you expect punk rock kids to be a certain way, the y completely dumfounded my expectations, they’re the coolest guys, they just wanted get fucking loaded all the time, I didn’t think they’d be like that. I thought they’d be kinda pretentious like art rocky, kinda fucking punk guys. They’re just fucking amazing, its good to meet people with a different view, but are like-minded, if you know what I mean. So yeah, Johnny Depp, he’d be cool.”

Do you have any ambitions for the future?

“We just wanna tour our asses off. Basically we just wanna keep out of the rat race, you know by fucking, just doing music we love. I just wanna fucking keep making music, and hopefully be relevant to people. I don’t wanna be Cribs or nothing like that, I just want to make enough money to keep doing this. I know we had a top four fucking single, or album, or whatever the fuck it is, it doesn’t mean anything, that song about fucking fast food got to number one last year didn’t it, so it doesn’t really make you feel that special, some pop idol chump will go to number one in two seconds and be forgotten about in two weeks. I just wanna be relevant. I think at the moment people are still fucking casting their judgements on us, are we a real band, are we a boy band? It’s all bullshit, but the longer we stick around the more respect we’ll have. Look at The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, when they came out they were a bunch of guys, off their head on coke, fucking socks on their cocks going crazy. People are like ‘ who the fuck are these?’ They just stuck at it for long enough and now everybody thinks they like the most incredible band in the world, but ten years ago they had socks on their cocks. So anything stupid we’ve done I’ll hope we’ll cancel out by sticking around.”

Do you have any advice to offer to aspiring musicians?
“Same thing I always say, fucking start a band, do it coz you love it. Don’t fucking try and be the new cool thing, by the time you get good at the new cool thing something else will be the new cool thing. So if you’re out there now trying sound like fucking Thrice and Thursday or whatever fucking screamo band is cool at the moment, by the time you get good at there’ll be some new thing come long, ya know. My phone is ringing…”

At this point the interview is paused as Stuarts girlfriend is calling him “hi babe” he greets her, and politely asks her to call back coz he’s “doing some press”.

What do you keep in your pockets?

“I got like a Saint Christopher thing in my pocket, which is like the patron saint of travelling or something. My girlfriend gave it me, and ya know. Its gay, ya know, its how I feel connected to her while I’m away. It makes me feel safe and warm inside.”

Here Stuart indulges in a small dose of self-mockery. He is genuinely warm and chatty and delightful company but it’s clear that he likes to keep his private life private, but he isn’t rude about it, just honest, as any other young man would be when talking to a total stranger.

Last question, if you could be a superhero, what would your name be, and what powers would you have?

“I think Spiderman is pretty fucking cool, so I’d be Spiderman 2. Alpha Spiderman. I’d wanna be able to fly, I’d wanna be able to walk on walls, I’d wanna be funny as shit, I’d wanna magically turn into someone good looking, ya know, I wouldn’t want a mask, I’d just want my face to metamorphasise into someone really hot, and my body to get all like fucking ahaaa *he strikes a ‘manly’ pose* and I’d probably just wear a loin cloth or something, and I could fly. I’d only do good, so my name would be…. Alpha man, I think Alpha man is good. It’s probably already taken but we’ll go for Alpha man right now coz I cant think of anything better. So yeah, superhero’s rule.

So ends my interview with another Welshman who wants to be a flying superhero, maybe he could team up with Ryan Richards and become a new, rock and roll version of Batman and Robin. For the moment Stuart remains to play bass in Lostprophets, who take to the stage later that evening to deliver a storming live set, and I’m sure that to his fans Stuart already is a superhero, only he plays bass and leaps around on stage rather than wearing a loin cloth and leaping between tall buildings. However, if anything changes, we’ll let you know.