Stereophonics

Fact Sheet

Country	Wales, UK
Years active	1996-

Stereophonics (never "The Stereophonics") are a Welsh music group formed in 1992 and originally known as Tragic Love Company,a name inspired by their favourite bands Tragically Hip, Mother Love Bone and Bad Company. They started out as a teenage cover band and later, inspired by Stuart's gran's gramophone changed their name to Stereophonics. They hailed from Cwmaman, South Wales and after they changed their name were one of the first bands to be signed to Richard Bransons V2 label in August 1996. Their most well know songs include "Handbags and Gladrags", "Have a Nice Day", and "Mr. Writer" although long term fans would probably plump for the earlier "Local Boy In The Photograph", "A Thousand Trees", "Looks Like Chaplin" and "The Bartender and the Thief" as more memorable.

Band Members

Kelly Jones (vocals/guitar and songwriter)
Richard Jones (bass)
Stuart Cable (drums) was sacked by the other two members of the band in September 2003 and was replaced by ex-Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman for several tour dates.

In the early days they supported both Manic Street Preachers and Ocean Colour Scene.

In February 1998 they received a Brit Award for Best New Group the same week as a re-issue of "Local Boy in the Photograph" made number 14 in the charts and their first album went gold selling over 100,000 copies. During that year they had successful tours in Europe, Australia and the USA

Following on from the success achieved with "The Bartender and the Thief" in late 1998 the second single from "Performance and Cocktails", "Just Looking", was released and reached number 4 in March 1999 and the same month the much anticipated new album was finally released, entering at number 1 and within three weeks had gone platinum. Later that year saw them play what was widely regarded as the best gig of the year in Britain in front of 50,000 people at Morfa Stadium in Swansea

The band had a relatively quiet 2000 and didn't really hit the headlines again until the launch of Just Enough Education to Perform in April 2001. They then played back-to-back dates at Donington Park, supported by Ash, Black Crowes and Proud Mary in front of 120,000 fans and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium to a capacity 80,000 that summer.

2003 saw the release of their latest album You gotta go there to come back and a change to their logo. Towards the end of the year the did a sell out tour of the U.K. ending with a christmas show at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff supported by Feeder and Ocean Colour Scene

They are currently doing a world tour that has just seen them leave America and head to Belgium and Germany this week.

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