Welsh band Stereophonics inspired by the Tragically Hip for decades

Bob Dylan, Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen have sung the Stereophonics praises.

The band, that originated from Wales, has been making chart topping albums since the early 90s and are riding high off of their latest release ‘Scream Above The Sounds.’

“I think you try to find new ways of playing on each record, just to keep yourself interested really,” lead singer Kelly Jones told CityNews. “You find new ways of singing and writing and evidently each record has a slightly different sound than the one that came before it. You normally stumble across some sort of happy accident you haven’t done before and then you kind of follow that path.”

What many Canadians may not know is that the group was so influenced in their early days by legendary Canadian band The Tragically Hip that one of the band’s original names was Tragic Love Company, named after the bands: Tragically Hip, Mother Love Bone and Bad Company.

How does a band from a village of Cwmaman, Wales hear about the Hip? This is before social media, digital streaming and word of mouth had to travel over 5200 km to reach the band.

“A friend of ours who was working in LA at the time had a cassette of “Blow at High Dough,” “Little Bones,” and “Twist My Arm,” Jones said. “We covered those songs really early like in 1994 and people loved them and thought they were our songs so we kept playing them!”

In 1997, the band was in Toronto for a show and had a surprise visitor backstage.

“We got a knock on the door and it was Gord who said, ‘It’s Gordon Downie, Insurance Salesman!’” Jones said with a laugh. “He came into the dressing room with a couple of books for us that he said inspired him.”

When the Stereophonics performed in Toronto in late September, the Hips drummer Johnny Fay joined the group on staged and helped the Welsh band cover the Hip’s “Blow at High dough” and “Locked in the Trunk of a Car.”