HRH first interviewed the Stone Gods back in early January when they were on the road for their first full tour with a mission, quite simply, to start generating interest in their music and also to fulfil their own needs of wanting to get out there playing live again. That interview covered a lot of ground and focused on the band's new beginnings, their hopes and fears for the future and what we could expect when they started recording. In the intervening  six months the band have been very busy indeed having released the “Burn The Witch” EP, a whole bunch of live appearances including Download and the Isle Of White Festival.  This time around the topic of conversation focused on what the band have been up to, their musical influences and most importantly the imminent release of their debut full-length album “Silver Spoons And Broken Bones”.  

Hi guys before we get started can I ask about the well being of Ed Graham (drums) who is currently out of action.. 

Dan.. He’s alright and recovering from his various ailments. I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’ll be back shortly. 

Let’s hope so! In the meantime you have Robin Goodridge (drummer for Bush) standing in to help you fulfil your tour. How did you link up and considering the short notice has everything settled in okay? 

Dan.. It was basically through our guitar tech’ Adi who has worked for Bush which was a pretty big project..

More than pretty big 

Dan.. Yeah actually it was fucking massive and we know we’re pretty lucky to have him. We got him down to our rehearsal studio in Walford and had a couple of days to get him ready for Download. Things started improving and improving and it turned into something pretty special. 

As well as Ed being out of sorts I gather Toby has been having trouble with going deaf in one ear is that under control.? 

Toby.. Yeah. It seems to have worked itself out the last couple of days, so no problems there. 

You had to put on ice a few of the early dates of the current tour which are to be rescheduled but did you feel you had enough time to get Robin ready for Download and the other touring commitments? 

Robin.. Pretty much yeah. At Download we didn’t have to put in a full set. So my induction really was Download and the Isle Of White where I had to play seven songs and nine songs. Once I had those it was no problem getting to thirteen songs. Saying that this bands music is all about power so there was no room to fuck it up. 

For many of us Download is really Donington.. 

Richie.. Absolutely. You know I refused to refer to it as Download and when I was on stage I kept calling it Donington. When I walked off the stage one of the promoters made a comment that I was showing my age but I actually think that even he wasn’t happy that it’s called Download. It will always be Donington to me. I used to go there as a kid and now I’m playing there. It’s just fucking awesome.

I only went to one Donington and that was AC/DC, Metallica, Motley Crue, Queensryche and the Black Crowes played. 

Richie…You know I believe that was the last one where they just used one big stage. After that it became two stages and began to feel more like a festival to me. I liked it when it was one big stage and six big bands. If you didn’t happen to like one of the bands then tough shit go to the bar and come back when someone came on that you wanted to see. You know they were great days. 

I remember my party took a giant inflatable bottle of Brown Ale so we could all find each other (laughs all round)…. Was there anyone at this years Download that you particularly wanted to see? 

Richie…well personally I think we were very lucky to be billed where we were on what I believe was the only good day really. We were on with Motorhead and Judas Priest. It was definitely the classic rock day. I caught the first few numbers by Judas Priest and they didn’t disappoint.

You also played the Isle of Wight festival very recently…. did it feel different to Download… 

Dan.. Yeah it was the complete opposite. 

Toby.. It was more like a family day out.

Richie.. Very relaxed. 

Dan.. There were lots of people dipping their toes into the rock water in our tent. 

Richie.. And they were getting off on it. You know we were kind of the only real heavy rock band on that day really so if people wanted a bit of heavy rock we were their only option. Saying that you did have the Pistols closing the show but during the day you didn’t really have any heavy bands.

Toby…Feeder played. 

Richie…They played the day after us! So the one band people could have a bit of a head bang to was us before they went of to see Kate Nash on the bottom stage. 

On your last visit to Newcastle you were just about to release the Burn The Witch EP that turned out to be a runaway success. On this visit you have the imminent release of a single from the new album …”Knight Of The Living Dead” which  features two extra non-album tracks. 

Toby.. That is correct…they are called “Goodbye” and “Pretty Ugly”. 

Are these extra songs be all out rockers or more laid back…

Toby…They are rockers…a lovely pair of rockers (laughs all round)

Dan..I actually played drums on those songs

Toby.. There have been a couple of comments regards misogyny made towards us so this time the songs are coming from a girls point of view. It’s one for them to tell the boys to “eff off” 

Richie…Actually they’re pretty dark with monstrous riffs in the middle 

And then there's the new album “Silver Spoons And Broken Bones” which is due out shortly. 

Dan..7^th July. 

It’s an unusual title, is there any particular significance to it? 

Toby…It’s about the perceived position of privilege. People think we’re surrounded by diamonds and swimming pools but you know it’s nothing like that. In a way it’s us and we’re just revealing what really goes on. 

The album actually covers a  wide spectrum musically with songs that will appeal to a wide range of people. In particular songs like “Defend Or Die”,” Don’t Drink The Water” and “I’m With The Band” are unstoppable rockers. When you wrote them and recorded them did you think “hang on we’ve got something special going on here”? 

Toby…I think they’re all special. 

Richie.. I remember putting “Don’t Drink The Water” together turned into quite a laugh. We had the old lyric book and it was full of all the nastiest meanest things we could think of from the eighties and Spanish holidays were one of them. We had the lyric rivers of vomit down cobbled streets and the rest just came naturally.

“Defend Or Die” came about in a different way. Dan was away visiting a cousin at the time and we had a book with lots of band names in it and Defend Or Die was one of them. We were reading out the names and when we got to Defend Or Die Ed or it might have been Toby just said “fuck me that would be an awesome title for a song” and we took it from there.

You seem to have the attitude of if it sounds and feels good lets use it sod the genres but what is noticeable is the influence of thrash music throughout the album. Do you have a soft spot for the thrash genre? 

Dan…Most definitely 

Richie.. I’d say all of us do. Actually Dan used to do a few thrash covers in his early bands when he was drumming.Dan…Yeah that’s right 

Robin.. He used to play side saddle! (At this point the whole band give Dan a bit of a ribbing about his side saddle drum style) 

Dan…Look basically when I was a kid and getting into and playing thrash as a drummer I couldn’t afford a double pedal so what I used to do was use two pedals an to get tot hem I had to bring my knee round like this (demonstrates) and well as you can see the snare would go flying and..

 Robin.. Definitely side saddle. 

Dan....I really wanted a rack but I didn’t have enough money at the time so my dad being a builder got hold of loads of scaffolding and welded it all together. It was the heaviest fucking thing ever. It took four people just to lift it and that was without any drums on it (Robin is in hysterics at this point). Fucking hell they were the good old days! 

There seems to be a lot more thrash influenced music coming coming through at the minute. 

Richie.. A journalist friend of ours did me a compilation of new classic thrash and there was a band on there I particularly liked call Evile. They’re like four eighteen year olds from Huddersfield who are basically doing a 2008 version of Master Of Puppet. It seems at the moment that it’s a very vibrant scene. I think at one point bands were trying to be more extreme than the next and before you knew where you were it had just become fucking daft where as now bands are going back to the fun vibe that classic thrash gives them. 

There has been footage of an acoustic performance of Magdalene Street on your web site for some time and you’ve done a studio version for the new album…The lyrics sound very personnel…is it based on real places and real events. 

Toby.. When we were holed up in the studio there was loads and loads of books lying around and one of them was about haunted Norwich. One of the stories is about a girl called Sarah who it’s believed you can still see to this day wandering around as a ghost on Magdalene Street. It’s a really sad tale that we just felt we could write a song about. When I read the story the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Dan.. In fact it’s a really sad song. The subject matter covers loneliness and child abuse, very dark subject matter.  

Are there any moments on the album that have turned out better than expected and exceeded all your expectations. 

Dan.. There were many times as I listened back to the album where after hearing some of the guitar riffs I though “they really work” but if I had to point to a song I would say the beginning of “Defend Or Die” turned out really well. The way the drums come in. It wasn’t always like that as one time it was just straight ahead riffing. It was one of those production things where someone points out that things need to kick off a bit more so you go back and look at it again and before you know it, things sound better. 

I love the start of “I’m With The Band”, it sounds like someone’s playing through a didgeridoo 

Richie (laughing).. There is didgeridoo on the album but it wasn’t that section. 

Dan.. The opening of “I’m With The Band” ….I stuck my guitar through my tuner for the opening chord and played it full blast in the control room and then let the guitar play itself. I then double tracked it. I played the feedback back and let it trigger a second guitar so in effect I had two guitars speaking to each other. 

Richie.. The didgeridoo is on the start of “Beero” 

Dan ..Even my cat is on “Beero” 

Richie ..I even did a spot of grass blowing and made lots of animal noises. 

Dan.. (To Richie) I have a CD full of you doing animal noises. Being serious for a moment though looking back it could have gone horribly wrong and we could have disappeared up our own arses at times as we had no-one saying “what’s going on”. We had the luxury of using my studio and having the time to get it right. We didn’t sit around a lot, in fact we worked our arses off but we did have a great sense of freedom towards what we did. 

  

You’ve been touring the songs for a while now; so which ones are you having the most fun with. 

Richie.. To be honest it changes every night. There isn’t one song that I would say was my favourite every night. I love em’ all really. Sometimes you might come off stage and one song has misbehaved a bit like a naughty kid. 

Toby.. At which point you take it round the back by the bins and give it a slap around (laughter all round)

 Dan. .I like “Start Of something” it really feels like its kicking into gear. I have to say I’m not a fan of playing ballads yet on this tour I’m really enjoying “Lazy Bones” which I think may have something to do with our new arrival in Robin (drums). 

Robin. I’m the king of ballads. (To Dan) You’ve seen me on the Michael Bolton tour. He’ who is the king of key changes the Boltmesiter (Dan and Robin burst into laughter). 

You also got to play with Velvet Revolver just before they split up. Being in close proximity did you see any signs that it was all coming apart? 

Richie (pauses).. I think it’s fair to say there were definitely two camps. It was like having two separate touring parties. Saying that they got out there and they got on with the job. Our Brixton show with them was just fantastic 

Toby.. They were up in the rafters clapping their heads off. 

So how far ahead are the Stone Gods looking now? Is there a master plan? 

Richie.. It’s one step at a time. We aren’t in a mad rush to get to where we want to be. We’re thinking long term and to do that we’re going to build things up as steadily and gradually as we can in order to retain a fan base. We won’t run before we can walk 

Dan. The tour in January was more for us than anything. It wasn’t even about the EP. We just wanted to get out there. In reality the album campaign started at Download and I think soon you’ll see a marked increase in our journeys to get step by step to where we want to be. 

Al Hey