Traditional guitar rock is under siege. The few remaining rock warriors are holed up in their ivory towers, axes gripped tightly in their tattooed arms, Marshalls stacked against the onslaught of dance, r 'n' b, rap, hip-hop, boyband and girliepop. Outside, the marauding hordes of DJs and dance merchants are knocking down the gates with battering ram beats, ready to plunder rock's treasures and redistribute them to hungry clubbers around the world. Rock's fading idols are being torn from their pedestals and cast into oblivion. And - the cruellest blow of all - Bonehead has left Oasis. Let's face it, rock 'n' roll is entering its own Dark Ages, but one tattered trio from Wales is keeping the torch burning in defiance of the winds of change. By all the laws of logic, physics and music biz marketing, The Stereophonics should be just another brick in the wall of dull, plodding Britrock bands - instead, they've tumbled into the Number 1 slot with their second album, Performance And Cocktails, and crashed the charts with such singles as The Bartender & The Thief, Just Looking and their latest, I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio. Unbelievable.
The Stereophonics' straight-down-the-line brand of rock 'n' roll makes the Manics sound like avant-garde punk experimentalists, yet the band drew a 40,000-strong crowd for their recent gig at Morfa Stadium in Swansea. Seems fans still prefer meat 'n' potatoes - not razor blades - in their musical diet. The fever has spread beyond the Welsh borders to reach the UK Top Ten, and at tomorrow's big gig in Slane Castle, the trio of Kelly Jones, Richard Jones (no relation) and Stuart Cable is set to spark off an outbreak of spontaneous combustion, as 80,000 fans wave their lighters in the air for the band's people-friendly anthems. Earlier this summer, the band were in Dublin to perform a sello-ut gig at the Olympia Theatre, and during their visit Kelly, Richard and Stuart took time out to discuss the phenomenal public response to their music. "It's gone f--king mad," was Kelly Jones's succinct reaction to the news that their single had reached number 2. "Just get rid of these boybands, and we might even get to Number 1." Not entirely unfeasable, since the young singer-guitarist has become a bit of a heart-throb in his own right, provoking the kind of hormonal response usually reserved for the likes of Boyzone and Westlife. When the band went walkabout in Dublin's city centre that weekend, Jones was followed around the streets by a coterie of star-struck teenage girls. If Kelly hadn't kept his cool and stayed at a steady walking pace, it could have turned into a scene from A Hard Day's Night.
"The gigs are always crazy," observes Jones in a rolling, earthy accent, "cos there's kids in the front and there's a bunch of 55-year-olds in the back. Some are into our lyrics and some are into our pants. We just have to take it as it comes, I suppose."
Not that Kelly's complaining - he gets the best of both worlds, from teenage adulation to mature respect and all points in between. "There's a lot of sides to the band," insists Jones. "There isn't one kind of song that typifies us. We've got stuff like More Life In A Tramp's Vest and I Stopped To Fill My Car which spreads across to different audiences. One minute we're talking to More Magazine and the next we're talking to Q. Which is cool, 'cos we've always wanted to appeal to different age groups. Otherwise you just get an audience that stays with you for two years and then grows up and moves on to something else."
Some might say that The Stereophonics hold onto their audience simply by weaning them onto the same old lumpen rock 'n' roll gravy. Jones, however, dismisses the accusation that The Stereophonics are little more than Oasis with leeks.
"We're a three-piece band, so there's no other way of doing it, really. We write the songs, it all starts with the acoustic guitar, and after that it can go to any format. And the format we happen to play is the three-piece band. I don't think we are meat 'n' potatoes - I believe there's more to it than that. But if that's as far as you look, then that's all you're going to see."
As if on cue, some girls spot their heroes from across the room, and they rush over to get a closer look. While Kelly signs autographs, Stuart and Richard discuss the band's videos, most of which are tributes to the band's favourite movies. The Bartender & The Thief, for instance, was an elaborate recreation of the riverside show scene from Apocalypse Now, where a Playboy model lands amid a troop of cheering GIs. Only this time, the model is replaced by three Welsh blokes with guitars and drums, and none of the marines seems to mind.
The video for their latest single, I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio, sees the trio playing Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson in a scene from Easy Rider, and at the time of this interview, the band could be seen mucking about in classic Mini Coopers, as they buzzed around Turin a la The Italian Job. It's a long way from the Welsh town of Cwmaman, where these three ordinary lads came together in the unlikely hope of fulfilling their rock 'n' roll fantasies.
"It was just boredom," recalls Jones, "Living in a small town, there was nothing to do on a weekend except play football or play in a band. So we played football on Saturdays, band on Sundays. I listened to a lot of my brother's records, like Creedence Clearwater Revival and AC/DC, or my old man's stuff like Otis Redding - music that lasts, like Bob Marley or The Clash. I never listened much to what was hip at the time, to be honest."
Call them terminally unhip if you like, or condemn them as dull practitioners of prole-pop, but you can't accuse The Stereophonics of being dishonest. There's little of the Manic Street Preachers' polemic and none of the Super Furry Animals' weirdcore pop, but one thing they do have in bucket-loads is the common touch. "Our music is more people-based than politically-motivated. I think that politics affects people, but rather than writing Billy Bragg songs, which is cool if you're clued-up about what's happening in the world, but if you're lazy like I am and don't read newspapers or watch the news much, then you don't know what the f--k is going on, and all you can do is listen to people around you. To me, that's better than listening to politicians."
The Stereophonics may not be trying to change the world, nor trying to get the miners' jobs back, nor flying the flag for Welsh devolution. But when the New Music Army finally breaks down the door and lines the old rock order up against the wall, Kelly's heroes will still hold their heads up high, their guitars slung proudly over their shoulders, and their lighters held defiantly in the air. "I'm happy I come from Wales, I'm proud to come from Wales and I've never denied anything about our background. If you write good songs, it doesn't matter where you come from. 'Cos all we are is a f--king band. I don't want to be a politician. I don't want to be a spokesperson for our country, for f--k's sake. It's enough to deal with just doing this. I ain't f--king Muhammed Ali and I ain't f--king Bono and I don't pretend to be. We're just three working-class boys who are allowed to be in a band, and we play well together.'
I wouldn't disbelieve your radio just yet.
