I once went drinking with Stereophonics singer Kelly Jones when I was working in radio up in Prince George in the late ’90s. Before that night, I was aware of the band, a casual fan, you could say. Ever since that night, I’ve loved Stereophonics. So if you’re like me, the announcement of their new album, ‘Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait’ and the release of the first single, ‘There’s Always Gonna Be Something’, is welcomed news!
New Stereophonics, their 13th album, is coming out April 25 via EMI. It’s the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Oochya!’. You can pre-order here.
Jones says the first single could be describes as “the restlessness in uncertainty, struggling to arrive at acceptance. A part within all of us.”
“I leave nothing for death but bones and the solitude Jester jokes / Igniting my energy and bringing me to my knees, in this 21st century, so help this sinner please / This is only one part of me – there’s always gonna be something, so what’s it gonna be today,” he sings.
Jones also shared the artwork, which he said was inspired by a painting by late French-American artist Louise Bourgeois.
“I went to New York, I visited some galleries, I saw ‘ART IS A GUARANTY OF SANITY’, a painting by Louise Bourgeois,” he said.
“She believed art was a form of mental healing and a way to process difficult emotions. The spelling caught me first, then the simplicity of the words etched onto a pink tile. So I tried scratching my title, inspired by my own art school teacher thirty years ago. And I loved it. I loved the simplicity of the pink. The pink album was born.”
Stereophonics will be busy in ’25 – they headline at the Royal Sandringham Estate in Norfolk on August 16. They start their ‘Stadium Anthems’ tour of the UK and Ireland in June/July and then have a huge hometown gig at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. They also headline this year’s Isle of Wight Festival, alongside Justin Timberlake and Sting.
The full tracklisting for ‘Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait’ is as follows:
‘Make It On Your Own’
‘There’s Always Gonna Be Something’
‘Seems Like You Don’t Know Me’
‘Colours Of October’
‘Eyes Too Big For My Belly’
‘Mary Is A Singer’
‘Backroom Boys’
‘Feeling Of Falling We Crave’
