Words: Darci Jackson
Photography: Jake Firkins
STONE are just about halfway through the tour for their debut album Fear Life For A Lifetime. They’re playing smaller cities on this tour, such as Guildford, Tunbridge Wells… and Stoke-on-Trent.
“Never ever played Stoke, I don’t think we’ve even been close to here,” starts frontman Fin Power as we sit on the roof of The Sugarmill on a mild autumn night with drummer Alex Smith.
STONE have just come off the back of a busy summer, releasing the album and playing lots of festivals, particularly in Europe.
“Europe’s quite surreal for us,” mentions Power. “Less than a year ago we played a really small venue in Brussels and we’ve just played somewhere 7 or 8 times the size.”
They band say how support from radio stations, particularly in Belgium and The Netherlands, has helped them connect with fans across The Channel.
“Suddenly we played a festival in The Netherlands and we were like “oh it’s going to be a bit empty, it’s our first show” and we walked out and everyone’s singing out words.”
Prior to Fear Life For A Lifetime, STONE have been gathering a fanbase quickly but quietly across the UK, following their two EPs punkadonk and punkadonk2. Their mash-up of genres from punk, garage rock and a hint of electronica makes their shows a melting pot of enchantment, sweat and visceral energy.
“We’ll never take that long to do an album again to be honest, I’m pretty adamant to get the next one out quite quickly,” says Power.
Tracks on the album such as My Thoughts Go, Save Me and Save Yourself are already quickly becoming fan favourites.
“It’s a funny one as well because the actual demos of the songs, we’re babies on it, so we’ve been putting everything into it since we started the band,” adds Smith.
The album cover ties in perfectly to the name, showing Power jumping off a cliff into the sea.
“I was shit scared,” he says, honestly. “That was the whole point of it, I wanted to do something daring. Initially I was like I want to jump off a 100ft cliff into the ocean.”
Power said he wanted to combine two of his fears. The ocean, and heights.
After speaking to a cliff diver who had been diving for over 10 years and had only jumped 100ft once, he realised that was pretty unrealistic: “100ft, to put into perspective, you hit the water about 70/80mph.”
But 60ft was definitely still possible.
“In my head I didn’t think it would be that bad and I went to an Olympic diving board and that’s 35ft and I remember when I got to the diving board I was like “what?!”
Smith adds “I [gave] the diving board a go from a metre high and belly flopped and it fucking hurt so well done.”
That would be us too, Alex.
“You never overcome your fears I guess. It was definitely a thing with that cliff jump where I put myself into a very uncomfortable place very quickly,” finishes Power.
“I just wanted to do it, I had my mind set on it. The record label were like “we don’t want you to do it” and I said “well if you don’t let us do it, i’m going to give my mates a disposable camera and i’m going to go down and do it anyway.”
Seeing as we were in the home of Robbie Williams (which Power seemingly forgot!) we had to bring up their accidental cover of Angels.
“It wasn’t a cover of Robbie!” starts Power, laughing. “You know Leave It Out, we’ve got to a point now where after the middle out when I go “That’s what I say, that’s what I say” and I can stop, and I can stop for like 10 seconds and the minute I go “Just leave it”, the band knows to come back in. So I was like finished and I was like “what do I do.”
“I just looked out to the crowd and I don’t even know, I just went “and through it all” and sang the chorus of Angels and on the last word of the chorus I went “just leave it out” and went back into the chorus. It was just funny”
“Nearly caught me off guard,” says Smith.
STONE have adopted the catchphrase ‘the underground voice for the lost youth,’ and Power says it’s something he said a while ago that just stuck. But it still resonates with them today.
“Early days when we were playing really small venues and we were getting a bit of a die hard community cult fanbase which we loved and that was what we wanted originally. That’s how it felt, like we were the underground voice for these people.”
The band have all worked in roles giving back to the community with Power saying how he used to work in mental health before the band.
“I was a teacher, Elliot does a lot of youth work and we’ve always been ingrained in the community and the youth,” mentions Smith.
“When we’re playing live and there’s kids coming to the gigs and theyre going fucking nuts when we’re playing, there’s that connection that you feel.”
Power adds: “If you find a place where you feel happy around us, that’s the main thing.”
You can listen to STONE’s debut album Fear Life For A Lifetime here