Although released more than 6 months ago in their native U.K., Stereophonics are just getting some attention in Australia. The band have just completed an amazing 1997, what with winning the best newcomer award at the 1998 Brit awards against some pretty decent competition & their debut album has just been released in Australia.

The band have just arrived in Australia for a 3 week tour following on from a swift bunch of outings in the U.S. I caught up with Stuart Cable, drummer for the band, who was pretty vibed & ready to go, accompanied by a deep Welsh accent that reminds you a little of a deep-voiced Robbie Coltrane.

Firstly, I asked Stuart how the band had found touring the U.S. as compared to their home turf.

"Well, to be quite honest, I wouldn't want to do it like that again, we'd change a few things for starters. Really, we went to try & get the radio airplay happening for us over there so we could go back at some stage, hopefully after the next album, doing a proper tour. The shows themselves were rather amusing, as some nights we'd be playing to... like 10 people & then the next, like some brilliant gigs we did in Texas, where they were great, to maybe 2,000 people. Very big difference."

The band obviously have a pretty high profile in their home country & I asked how it all came about so quickly for them.

"It's pretty hard for us to really understand, but I guess it came around for us after some very hard work on playing stuff for the various radio stations in London & the like. We haven't really had a lot of airplay on your commercial stations & radio's very funny in England as the biggest station is Radio One & it's a strange radio station. Alternative music is getting very big again over here, so maybe we're in for a better look-in now we've had some success."

With the subject of radio came the question of what stations were like in the U.K.

"Well, I've heard of your Triple J station & I'd have to say that there's nothing like it anywhere. We've only been here 3 days & haven't had much of a chance to listen to it, but we already knew about it before we got here. The 2 biggest stations in London are Virgin Radio & Radio One. Virgin is a bit more adventurous than Radio One, but they're both fairly staid in their playlists. I guess the best station would have to be XFM, as they play all sorts of different music but they only broadcast in the London area, so lots of areas miss out. Of course there's also a lot of other localised stations too."

With the airplay question answered fairly comprehensively, I asked what the plans were for the next album & whether there would be a noticeable progression.

"(laughing) Heh heh... I don't think we're gonna become The Prodigy overnight, but I think our sound will be a bit different as we're trying out some different sounds. We've already got about 12 or 13 songs recorded, so we're on the way, but we hope to have at least twice that many by the time we get into the studio."

With this album already getting towards a year old, I asked Stuart when the next album might be released.

"We'd really like to get something released towards the end of this year & hopefully this time it might get a simultaneous worldwide release, rather than in dribs & drabs. We get asked lots of the same sorts of questions in each country we visit, though it's not really anyone's fault. Hopefully next time we'll be doing a world tour for the album."

Lastly, as usual, the subject of how the band were coping with the opportunities the Internet offered.

"Not terribly well, I'm afraid, you see none of us have a computer, though I'd love to get one set up in my house when things settle down a bit. I'm told we have a lovely website, so I'm itching to see it, but that's going to have to wait little while. We've seen little bits about the Internet from friends houses & I think it's going to offer a lot to many people."

Check out the band's debut album Word Gets Around out now through V2.