On the final day at Boardmasters Festival we sat down with vocalist/guitarist Fin Power of STONE to talk about their day out in Newquay, the busy festival season they’ve had so far and what’s to come in 2022.
Tell us a bit about you, tell us a bit about the band? For anyone who’s not heard you before, who are you?
We’re a band from Liverpool! Erm, all met at college in LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts), I never went to the uni, Alex went to the uni. Met Sarah…From there we’ve just all kinda fell in love with each other, in love with writing music together and just performing. I guess that’s what we love to do now, d’ you know what I mean?
Yeah yeah, you can really see it on stage. The interaction was really like powerful between you all. It’s really nice. Obviously, you were first on main stage today, you said you were stoked to be following on from Disclosure. How does it feel to be up on there, on that big stage out in Cornwall?
So yeah we’ve played a quite a few main stages this summer, our actual last three shows were main stage…I thought it was quite funny last night when we were watching Disclosure and I thought…technically, we’re on after these…in twelve hours! (laughs), but yeah it was fun! Hot…d’ you know what I mean?
Was gunna say, you were up there in trousers! Brave move.
I came on and I was like, no the t-shirt has to come off! Way, way too hot. Had to take me top off, needed to feel the breeze.
We don’t know how you’re up there in that, we’ve been struggling in the all blacks (photographs wear all black in the photo pit). That follows on nicely, as you said you did two festivals, you’ve been in Europe as well, you’ve got a couple more Europe festival dates, how have the European audiences reacted in compassion to UK audiences?
European Audiences, I think they are…. they’re just excited to hear music they’ve never heard before. UK Audiences are very lucky to have bands that they love so accessible at their festivals whereas a lot of the European fans, they’re just going to gigs just to hear new music so they always go crazy, it’s great, I love it. We’re supporting Louis Tomlinson in Malaga and that’s in two weeks. So yeah, we’ve got that and a couple European shows, and we’ve got Jersey Weekender, that’s gonna be fun. Jersey’s…not quite Europe, it’s more…England?
You get on a plane.
You’ve gotta get on a plane! (Laughs)
You’ve gotta fly to get there, there’s still passport control.
Yeah! (Laughs)
Gotta sit there for 10 hours waiting
Yeah! (laughs)
STONE released their new single ‘Waste’, what was the recording process like? Everybody has a different way of doing it. Do you come in with the music first? Lyrics first? What’s your song writing process?
Waste in particular was a crazy one y’know. We worked with a producer; a fella called Al. It kinda just got recorded all at once. It was very…raw. Because the lyrics…I had the song for years and the lyrics come last June and then, I was being dead sarcastic, I was in a bad mood and then kinda wrote these aggressive lyrics about being sick of being judged…of being judged before anyone knows you and it just ended up clicking. Normally the process can be all separated and you do each line and each verse separately. You do each part, and each line and each verse, d’ you know what I mean? If that makes sense.
Yeah for sure it makes sense, so it kinda came off, in time? It’s a process of time.
Yeah.
That’s cool. What inspires your song writing? Anything in particular, you just mentioned then, different kinds of motives?
Hard situations. Like, sometimes I love a bit of pressure and a bit of craziness. I love that… Wombats lyrics, Let’s dance to Joy Division, everything is going wrong, when everything is going pear shaped, they give me inspiration to write. I need experiences to write about, I can’t really pull lyrics out of nowhere.
Just a fun one to end on, to tie up with, what something you’re listing to right now that everyone needs to have on their playlist. What’s going crazy for you right now that everyone needs to add, straight up?
I listen to sooo much music….
If one is too much, give us a couple.
Someone got me in to Freddie Dredd. You heard of Freddie Dredd? And he’s like, I don’t even know what style of music it is? It’s just crazy, the beats?! The lyrics, are so distorted you can’t even hear what he’s saying. The beats are just like, crazy horror beats!! I’m loving it!
Where can we catch you next? Other than Spain.
Leeds Festival!
We can…?
Yeah, we’ve announced that (laughs). Leeds! Reading and Malaga. It’s gunna be a crazy weekend.
Leeds, famous for being like Malaga.
Yeah, get to know the Yorkshire riviera! (laughs)
Very cool, thanks so much for taking time to talk to us today, really enjoyed your set. Everyone needs to check you out right away.
Course! Thank you so much for talking to me.
Photo Credit: Charlie Harris
Interview By: Caitlyn Ebsworthy
You can see STONE live at the following dates this year:
August 2022
Fri 26th – LEEDS – Leeds Festival (Festival Republic Stage)
Sat 27th – MALAGA – The Away From Home Festival
Sun 28th – READING – Reading Festival (Festival Republic Stage)
October 2022
Sat 15th – MANCHESTER – Academy *
Sun 16th – GLASGOW – O2 Academy *
Wed 19th – LONDON – Roundhouse *
Fri 21st – SHEFFIELD – O2 Academy ^
Sat 22nd – NOTTINGHAM – Rock City ^
Sun 23rd – BIRMINGHAM – O2 Academy ^
Tue 25th – NORWICH – UEA ^
Thu 27th – NEWCASTLE – NX ^
Fri 28th – MANCHESTER – O2 Victoria Warehouse ^
*Supporting Inhaler
^Supporting The Wombats
