An entirely tougher, edgier and heavier beast than their former band, the arrival of Stone Gods represents a scintillating new day for British rock music. Fronted by Richie Edwards, whose powerful voice resonates with four decades of classic rock gusto, and with Dan Hawkins assuming lead guitar duties, former Graham Coxon alumnus Toby MacFarlaine on bass guitar and Ed Grahar hammering the skins, these road-ravaged pros have spent the last year slaving away over hot guitars, carefully crafting the song that will comprise their forthcoming debut album titled “Silver spoons and broken bones”. A dazzling and diverse mixture of crunching heavy metal anthems, irresistible radio-rock and sumptuous, ballsy ballads; it’s a glorious celebration of everything tha makes loud, blaring rock ‘n’ roll so reliably exhilarating.
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When the rollercoaster ride that was The Darkness came to an abrupt and messy end with the departure of Justin Hawkins, the remaining members of the band were staring premature retirement in the face. But when rock n roll courses through your veins, surrender is never an option, and so less than an hour after their erstwhile singer jumped ship, plans were already afoot to get ti’ show back on the road.
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‘The whole thing had fallen apart,” says former bassist and Stone Gods’ singer/guitarist Richie Edwards. “I got the phone call fro Justin and I thought ‘that’s it’, but half an hour later Dan rang me and said, ‘Rich, do you fancy doing a bit of singing?’ We got together and started writing and it’s snowballed from there.”
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“If your favounte song of all time was ‘Friday Night’ then you’ll hear ‘Burn The Witch’ and you probably won’t like it,” states Dan. “But that’s cool. In a way, that’s exactly what we want! We don’t want people shouting for Darkness songs.”
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The aforementioned ‘Burn The Witch’ was the titular track from the band’s debut EP - a four track extravaganza that sold out it’s 2000 print run in a flash, and demonstrated just how exciting a proposition The Stonegods truly are.
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Phase two kick off with an iTunes exclusive single release “Knight of the living dead”, due out May 25°’, accompanied by an intimate club headlining tour. Following festival appearances at Download and The Isle of Wight the debut album (Recorded at C Hawkins’ own studio and engineered/co-produced with Dan by Nick Brine and mixed by the highly respected Mike Fraser) will follow on July 7th 2008.
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“I just can’t fuckin’ wait to get out there and play these songs to people!” enthuses Richie. “We’re all very confident,” adds Dan. “We’ve taken control of our ambitions and no one’s power hungry or fame mad. We won’t repeat any mistakes from the past. We’ve got a really punk rock attitude. I don’t have to play the game anymore. I’m not in a pop band. I don’t want to be a celebrity I’m not interested in any of that shit. I’m just so happy to be in this band. The music is the only thing that matters.”
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Catch the band live at one of their up-coming UK shows:
Read the reviews for the bands live shows with photographs and the Debut album ‘Silver Spoons And Broken Bones’ which will be out on Integral/PIAS in July 2008.
Live show review & Photographs
Album review of Silver Spoons An Broken Bones