Stereophonics' Kelly Jones on his new project, Far From Saints

Far From Saints, his new side project with US musicians Patty Lynn and Dwight Baker of The Wind and The Wave, draws on another of the 48-year-old Welshman’s interests: rootsy Americana.

“Being brought up with my two older brothers and my Dad doing his music, there was always a lot of different types of music being played in the house,” he says. “There was always a lot of American songwriters – Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash and all that kind of stuff, Springsteen or whatever.

“I’ve always loved the soul stuff and I’ve always loved the kind of lyric-writing stuff, so for me, I’ve always tried to combine the two together. But I’ve always wanted to try to make some Nashville/Americana-style kind of record because that’s my favourite music. I’ve always had that lilt in my writing anyway, really, just dressed up in different ways within the band sometimes.”

The Wind and The Wave were the opening act for Stereophonics on their 2013 Graffiti on the Train tour of the US, and Jones says he immediately “loved” Lynn’s voice.

“I thought she was a great singer, and I loved their first record which was out at the time, called From the Wreckage,” he says. “There are lots of girls and guys that can sing, they can hit all the notes, but there’s not many that can actually move you as they’re doing it. I really felt something as she was singing.”

The trio reconnected on Jones’ solo tour in 2019. “That’s when we started to do the odd song together, and I said maybe we should try to write some songs, and we tried it and it became very natural,” he says.

While covering the Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty duet Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, with Lynn, Jones realised there was a certain magic in the air.

“Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty’s voices are not too dissimilar to the ranges we both naturally stay at, and obviously I love Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac’s stuff, so it was a good staple song to try,” he says. “On that tour I had a completely different band, I had a couple of girls in the group, so on the whole tour there was a different dynamic, there was a lot of cool musicians on the road doing lots of different stuff, so it felt like a liberating time to try different things.”

He, Lynn and Baker set up “little writing rooms backstage” before soundchecks where they would “see what could unfold”.

“I haven’t written many songs with different people before, I usually do that kind of stuff myself,” he says. “We’d bounce lines off each other and we bonded really good on the writing stuff and communicating how we wanted to do the record.”

By the end of the tour they had a full album’s worth of material which they recorded in nine days. But then the pandemic struck and Far From Saints’ eponymous debut album sat of the shelf for the best part of three years.

Now, finally, it’s about to emerge, with a string of corresponding summer shows including two at Wrexham AFC’s Racecourse ground with Kings of Leon as well as a slot on the Avalon stage at Glastonbury festival.

The songs themselves don’t shy away from life’s struggles but they suggest there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“I think there’s a lot of honesty on the record, and there’s a fair amount of vulnerability, but there’s also lots of hope and lots of beauty,” Jones says. “I think that’s what comes with struggle and suffering. We all have hard times, and every single person in the world goes through it, whether it’s just for one day or for ten years. We all have ups, we all have downs, but every human being just has to keep one foot in front of the other and see where it all takes us.

“I’ve always tried to include that element in my writing. If I’m at the bottom of a well, I’ll try to offer some sort of answer within the song to take the listener somewhere, and then it’s up to them to interpret it. That’s kind of the arc of the stories of the songs.”

If the album is received well, Jones says the “ideal plan would be to do a theatre tour in the autumn and then see how things pick up from there”. Meanwhile, Stereophonics very much remain a going concern. “I speak to the boys regularly,” he says, adding that at the time we spoke the band were about to do a small charity concert for a member of Wales’ rugby team.

He believes side projects benefit the main band. “Every job is kind of cyclical, so to maintain that kind of growth and interest and excitement factor to discover new things you have to change things around a little bit,” he says. “(Stereophonics) is not going anywhere, it’s just a case of invigorating individuals within the band to come back so we’re all excited to do it.”

Far From Saints’ debut album is out June 16. They play at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, on May 26.