Before Anyone Knew Our Name

Album: Scream Above The Sounds (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • Stuart Cable was the Stereophonics original drummer before being sacked by the rest of the band in September 2003. It is said Cable was kicked out of the group, as he was spending too much time on his new media career at the expense of rehearsals. The drummer and broadcaster died on June 7, 2010 after a heavy drinking session. Stereophonics wrote this song in memory of him.

    I miss you, man
    Before anyone knew our name
    We had the fire, had desire
    But what went wrong then?


    Frontman Kelly Jones said of the song:

    "That's a reflection of losing Stuart Cable. I think, you know, Stuart left the band and we were still friends for seven years. And then he passed away tragically, and of course people have opinions about what happened and all this sort of stuff.

    We kept it very private because we were like brothers and we didn't want to dish any dirt.

    And I guess a lot of the point of the song also is, you know, Stuart and I lived seven doors apart all our lives, and from the age of 12 I was in a band with him. So we were trying to be the people we became for a long time, before anybody knew who we were. So there's a lot of history there before we even had a record deal. People forget that sometimes. There's a lot of history there and sometimes people make judgements or calls on what happened when they don't really know the backstory."
  • Kelly Jones told The Sun this song was a last minute addition to Scream Above The Sounds.

    "We were like brothers. There'd been a problem when he left the band but we'd made up by 2004 and everything was fine. So after he died, he was on my mind quite a lot. At shows I kept thinking about him. I'd dream about him. He popped into in my head all the time. One day the album was pretty much done but I had this overwhelming feeling to write about him."

    Jones added: "I'd been back to Wales to show my kids where I came from and so the writing was inspired by those memories. It's quite a sensitive song and was just pages of thoughts. Stuart is someone you'll never forget. He was a character that burnt very brightly. He had a huge smile and personality and he was very proud of this band — even when he wasn't in it. When 'Dakota' went to #1 in 2005, he was the first person to send congratulations."

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