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Lost Prophets.
South Wales is not known as a hotbed of rock or metal. In fact, unless you think of an aging crooner with a penchant for wailing, it’s hard to find any connection between the region and successful musicians. Lost Prophets are out to change all that however, and as for the fact that they live a matter of minutes away from Tom Jones’ birthplace, guitar player Lee Glaze admits that, "we probably mention it more than the magazines do, anyway." Though there are certainly no collaborations in the works, they don’t mind the association, because "You can’t argue with Tom Jones."
While a garage in a small town called Pontypridd might not seem like the most auspicious starting point for a rock band, Lee is of the opinion that it’s done the band good: "I think its better than us coming from somewhere like London, because bands there play three or four shows and before you know it, there’s press at your shows reviewing you, and then you get off to a bad start, whereas being in South Wales, that way we kind of had a chance to perfect everything without anyone even knowing we existed." It seems to have worked for Lost Prophets, who managed to get a 10/10 rating from ‘Metal Hammer’ when they sent their first demo in to the magazine.
"Yeah, I remember getting 10 out of 10, I think that was in ’97. I was pretty surprised by that. I didn’t think it was worth 10 out of 10. I liked it, but it seemed pretty crazy." Given such modesty, the excitement Lee feels about the upcoming album ‘Start Something’ surely bodes good things, though he’s less than excited about the fact that many fans have heard it already. "With this new record, it’s not released until the end of January, and people were working really hard to make sure it didn’t get online, you know? Now it’s just like all the element of surprise is gone - we’ve been hyping this up for the last month and a half and if people want, they can just go online and download it, so when it does come out in January, half the people are gonna have heard it anyway, so it kind of kills the excitement for us."
The positive reviews that have been filtering back go some way to remedying the problem, and hopefully sales will justify the group’s decision not to rush-release the record. "We thought about it, but it didn’t seem like a good idea. The thing is, I think a lot of the fans in the UK will buy it anyway because they like the band, and in America people won’t download it because they don’t even know we exist as a band and pretty much the same everywhere else."
One of the benefits of having a low profile is that the band is able to stay in contact with their fans on a personal basis: "It’s a daily thing for me. Personal MSN and people will also ask us on the website and we’ll always go on there and if it’s not a really retarded stupid question, we’ll answer it." An example of a stupid question? "Ian [Watkins, lead vocalist] put out a rumour that Justin Timberlake was on the record, but, you know, they should know Ian better by now." This is also the man who told interviewers that the name Lost Prophets comes from an old Duran Duran bootleg. "We had the band name before that, and Ian came up with it. I think Ian just said that to be cool. I think he just likes associating with Duran Duran. That’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone that, I don’t know if it actually means anything."
Though you wouldn’t pick it from their music, it’s not such a stretch to see Duran Duran among their influences. Lee quotes Metallica and Slayer, but then cites The Police and The Cure among his personal inspirations. This range of influences helps to create the Lost Prophets sound, a mix of styles that has been mislabelled as Nu-Metal by some, but which Lee describes more accurately. "Call it rock. I think we’re just a rock band. The next album I think is just a rock band, I guess."
They’re certainly looking forward to touring as part of the
Big Day Out: "It’ll be good for us, ‘cause we’ll be in Australia
so we can just play 40 minutes and then we’ve got the rest of
the day to do what we want." No doubt that will include catching
a few of the other bands playing, but mostly it seems like they
just want to have fun and play a bunch of good shows. A fine
New Year’s Resolution if ever I’ve heard one.
Alexis Buxton-Collins
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Lost Prophets play Big Day Out’s Essential Stage at 5.15.
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