News

Kelly Jones Pays Tribute To Former Bandmate Stuart Cable

• 8th Jun 2010

Wales Online has reported that Kelly Jones yesterday movingly revealed how drummer Stuart Cable never expected to reach 40 because of his love of the rock’n’roll lifestyle.

The 40-year-old musician, who left the Stereophonics in 2003, was found dead at his home in Aberdare early yesterday morning.

Jones, the Stereophonics’ frontman and a childhood friend of Cable, described how he was “in shock” yesterday.

“I cannot begin to tell you what we’ve been through together as friends and bandmates, up and down,” he said.

Fans and regulars began to assemble a makeshift shrine yesterday, as flowers were placed on the windscreen of Cable’s car, still parked outside a favourite pub.

He had spent part of Sunday evening drinking at the Welsh Harp Inn at nearby Trecynon, leaving his black luxury Chrysler 300 sedan there when he decided to go home by taxi.

Jones, visibly upset by the news, said: “I sent him a text last week to say happy birthday and he replied: ‘I never thought I’d make it to 40.’

“I texted him back and I said: ‘You will live to be 100 mate.’

“I think that was quite strange really.”

Jones was in the band’s hometown of Aberdare for a family funeral when he spoke of his grief at losing his friend.

He said: “I’m in total shock. It was about 8.30am and I was getting ready to go to my uncle’s funeral when Stuart’s brother Paul rang.

“I was going to see Stuart today for a pint and wish him happy birthday as well.”

Singer-songwriter Jones, 36, said he and Cable had patched up their differences after the drummer was sacked from the band in 2003.

Jones said at the time that the decision to axe him was “heartbreaking” but months of effort to resolve the situation had failed.

Recalling the sacking in his book, Cable said: “It was the darkest time of my entire life.”

He added: “Until that point in my life, I had never ever considered something as stupid as suicide, but that night (as Stereophonics played a homecoming show at Cardiff’s Millennium stadium a few months later) I could really understand why people get depressed enough to do it.”

Yesterday, Jones said: “We have been speaking to each other for the past five years.

“When people break up in bands no-one really knows what it’s all about.

“But, between me and Stuart, all our disagreements were solved within one year.

“Stuart would be the first person to admit what happened when the band separated.

“There were no regrets. We were still good friends and he wished me good luck for our gig in Cardiff on Saturday.

“For Christmas it was a joke between us – he would buy me a bottle of Newcastle Brown and I would get him a pint of lager.”

Jones, dressed in black suit and tie, was with his six-year-old daughter Lolita Bootsy, when he spoke of his affection for the tragic drummer.

He looked pale and tearful as he spoke outside the Cwmaman Institute where the Stereophonics played their first gigs.

His great-uncle Rees Jones died aged 87 last week. His funeral was held in Aberdare yesterday and the wake was at the institute.

It is likely that a similar wake will be held for Cable in the institute after his funeral.