Stereophonics — Just Enough Education to Perform: nothing extra, every note holding its ground

There are bands you can describe in one word: cool. Stereophonics — a three-piece rock band out of Wales — is one of them.

The album I'm pulling off the shelf today is their third: Just Enough Education to Perform (2001) — a UK number-one album, known to fans as J.E.E.P.

The album I picked up when I started my band

I came across this record around the same time I was starting to play in my own band.

I was sponging up influences from every direction, and Stereophonics fell into the category of "just plain cool." Not virtuosic, not novel. Cool by sheer bearing.

A three-piece. Almost no decoration. And yet the sound that comes out has unmistakable presence.

The way the band stands is already half the song. That kind of cool.

Why I bought a Gibson SG

I admired Kelly Jones (vocals & guitar) enough that I went and bought a Gibson SG. For the younger me, it was a purchase that took a certain amount of resolve.

What drew me to the SG was that thin double-cutaway body and the chewy mid-range that comes out of its humbuckers — exactly the kind of rock thickness that suited Stereophonics' ensemble.

The SG is sitting at my parents' place right now. Next time I visit, I'd like to plug it back in and play it for a while.

A philosophy of not adding

When I try to put this album into words, I keep arriving at the same shape. The chord progressions stay lean. And yet the melodies come out dramatic, and somehow tender. Each individual sound stands out, and nothing extra gets added — a record built with a kind of restrained, masculine economy.

Three musicians. Just the sound those three can make, polished and carried. That's enough. In fact, because they don't add, each note actually lands.

On Kelly Jones, the singing guitarist

Now for a small personal conviction.

Kelly Jones is, in my opinion, the best singing guitarist in any UK band.

Singing well while playing guitar is harder than it looks — anyone who has tried it knows. Two hands, rhythm, breath, all running on different tracks, and you have to land all of them inside the same song.

Kelly clears that hurdle as if it weren't there. His voice, his playing, his guitar tone — all of it is top-tier, and he's doing all of it from the center of the band.

You hear the polished studio version, you hear the slightly ragged live version, and Kelly's voice and tone come through intact in both. Listening to him reminds me that "great singer" and "great guitarist" really can live inside the same person.

Four favorite tracks

The album holds up well as a continuous listen. A few that I keep coming back to:

Lying in the Sun

Like lying out in the sun — a calm song with a wide-open feel. It carries the mood of the whole album.

Have a Nice Day

A single, and impossible to leave out of any conversation about Stereophonics. The wry, warm, slightly humorous lyrics, the riff, the chorus — all of it light on its feet, and yet it doesn't leave you.

Handbags and Gladrags

A classic written by Mike d'Abo, made famous in Rod Stewart's reading. Stereophonics' version carries that lineage — and yet it lands with a conviction only Kelly Jones's voice can give it.

Making a song that isn't yours feel completely yours — not many singers can do that as cleanly as Kelly does here.

Watch Them Fly Sundays

The pull of the melody, and the way the guitar texture wraps around it. There's a quiet floating quality to it, like looking up at the sky on a Sunday afternoon.

In memory of Stuart Cable

To close, I want to acknowledge the man on drums for this record — Stuart Cable.

A founding member of Stereophonics, the rhythmic spine of the band for many years. He left the band in 2003 and passed away, far too young, in 2010.

Stuart's drumming wasn't about showing technique. It was the kind of drumming that breathed with the band and played only the notes that had to be there. The minimalism that gives J.E.E.P. its character was built on top of his subtractive playing, and you can still hear that when you put the record on today.

Thank you, Stuart.

Pick another one off the shelf

See Stereophonics — Just Enough Education to Perform on Amazon (JP)

That's entry number three of the From the Shelf series. If you ever want to revisit that presence — three musicians adding nothing extra, and still a whole band — give it a full listen.

Next disc — undecided. I'll open the closet, see what catches my eye, and bring another one out.