Rock3: You’ve been quoted to say you are not interested in fame, power or being celebrities, but as The Stone Gods popularity increases, how will you, as a band, maintain the music as a priority?
SG: Given the fact that everyone has been there before we can see the pitfalls now and have learnt lessons and grown in maturity. The experience has helped us to say no to things now whereas first time round you’re finding your feet really.

Rock3: You had high drama with Ed Graham leaving as you did your first headline tour. Robin stood in temporarily, and Stuart Cable too for the Kerrang! gig and then Robin joined you officially. Was this a natural progression? Were dynamics and ethos the main considerations for you?
Robin: A previous employee of Bush knew these guys well and knew my style musically and so he thought it would fit the band. You never know until you play together really, but as a musician he knew it could work.
Richie: We had a few days rehearsal before Donnington, and before we got to the chorus of Burn the Witch we were all looking at each other like ‘it’s going to be alright’. In fact for me one of the best moments so far was when we played Donnington with Robin. It just felt right and we were tighter than we’d ever been even though we’d only had a few rehearsals.
Dan: For me it really helped with the confidence when we were on stage that it all seemed to fit so well.

Rock3: Toby, your Cable Guy diary on the website had me in bits. I see you’re also doing a tour blog. You write to entertain and informatively, is this going to be a side line for you? Can we expect more, or a side line into children’s books?
Toby: Nah, Mills and Boon. Ha ha. We might do a podcast though. I’m going to try and do it (the blog diary) every few days. It’s good to do it.
Dan: On the previous project they asked me to do it and it wasn’t as informative as Toby’s. They usually started off with “Woke up really hungover”.

Rock3: Do you find it difficult to shake off the shadows of The Darkness?
SG: Initially when we’d dusted off the glitter and started this band all the interviews were asking about it, but when you come from a successful band it’s going to happen really. But now we’re finding the questions are less and less about how it was and more about if we feel we’ve shaken it off. Its not something we shy away from, to be honest. Every band has a history, and what a history to have. But its not something we’ve ever used. It was very difficult to get deals but we knew from our previous project who we could actually trust so we were really very lucky, although we were starting from the grass roots up, just like anyone else. One of the worst things was that you put so much work into an album that if the first track has bad reviews the whole album can get shelved. That thought was very scary for us.

Rock3: ‘Don’t Drink The Water’ reminded me on first listen of The Little Angels. Were they amongst your influences?
SG: There’s stuff we all like collectively but we also have a mix of music. It’s like making a cake, the stuff we like collectively is the foundation, but you can decorate it any way you like. If any of us have any suggestions we’re all open to different stuff. It’ll be interesting when we go into the next stage and are writing with Robin to see how that influences it. But we’re very open to each other’s suggestions and ideas because we’re four people that really like music.

Rock3: You are on a very intense touring campaign to promote Silver Spoons and Broken Bones, but what do you plan to do at the end of it?
Richie: The goal is to register on the Rock Richter scale. We hope to get the festivals in the summer, but early next year maybe overseas. We’ve started to get interest from the US and Europe so we’ll see what happens. As far as taking a break goes, it’s not going to happen.

The twenty minute slot flew by and I could have happily sat chatting to them for hours. They were polite, amusing, and pleasing company. During the Airbourne performance SG came over and said hi, asking if we’d enjoyed their set. Then they happily chatted to and posed for photos with some of their fans on the balcony, which will have made the night of a young girl in a wheelchair. Their naturalistic attitude is endearing and refreshing. Their music is addictive. The Stone Gods will go far and we at Rock3 love them!