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Articles: RockLouder (March 2008)

More used to interviewing bands in the sweaty confines of some dingy barfly or cavernous arena, Rocklouder was in for a change of scenery when it attended the premiere of ‘The Legend Of Don Williams’ – a short film from Pontypridd director Tony Evans that features Arena monsters the Lostprophets. We were lucky enough to catch a quick word with guitarist Mike Lewis to find out what the Taffia is, how the new album’s shaping up and if we’re going to lose him to Hollywood.

How did you and the band get involved in this project?
Well it was about a year ago, I got a call from Tony – I’ve known Tony since I was, Jesus, since I was three – we went to nursery school together. He came to me and was saying that he was making a movie and he asked me as a favour – knowing Ian as well – would we be in this movie, and could we rope the rest of the guys in. We said yeah for numerous reasons really; it’s exciting to do something different and also just to help a mate out. He’s somebody that’s grown up exactly the same way we have and he wants to make a movie, so we’re gonna help him out any way we can. So tonight we have the world premiere of Don Williams!

How nervous were you? Did you get to see it before tonight?
No, tonight was the first of seeing it. I wanted it to be good for Tony; I know how much he’s put into it. I was more nervous for him than for my (laughs) shoddy abilities as an actor. But I think he did really well, it was good.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the films about?
It’s about... the Taffia, which is obviously the welsh version of the mafia, I don’t want to give too much away, there’s a bit of a twist in the title at the ending, but it’s bit of a love story, murder vibe thing. Just check it out.

What was your role in the film?
I was a henchman named after a famous character from Pontyprydd, Eddie Catkiller. I was the right hand man to Jonesy [played by Ian Watkins] who’s one of the bad guys. It was fun for my first acting role to be playing a bad guy.

What did you think of your own performance then, you said it was ‘shoddy’?
Y’know, it was better than what I thought it would be, being as I’ve never done it before, so it could’ve been a lot worse. But we filmed all of our parts in a day and it was a lot of fun.

Did it fit in with your schedule okay?
Yeah. We played Reading Festival and then we had a couple of days off after, so we came down here and to do this with him. It was fun to do something different and was such a totally different vibe to what we usually do, it’s still artistic and at the end of the day it’s all about helping out Welsh talent and Tony’s a talented guy. It’s all about getting a break and getting out there.

No chance of you abandoning the music for the silver screen then?
(smiles) I don’t think so, but I think it’s something i would be interested in doing it again. I do things if they’re fun, and this was a lot of fun. So never say never, you know.

It’s Oscar season at the moment. Have you seen anything lately that would get your vote?
Yeah, I’ve seen There Will Be Blood and I thought it was outstanding. Daniel Day Lewis was phenomenal, and Paul Thomas Anderson [director] was fantastic. I’m a bit of a film nerd anyway, it depends on what I’m seeing, you know, if I go and see Transformers then i can switch my brain off.

You seem the right age to have grown up with Transformers. How did you think it compared transferred from cartoon to film?
I enjoyed it; I sat in the movie theatre and turned my age back 22 years. If I had seen that movie as a kid, my mind would have been fucking blown! You know, the first time you see them transform like that – when I saw that Citroen ad for god’s sake, my mind was blown! But, you know, I can go see a movie like that and switch off and enjoy it for what it is, and I can go see something [where] I can go (pretentious voice) “oh yahs, the cinematography on that part was ah-mazing.” So when I went to see There Will Be Blood it was just wicked. That would be my pick anyway.

Are you going to be able to talk about the album?
Yeah, I mean there’s not much to talk about right now...

Is it complete yet?
It’s... no. Thing is with us, we have amazingly short attention spans, so something which seems like a good idea at one moment, six months later, doesn’t. So we’ve written a ton of songs and then either got bored of them or we were like, “You know what, that’s just not up to par.” We’ve got a bunch of stuff that we think is really good, and we’re going to continue to write some more songs. I would say it’s, like, seventy-five percent there.

Is it still scheduled for around summertime?
Yeah, hopefully. We were originally thinking the end of the year [07] the beginning of this year, but things don’t pan out the way you think; you get busy with other things and you get sidetracked. But if we’re not a hundred percent happy with it then we’ll push ourselves as hard as we can.

Even if it is later in the year, though, it’s quite a quick turnover for you.
Yeah, well that’s what we’re thinking. 'Liberation Transmission' only came out in the summer of 2006. We started writing the follow-up in February 2007. But even if it doesn’t come out till august it’s still only two years after the last record came out, so it’s not like its three or four... you know, it’s not Guns’n’Roses by any stretch of the imagination.

Thank fuck for that! Any tracks that you’ve already got down that you’re really psyched about?
Yeah, there’s a few. There’s a track we’ve been playing live called ‘Next stop Atro City’ we’ve played at all the arena shows and festivals that we did last year, and I think that’ll still make the record... you know I don’t even know. We’re gonna start writing some songs tomorrow and then we could go in there in the next two weeks and write ten more songs which will be like “oh well, there’s a record, ten songs right there.”

It’s been stated in the press that it’s going to be ‘darker’ and ‘nastier’ than previous albums. If this is the case, what’s led you to the dark side?
Um... I don’t really know. It was just a vibe after the last record. I don’t even know if it’s gonna be that way, now. Ian was saying a lot of that with his lyrics, his lyrics were darker. I think a lot of that was about the lyrical point of view. A lot of the time, when people say it’s going to be darker or heavier, people expect, y’know, Machine Head. And it’s certainly not that. But I think the last record was so positive lyrically that this one is a little bit of a departure for us as we’ve done that. Our last three albums have been very positive so for this one it was ‘let’s do something a little different’. And who knows, we’re still writing it, we’re still in the process of doing it, and I know what our attention spans are like, and I know the way we are, so...

So if the feeling is right, we might end up with an album of Acid Jazz?
... yeah.

Okay, you had a bit of big news recently. How stoked are you to be headlining Download this year?
(smiling) It’s pretty awesome. We’ve headlined Give It A Name before, festivals in Europe, but this is Donnington, you know? So... it’s pretty awesome. Our manager called me up and he was like “we got this offer for Download. Headlining.” And we were like “YES.” Sometimes you get offers and you think, ‘I dunno about that, let me think about it and I’ll get back to you tomorrow’ but with that it was just “Yes.” Straight away.

Did you ever think when you were growing up ‘Yeah, one day I’ll be headlining a festival with Kiss.’?
(laughs)It’s, er... no. (laughs) When I was a kid in my bedroom I had a monsters of rock poster, I guess it must have been from 1991; AC/DC, Metallica, Skid Row, Queensryche, Motley Crue. I had the poster of it on my wall, and now we’re headlining that festival two days after Kiss. It’s weird to say the least.

Finally, this year sees your new album released, new material from Funeral for a Friend, the Automatic, up and comers Viva Machine and Kids In Glass Houses, it’s already seen the release of the new Bullet For My Valentine album... Bit of a good year for Wales?
I think it’s a fantastic year for Wales. I mean... musically... and we beat England at Twickenham.

Haha, I don’t think many Wales fans will forget that one for a while.
(laughs) I showed the wife a side of me she’d never seen on that day! But yeah, I think musically, over the past couple of years, the scene in Wales has been phenomenal, the bands coming out here; I don’t know what it is. We get asked what it is about South Wales in particular, why all these bands are coming out: Us, Funeral, and Bullet who are the bigger bands if you like, and then you have The Blackout and Kids In Glass Houses, all these other bands coming through, and all these little bands. I don’t know, whether it’s that there’s nothing to do here and just that kids want to write music and get involved, but it’s awesome. And it makes me proud, makes me proud to be Welsh.

The Legend Of Don Williams will likely be put forward for film festivals this year, check out http://www.pontypriddtales.com for more information and trailers to see the welsh rockers being menacing criminal types. An open and down-to-earth interviewee, Lewis didn’t rush despite having only a short time to spare before having to get back to London. He catches a few words with old friends from Ponty, leaving Rocklouder to try not to stare too hard at the frighteningly realistic Tom Jones lookalike nearby...t up to par.”