No plan B, this is it: Stone on their ethos, origins and unrivalled energy
Things are simple in the world of Stone. They have no grand answers to questions, no well-rehearsed stories to tell over and over and no marketing one-liners to regurgitate. On the other end of the Zoom call, basking in the fresh-from-the-stage buzz of what they declared to be their “best show yet” over in Belgium, Fin Power and Alex Smith are nothing more than two mates and two musicians who love music. They’re presently prepping to share more of it.
It’s an age-old tale told time and time again, with all the biggest and best bands in the world starting with the same recipe. “I met Elliot [Gil, guitarist] in 2015 at a house party when we were little bambinos, and we just clicked instantly. Then I met Alex [Smith, drummer] in college, then in late 2019, Stone started. Alex went to uni and met Sarah [Surrage, bass], then we had the full package,” frontman Power explains. Each member came from different musical camps, with Smith starting out in heavier rock bands while Gil was a soft shoegaze fan. But what truly united Stone was the shared knowledge that this would be the end. This would be it.
As the band put it, there is no plan B, and there never was. From the second Stone got underway, there was no half-arsing it; they were in all or nothing. “I’m not doing this as a hobby,” Power said, his Liverpudlian accent steeled with an uncharacteristic seriousness that only pops out when talking about his drive to succeed. “I love it, but it’s also my work. It’s going to be my life, and this is the only life I’ve got. The others feel the same.”
That’s resulted in a work ethic unrivalled by any peers and an energy that refuses to be contained. While that’s obvious to anyone who’s seen the band’s high-octane live sets, where each member purposefully exhibits the drive that propels them, no matter what size the stage is, it manifests most in the band’s behind-the-scenes world.
“We got probably 150 songs in our demo folder that no one’s heard. Our producer said he’s never met a band who writes so much,” Power explained. But it’s not just using up their energy running around in circles, chasing the tale of the success they’ve found with tracks like ‘Money (Hope Ain’t Gone)’ or ‘Leave It Out’; they’re putting effort into constantly evolving and channelling their tireless passion into whatever form it takes. “Sometimes I wonder if Stone has a sound yet,” Power wonders. “If you listen to ‘If You Wanna’ compared to ‘Moto’, it’s a completely different sound. The melting pot is forever melting. We’re constantly adding spices to the recipe,” he continues.
Agreeing with that sentiment, Smith chimes in, “When we get asked what box we fit in, I like to say ‘what box?’ because we take a lot of genres and make them our own. What you hear is just Stone.” They spin the yarn that their sound is the result of nothing more than enduring excitement towards music, the process of making it and the surprise of what might come out on any given day. “Every song is different. Some songs come music first, some songs come lyric first, some come at the same time,” Power explained. “The formula is: there is no formula. Every single song is a different race. It’s a whole new blank canvas each time. Sometimes we sketch first, and sometimes we just throw paint at it and see what happens.”
But how does a debut album form when the machine of the band is constantly buzzing with new ideas? When I ask the band about how and when they decided to make an album, the answer comes back twofold.
On the one hand, there’s the answer from these two lads from Liverpool who are simply obsessed with music. “I was made up to finally release an album. I’ve been wanting to do the album for a long time,” Power said. In many ways, he’d already been doing it for a long time, as he explained, “The first album was getting written from the first time we ever wrote songs. We didn’t write ten songs for an album and then stop.” The process had been going on since the start of the band. As Smith added, “There are songs on the album that are older than Stone are. There are some that were old drafts where on the demo, we’re literally babies playing it.”
But then, on the other hand, there’s the answer from two musicians who are right on the cusp of not only a new chapter but on the edge of major success where there’s nothing left to do but hand over this record and hope for the best. In a world where artists have to face up to more and more pressure and competition, whether it be record labels demanding trendy fads or marketing teams wanting viral TikToks, even the most passionate band struggles to stand up against it. “Sometimes it gets hard not to buckle,” Power explained, but the process of recording the record proved soothing. Despite being a distinctly British band inspired by the Britpop greats, the group went off to one of America’s most rural states.
“Being away in an environment like Vermont and writing British rock music in such a different world, it was like being in outer space,” Power said. Amid the peace, they could focus on nothing but themselves with no external pressures or influences beyond what was already in their musical hearts; “It was nice to have no voice but my own.”
But overwhelmingly, their response to this big next step is right there in the album’s title, serving as a mantra that the band have held close since the beginning. “We’ve had the name since the start of Stone,” Power said, “It’s simple – face your fears or Fear Life For A Lifetime.” On every level, from their plan A only approach through to Power deciding to jump off a cliff and tackle his biggest fear on the cover, Stone’s debut is dedicated to pushing through worries or boundaries and just fucking going for it with your whole heart.
Now the moment is here; the answer to what’s next is just as simple as all their answers are. Stone have no grand plans, no list to tick off, no timeline to follow, they just want to keep being a band. “It’s not corporate with Stone. You know?” Power explains, with trademark steely passion. “There’s never a moment in our story where we feel like we’re having to force ourselves to do anything to do with our music. The music comes first, and that’s the part we’ve signed up for and we love. We want to make music, and we want to perform music; everything else is a bonus. Everything else is an extravagance because that’s the heart of it – just recording music and performing music to the best of our abilities.”
