Stereophonics
I first met Kelly Jones, Stuart Cable and Richard Jones, collectively known then as Tragic Love Company and later Stereophonics in the mid 90’s.

My dad discovered them at a small show in Wales and immediately signed them to his management company, Marsupial Management, which at the time, I was a company director of.

I was in my early teens then, so outside of school time, I would hang out with the band at their gigs and when they came to my house (where my dad’s office was). At weekend’s, I’d work for my dad filling merchandise orders and logging names and addresses from fans.

The first video I worked on with them was Pick A Part That’s New in 1998, when I was 13. I carried their guitars back and forth to the set and handed them to them.

In 1999, I went to a lot more shows, this time armed with a camera, so I filmed a lot of behind-the-scenes bits and pieces, including their shows at Wembley Stadium and Morfa Stadium.

In 2000, I hung out with the band at Hook End Manor Studios when they recorded their song with Tom Jones, Mamma Told Me Not To Come. I had great fun playing on Stuart’s drums and Kelly’s Gibson Les Paul Gold Top between takes that day.

Also that year, I went to the Have A Nice Day video shoot, which for a 15 year old boy was very exciting! Whilst I didn’t actually work on the video itself, I learned a lot about filmmaking that day.

In 2001, a few days after completing my GCSE exams, I went on a brief tour with them. I travelled up to Scotland for their headline show at T In The Park. The following day, U2 sent a private plane for us to pick up at Edinburgh, to fly us over to Europe for some of the support shows there.

I have countless cool memories of hanging out with Stereophonics and filming behind-the-scenes bits for them during that time period. Probably should write a book about it one day! Ha.