All-conquering Kerrang! winners lostprophets have just hit the big time. Victoria Raimes talks to front man Ian Watkins about their new-found success…

They started out as the Lozt Prophetz; five good looking, Welsh and working class teenagers whose sole ambition was to make music.
Their days were spent writing and practising songs in a dusty garage; their nights meant performing small gigs around south Wales, building up a tight, loyal fan base and making their music heard.

Now, nine years later, times have changed. Front man Ian Watkins, guitarists Lee Gaze and Mike Lewis, bassist Stuart Richardson and keyboardist Jamie Oliver are now lostprophets (one word, all lower case). The original six have become five after losing drummer Mike Chiplin last year. Most notably of all, the band has made it big.

Their last album, Start Something, stormed the UK charts at number four. It included singles ‘Burn, Burn’, ‘Last Summer’ and their biggest hit, ‘Last Train Home’, which reached number eight in the singles chart. The album also meant a sell-out UK tour, performances at 2004’s Reading and Leeds festivals and international popularity.

Despite their success, front man Ian Watkins remains grounded. He has spent long enough out of the limelight to know that arrogance and misplaced confidence get you nowhere in his business.
Although he recognises that lostprophets have finally ‘made it’, he isn’t sure when it all happened: “There wasn’t a particular moment. It wasn’t a grand thing and there is no time that defines for me when lostprophets became successful. You might say that our performance at Reading [Festival] in 2001 showed that all of our hard work was finally paying off.

“We performed on one of the small stages and all of the fans we had gathered on our 2000 and 2001 tours had congregated to support us, which was amazing.

“We were still normal guys though, staying in a tent, touring around in a small van and enjoying the festival like everybody else.”

During the festival the band were so unfamiliar, several people even doubted their credibility as a rock band: “Our Reading performance wasn’t media-driven at all. We didn’t have the hype from the newspapers and magazines and a lot of people were like ‘Why are they here?’

“But it went really well and our fan base was brilliant. From then on we started featuring in and on the magazines. I guess you could say that was kind of a turning point.”

Two years after the release of the successful Start Something comes their third album, Liberation Transmission. Released on June 26th, it has already received top reviews from rock magazine Kerrang (5/5) and NME (8/10), and has exceeded the success of its predecessor by zooming straight to number one in the UK album charts. It arrives six years after the release of their first and less mainstream album, thefakesoundofprogress, which took only one week and £6000 to make.

In quite a contrast, Liberation Transmission was produced amongst the beautiful weather and scenery of Hawaii with veteran music producer Bob Rock. They were honoured to record with Rock, who had previously worked with their idols Metallica, but it wasn’t all cocktails, coconuts and hula skirts under the perfectionist producer: “Making this album was a lot more stressful than the previous albums” says Ian. “And a lot more challenging as well, just in working with Bob. He definitely worked us quite hard.

“He pushes you and challenges you and pushes your buttons. And if he doesn’t like something then he’ll tell you. There were arguments all the time. But we just dealt with it, because ultimately we trusted him. And, you know, we weren’t afraid to voice our opinions either.”

There was one big difference when making their latest album: lostprophets were minus one member. Drummer Mike Chiplin exited the band last year ‘to pursue other projects and spend time with his young family’, according to the official statement.

Despite the fact Chiplin had been part of the band since day one, Ian doesn’t show much regret for his departure, saying “It’s made things a lot better actually, because he was really unhappy, and everybody sensed that.

“It was so stressful, when he did leave it was like a weight had been lifted for everybody else. We knew then that everybody there was 100% focused on the band.”

For the new album, lostprophets replaced Chiplin with A Perfect Circle’s drummer Josh Freese, a man recommended by Rock. Josh finished his drumming for the album in about two days – and he didn’t stick around. For their last UK tour, which ran throughout July, the band invited the talented Ilan Rubin to fill-in as their drummer. However, he is not a member of the band yet, and may never become an official lostprophet.

“We are all just going to have to wait and see what happens,” says Ian. “Asking if you are going to invite a new person to join our band is like asking a new girlfriend to marry you after a few weeks – it’s rushed and stupid.

“We want to get to know Ilan first as a person – and he hasn’t even been on tour with us yet. There’s no argument that he is an incredible drummer and we are enjoying our time with the guy.

“But, basically, we are taking things slowly. We always do. We want to make sure that we make a good decision that we won’t regret because when somebody joins us, they join us for life.”

Ian confidently calls Liberation Transmission their “strongest yet” but he readily admits that this is only because of their past experiences: “We have experimented to reach this point. Every album defines us as that point in our lives and I wouldn’t change anything that has happened.”

The different approach taken with this album is clear, especially when you compare it with the harder, raw sounds of thefakesoundofprogress. The lyrics hold the power of confidence, a ring of triumph and are undoubtedly more personal. Two songs in particular, ’4:am Forever’ and ‘Always All Ways’, seem particularly heartfelt, and Ian admits that they are written with a certain someone in mind.

“We like to keep our private lives private but, yes, those songs are written about somebody. It’s scary to make an album so personal because you have to let everybody evaluate you. Although I have left a great deal of the album to interpretation.”

Ian is also not ashamed to admit that they have been influenced by pop music as much as rock this time round: “Essentially our style hasn’t changed. We are a rock band and we always will be” says Ian.

“But we have started to take more from 80’s pop, like The Clash and The Police, because you have to explore music. After you’ve done as many shows as we have, it is only natural to want to try something different.”

With this extra flurry of pop influences, the lostprophets may, once again, be under threat of the accusation that they have ‘sold out’. It has been an ongoing problem for the band, which hasn’t always seen top reviews and appreciative fans. Their first unpopular wave came in 2001 after the original copy of thefakesoundofprogress was picked up by Sony Records and re-produced in New York. Rock fans fumed that they were ‘selling out’ to Sony and branded them nothing more than a corporate-controlled boy band. lostprophets found themselves shunned, bottled off-stage at one festival and taunted because of their fashion conscious dress sense.

They battled back by releasing Start Something, but the success of the album only added fuel to the fire for the group of people who had criticised thefakesoundofprogress. Ian, who is usually calm and collected, is evidently angered by the accusations. “Frankly, people should stop throwing their toys out of their pram” he says firmly. “It’s just so clichéd when somebody says that a band has ‘sold out’. It’s just not cool.

“When people say this to us I think ‘What are you talking about? Do you know us at all?’

“We started six years ago, we worked hard to get where we are and just because we have moved on does not mean we have jeopardised us. Yes we have changed, we have evolved, but we are happy to say that.

“I can tell you there is one area that we haven’t changed in, and that is doing something we love the way we want to.

“Selling out is doing something that you said you would never, ever do. All we ever said is that we wanted to get our music out to as many people as possible. We have done that.”

Despite the negative press, their two latest albums show that the mainstream success of lostprophets cannot be denied, whatever the cynics say. Start Something sold over 500,000 copies in the UK and an astounding one million copies in the US. Last Train Home was even rated the number-one song in the US Modern Rock Chart for a week. This level of international success was not anticipated by the lostprophets. So have they unintentionally ‘broken America?’

Ian doesn’t look at it in a clear-cut way. “What exactly is breaking America now? How do you define it? We don’t really know what it means.

“Although we were number one in the rock charts we never released Last Train Home as a single. All we know is that as long as people out there like our music, we’re happy.”

The guys will soon be able to gauge the success of the third album in America. From August 30 they will tour the States, performing a whopping 39 gigs in total. November will see them return to the UK, where they will continue to perform gigs. It’s fair to say that the lostprophets don’t actually need to run a second tour this year, but Ian points out that they will continue playing because they want to, rather than because they have to. He cites their work ethic as a key element in the formula for their success – that, and the fact lostprophets built up their fan base over time, rather than with one or two instant hits.

“As a band we have always enjoyed doing things gradually because we want to get them right,” he comments. “That way, we have loyal fans that have been with us from the beginning.

“I think working hard and doing things gradually is a good way about it because if we had just exploded onto the scene people would have been like “great!” and then what would we do? Gradually means respect and loyalty.”

Ian returns the respect of lostprophets’ long-standing fans, but he is more than happy to welcome new listeners into the arena. “We have great affection for those who have been with us since gig one, but people discover us when they discover us. Even if it was just yesterday that you grabbed a record and thought “Hey, this is good” you are just as much a fan.

“We know that we are going to continue to work hard for everybody. lostprophets have just started.”

Click here to read durham21′s review of Liberation Transmission. If you want to catch the latest musical efforts of the lostprophets, you’ll have to head to Edinburgh on December 3rd. That’s the nearest gig for us Durham folk. Tickets not available yet.

Main interview first published in the News & Star, originally by Victoria Raimes.