THE SHINING - SIMON JONES Interview by KRIS GRIFFITHS © 2002 PHASE9 ENTERTAINMENT

When The Verve disbanded a few years ago, bassist Simon Jones found himself jamming in a new set-up with none other than the legendary John Squire, freshly departed from one-album-wonders The Seahorses. Unfortunately it was not to be and after eight months of rehearsals and a meagre output of six songs they decided to knock it all on the head. But an unflinching Jones was determined to keep going with their talented young vocalist, and after recruiting fellow ex-Verve namesake Simon Tong, The Shining rose from the flames. Declared as the UK’s next great rock and roll band by NME, the new outfit has released two quality singles from stonking debut album TRUE SKIES and intend to swagger onwards with a rugged strength The Verve always lacked. I spoke of the future with an optimistic Simon Jones. You’ve only recently started touring together as a band. How’s it been going? Pretty good actually, though it’s quite nerve-racking going out in front of a few hundred people who haven’t heard any of your songs, so you have to do the business. The Manchester gig has been the best one so far but mainly because we’re all from there and it was more of a hometown gig. Duncan’s only really done about fifteen gigs in total so far, so it’s been more nerve-racking for him but he’s pulled through ok. From what I’ve heard he sounds like a quality vocalist. Where did you find him? Me, Mark the drummer and Duncan played in a band with John Squire for a while but nothing ever came of it. That’s how I met Dunc. I’d also kept in touch with Si from The Verve so The Shining fell together like that really after the Squire band fell through. Do you know what John Squire is actually doing with himself these days? It’s quite frustrating for Stone Roses fans like myself to see Brown, Reni and Mani all still out there playing and Squire not doing anything. I don’t know to be quite honest cos I haven’t spoken to him for a while. He is making music but I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to actually get it out there. He’s not the fastest worker in the world (laughs). What exactly were the reasons you didn’t stick out with him? It just wasn’t happening for me… I just had a nasty gut feeling about it all. Then there was all this travelling about to rehearse with each other, so there were personal reasons as well as musical differences. In the end I just laid my cards on the table and that was that. Continued on page 2

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