Interview: Adrian Jones (Nine Stones Close)

Interview: 7th June 2026

Ahead of the release of a complete reimagining (read my review here) of Nine Stones Close's debut album St Lo, I spent some time in the company of their guitarist, lyricist, songwriter, driving force and founding member, Adrian Jones. We spoke about the history of Nine Stones Close, the incredible story behind St Lo and his musical influences.

Hotel Hobbies: Before St Lo was first released in 2008, you had been making music in bands such as Lie Big. What drove you to make it a solo project? Was it due to the personal nature of the subject matter or did it just turn out that way?

Adrian Jones: A bit of both really. I had just made the Lie Big album with some old bandmates. It was released and we didn’t really know what to do with it. It was fun making it and it was the first thing I ever kind of recorded and produced myself. We had started on a second album and had plans to do some more things and maybe even play some live stuff. Then things changed. The bass player and singer got wrapped up in family stuff and we put everything on hold.

During that time, I went back to my hard disc and found all these songs I wrote after the accident. I thought I should do something with them. It literally took about two weeks to put everything together, add some parts and sequence it. I found a guy on a recording forum and he put me in touch with somebody who did mastering for free. I sent him all the files and he did the mastering for me. He was a really nice guy. We had lots of chats about mastering and stuff. I got the files back and I sent it off to a manufacturer. I had a thousand CDs pressed.

That's when I ended up at the Marillion weekend giving CDs away because my mate Rod and his lovely partner were doing the merch desk there and they knew some people on the Marillion side. I asked if I could give some CDs away in the bar and chat to people and they said, yeah, no problem. So, I went and sat up in the bar with a laptop with the video on it and a box of five hundred CDs and a jar for money. I said, have a free CD and donate if you like. That's what kind of kicked it all off, really. I got rid of the whole five hundred CDs that weekend and met people like Brendan Eyre and others who got involved along the way.

St Lo (Original 2008 artwork)

Hotel Hobbies: To stay with the history of Nine Stones Close for a moment, the next two albums Traces and One Eye on the Sunrise had Marc Atkinson singing and the first band version of Nine Stones Close.

Adrian Jones: It was a natural progression. I’m not singer as I have mentioned a few times. I only did the vocals on St Lo because I didn't have anybody else to do them. I was never really happy with them. I started writing some material after that. I'd met Brendan at the Marillion thing and we kept in touch. We exchanged a few ideas and a few emails, and he sent me some Riversea stuff to listen to. I sent him a couple of new Nine Stones Close songs I was working on. Without me knowing, he sent one of them to Marc and added the keyboards himself and then sent it back. It was Falling To Pieces and I thought, wow, this really works. I asked Marc if he would sing on the rest of the tracks and he agreed and Brendan and I continued to work on stuff. Before we knew it, Traces was finished in a pretty short period of time. It was a big progression from St Lo. Traces was around the time my father was dying and so the lyrics were a lot about family and the impact of those things. It was a strange album to write because it just flew out of nowhere really. I remember writing Thicker Than Water, the longest track on there, in an afternoon. I was adding extra parts and sending it to Brendan. It was so natural. With One Eye on the Sunrise, it was another step up. Peter Van Hoorn came in on drums and Paul Van Zeeland became our producer.

Hotel Hobbies: Things took a slightly darker turn with Leaves (review here) in 2016.

Adrian (Aio) O’Shaughnessy is a very different vocalist to Marc Atkinson. What do you think he brought to your lyrics?

Adrian Jones: I think he brought an extra kind of edge to Nine Stones Close. Marc was great. His melodies were great and obviously he's got a fantastic voice. We made a couple of fantastic albums together but he'd reached the point where that was enough for him. He didn't want to continue. I was looking around for someone who could fit in and didn’t want to do a Marc 2, if you like. I wanted somebody different with a different kind of voice to give us something new. He was recommended to me and I contacted him, had a chat and sent him a couple of demos . He was really interested and before I knew it, he came over to visit. We got very drunk the first night (laughing) but on the second day we recorded one of the vocals for Leaves. So it was an interesting weekend. It just grew from there. I think what I like about Aio's voice is it's got an edge and it's got that kind of Chris Cornell / Soundgardeny kind of quality to it in terms of the power and range. That also made it possible to do other things in terms of the range of things that we wanted to do. The newer, heavier songs worked well. We have a fantastic working and personal relationship.

Hotel Hobbies: Then, the last two albums – Diurnal (review here) and Adventures in Anhedonia, both from 2024 – were released following an avalanche of creativity in 2023. I really love all the Nine Stones Close albums but feel Adventures in Anhedonia (review here) is your best. There seemed to be a real feel of confidence in the songwriting from you during that time.

Adrian Jones: I think you start to understand what works for you and your lyrics get better as you go on. I've always been self-conscious about my lyrics and I think as I get older, they're getting better and you find different ways to say things, without being too obvious. I was really proud of both of those albums. I think Diurnal was really good, but I agree with you. I think Anhedonia was another notch up. I think the songwriting, playing, production and everything else all just came together. I'm really proud of a lot of the songs on there as well. It's again, a very personal album. It was a tough time that I was going through and I really just put it all into my music.

Hotel Hobbies: You are certainly not afraid to put your heart out there.

Adrian Jones: I think that's the good thing with music. You can say things with words and music without having to spell out everything about your life. I think Anhedonia is the best album we have made but I am beginning to think that St Lo Reimagined is easily as good.

St Lo Reimagined artwork - 2026 (Antonio Seijas)

Hotel Hobbies: So yes, coming right up to date, we now have the upcoming release of St Lo Reimagined. I know you have been quite disparaging about it in some ways. I know you had been listening to the original album but what was the actual trigger to update the album so extensively?

Adrian Jones: It was a weird timing really. We had finished the Anhedonia album and I had been listening back to the tracks and just came across the folder with St Lo in. I played through a few tracks and had the same old feeling. It’s okay but it could have been so much better. I thought the songs had potential though. I wondered what they would be like if Aio was singing. I also asked Michel if he fancied having a first crack at reimagining some of the songs and adding some new textures. I sent him the individual tracks and a few months later, he sent back the whole thing. I was like, wow, this could really go somewhere. He really did a fantastic first reworking of it all. Then, I started to go through those tracks that had come back and started thinking about how I could change older, horrible guitar parts or remove old parts or add new ones. I also started to write more words to fill the gaps in the story. I think First Morphine was written for Jet Black Sea, maybe eight, nine years ago and we never used it. I changed a few things and slotted it in.

And when I listened to it in the context of St Lo alongside Silently Screaming, for example, as kind of a reference track, I thought there was a very similar kind of approach in terms of the finger picking and sounds over the top. So, I thought this would really work in the flow. I just changed a few things and slotted it in. We added more elements and tried a few different orders to keep the story flowing and the pacing good. Eventually, we ended up with the final result that you have heard. We are really happy with how it has turned out. I think the new songs are great and they really sound like they are part of the whole experience even if a twenty year old song is next to a two year old song. I think Paul Van Zeeland did an incredible mix. It sounds massive. I think a lot of people will be very surprised when they first hear it if they know the original.

Hotel Hobbies: It does sound massive and I also think it sounds incredibly immersive on headphones. Paul really did a great job. He knows exactly what to do with your sound.

Adrian Jones: Yeah, he does. He really understands sound and he's such a genius when it comes to sound and mixing. He understands how to get the best out of everything. He spent a lot of time on the mix and I spent a lot of time reviewing them. I think it's turned out absolutely brilliantly.

Hotel Hobbies: Did going back to this album in such detail bring back some difficult memories?

Adrian Jones: Definitely. I discussed it quite a lot with my wife. It does open up some old wounds or make you think about things you have pushed away. Looking back at lyrics I wrote twenty years ago, it is not obvious what the song is about unless you actually know what the experience was about. It also made me think about some gaps in the story, which is where the new lyrics came from. It made me think about decisions we have made. If it had not been for the accident, I think our lives would be different.

Hotel Hobbies: What are the actual plans for the release of St Lo Reimagined?

Adrian Jones: There’s a physical release coming out, and we’re planning to make an announcement this week. On 19th June, there’ll be a double CD: one disc is the full reimagined version and the second includes a remaster of the original, along with a remix by Paul. The remix doesn’t add any new parts but it’s actually quite surprising. It shows what you can do when someone really knows what they’re doing, even with basic material. It sounds much better than the original. So we’ve turned it into a bigger package, with three different versions of the story. It also features Antonio’s artwork again, which looks fantastic. That’s all out on 19th June, with a digital release as well. We’ll probably do vinyl through Elastic Stage, which is more on-demand but I’ll always push to get it out on a proper physical medium - I think that’s important too.

Hotel Hobbies: The reimagining adds something quite new and it feels like a ‘proper’ Nine Stones Close album now – if that’s the right word. What do you think everyone in the band brings to the line-up in addition to their musical abilities?

Adrian Jones: I think the great thing is we all get along really well and we all have a similar kind of way of thinking about music. We're all very passionate about things, particularly when we get involved in writing and recording. Everybody wants to give it their best shot and they all have ideas. They want to add their own personality to it, which is fantastic. Certainly with Aio, since we first worked together on Leaves, the way we are now is totally different. I’m much more confident in what I give him. I explain it and I know what comes back will usually be absolutely perfect. If there are things to change, it is fine and we can have open discussions.

Brendan and I have had a really natural musical relationship since Traces. We bounce ideas off of each other. Whatever one of us brings as a first idea, the other will make additions and take it somewhere else. As you can see with the albums, there's different people involved each time, depending on who's got time, who's available and what ideas are coming out of my head and who happens to be in the room or on a call. It’s quite flexible and I think it works pretty well.

Hotel Hobbies: Thinking about your influences. There are places in your music that are quite Floydian and parts that are quite heavy. Who would you point to as your main inspirations?

Adrian Jones: Growing up, Zeppelin and Floyd were the two big ones for me, especially in terms of Gilmour and Page as guitar players. There is also a grunge influence. I’m a huge fan of Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. I think there is quite a lot of that in my playing. I have listened to music all my life and collected it too. I listen from classical to death metal. Like yourself, it’s a wide range and some of those different influences rub off.

Hotel Hobbies: What are the future plans for Nine Stones Close?

Adrian Jones: There's always plans in my head. It's just whether they get anywhere. I'm never short of ideas, that's for sure. The big problem with life, as you know, is finding the time and the energy. When you're in a band like this, where we're spreading over different countries and everyone has families, work, and stuff, it's making sure everyone has the time to commit to make it happen. I don't really want to end up with another Leaves situation where it took four years to get from end to end. It was a painful process. So I think when we started Diurnal and Anhedonia, we made sure everybody was really on board with a plan of doing them in set amount of time. Not pressured but committed. It was a really productive time. I've got some ideas for next steps but at the moment, I've got so many other things going on in life. I think I need to have a bit of a break. St Lo Reimagined took quite a lot of energy and time. I might start thinking of something new in the Autumn.

Hotel Hobbies: You have also released albums with Jet Black Sea and Deforestation for other avenues to explore.

Adrian Jones: Brendan and I have been discussing ideas for the next Deforestation album. We have a few things mapped out and there was a lot of material left over the last time which we didn’t use. Jet Black is definitely on hold. I can’t see Michel and I doing another album as Jet Black Sea. However, there will always be collaborations, especially with Michel because he’s brilliant at what he does.

Hotel Hobbies: Finally, music has been a huge part of your life for so long, what do you think the most valuable lesson you have learned as a musician?

Adrian Jones: I think the most valuable lesson is just to trust your instincts. If something feels too difficult or it’s too much hard work, it’s not always a good idea to keep pushing it. I think that was a big mistake we made on Leaves after the success of One Eye On The Sunrise. It did pretty well, we had a lot of interest and there was a lot of talk about us playing live and touring. I was really trying to push on, trying to get another great album together and pull things together so we could maybe tour.

I think I made a lot of mistakes in that period in terms of going too fast and people got left behind for one reason or another. Marc dropped out, Brendan was busy with Riversea and I really wanted to keep pushing. Christiaan came in and I wanted to keep going. The album itself became so difficult to get to the end of that by the time I finished it - when it was mixed and sent to the label - I don’t think I ever wanted to hear it again, to be honest. After four years of living with the tracks and changing little things here and there, I was so sick of the music. I think you get complacent as well; you start to leave things in that you should change. I think I did that quite a lot with Leaves. It’s like, I’ve had enough of this, let’s leave it now. So, I have definitely learned not to push things if they feel wrong. Don’t make it difficult for yourself.

I find my best songs are the ones that come together quickly both in terms of writing and arranging. Sometimes you can labour an idea to death but it doesn’t always produce the best result. I think that’s what I’ve learned.

Hotel Hobbies: Thank you so much for your time. It has been a pleasure.

Adrian Jones: Thanks so much. It has been great to chat.