Cast – John Power interview

The band is set to continue riding high into 2026 with the release of their brand new album, Yeah Yeah Yeah, on 30 January. So CP wonders what frontman John Power makes of it all…

“This year has been momentous,” says the singer. “We are experiencing an amazing renaissance.

“First up, we made our new album, back in February. We weren’t even scheduled to record until next year but we took a leap of faith and let providence dictate. Youth, who’s producing the album, and our manager Alan McGee are both saying this may be the best record we’ve ever done.

“Going on the road with Oasis would have been the biggest thing in anyone’s calendar year and it is very difficult to describe how special it feels.

“On a personal level, I got to walk my daughter down the aisle when she got married and Liverpool Football Club won the Premier League… If that’s not cosmic alignment, I don’t know what is!”

There was something special about Heaton Park in the sense that it’s not a venue, it’s just an open space. The audience went all the way to the horizon on the hill. As Cardiff and Wembley were both stadium shows, they had more of a Colosseum vibe. Manchester was the closest to that Knebworth feeling. There was an extra source of energy, a kind of fizz or static in the air. We’re currently eight or nine shows in and there’s a real sort of looseness you can feel. The bands are all performing in a really exceptional way. I know that we’re fucking nailing it and  Richard [Ashcroft] is too. But there is a special feeling when Oasis come on. The audience are really in the zone. It feels momentous, kind of like history being forged. We all know that this is more than just a gig.

Your links with Oasis go right back to the very start of their career, don’t they?

Yes they do actually. The La’s had a big influence on Noel and Liam, as they did on myself. Post-La’s, Noel got hold of the Cast demos. We were unsigned when they were just coming on the scene with Supersonic. They gave us a show and we then got spotted by Polydor. We’ve always meandered around each other throughout our careers. We played with Oasis at Loch Lomond, did the Knebworth shows, then more recently Cast played with Liam on his Definitely Maybe tour. Respect has always existed between the two bands, from songwriter to songwriter and singer to singer. I don’t want to analyse these new shows too much, but it just feels magical. I think this is a celebration, a unification of spirit and people in a world that is quite fucking vicious at the moment.

John is a great guy. I first met him with The La’s at one of the many recording sessions that didn’t quite happen. I always remember him being a cool dude and the minute we got signed, John was someone that we wanted to work with. What he did was capture the spirit [of The La’s] on the album. I think that’s why he’s done so many great debut albums – he captures the energy of a young band.

There is something magical about debut records, you know. We had everything in place. Those songs were written, they were arranged and everyone knew their parts. We just needed to be recorded by somebody who could captain the ship and oversee the pictures. That was what John did. He let us do our thing and made sure that it was all sounding exceptional.

When you do 10 performances of a song as an artist, you might lose a bit of the objective view of it. Whereas with John, he was like a gunslinger. He could just keep that steely-eyed focus right through all the session. It didn’t matter what time of night or how early in the day it was – he was always ready to capture the spirit of the band, which he did on All Change. That album really captured the zeitgeist of the time.

While I was in The La’s of course I did. Lee was my biggest influence as a songwriter and probably still is. He was about four years older than me and already at the top of his game while I was just learning the process. Lee was the one who said, ‘you’ve got to start writing songs, John’. So, he was, dare I say it, my mentor.

When I started writing early songs that featured on All Change, like Alright, Four Walls, Finetime and Sandstorm, I thought they might appear on a La’s record further down the line. It just so happened that the road forked and I went a different way. My standard was obviously very high, because Lee was such an amazing songwriter.

Well, for the young and overly confident part of me, no, it didn’t. I knew All Change was a brilliant record, and I always knew Cast would be a big player on stage at that time. I mean, the album is pretty bulletproof. Obviously, Hendrix and The Who, and all those massive bands who were on Polydor would have inspired us. We went with Polydor because they obviously loved our band and because of the history of the label.

It might have been, yeah. Magic Hour’s got some great songs like Beat Mama and Hideaway, and there’s a few other songs that I really love like Alien. But I feel that was the beginning of where the Britpop honeymoon was starting to come down. In hindsight, I look at it now and see that I was a little bit whacked out and a little bit tired of the stress. Gil had done some great stuff in America. He was also from Liverpool, so we got on very well. I think we did make a conscious effort to move on with someone else. Whether that was right or wrong, I don’t know, because John [Leckie] had always served us very well. We’d done two fantastic albums with him (All Change and Mother Nature Calls) but at the time, it felt like we maybe needed a change.

Yes, that’s correct, and we were, it was a fresh record. Love Is The Call is the spark that caught the flame. It set this whole thing moving now. It was what brought us back to the fore and captured our energy. We remembered who we were. It realigned us with our with people again and brought people back to the fold. That’s when it all kicked off, and it hasn’t stopped since.