Cast – John Power interview

Having kicked off an epic 2025 by playing to huge crowds and attracting international attention during the opening shows of their mega stadium tour with Oasis, there’s still much more to come from Cast.

Before the year is out they play an extensive tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their landmark debut album All Change and headline the Shiiine On Weekender. The band are set to continue riding high into 2026 with the news that they will release their new album, Yeah Yeah Yeah, on 30 January via the Manchester-based independent label Scruff of the Neck Records.

Classic Pop meets frontman, John Power, to find out more.

It’s a huge year for Cast. There’s a new record in the can, you’re touring with Oasis, playing at the Shiiine On Weekender in November, and there’s also an autumn tour celebrating 30 years of the band’s debut album…

This year has been momentous. Cast are experiencing an amazing renaissance. First up, we recorded our new album, Yeah Yeah Yeah, back in February. We weren’t even scheduled to record the new album until January 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.

On top of that, going on the road with Oasis would have been the biggest thing in anyone’s calendar year – it’s an absolutely immense tour. It’s very difficult to describe how special it feels, it’s already legendary. We’re also going back to America for the first time in 28 years.

On a personal level, my daughter got married so I got to walk her down the aisle and Liverpool won the Premier League. They’ve all happened this year. If that’s not cosmic alignment, I don’t know what is.

We’re loving the new single, Poison Vine with PP Arnold. It feels like a reinvention of the classic Cast sound.

It does feel like a new version of our classic sound to be honest. It’s very much Cast, but it’s got a groove and PP on it, too. There’s a slight Stones Gimme Shelter vibe to it when she sings. PP is on another song on the new album, too, which is more of a psychedelic funk track. She’s a bit more sassy on that one. There’s something  about the way Pat sings, she’s got all that history. She’s an amazing woman, an amazing spirit – and she sounds about 19. That’s how good she’s singing, you know what I mean?

With the Oasis live shows, what’s been your favourite so far?

There was something special about Heaton Park in the sense that it’s not a venue, it’s just an open space. The audience were full left and full right in my peripheral vision and all the way to the horizon on the hill as well. As Cardiff and Wembley are both stadium shows, they were more of a colosseum vibe. Heaton Park was the closest to that Knebworth feeling, or Woodstock. There was an extra source of energy at the Manchester shows, a kind of fizz or static in the air.

Now we’re eight or nine shows in 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. Richard [Ashcroft] goes on and he’s really nailing it, too. Oasis are always going to nail it but there’s a feeling when they come on that he audience are really in the zone. It feels momentous, kind of like history being forged. And the bands know that. The bands 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 the Definitely Maybe tour.

There’s always been respect between the two bands, songwriter to songwriter, singer to singer. I mean, I’ve been a fan of Oasis since day one so there is a history there. When you’ve been in the game this long, there’s a mutual respect. 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.

You worked with John Leckie in The La’s and he also helmed classic debuts for The Stone Roses and The Verve. What did he bring to the table as producer on Cast’s first album All Change?

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 John 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 spirit 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, they had all the melodies.

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 just came in and grabbed the performances. But we were ready to go, you know. I mean, we were really, really ready to record, and John 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 it was or how early it was in the day, he always had that focus. He was always ready to capture the spirit of the band, which is what he did on All Change because he has been proven now – that album captured the zeitgeist or the spirit of the time.

Did you pick up any insights into Lee Mavers’ songwriting process when you worked with him?

While I was in The La’s of course I did, yeah. Lee was my biggest influence as a songwriter and probably still is, you know, in the sense that he is by far the most gifted songwriter of a generation. I didn’t know any different really. He was like this musical spirit. I’ve never really come across anything like that really. He was like a flame, you just catch it at the moment. Sitting with Lee when I was such a young lad had a massive influence on me.

When I was writing my early songs that were on All Change, like Alright and Finetime, Four Walls and Sandstorm, I was writing them originally with the idea they may be on a La’s record further down the line. It just so happened that the road forked and I went a different way. Lee was, dare I say it, my mentor. He was about four years older than me and was already at the top of his game while I was just learning the process. He was the one who said to me, ‘you’ve got to start writing songs, John’. My standard was obviously very high, because Lee was such an amazing songwriter,

All Change was Polydor’s, biggest selling debut album of all time, beating Hendrix and The Who – did its success surprise you at all?

Well, for the young and overly confident part of me, no, it didn’t, because I expected that. I knew All Change was a massive album. I knew it was a brilliant record. I never doubted that Cast weren’t going to be a big, 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 that inspired us. Half the reason we went with Polydor was firstly that they obviously loved our band but secondly because of the history of the label.

You went with Gil Norton to produce Cast’s third album Magic Hour. Was that a concerted effort to switch to a heavier sound?

It might have been, actually, yeah. It’s funny because Magic Hour’s got some great songs on it like Hideaway and Beat Mama. And there’s a few other songs that I really, really love on it like Alien, stuff like that. But I feel that was the beginning of where the Britpop honeymoon was starting to come down a bit. In hindsight, I look at it now and see that I was a little bit whacked out, 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.

Your last record Love Is The Call was a terrific addition to Cast’s back catalogue. You must have been delighted by the way it was received. It was your highest chart position in the UK for 25 years…

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. It captured that energy. We remembered who we were and the energy we have. It realigned us with our with people again, it brought people back to the fold. Now, as I said, ever since we did that, that’s when it all kicked off, and it hasn’t stopped since.

It’s been 20 years since the last reunion of The La’s. Any chance of another victory lap with the band?

Well I’m old enough and wise enough to know who knows what’s in the future. I wouldn’t hold your breath and wait for anything because there ain’t nothing planned. Lee’s doing his own thing I’m doing my thing but I’ve only got love for the guy.

Cast play the Shiiine On Weekender in Minehead this autumn. For more details about the event, which runs from 14-17 November, click here. Yeah Yeah Yeah will be released on 30 January 2026 via Scruff Of The Neck. Order here

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