Cable’s girlfriend copes with loss by promoting tribute single

THE girlfriend of former Stereophonics drummer Stuart Cable has spoken for the first time of how she has struggled to cope since his tragic death.

The 33-year-old mum-of-two added that she had been throwing herself into promoting a charity single in his memory as a means of keeping herself “from going crazy”.

“It’s been a very tough time for everyone,” said Rachel, who is devoting all her energy to ensuring Former Mining Town, a track by Cable’s group Killing For Company, tops the download charts after it is released this Sunday.

“So when the guys asked if I’d still like to be involved on a personal level it was my saving grace really.

“I was finding it very hard at that point and was really down about everything

“I’d locked myself away and while it may have looked like I was coping, I really wasn’t.

“Grief doesn’t tell you when it’s coming, and I’d be walking down the street, or standing in the supermarket, when this huge weight would just jump on my back and start eating away at me.

“So the single gave me something to focus on, because, although I’m never really alone – the band come over to make sure I’m OK and my mum visits from West Wales – Stuart, who was the heart and soul of the place, had gone.”

The Llanelli-born model, who still lives at the drummer’s property near Aberdare, added that she now loves nothing more than sitting round the kitchen table with their friends telling funny stories about the larger-than-life rock and roller.

“No sooner have you started that you feel like he’s right there with you,” she said.

“It’s almost like you’re waiting for him to walk in, as though he’ll come through the door any minute.

“And I think it’ll be a hell of a long time before that feeling changes.”

Cable’s funeral late last month – a fittingly unconventional send-off of male voice choirs, heavy metal and celebrities like Rhys Ifans and Rob Brydon which saw thousands line the streets of Aberdare – had been “the best worst day of my life,” she said. “I think I probably pinched that expression from somebody else, but I remember thinking how gutted Stu would have been not to have been there to see it,” she added.

“I remember the priests sitting there solemnly and, as AC/DC came blaring out of the speakers, some of the altar boys started quietly rocking back and forth, dying to let loose.

“I gave them a little smile as if to say, ‘Go for it, Stu would want you to’, and looked across at Kelly Jones who was already nodding his head to the beat. At that point I lost complete control. I wasn’t crying though, I was laughing because I could just imagine Stuart looking down approvingly going, ‘Yeah!’”

But it was a silent gesture from a solitary figure in among the crowds that Jones said would stay with her always.

“The whole day was a bit of a blur generally, but I’ll never forget coming out of the church to all these people cheering and clapping and seeing this one young guy holding a pair of drum sticks in the air,” she said. “He didn’t say a word, just stood there. I’ll never shake that image, that said it all.”

Jones added that she was overwhelmed by the support she and the band had received for the single so far, especially from Stereophonics singer and Cable’s childhood friend Kelly.

“Since Stuart died, he’s just been wonderful and has given us lots of support, using his website to urge fans to download our track,” she said.

“Whatever went on between them in the past was all done and dusted and they’d become good friends again,” she said.

“I’ll never forget Stuart getting a text from Kelly a few years back telling him he’s just met the guitarist from Rush, a band they’d both loved since they were kids, in a bar somewhere. Stuart was the first and only person Kelly thought to tell about it, and Stu rang him back straight away to hear all the details.

“That’s how close they were.”

The proceeds from the single will go to Teenage Cancer Trust and children’s charity Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice.

Former Mining Town by Killing For Company will be available for download only from July 25 at www.killingforcompany.com/stuart-cable