Stereophonics expected Stuart Cable to rejoin the band.

The drummer was fired from the group in 2003 due to his unreliability and wild partying but the remaining members of the band, frontman Kelly Jones and guitarist Richard Jones, were left devastated when he died after choking on his own vomit in 2012.

Kelly said: ''[His death hit me] like a f***ing sledgehammer. He always said, 'I'll never make 40.'

''But we were getting so much back on friendly terms, I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd have ended up back in the band at some point. To me, we were three brothers.''

Kelly has written a film called 'Graffiti on a Train', which is about a trio of Welsh youths, one of whom dies while surfing on a moving train, leaving his pals to travel to Europe on a journey of self discovery.

Though he intended the project to be fictional, he was stunned when his wife pointed out it was actually autobiographical.

He told the new issue of Q magazine: ''She said, 'As much as you think you're writing about these characters, it's a version of what you went through.'''