The Rifles frontman Joel Stoker on performing, supporting the Hammers and penning the soundtrack for West Ham United’s 2024/25 Home Kit launch video
When Joel Stoker was a student at Redbridge College back in the early 2000s, never could he have imagined that his music would launch West Ham United’s Home Kit!
But that is exactly how things have played out for the singer-songwriter.
Born in Chingford, Stoker dreamed of being a rock star and was inspired to form a group with fellow student and guitarist Lucas Crowther. They added Stoker’s school friend, bassist Robert Pyne, and drummer Grant Marsh, and, in 2004, they formed The Rifles.
Over the next 15 years, the group released five studio albums, two live albums and a greatest hits collection, while gaining a reputation for playing entertaining, often wild, gigs.
“Me and Luke met at music college and started a band from that. We didn’t finish the course—because we kept going to the pub,” Stoker told whufc.com
Stoker was himself born into a family of Tottenham Hotspur supporters, but after being involved in the well-renowned Academy of Football as a kid, where he was coached by the great Frank Lampard Sr, and attending games at the Boleyn Ground, he soon discovered a strong passion for the Hammers.
Stoker’s fondest memories of being a West Ham fan came during Harry Redknapp’s reign in the 1990s.
“From an early age, I started going to games with some friends, and that’s how it all started,” he recalled.
“At the time [in the Academy], I didn’t realise what a great thing it was to be doing, but when they let me go, that’s when I wish I had tried a bit harder. I’m proud to have been asked. He [Lampard Sr] was a bit daunting at the time, but he was alright—until he let me go!
“The away games were always the fun days out. We went to Bolton, which was the only team in the Premier League that had a standing terrace for away support. We thought we’ve got to go and see that, and I think we won 3-0, so that was great.
“We had an unbelievable side with half the England squad in it. My favourite player was probably Julian Dicks, not necessarily for skill level but for the passion.”
With Stoker and, by association, The Rifles becoming well known as West Ham fans, the band developed a strong following from members of the Claret and Blue Army which endures to this day, 20 years after their formation.
As such, it was only natural that earlier this year, the Club approached the frontman to write and perform a new song to serve as the soundtrack for the West Ham United’s 2024/25 Home Kit launch film.
Stoker is a lifelong West Ham fan and crafted the song with the Swinging Sixties as his muse in a nod to the Kit’s inspiration: the jersey worn by the Club’s 1965 European Cup Winners’ Cup-winning heroes of 60 years ago.
The result was Sweet Europhia, a tune Stoker and Crowther liked so much that they released it as the first single from their new album, Love Your Neighbour.
Indeed, so catchy is the song that the band were asked to appear in the Club’s ‘Wear the Greatness’ film alongside 1965 Cup Winners’ Cup winner Brian Dear, present-day heroes including Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus, actors Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Tony Way and the late Bobby Moore’s daughter Roberta.
The same week as the kit launch, Stoker and Crowther visited The Gibson Garage, the central London showroom for the iconic American guitar manufacturer.
There, they played a special acoustic version of Sweet Europhia and performed other songs from Love Your Neighbour, including The Kids Won’t Stop and Days of Our Lives, to an adoring crowd full of the east London indie rock elite. They also gave a rendition of their all-time classic Local Boy, first released in 2005.
“It came completely out of the blue, but I jumped at the chance to be involved!” Stoker explained. “I was asked to write a piece of music for the new kit launch in the theme of the Swinging Sixties and the Rolling Stones, and it was lovely to be involved with it. So, I wrote something that rips off pretty much every sixties song, and I thought I might as well make a song out of it.
“We all went to do the video together, which was a really good day—it was a privilege to be asked.”
