This is my modern world

Teetotal Modfather Paul is loving life and the process of growing older with dignity

He played the part of the live fast rocker to the hilt in his younger days. But with the stately, brilliant, acoustic-centred True Meanings, set to top the album charts today, the Modfather of eight kids has allowed restraint and maturity to take centre stage.

“I feel that I’ve found my place and my level in life, definitely,” reflects Weller, 60, as he relaxes in his Black Barn studio in Surrey.

“It’s taken a long time to find that peace or equilibrium or whatever. And it’s a wonderful thing to find.”

Giving up booze after his father and manager John died in 2009 must have made a difference?

“I didn’t find it that difficult to give up, because I knew it was the right time, and my time had come to stop,” Weller admits.

“Once you realise that, it becomes a little bit easier, I think. And what you gain in the process is so wonderful that you don’t really want to go back.”

The “greater clarity” and sense of “being present” that he says comes from not drinking, radiates through the new album classics Gravity and Aspects. And on some songs he’s even given lyric writing duties over to younger collaborators for the first time.

“Everyone finds their own true meanings. It’s not me declaring my own word,” he says. “That’s another reason to use some other lyricists. Get someone else’s true meanings. Another opinion.”

The most prolific survivor of the punk class of ’77, Paul’s already started work on a new album very different to True Meanings and he’s keen to hatch collaborations with favourite artists in the years