It felt weird to be sort of redundant last year
Paul Weller turned to songwriting when touring came to an abrupt halt. MARION McMULLEN finds out more about his lockdown album
PAUL WELLER has spent most of his life touring and playing music all over the world but his usually relentless touring schedule ground to a halt last year as the entire live music industry stopped because of Covid.
The celebrated singersongwriter says: “It’s really, really weird. It’s the longest I’ve gone without playing live since I started making music. We’re hopefully doing this tour in November, which has been rescheduled several times already, which will make it nearly two-anda-half years since we’ve played live. That’s a long time to be off. “It felt weird to be sort of redundant in this last year, which I’m sure applies to a lot of people, whatever job you do. You get so used to touring and playing live though, it’s the lifeblood of all of it, so not being able to do it is a very strange feeling.
“I’ve done a couple of things recently, but without an audience obviously. I did a show with Madness in the London Palladium there, which was weird not to have a crowd in front of you, but it was just such a joy to be on stage and play with a band. Regardless of the lack of audience, just having that vibe again was amazing, so I’m really looking forward to getting back properly.”
Paul, who turns 63 this month, turned to songwriting during lockdown and the result is new album Fat Pop (Volume 1), which features some guest collaborations, such as Amen Corner legend Andy Fairweather Low and Paul’s own daughter Leah. She cowrote and performed on Shades Of Blue which became the first single released off the album.
“It was so easy and natural doing the track with Leah,” says Paul. “We were just sitting around the night before and I was playing this song to her on the piano. I had the verses and the arrangement, but I couldn’t find the chorus, so she just wrote the melody and words for it and that was it done. “She’s doing an album just now that Steve Cradock [Ocean Colour Scene guitarist and a long-time member of Paul’s touring band] is producing.
Even without doing the proud dad thing, I can see she’s coming up with some good songs.” Paul’s own music career now spans four decades since he first came to public attention with The Jam in the 1970s and later The Style Council. Fat Pop is his 16th solo album since his selftitled debut in 1992 and arrives less than a year after On Sunset earned him his fifth number one album as a solo artist.
It’s been a quick turnaround, but Paul says: “The prospect of all that time off meant I was going to have to utilise my time in other ways, so I just put my time and energy into making a record. There was nothing particularly challenging in there though, just what are in my opinion, 12 really great songs.” The initial parts of the album were recorded remotely by Paul and his band - Steve, Ben Gordelier and Andy Crofts. It was not an ideal way to make an album, but they made it work. “In the first bit of the lockdown, I was just recording my vocal and a guitar or piano to a click track, then I’d send that to the various band members who’d do their part and send it back to me, so there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing for a while, until we could all get together,” explains Paul. “It was very weird, I wouldn’t say it was completely enjoyable as little things kept coming back that we could have easily fixed if we were all together, but it did enable us to keep moving forward and stay working. “Getting back together in person though, that was really special. I would say it was like the first day of school, but I hated school, so it was more like the last day, just a real joy. Just having us all back in the same room again, having a bit of banter and playing music together. We’d really missed it.”
Fat Pop (Volume 1) is now out on Polydor Records. See paulweller. com for news on tour dates
...it was just such a joy to be on stage and play with a band. Paul performed a recent online gig