a sonic bond

in 2010, mojo’s guest editor employed kevin shields on his wake up the nation album. a mutual admiration was born.

PAUL WELLER and Kevin Shields: an unlikely alliance? “Because of Primal Scream, I had a loose association with people who all kind of know each other,” Shields explains. “And Paul Weller was part of that world a little bit.”

But when Shields arrived at Black Barn in 2009 to work on tracks that became She Speaks and 7 & 3 Is The Striker’s Name, the portents were concerning.

“I plugged in my pedals and nothing worked at all,” he recalls. “It was like, ‘Oh, shit, oh, shit!’ I was falling on my face extremely badly. But Paul was really cool. He was just like, ‘Oh, fuck it, you know, just make some feedback, that sounds really cool.’”

Shields was struck by Weller’s open-mindedness.

“The phase of records he was making at that time, he was being very experimental, exploring all sorts of electronic music and post-rock,” says Shields. “It reminded me of when people are like 17, or 18, when you’re in a band: ‘Have you heard this?’ He’s definitely not somebody who’s artistically stuck anywhere.”

You’d think the meticulous Shields would be horrified by the spontaneity of Weller in full flow, but not a bit of it. “He just happens to be talented enough to be able to do that. There was no kind of slaving away trying to get something right. It was banging out shit left, right and centre, and all good results.”