Paul Weller in Conversation - Modern Classics

Paul Weller interview with Paolo Hewitt- 12/10198


P. HEWlTT 
1. (Anyway, let`s get this going. lnto Tomorrow, 1 remember Brendan was talking about this wasn't he? When you recorded it .......you got snowed in and things like that? And sort of it came after that sort of period where you hadn't been writing or what you'd been writing you weren't into?)
P. WELLER
2. "Yeah, it's like Into Tomorrow was like the first sort of proper song I completed since like The Style Council split really, pretty much and it sort of was the one that kind of set me back on the right track in a sense as well."
P. HEWITT
3 . (Yeah, I thought it was quite a significant one `cause there was sort of a change in lyrics really wasn't there, in a way? Sort of when you start talking about sort of more cosmic matters as it were?)
P. WELLER
4. "Yeah, I suppose so, yeah. I suppose Into Tomorrow was sort of borne out of a bit of a sort of post-thirty something sort of tune. Post-thirty blues at first and I think a sort of, the kind of confusion at first as well, you know, coming out of the sort of very contrasted black and white world of me youth into sort of suddenly seeing that great mass that lays between the two contrasts. And I think that's kind of I was trying to sort of sum that up to some extent and also arriving at a point without even realising how you got there or understanding how you got there. All of a sudden you're sort of thirty or thirty-one or whatever and time's just flown by. But for all that it's quite an uplifting sort of song I think, it's got a kind of dark edge to it but I find it quite, musically as well I find it quite uplifting."
P. HEWITT
5. (Do you think it was different musically as well for you? It's about Woking really isn't it, in some respects?)
P. WELLER
6. "It was about me going back. I went back to Woking, it was the first time I'd ever been back for years. I went down to look at a scooter near Woking, went to buy a scooter down there and on the way back I just went round a lot of me old haunts as well which I hadn't been to for years and years, you know, probably since I was a kid some of them as well. So it was kind of about that. Bit sort of like rediscovering yourself in some extent I think. This big sort of, what in my mind was a big sort of journey around all that and then sort of coming back to it all, almost coming full circle which I have done to many degrees, the fact I'm living back there
now as well it's almost like going full circle. Musically it's sort of I don't think it was particularly that great really, but I like some of the lines in it "Buried under a hedgerow near" and stuff like that, kind of suburban images I like. Musically I don't think it's that great, but it started off a similar sort of way that Into Tomorrow did, started off me and Brendan using samples and building the track up like that and then putting the tune on top of it and then taking away the samples and stuff. It was a different way of working at the time and a lot of that was borne out of us listening to like, even though it doesn't bear any relevance possibly when you hear it, but it was borne out of us listening to like hip-hop records at that time. Like the first Quest album and the Gang Starr album, some of the more interesting musical hip-hop records at that time. They were quite ground-breaking at the time I think."
P. HEWITT
7. (Okay, third one, Above The Clouds? Were you on a train when you wrote that or something?)
P. WELLER
8. "Yeah, l wrote some of the lines on a train, yeah, coming back from Selsey back up to Waterloo, that's why it's got lines like "Caught reflections of a paper cup in a train window". I haven't got an awful lot to say about it really, I just wanted to write a nice little soul tune, but really I think a lot of that song was more down to Chris Bangs -who co-produced it. And he kind of really sort of drew that song out of me really which I don't know of any producer ever sort of done that before, and he kind of sort of helped arrange it as well. It was just kind of like a very very loose idea in my mind, so he kind of really I think he should take more credit on that really."
P. HEWITT
9. (How did he pull it out of you? Was it `cause you didn't have a formed idea of it before?)
P. WELLER
10. "Yeah, didn't have any idea really, I just sort of just jammed, he just put these beats down, started with the beats like the conga pattern and the drum pattern and then I just sort of wrote on top of that really and just kind of busked it really. And the obvious sort of Marvin Gaye sort of influence and stuff on it, some of the high voices I did and harmonies and stuff. But I like that tune, I think it's got a nice soulful feel about it."
P. HEWITT
11. (Okay, Sunflower?) 
P. WELLER
12. "Sunflower was sort of borne out of just that first, you know, the guitar .riff you hear, the main guitar riff, and I wrote that when I was on tour in the States. Did a lot of touring around that time, we went to America about two or three times that year. You're just sitting around hotel rooms and stuff, so I wrote a lot of songs from Wildwood around that time in hotel rooms and stuff, and maybe just coming from that riff really which I just thought was really powerful. And then Whitey had that brilliant drum feel he does on it, drum pattern on it. It was me kind of gaining more confidence I think in it as well, you know, in the whole thing and I thought it was just different for the time. Again, as well I don't think there's many records that were that kind of up-front or that raw. It might have been post that, you know, I'm not saying that's the kind of catalyst for bands doing that, but I think it helped. I do feel those early records kind of  did set some sort of precedents, I feel anyway, even down to like images of like us making like the photos more studio-based and stuff like that. There's a lot of that, you know, you see a lot of bands now using that ... rubbish."
P. HEWITT
13. (Okay, Wildwood which is considered a stone classic, I'd say)
P. WELLER
14. "That was me trying to write me own folk song really, not that I knew that much about folk music, but again it's like me just sort of copying certain things I like from a form of music, you know, just thinking what I could use or what I'd like to, you know, draw my own influence from it and then try to make my own thing out of it. We went through loads of different sort of, we tried loads of different ways of playing it, one time was really fast and up and electric guitar. We did it live a few times like that and then to the final thing where we slowed it right down and made it acoustic-based, you know, and kit just sort of playing a real steady pattern and it kind of just wrote itself that song really. Once I had the chord pattern I just kept singing it over and over and the words just came into my head, I didn't have to sort of sit down and write it out as such. Normally it's a much longer process and every now and again you'll get a song that's just sort of sent to you, I think that writes itself really. And I think that I don't say they're always classics, those sort of tunes, but I think nine times out of ten they are 'cause there's not too much interference really, it's just direct, straight."
P. HEWITT
15. (Do you often feel like that thing that, who said that? I think it was Charlie Parker who said that music is kind of sent from above and it goes through you)
P. WELLER
16. "Yeah, I agree with that man. Keith Richards said that as well. But you're lucky to get those songs, you know."
P. HEWITT
17. (And where did you get the image of the Wildwood from?) 
P. WELLER
18. "I got it from, it's an actual name of a house up near just outside Woking going towards sort of Dorking, Guildford way. I just saw a sign for a house it's called "Wildwood"."
P. HEWITT
19. (And did that trigger it off?)
P. WELLER
20. "Yeah, it did, yeah as a lot of things do. Titles or just an image. I suppose I did kind of like a sort of spell of those sort of songs to me, like Woodcutters Son or Country and them sort of songs. They're not similar musically but they've got the same sort of pastural sort of images and some of them as well from like sort of fairytales and I guess that's ultimately me sort of reading stories to me kids. They've always got strong sort of images in them, people lost in the wild wood and trying to find their way out, kind of sensual sort of."
P. HEWITT
21. (Well let's move on to The Weaver. That's quite dense lyrically isn't it?) 
P. WELLER
22. "Yeah, it is, yeah, but that was more me sitting down and writing a song, sitting down at a table and just keep chipping at it until I've got it, until I've got a song. Yeah, I haven't got much to say about it really, I don't know. Lyrically it's not anything, you know, directly personal. It's me just trying to write an interesting song really and draw people in. I suppose what the song is saying really, you know, what the song is trying to say, you know, drawing people into it. I don't know what it's trying to say."
P. HEWITT
23. (Okay, Hung Up, another classic.) 
P. WELLER
24. "Hung Up is, well I wrote that over Christmas '92 or '93 or whenever it was. Was it '93 or '94? '93? I wrote that over a Christmas. I went down to The Manor studios in Oxford for New Year. They had a New Year's Eve party and I did some demos on New Year's Day, the day after and that was one of the tunes I done and I just thought it was just one of the best chord sequences I'd ever heard, up to that time anyway, and I thought it was one of the most complete songs I'd written. Perhaps not now, but at the time I did anyway. I had to work a bit more at the lyrics and there's a couple of lines I'm not happy with that kind of I had to go with in the end. Some lines in the middle. I can't think off hand, I can't remember the words to it, but a couple of lines I had to sort of put up with in a sense which is always a bit disappointing realty 'cause it, you know, it kind of just takes a slight shine off it. But having said that I still think it was a great song and I thought even though it's not one of the best sounding records we've made it had kind of one of the best performances on it to me. Quite a cathartic feel about it that we all let off."
P. HEWITT_
25.  (Out Of The Sinking, that's a sort of fairytale thing isn't it? Well the opening line "When the world's asleep"?)
 P. WELLER
26. Yeah, I suppose so, but it's also that line's kind of probably me sort of. I do a lot of my writing up, you know, after the witching hour, after twelve o'clock has passed and there's always that feeling, even though it's obviously not true, there's probably plenty other sort of insomniacs that are up and about at that time, but it's that feeling that everyone else is asleep and that you're up chiselling away at it. But I just wanted to write a great love song really, a powerful love song and you know, kind of in my mind sort of London images across the water with the Thames, you know, stuff like that."
P. HEWITT
27.  (Changing Man, that's the one that...)
28.   P. WELLER
28. "That's the title I got yeah, from my daughter. She had a little doll in her hand one day. It's from my daughter Leah and she had some weird little doll in her hand and I asked her what it was and she said "This is the changing man", so that was it for me I thought "What a great title". And again it was another one of those songs, me and Brendan both worked on that and Brendan had these different little samples and almost like a backing track he'd made up himself with different sounds and I just put the tune on top of it and the words I already had as well kind of. Not the song but the words were more kind of like a prose sort of, bit of prose that I'd been writing and just I suppose at that time all the sort of, you know, I could tell I should be feeling joyous 'cause everything was kind of on the up."
P. HEWITT
29. (What, you mean in your career sort of?) 
P. WELLER
30. "Yeah, but I didn't really and I thought, you know, happiness is sort of wasted on me sometimes, hence the opening line, sir. But I mean everyone's sort of taken it to be that kind of real biographical thing but I don't know if I'd like to say it is. Some lines are, like all my songs some are and some bits are me writing a song, you know, trying to connect with other people as well. I think it would be boring to just, if every song was just about yourself I think it would be quite tedious and I don't think anyone would go through enough experiences to warrant writing about yourself all the time either, you know, so even though I am trying to communicate my feelings in a lot of songs I'm also trying to connect with other people. I'm obviously trying to say "Do you feel like this as well?" and "Isn't it a fuck off?" or "Isn't it great?" or whatever the emotion is, you know, and that's a mark of a great song to me as well if people do connect with it. If people hear a song and they say "Yeah, I've felt like that, someone's crystallised it for me or summed it up".
P. HEWITT
31. (You Do Something To Me, did you get that line from The Kinks song?) 
P. WELLFR
32. "No, I didn't, although they did do a song called "You Do Something To Me" but I didn't get it, you know, unless it's subconscious I got it from me, but it wasn't like an out and out nick. But I had that song for a long time actually, it had been around for a long time and sort of, you know, the actual finished song as well, and it nearly made Wildwood but I wasn't convinced about it. I thought it kind of had this sort of slight MOR thing to it I didn't like and it was only until we kind of sort of really nailed it, nailed the arrangement and the backing and what Steve White was going to play that it kind of seemed to sort of work to me and I think it does work from a, someone said once ... ... it worked for them 'cause it sounded so sort of bruised: There's a kind of yearning thing in it I suppose. A powerful statement either way I feel anyway.
P . HEWITT
33.  (What's this on the cover here?) P. WELLER 
34. "Broken stones." 
P. HEWlTT
35. {That's like Life Is A Fast Song isn't it?) 
P. WELLER
36. "Yeah, we were sort of messing about in the studio with it and it sort of, there's some early demos of it where it sort of sounds a bit like sort of kick-ass rock and roll tune or something."
P. HEWITT
37. (Then it comes to The Faces doesn't it?) 
P. WELLER
38. "It does, yeah. But it didn't kind of you know, it was fun to play it like that but it didn't work on that level, the tune didn't come over and then I sat down at the drum kit and started singing it over the top of a Faces drum pattem, If I'm On The Late Side, and I started singing over the top of that and both Brendan and Whitey, Steve White was in the control room and went "Yeah, that's it" and we had it within like sort of two takes then, just me and Whitey. Me playing the Wurlitzer and singing."
P. HEWITT
39. (I thought it was quite interesting that again in that book when we asked people to name their five top of your songs that came out number one.)
P. WELLER
40. "Right, was it number one then? It's dead simple as well. I don't know, it's just another one of them songs, you know, going back to what I said before it's just something that connects with someone, with a lot of people."
P. HEWlTT
41. (Didn't that have something, weren't you on a beach with Nat and he was saying something?)
P. WELLER
42. "Yeah, that's right, yeah, I was down in Selsey down the south coast and he was asking me where all the pebbles came from and I told him they were all part of one big rock at one time but they'd all been smashed and splintered and separated through time, you know, time wearing them down. Which probably isn't true scientifically but it sounded good.-- Yeah, so that's right, and it came from that and I felt very sort of splintered at that time, very, you know, I'd split up with my wife and you know, all that stuff and just felt detached and wanted to be part of something whole again."
P. HEWITT
43. (Okay, Peacock Suit which is a very kind of straightforward in a sense blues thing really isn't it?)
P. WELLER
44. "Yeah, it is, yeah. I wanted to try and write, you know, a modern sort of Howling Wolf tune. I don't know how close we got to it. We come up with something else instead I think, but I wanted to write like a, you know, a modem sort of blues song. Yeah, with like more abstract sort of lyrics to it, like the lines about "I'm narcissus in a puzzle, a nemesis in a muddle" and all that stuff. I really like those lines and to me it's still one of my favourite songs we've ever done. Yeah, I think it's rocking. I just think it's one of the best things I've ever done. I never had any doubts about it, I always loved it and the performance on it is fantastic as well 'cause it is just literally us four. It's me, Steve Cradock, Whitey and Marco on bass and we cut it just like that, just as you hear it."
P. HEWITT
45. (And it has got that real direct thing hasn't it?) 
P. WELLER
46. "Yeah, the sound is really dense as well, but to me one of the best things I've ever done, yeah."
P. HEWITT
47. (Brushed, is that the one where you had that, Marco told me this top story- that the one where you had the riff, and you were going "Oh, does it sound too much like our kid? Oh fuck it he's in America he'l1 never know? Is it that tune?)
P. WELLER
48. "I don't know. I don't remember that, maybe it's true. But it just started off we just jammed on that and then Bren put his weird and wonderful noises on it. Yeah, it sort of worked sonically, you know, as an oral experience but lyrically I think it's a bit duff really but there's always a danger though trying to write that way when you've got a backing track and you're trying to write a good song on top of it. I think it's very difficult to do that and pull it off, but it works just like a nasty piece of aggressive music. I like it from that point of view."
P. HEWITT'
49. (But isn't it about being sort of inspired?)
P. WELLER
50. "It is, yeah, loosely yeah. I mean I wouldn't sort of claim anything great on those lyrics 'cause like I said it took me fucking ages to sort of keep trying to chip away and get them, you know, and I don't like working like that."
P. HEWITT
51. (How do you prefer working?)
P. WELLER
52. '`I like it when it seems to flow more, you know, not necessarily to make things easier but just the words come out differently when they flow, you ain't got to think about them
, they're just like you said before, they,just come through you a bit more. But I don't know, and I don't even know if it shouJd have been a single really. Yeah, it isn't one of my favourites you know, but at the same time I still like the overall sound. There's something quite compelling about it."
P. HEWiTT
53. (Friday Street, did you get that from an actual street? Is there a street called "Friday Street"?)
P. WELLER
54. "Well it's like a little area. Again it's sort of quite near kind of in-between Woking and Dorking and it's not even a village really, it's just more like a little street, but just drove past that once and just thought "I'll have that" and just as a metaphor for, you know, I suppose the whole thing of like a Friday night as well."
P. HEWITT.
55. (Is that what it's about, the song?) 
P. WELLER
56. "It's more about, you know, whatever happens, whatever shit goes down, you know, if I can always fall back on a few records or a phrase-out of a book or a piece of poetry or whatever the art is, you know that still thinks 'That's why I'm still doing it and that's what I still like about it" or "That's what still excites me and ignites my passion and everything's going to be alright". You know, I'm going to get by. It's a bit like that, a bit of a mod song as well I think. Friday night mod song. But it basically more about that, yeah, still being sort of inspired or if you're able to go back to the things that initially inspired you and they still do that same trick, you know, you're in with a chance then."
P. HEWlTT 
57. (What about musically on that one?)
P. WELLER 
57. "Bit sort of Kinks I suppose. Don't know what to say about musically really. The fact it's two minutes, seventeen really appealed to me as well."
P. HEWTT
58.  (Mermaids?) 
59.  P. WELLER
59. "Mermaids I wrote in one whole evening. Again I was really inspired when I wrote that and pretty sort of straight edge sort of love song really. It makes it like a Saturday night piss-up song. One your auntie could sing along to as well although I don't suppose many aunties got to hear it 'cause it didn't do much. We done a little dedication to Roy Wood on it. But yeah, I really like it and I like the strings on it as well and it's was actually a demo that we ended up using as well. I don't think we could have got it any better than that, we kind of just caught it that one time and the way that Steve White played on it and it was just like the second time he ran through it as well I think. But I still really like that, I still think it's a great melody as well and an up tune, an uplifting tune."
P. HEWITT
60. (And then your final new single.) 
P. WELLER
61. "Brand New Start, yeah. Well I don't know, there's not much to say about it apart from there's another song that just came to me as well, l didn't have to sit and think about it too much and it is pretty simple like chords and stuff. But again it's not something I could say sounds like this or it sounds like that, I don't think anyway, and lyically it just sort of came to me really and it was more, although it's a sort of universal message, if that's the right word, the ideas behind it I think most people would relate to."
P. HEWITT
62. (I think those lines about the actual .......'cause everyone says that "Well I'm not going to do that anymore, I'm going to make a break" you know it's got that about it.) 
P. WELLER
63. "There is yeah, and whether you renege on those things or not at least to have the idea is good anyway. It's better to think that than not to ever think it at all, I think. It's also about fulfilling your potential as well, you know, "There's somewhere else I should be", you know "Someone else I can see" all those lines. You know, you're not always stuck with what you are, if you can think it you can do it I think, up to a point. Do you know what I mean? Everyone needs a bit of luck or whatever as well; but essentialiy it was supposed to be about homelessness although I don't know if it comes over or evidently it doesn't. Everyone who's heard it sort of sees it as a more personal thing, but lines like "I'm going to kick down your door, I'm going to get myself in" and I wanted to finish it, we did this charity gig for a homeless organisation called "Crisis" back in April and I wanted to finish the song for that, which I did and I played it there. Yeah, but it's bigger than that, the idea is bigger than that I guess. It is about me, some of it but it's you know, again it's like a lot of my songs you can draw out lines and I can say "That's directly about me".
P. HEWITT
64. (What in that song is yourself?) 
P. WELLER
65. "There's somewhere else I should be". I've often sort of thought, you know, there's still somewhere else I've yet to go in life I haven't been yet, despite all the success and all the rest of it."
P. HEWITT
66.  (You mean as a person?) 
67.  P. WELLER
67. "I suppose so, yeah. I suppose it would be more personal than professional, but I really think it's a classic. You know, for all its simplicity. I don't know how it fits in with like today's music but I like it and it means a lot to me and there's something inspiring I think about it as well."