Walls Come Tumbling Down (Single, 1984)
Paul and Other Bands
THE SECOND LINE of this song, Weller’s assertion that you do not have to relax, was a direct dig at the band Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Their single, Relax, had recently hit the number one spot. The band’s decadent image riled Paul.
Internationally, Ronald Reagan’s USA lurched ever closer to nuclear confrontation with Russia. At home, Thatcherism was at its height, and every day it felt as if the working class were being attacked from all sides. (‘No peace for the wicked’, Paul sang on the 1985 song The Lodgers, ‘only war on the poor’.) Unemployment figures were staggeringly high, the printers were about to strike, the miners were soon to follow. A tone of high amorality made itself distinct in society, the notion that getting rich at any cost was acceptable. At the same time, documentaries showing families scavenging on rubbish tips became a regular item on television. Thatcher’s statement on the day of her election victory in 1979, that she would bring harmony where there was division, was perhaps the greatest piece of disinformation ever issued from Number Ten. Instead, it felt as if Thatcher had launched a revenge mission on anyone who had ever harmed her party. The result was that post-war Britain had never felt so divided.
For a band such as Frankie to be cavorting around in leather chaps making suggestive remarks was, for the highly politicized Weller, the height of irresponsibility. He still saw music as a vital instrument of change, a weapon to be used against the forces of darkness. Bands such as Frankie, with their orgiastic celebrations of sexuality, aligned with the growing influence of London’s apolitical club scene, made Paul liken the situation to the last days of Rome: Britain on its knees, and everyone drunk and in orgies (a situation, incidentally, with which I am sure today he would join in most enthusiastically).
Paul Weller’s anger and intolerance at bands failing to follow his way was nothing new. From day one he has been coating off bands, and he has never stopped. In fact, such has been the regularity of his vitriol towards others that in 1995 a Mojo writer, Mat Snow, was moved to tell him, ‘Since you first appeared it seems to have been you versus everyone else.’
‘I’ve always been like that,’ Weller candidly admitted. ‘It’s my own arrogance.’
In his first NME interview, in April 1977, he proclaimed, ‘You can’t play rock’n’roll when you’ve got a beer gut.’ He then stated that Pete Townshend’s songs had of late been ‘so self indulgent’. Paul McCartney was kind of OK, but ‘Lennon is the only one who hasn’t sold out’. And so the tone was set. This is the clean-living Paul in a later NME interview: ‘You know all these rock casualties? They fucking deserve it. I don’t give a shit about them. They don’t deserve to be written about or felt sorry for, or anything. It’s tough shit.’
Reading his biting criticism of others, and being exposed to it in conversations, I would surmise that it was hypocrisy, bad image, meaningless music and an inability to play one’s instrument properly – a four-pronged beast – that were guaranteed to set him on fire. The 1980s, therefore, saw him spitting even more bullets than usual. In that decade, the growing influence of technology in studios took pop away from its organic sound. Drum machines and synthesizers replaced humans and allowed those of very limited ability the chance to enter the pop world. Never before had so many bad singers stood before so many microphones.
This perceived downturn in standards was something that irked Weller immensely. He was, after all, a man who had spent years in bars and pubs, bedrooms and sitting rooms, assiduously learning his craft. Once, on a flight back from the San Remo Festival which also carried various members of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Depeche Mode, he lambasted their arrogance, the way they carried themselves as if they were really special. ‘None of them,’ he raged, ‘could sing or play or write a decent fucking tune.’ He once revealed his idea to me that he wanted to organize a festival in France, with the cream of this crop headlining. He would charter a plane to take these bands to the site, but halfway over the Channel shoot it down. ‘If Maggie Thatcher,’ he once said, ‘was in a band, she would be in Duran Duran.’
Such comments hardly endeared him to this new generation of musicians. In 1984, Bob Geldof – whom Weller had, of course, criticized several times – contacted Paul. He wanted his help to write and prepare a song that would feature every major artist and raise money to fight starvation in Africa. The project would be called Band Aid. Paul agreed to help, working with Geldof on the song itself on the Saturday, and then turning up the next day for the all-star recording. Film of the stars arriving for the day’s recording brilliantly illustrates the gulf between Weller and his eighties contemporaries. Limo after limo pulls up and disgorges smiling pop stars into the studio. Paul arrives by strolling down the street with his slicked-back hair and walking cane, looking like he has just got off the number ten bus. Which I think he had. At the session itself, he found himself ostracized, studiously ignored by many. When interviewed in the studio, he said, ‘I’m hardly everybody’s favourite person. They just seem to ignore me. I don’t blame them. The cause is the only common thing between us, otherwise you’d never have gotten all these bands together – especially with me here.’
Understandably, Paul did not hang out with any musicians until the mid 1990s. Not one. They all fell drastically short of his standards. Either they were Thatcherite wankers or they should know better. ‘David Bowie and Macca still doing Top of the Pops at fifty?’ he once exclaimed. ‘You’re fucking joking, mate. It’s depressing. I will not do that, mate.’
Weller’s inability to live and let live has been a constant. When Mojo magazine featured Paul in an article alongside Duran Duran and George Michael, he was absolutely furious. He told the writer in his next Mojo interview, ‘To be put with them I take as a personal insult.’ And here is Paul in 2006 on previous winners of the Brits Lifetime Award.
Bob Geldof? ‘Can’t be for his music, man. I mean, if it’s for his charity work in Africa, then you can’t knock it. But The Boomtown Rats? Fuck off.’
Tom Jones? ‘Tom’s cool, man. I’d sooner see Tom win it than Bob fucking Geldof. Or should I say Sir Bob.’
Sting and The Police? ‘Fucking horrible … wankers.’
U2? ‘Pseudo American rubbish.’
Fleetwood Mac? ‘I’ve got Albatross on my jukebox, but that was a different fucking band. I ain’t having Tusk and all that bollocks.’
The Bee Gees? ‘Good songwriters, but grown men on helium. It’s not good.’
Bowie? ‘No. Wrong! I like about three records of his: Low, Hunky Dory and Can’t Help Thinking About Me. The rest is pish!’
Van Morrison? ‘Top boy.’
Rod Stewart? ‘Never been a fan.’
Freddie Mercury? ‘Said he wanted to bring ballet to the working classes. What a cunt!’
Status Quo he had a lot of time for; Eric Clapton, not really, much prefer the originals.
Weller lashed out at most people, and sometimes with extremely comic results. After lunch one day, Simon Halfon gave Paul and me a lift in his 1967 Mustang. I was sat in the back, Paul and Simon up front. Simon, who was driving, turned on the car radio.
‘Turn that fucking shit off,’ Paul snapped after about twenty seconds.
‘For God’s sake,’ Simon shouted back, ‘it’s you, you idiot.’
And it was. It was The Changing Man by Paul Weller blaring through.
Once, at a gig in Dublin, I introduced Paul to the U2 guitarist The Edge. They were forced to shake hands, and Paul has never forgiven me for it.
Funny stuff, but it is incorrect to paint Paul as a bitter man coating off every band in existence, even if he does it to himself as well. In truth, Paul has championed many bands. Either he has written for them, taken them on tour, enthused about them in the press, or raved about them to influential people. He wrote a song called Dr Love for Bananarama, another one called Waiting On The Connection for a London funk band called Push. He has appeared on several artists’ records, including Peter Gabriel, Mother Earth, Ocean Colour Scene, The Beautiful South, Robert Wyatt, Dr John, Oasis, Carleen Anderson and Dr Robert (see also English Rose). The last-named told me how generous in spirit he felt Paul had been at the session he came to, making all kinds of suggestions and offers that Robert found useful and staying until everything was completed. Perhaps Paul was making up for his behaviour during the recording sessions for Slam Slam, the solo project of Paul’s then wife, Dee C. Lee.
Dee had asked Dr Robert to produce the album. Robert agreed, and they began recording in 1988 at Solid Bond Studios. Paul showed up to all the sessions, and every ten minutes or so offered advice. Robert would take so much until finally he would have to remind Paul that he was the producer, that he made the decisions. Paul would back down straight away, agreeing with Robert’s position. Of course he was the producer, Paul would admit, it was his call. Pacified, Robert would resume work. Ten minutes later, Paul would start up again with the suggestions.
The singer Carleen Anderson, formerly of the Young Disciples, worked closely with Paul on her album Blessed Burden. Paul co-wrote two songs with her, Burning Bridges and I’m Gonna Miss You, produced another six, and played a variety of instruments. (No doubt he saw Carleen Anderson as his PP Arnold, the American singer Weller’s hero Steve Marriott helped write and produce for back in the sixties.) Carleen returned the favour by contributing celestial vocals to Wings Of Speed, one of Paul’s strongest ever ballads, and the song that ends his million-selling album Stanley Road.
It was during the making of that album that Paul invited Steve Winwood, a musician he much admired, to play on two songs, Pink On White Walls and The Woodcutter’s Son. Winwood’s professionalism and his egoless demeanour impressed Paul, although, according to one source present at the time, Paul was jittery the whole time Winwood was there.
Paul has now met all his heroes, apart from Steve Marriott whom he refused to see when I spoke to the man for the NME in 1984. He simply didn’t want his illusions shattered. His childhood hero, Paul McCartney, he first met at Air Studios in 1982 when he was making The Gift. The resulting photo was memorable not for the fact that the two Pauls are together, but for the way in which Weller’s Dennis the Menace badge draws your attention. Over a decade later, at Abbey Road Studios in London on 4 September 1995, he worked with McCartney, recording a version of the Beatles song Come Together for an album designed to raise money for children living in war zones.
McCartney arrived at about two in the afternoon to find a studio filled with names such as Noel Gallagher, Carleen Anderson (who actually curtsied when she met Macca), Steve Cradock, Damon Minchella, Marco Nelson, Andy MacDonald (head of Independiente Records, Paul’s label), Johnny Depp and Kate Moss. Stella McCartney also attended. (Macca once expressed his relief that Paul never married Stella. He couldn’t have handled a Stella Weller in the family.) The session was highly memorable, McCartney, in particular, affable and approachable. At one point, as he stood talking to Paul, I pointed out to him that thirty-three years ago to the actual day, in that very studio, he had been cutting The Beatles’ debut single Love Me Do.
‘My God,’ McCartney said. ‘I remember that session so well. We were really out to beat Gerry and the Pacemakers. That was what we had to do that day, beat Gerry and the Pacemakers. Later on it was the Dave Clark Five, got to beat the Dave Clark Five.’
Weller, in a tone dryer than the desert, said, ‘Um, think you might have done it, mate.’
The recording booth at Abbey Road Studios is reached from the ground floor by some stairs. Standing in that studio during the session, looking down, was Paul Weller, guiding Paul McCartney, who was sat down on the floor playing his guitar. When the session finished, Paul sat outside the studios in the cold night air, waiting for a cab. He turned to me and said, ‘That’s it now, done it all.’
The Who’s Pete Townshend was another early obsession of his. When Paul first came to prominence, the NME writers Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill thought it would be a great idea to drive him down to Twickenham to meet Townshend. Unfortunately, Townshend was not at home, but I thought it such a great idea that I nicked it when I was at Melody Maker. In early April 1980 the two finally met, at The Who’s Trinifold offices on London’s famous Wardour Street.
They had nothing in common. Townshend was now middle-aged and into drink; Weller was twenty-two and absolutely committed to his vision of music as a force for change, to steering as far away as possible from anything that reeked of rock stardom cliché. The two did not connect at all. Weller was diplomatic about a Who show he had seen at the Rainbow, Townshend kept on about how it was important not to ignore America – a position Paul disagreed with straight away. The end moved into sight when Paul asked Townshend how he decided on what recording studio to use, and Townshend replied, ‘By the girl at the reception desk and whether you want to fuck her or not.’ Perhaps it was this occasion that convinced Paul never to meet his idols.
Later, Townshend wrote a piece for Time Out magazine on Paul. In it, he called Paul ‘a Hero, a British Hero’. He considered how Paul’s fans identified with Jam music, noting, ‘There is no bitterness in Weller’s writing that isn’t fully shared by his fans. Everything that is wrong with the world is someone else’s fault. God is not in his heaven, and if he is then he isn’t doing a very good job of handling the population explosion, political corruption and global disintegration.’ He added,
‘I read recently that Paul Weller has given up night-clubs, booze and drugs, and I suppose they do all go hand in hand. He is quite clearly a man of principle, but isn’t he rejecting the only group of people who can really understand his frustrations? Has a musician ever changed any part of the world? Weller seems willing to deal only with Britain at this stage; he leaves America to the Americans and is apparently so disdainful of the States that it causes him pain to even talk about the place.’
He also made a telling point about image and stardom – and having lived with the implications of both since 1965, one presumes that Townshend has some knowledge of the subject matter.
Weller quite consciously tries to represent a kind of Being that manages to be aloof and proud in the middle of ennui. He is also very aware that he is under a microscope. I have never come across any other artist or writer so afraid of appearing hypocritical; he is genuinely concerned that anyone who identifies with his feelings should not be let down. He has no large expensive car, shuns large houses and, I suspect, attempts to use his money wisely (if he knows how to do it I wish he’d write a song about it – it would do us all a world of good). But he is a Star. He himself carefully engineers what kind of Star and in what kind of stratosphere he shines; never too grand, never too remote.
When he was asked about this piece by the NME in 1982, Weller curtly replied, ‘Didn’t really understand it, and the bits I did were a load of old bollocks.’
In 1989, while rehearsing at Nomis Studios for his Acid House-influenced show at the Royal Albert Hall (one of his bravest ever shows), Paul discovered that The Who had been booked into the adjacent studio, rehearsing for a comeback tour of the States. Chatting to one of the band’s roadies one day, Weller asked why the band were re-forming, especially as Townshend had to play within a glass frame so as to protect his hearing.
‘John Entwistle is broke,’ the roadie said. ‘He’s down to his last four million.’
That then became a running joke between Paul and me.
‘I see so-and-so is back on the road.’
‘Yeah, poor sod, must be down to his last four million.’
Paul once did some work at Entwistle’s home recording studio, part of the huge mansion he lived in, complete with a bar. Paul’s comment on this lifestyle? ‘It’s nice to see how seventies rock stars used to live.’ There was more short shrift when Paul asked Townshend why The Who were playing America.
‘To re-educate the American kids with r’n’b music,’ Townshend replied.
‘You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’ Paul blurted out.
End of conversation.
These days, Pete Townshend and Paul Weller are far more simpatico, and that’s because time changes characters: Townshend is now clean and sober, while the Paul Weller of today is a million miles away from the Paul Weller of The Jam or The Style Council. When he saw The Who at the Royal Albert Hall two years ago, Weller did not sneer and pronounce the band crap, as he would have done twenty years ago. Instead, he was totally enthused. He told me that Townshend’s guitar playing had made him feel like a kid again, that the man’s power and dynamics and showmanship made him want to go home, get his guitar out and play.
He has, in fact, played with Townshend. Three years ago, they duetted at a charity show at the Royal Albert Hall, covering the Townshend song So Sad About Us on acoustic guitars. Weller had suggested they do Sunrise, one of his favourite songs from the Who Sell Out album, but Pete couldn’t recall the chords and neither could work them out anyway.
Paul has also connected with Ray Davies of The Kinks. In 1986 he offered him a composition called (I think) My Very Good Friend, but was turned down. He did see him in concert at the Festival Hall on London’s South Bank about two years ago, though.
‘Brilliant,’ he told me, ‘every song was a gem.’
‘Did you meet him?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. You know me, got pissed, went backstage and kept telling him how much I loved him. He was just standing there going, “Yeah, OK.”’ (Another running joke between us: guys who get drunk or high and then slobber over each other crying, ‘I love you. No, I do, I love you.’)
As I said, Paul never met Steve Marriott or Ronnie Lane from The Small Faces. He did, however, meet and work on separate occasions with their drummer, Kenney Jones (whose 1960s Mini Paul used as a template for his Mini), and organist Ian McLagan.
I took Paul to a preview of a documentary about The Action once, and he came away with the autographs of those band members present. He met Roy Wood at Aston Villa Leisure Centre and chewed his ear off about obscure Move B sides, and songs such as Beautiful Daughter, which Paul especially loves. (Lovers of Paul’s song Misty Morning, incidentally, might be intrigued to learn of a Move LP song called Mist On A Monday Morning.) He also worked with people such as Robert Kirby, the man who did the string arrangements for the late Nick Drake, another musician Paul admired. In the early nineties he met the ex-Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller with a view to working with him, but Miller, who had not long to live, turned Paul down. He did offer him one bit of advice, though, telling him to watch his tendency to rush the words when he sang. Paul also sent demos to the legendary producer Glyn Johns (Stones, Beatles, Small Faces, to name but three fair to middling acts he worked with), but Johns too refused the gig, saying he had nothing to bring to the table. When they did finally meet to work on a Small Faces tribute album, Paul couldn’t help having a little dig at him by mentioning the incident.
The musician Paul has perhaps got closer to than anyone else is Oasis’s Noel Gallagher. They first met at the Glastonbury Festival in 1994, when Paul usurped the headliner Elvis Costello by turning in a set that was breathtaking in its scope and energy. Afterwards we went for a drink in the artists tent and bumped into Noel, who was on the way out. Paul told him he had seen the band’s video for Supersonic and enjoyed both song and film. Noel smiled shyly, said thanks, then quickly moved off. Later, when Noel was living at the Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr’s flat in Fulham, he invited both me and Paul round. There were drinks, there were rare Beatles tapes, there was a sense of working-class kinship forged in council estate life.
Most of the time, Noel Gallagher is a highly personable and warm human being. He is also a huge Weller fan. As he got to know Paul, he too saw the man’s many sides, often making fun of them. ‘He is Victor Meldrew with a suntan,’ he once said of Paul’s constant moaning. He also caught Paul out a few times. At a Sheffield Arena gig, Noel debuted his classic song Don’t Look Back In Anger on acoustic guitar. Afterwards, he asked Paul what he thought of the new song. Fucking great, Paul replied. It was only when they looked at the hidden CCTV footage taken in their dressing room (installed to catch some of the many thieves who were circling the band) that they saw Paul enter the room and take a drink while Noel played out the song in the arena.
Inevitably, Paul and Noel began to play together, making guest appearances on records and at gigs. Paul has played with Oasis on stage in London, Noel with Paul at festivals. Paul covered the Oasis song One Way Street, while on one Paul Weller tour Noel was the surprise support act.
The two of them have shared many nights and days filled with drink and arguments and laughs and revelations. But they differ in significant ways. For a start, Noel is in no way as driven as Paul. If he can get away with watching TV all day, he will. For Paul, such laziness is an anathema, simply wrong. You should work as much as you can whenever you can. Noel thoroughly enjoys the rock star life, the attention, the massive gigs, the press. Paul, as we know, dismisses this lifestyle. Then there’s their musical tastes: Noel’s are far more rock-orientated – Pistols, Bowie, Iggy Pop; Paul’s veer more into r’n’b and jazz. Yet they have a deep affection for each other. Noel might bristle at some of Paul’s snipings, and Paul might question Noel’s tendency to tell larger-than-life stories, but there is a genuine respect and love between the two.