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THE COLLECTORS
AON
In 1976, The Jam arrived on the London punk scene as suburban outsiders,
led by a bolshy and idealistic 18-year-old called Paul Weller. Few could have
imagined that, within two years, Paul would grow into the finest young
songwriter of his generation, finding poetry and romance in everyday British life
under the shadow of The Bomb. Then in 1982, feeling trapped by fame and the
limitations of rock music, he dramatically called time on The Jam to pursue his
passion for jazz, soul and politics in The Style Council - a group that, ironically,
would achieve even greater success worldwide.

The music Weller created in the late ’70s and 1980s,

defined an era; and his dedication to everything
Mod ensured he always looked sharp while he was
doing it. was lucky enough to grow up with The
I

Jam and TSC’s music; and, as for so many other fans,

it provided an education and inspiration — in music,
literature, fashion, politics, self-expression. And
for those discovering Paul’s music afresh today, it’s
guaranteed to take you on an incredible journey...
I hope you enjoy this issue, and look out for

fk L. Sef
Modern Classics 1991-2019, charting Weller’s
mercurial solo years. Turn to page 4 for details
of how to pre-order your copy. PAT GILBERT, EDITOR
5a
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 MODERN CLASSICS

4958-1990

WORD 10 SCHOO 4 JAM 1977 ( Lois son)

24 ON THE ROAD (Cho de L MOD CONS (Lois Witson
42 SETTING SONS (Pat Gilbert) 50 JAM FAN CLUB (Nicky Weller)
52 SOUND AFFECTS (John Harris) 60 THE GIFT (John Harris) 70 THE FINAL TOUR
(Pat Gilbert) 76 RIOT STORIES (John Reed) 82 TSC A PARIS (John Harris)
86 OUR FAVOURITE SHOP (Lois Wilson) 100 THE SONG BOOK (Tom Doyle)

a
106 THE MOD POET (Lois Wilson) 116 PAUL'S JUKEBOX (Chris Catchpole)
120 THE INTERVIEW
2002 (Lois.

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 SCHOOL DAYS

Paul Weller danced right out of the womb, it seems — albeit in a flash, synchronized
suedehead style. Back in 1995, classmate Steve Baker, later ofMod band Squire, and
who sadly passed away early this year, remembered Woking’s coolest schoolkid.

We met when we both started at __ the stairs, a guitar over here, a bag of leads. There was always
Sheerwater Secondary School. Paul stood out, stuff going on. I couldn’t talk to my mum and dad about things,
he had a bit of styleto him. He used to adapthis but Paul’s mum and dad were still young. John would go, ‘D’you
school uniform. You were meant to wear dark see Top Of The Pops tonight?’ - you know, he’d be on the ball.
grey trousers, but he’d come in wearing pale One Saturday afternoon, they were playing in the house - they
grey trousers, and a blue tie with a red stripe used to do rock’n’roll and Beatles-influenced stuff when they first
through it. He’d wear it withalemon-coloured started - and there were a load of greasers outside doing their
shirt or something. He was fashion conscious dancing on the pavement. Whether they were taking the piss or
already, and then he got us all into it. whether they were digging it, don’t know!
I

The first night I really noticed him was when we went to a One thing that always struck me about The Jam was the way
party and it was, like, bring your records along. We must have Paul! put himself over. He wasn’t like most people would be, he’d
really get into it. He’d always be shouting bits and ad-libbing -
_—‘
been about 12. We all had two singles each and hehadaboxfulof
them. I’ll always remember the girls were dancing; then we puton throwing himself into it. think [he saw himself as] a bit like
I

T.Rex or something, and it was, ‘Right, the boyscan dancetothis McCartney, ’cos he was more into McCartney than John Lennon,
- all you’ve got to do is dance like on Top Of The Pops. Paulsaid, and he always got really enthusiastic about his playing.
‘That’s how greasers dance, this is how we dance...’ and he did It was around 1974/’75 that Paul got really into the Mod thing.
these synchronized dances, like skinhead dances - he knew all Heused to go to the dances at Bisley Pavilion — non-stop dancing,
them. I couldn’t believe it — all of the blokes in aline, about eight Northern soul nights that went from 10pm to six in the morning.
of us. He was well ahead of us. Lused to work at a little engineering shop, and he used to come in
Iasked where he learnt the dances and he said, ‘Woking foot- on his scooter. He had a parka with ‘Mod Class A’ in a big circle
ball club. Come down ona Tuesday night, it’s the under-16s on his back. Paul said he wanted some mirrors put on - can
a
disco.’ So we went down there and Paul had all the trendy you drill some holes in so we can screw them on? So I'd
gear on, it was skinhead style but with longer hair. It was spend all my lunchbreak screwing holes in his scooter so
reggae and Motown - that’s all they played there. Paul that he could have mirrors all over it.
knew all the songs, Max Romeo, Desmond Dekker. He We had both discovered The Who at same time,
brought this record into school one day, Dave & Ansell actually. We both had younger sisters and they went to
Collins’ Double Barrel - two weeks later [in May 1971] it *
see that David Essex film, Stardust, and went out to buy
was Number 1, he’d already been into it for a few weeks. All the compilation album that went with it. My Generation
the girls used to fancy him, I think mainly ’cos he was so stylish. was on it, and a few weeks later Paul said, “Yeah, [my sister]
But he was also quite shy then. Nicky’s got that — ’ve been getting into it” Then he bought the My
John [his dad] wanted his son to be somebody. He had this Generation album, and I got into Quadrophenia. He nicked it [off
football team when we were about 12, and Paul couldn’t play to me] and said, ‘I don’t want the album, I don’t like the music, can
save his life. So that didn’t last thatlong. Thenhe gothimaguitar [just keep the cover?’ It had the booklet with all the Mod pictures
and Paul really hit it off. He’d always been into The Beatlesfrom and he just got completely into it.
when I first knew him, he had this real thing about them. And The next big thing was Dr Feelgood. I said to him, ‘I’ve seen a
that always stayed there at school - in art lessons he’d draw a__—-
band — they’re really good — do you want to go and see them?
Beatles-type graphic or he’d do ‘We Love The Beatles’ and bung They’re on telly next week.’ And we saw them and Paul said,
it up on the wall. ‘That’s the band for me.’ I saw The Jam two months later and
In lessons, if something was boring, Paul wouldn’t take any _‘ The first
they’d completely changed their style to Dr Feelgoods-type stuff.
interest. He just liked having a laugh. Then if we did something thing they did was change [early Jam song] Takin’ My
which interested him, like politics or something romantic, he’d Love; they speeded it up to double time and they put a Wilko riff
get into it, he’d write poems. The George Orwell thing — he into it. Then they got the funny black-and-white suits and that’s
seemed to be into that years before anyone took aninterestinthat When Brooksie left, whenPaul got into the Mod
social aspect. and Dr Feelgood thing. And that was The Jam
I went to The Jam’s first gigs down the local youth club [then People saw around the time Paul first went to
S€€ the Sex Pistols...
Weller Archive

variously with guitarists Steve Brookes, Dave Waller and Neil

Harris in the line-up; Weller played bass],andwouldgoroundto Thanks to John Reed, author of Paul Weller:
Paul’s house to watch them rehearse. There’d be musicalinstru- My Ever Changing Moods (Omnibus), for his
ments all over the place, a piano by the wall, amps up anddown archive interview material.

12
 1977

After 18-year-old av\ Weller saw the Sex Pistols perform in

July 1976, he immediately set about transforming his own group into

punk contenders. But as working-class suburban outsiders with an in-built

aversion to bullshit, The Jam would discover that life as New Wave band on a

a major label came with unexpected pressures and a web of contradictions.

j a bustling Saturday lunchtime in October

1976, the sun is shining and Chiswick
stained, peeling wallpaper, strippers, and live music provided by
The Jam, a three-piece since July ’75, churning out Chuck Berry,
Records’ co-founder Roger Armstrong is Beatles and Motown numbers to men with one eye on their beer
manning his record stall Rock On in Soho and the other on scantily clad women.
market on Newport Court, just off Charing
Cross Road. The Clash are over the road eller had formed The Jam in 1972 with school friend
eating late breakfast; Mark Perry of Sniffin’
a
Steve Brookes. After several personnel changes, and
Glue fanzine is killing time, flicking through Brookes’ departure, the group had settled on the power trio
the boxes looking for Iggy Pop records. line-up of Weller, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick
Suddenly, a battered van turns up, doors Buckler. Buckler, the son of a postman and GPO telephone
fling open and three lads jump out of the engineer, was a fan of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Fox-
back. Dressed in three-button black suits, white shirts and black ton worked at a local printers and had fronted prog rockers Rita,
ties, they set up by the red phone boxes, plug in to Rock On’s a band formed with work colleagues. Enthusiasm and locality
power supply and blast out a cacophonic bonded the three, but even at this embryonic
version of Larry Williams’s Slow Down. stage, Weller’s burning ambition to make it
An explosion of youthful energy and defi- told friends and acquaintances that he was
ance, their skinny lead singer spits out the on a different path.
words with an earnest ferocity, his Ricken- “He was driven right from the start,” says
backer 330 thrashing out the rhythm, dis- Steve Brookes. “He saw music as his pur-
torting with the volume. Shoppers with kids pose, he felt he was put on earth to make it.
balanced on their shoulders stop and stare. He was that single-minded, which meant he
Even the firefighters at the nearby station on could be seen as difficult at times, he could
Shaftesbury Avenue climb onto the roof to get vitriolic, react quite easily, but he always
get a glimpse of what is going on. talked about being rich and famous.”
Unlikely as it sounds, the guerrilla gig isa By the spring of 1976, Weller had become
landmark moment, as the stunt secures the aware of something different and simpatico,
three-piece group their first press coverage stirring 20-odd miles away in the capital.
- write-ups in Sniffin’ Glue, Melody Maker And though the image and ragged musical
and Sounds magazines, and The Jam enter values of the emerging punk groups were
the emerging punk story along with their miles from The Jam’s sharp, business-like
18-year-old frontman, John William Weller look and apprenticed chops, when Weller
Jr - otherwise known as Paul. saw the Sex Pistols play at the Lyceum in
July he’d felt connection.
a

“We knew Paul from the stall,” says “It was an epiphany,” Weller told me in
Roger Armstrong today. “He was always 2010. “When they came on-stage there was
dressed neat in his suit and he’d be buying Motown records while the feeling that, This is it. They were of my generation, speaking
everyone else was looking for The Stooges, MC5 and New York to me. I felt isolated before that. We’d play pubs and working
Dolls. But the first we knew of The Jam playing that day was when men’s clubs in Surrey where the typical punter had to get pissed
John [Weller, Paul’s father, the band’s manager] came in and said before he’d get up and dance and then usually it was a slow dance.
could they use our power supply? We put a bayonet in the light I wanted something different. After we got in the press, we
bulb socket and they ran it off that.” concentrated on London, the punk venues. It got serious.”
Only a month before, it had been a very different scene: Friday Getting serious meant gigs at the 100 Club and Upstairs At
night at Michael’s Disco Diner, a run-down late-night drinking Ronnie Scott’s, where the metamorphosis from small-town
den on the edge of Woking, Surrey’s town centre. Downstairs, in covers band playing soul and R&B to ‘people’s band’ began. But
the basement, the sounds of Status Quo and Be Bop Deluxe piped The Jam’s status on the punk scene was ambiguous from the off, =
oO

out of local DJ Mike Taro’s neon-lit soundsystem. Upstairs: as Shanne Bradley, then 18 and later of The Nips recalls.

16
 1977

EE
club, Covent Garden,

‘At Ronnie Scott’s they bussed in a load of Woking-ites, so there was an uneasy atmosphere. They
piled into us and there were 20, maybe 30, people brawling” -
STEVE MICK, SNIFFIN’ GLUE

“I was staying in Croydon with Ray Burns [aka The Damned’s rom the suburbs, and managed not by a metropolitan
Captain Sensible],” says Bradley. “We got the bus to the Ronnie’s flibbertigibbet like Sex Pistols boss Malcolm McLaren, but by
show. I had a toy bass that Fred Berk from Johnny Moped had John Weller - a former boxer, cabbie and builder - The Jam
given me, and Ray was teaching me bass lines on it. Midway had an idealised, outsider’s view of punk London. Yet in
through the gig, Bruce broke a string. I handed him the toy bass musical attitude they weren’t that different. Rooted in the am-
and he couldn’t stop laughing. That really endeared me to him.” phetamine-fuelled peacocking of The Who and Small Faces,
As the gig went up through its gears, however, The Jam’s oth- and drawing a direct line between Pete Townshend’s auto-
erness became clearer. “It was almost like they were a holiday destruction and the Pistols’ nihilism, The Jam vibrated with ten-
camp band from Butlin’s,” says Bradley. “They were doing covers sion and, importantly, sought engagement with their audience. “It
and Paul was doing these Pete Townshend arm windmills, but was always about breaking down that barrier for me,” said Weller.
they had this energy. In the early days, punk wasn’t a music, it was “Right from the beginning I wanted that. It was about saying
an attitude and feeling, and they had that.” something and making a connection.”
“They’d bussed in a load of Woking-ites, so there was an “Because they were out-of-town boys, they were seen as
uneasy atmosphere at Ronnie’s,” recalls Steve Mick, a writer for yokels,” says then-Chiswick/Rock On co-boss Ted Carroll, who'd
the by then trenchantly punk-minded Sniffin’ Glue fanzine. “Paul offered the group a one-off single deal. “Their differences were
loses it, lifts up the monitor in front of him and smashes it down, seen as them being out of step but that wasn’t the case. Punk was
shouting, ‘Is this what you want?’ We started pogoing, and the never going to hang around - the major labels were never going to
Woking-ites piled into us. There were 20, maybe 30, people brawl- get a handle on it, never going to take it seriously. And then you
ing. It was mayhem.” had Bernie [Rhodes, The Clash manager] and Malcolm [McLar-
Weller later burned a copy of Sniffin’ Glue on-stage, after an en] playing games, seeing how much money they could get. We
interview Mick conducted with the singer didn’t appear. “It wasa liked the fact The Jam had this energy but were modelled on the
mistake,” admits the writer. “We’d sat under the jukebox speaker ’60s groups, with melody.
so I couldn’t hear anything other than music on the [interview] “We approached John Weller, and said, We think they’re ter-
tape. Mark Perry wrote something snidey in its place. Paul bought rific, we’ll do one single, we’ll get it out real fast, it will increase
the issue, saw our interview wasn’t in there, got angry. the profile of the band and will put you in a stronger position to
“I was impressed, though - it showed that he had guts. He negotiate with the majors... But sadly it wasn’t to be.”
questioned stuff. ‘Why should I do that just because punk says “We'd chosen In The City to be the single and we knew it was
I should? Why should I act bored? Why should I wear ripped going to be a hit,” adds Armstrong. “Ted sent contracts out to
clothes?” John for him to read, then he was to come to Ted’s flat, —>

17
 1977

<— which was over the Rock On shop, to sign. Ted put Mod booked a tour that would end at Hammer- Bondage up yours:
the All Around The
photos around the place, The Who’s Ready Steady Who EP on smith Odeon to promote their first album. It
World sleeve shoot,
display. Then Ted rings me: ‘John’s gone with Polydor for 6,000.” was ambitious, there was a lot hanging on it July 1977.
On January 22, 1977, The Jam played the Marquee supporting to make it work, so we had to keep rolling,
Bearded Lady. In the 500-strong audience was Chris Parry, a accelerating the band. We had a frantic
Polydor label A&R man who had just missed out on signing the work rate.”
Pistols and The Clash and was there on a tip-off from The Nips’ A week after In The City’s release, The
Shane MacGowan. Impressed by the group live, he arranged Jam joined The Clash’s White Riot tour. With the Buzzcocks, The
a demo session on Oxford Street, then signed the trio on Febru- Slits and Subway Sect also variously on the bill, it was set to take
ary 15, initially for a single but with the option to extend, which punk to the masses, but after shows at Edinburgh’s Playhouse,
he did - to four albums over as many years. Manchester’s Electric Circus and the Rainbow in London, The
“They were like punk kids but unlike the Pistols whose role Jam quit and went back to headlining their own shows.
models were the MC5, Stooges, the Dolls, theirs was The Who, Clash associates have offered a number of different
they liked to play power chords,” says Parry. “So when I went interpretations: Bernie Rhodes feared The Jam would usurp The
backstage at the Marquee and said I was from Polydor, Paul’s eyes Clash; John Weller was inching out of a deal to help fund the
lit up. Paul had something different about him, like Joe Strummer other support acts; The Jam had never fitted in anyway ~ the old
and Johnny Rotten, and he had immense confidence. He had a ‘yoke! argument...
clear vision about what he was going to be. At our first meeting he “There was a lot of bickering between us and The Clash over
said, ‘I’m going to be one of the spokespeople for my generation. how much PA and lighting we got to use,” says Foxton today. “It
I’m not just going to make it musically, I’m going to play a pivotal felt like we had gone back to the early ’70s with big companies
role.” He was driven by this pure, raw sense of destiny.” fighting. We just thought, We don’t need this crap.”
Residences at the Red Cow in Hammersmith and the Nash- “It felt like a rip-off, not about bringing the youth together,”
ville Rooms in West Kensington were booked on the back of their said Weller. “By this time, I was getting disillusioned with the
new deal and, with the band playing an average of two to three whole punk scene anyway. There were a lot of bands just jumping
shows a week, they started to attract bigger and bigger crowds. on the bandwagon, changing their image, thinking that was all it
“It happened so quickly,” says Steve Carver, a friend of the took to be a punk.”
band who became their roadie and merch man. “At the first show “By the Rainbow show, punk tribalism had taken over,” says
at the Red Cow there’d be 12 people, at the second 25, by the Carver. “It was tense and the crowd smashed up the place but The
fourth it was absolutely rammed. The publicity machine had gone Jam were all right because they could play. Paul and Bruce’s feet
into overdrive, we had all these Jam badges which we’d throw were never on the ground. They could win over any audience, it
into the audience after the show. The kids started collecting didn’t matter who you were.”

“There was an awareness that he’d reached first base and a sense of pressure building.
It all happened so bloody fast. As 1977 went on, Paul got more introverted” — CHRIS PARRY

them, they’d be turning up with them pinned to their jacket he first album, In The City, was issued on May 20.
lapels. They saw it as being part of the gang.” Recorded at Polydor’s in-house studio at Stratford Place in
But the intensifying attention wasn’t without its drawbacks - London’s West End over 11 days, with Parry producing and
as Bruce Foxton recalls. “Paul would get so nervous before Vic Coppersmith-Heaven engineering, the brief was simple.
shows,” says the bassist, “that he’d be pacing around then have to “Like all bands when they start out, they’d honed down a
rush off to be physically sick.” bunch of songs over two, three, five years and that’s their
work to date,” says Parry. “So you think, This is what they do, this
n April 29, The Jam issued their first single. In The City is their sound, let’s try and recreate that. That’s your starting
encapsulated everything they were about: a romanticised point. You want to capture the smell, the sound, the feel.”
view of London and a Wordsworthian revelling in being In The City did just that, its 12 songs including frantic covers
young: “All those golden faces are under 25...” of Slow Down and the Batman theme, the first strands of social
“Life in London seemed so removed from sleepy observation with the title track, Bricks And Mortar and Time For
Woking,” Weller told me. “Loads of punk songs were about Truth, and the first glimpse of how Weller’s songwriting would
boredom and it was like, Well you should come and live in the develop with the reflective, psychological teenage Mod rock of
suburbs where there is literally nothing going on except drinking Away From The Numbers.
and fighting. With punk we were playing to our generation, we “Tt was such a blur, very quick and very intense,” says Foxton
could sing about things our audience could relate to.” of those album sessions. “It was like we had got on a rollercoaster
Made NME Single Of The Week, In The City just scraped the and we just had to hold on. It was so brand new, we had to learn
UK Top 40, and although not the first punk so quick but it felt like we were a gang, us
band to make the British singles chart, The against the world. It was a proper buzz.”
Jam were the first to appear on Top Of The The album hit the UK Top 20, and a 36-date
Pops. Beamed into living rooms around the tour followed, starting at Barbarella’s in
country, they had moved instantly from Birmingham on June 7. Peter Gabriel turned up
fanzine world into the mainstream. at The Jam’s Bristol Polytechnic gig - though
“I saw them shortly before the single release Weller would turn down a support slot with
at the Marquee,” says Steve Mick. “I went back- Gabriel later that year, saying he wanted to
stage, it was wall-to-wall business suits. In my continue playing small venues.
mind they were famous then. I saw them once At the tour’s finale at Hammersmith Odeon,
more after that. It was 50p to get in, lwent up to they celebrated their second hit single: All
utterstock

Chris Parry and demanded my money back.” Around The World had charted the day before.
For Polydor “it was a massive deal”, says Its lyric put further distance between Weller
Parry. “We'd put a lot of thought into it. We’d and punk’s Year Zero rhetoric: “What’s the =
SI

18
 1977

'

point in saying ‘Destroy’ ?/I want a new life for everywhere...” World. We were all really excited. He just went, ‘I don’t really like
“He was very prolific,” says Parry. “He was writing all the time the song.’ He didn’t celebrate and he definitely didn’t show off.”
while he was on the road and you never knew how much material
he had. He never told you he’d written a new song, it was never eller’s idealism was rubbing up against major label
like that, he’d just play them at some point when he was ready. He reality, a challenge for a group whose emerging principle
did that with All Around The World, and I thought, I like that was that the band and the fans were in it together.
alot. We needed another single out before the Odeon show. “Tt felt like you were a part of something,” asserts Shanne
“We had to sell that out and ticket sales had levelled. We had Bradley, whose band The Nips would later support The Jam
a day off between shows, so we went into Chappell studios on (Weller would also produce their 1981 single Happy Song).
Bond Street, and recorded and mixed it in a day then got it out in “Paul’s mum and dad, his sister Nicky, were always there. At the
three weeks, just before the show. And it did the trick, we sold out end of the night, they’d give me a lift home. They didn’t want me
the venue on the back of it.” walking on my own. As the shows went on, the band became
Without a break, Parry booked them into a tiny studio in more pertinent, and they got it, whatever it was, really quickly,
Aylesbury to tentatively start work on songs for their second whatever we were fighting, whatever we were angry about. There
album. The session was abandoned after a week. “With the two was no distinguishing between us and the band.”
singles and the Top Of The Pops appearances, Paul was positive,” “Paul would invite us to just turn up in the afternoon of gig as
a

says Parry. “But there was an awareness coming that he’d reached the equipment was being loaded in,” says radio presenter Gary
first base and a sense of pressure building on him. It all came on Crowley, who was 15 in 1977. “We'd get there ridiculously early but
so bloody fast. As 1977 went on he got more introverted.” he wouldn’t care. He’d let us hang out and watch everything going
“We were at Paul’s mum and dad’s,” recalls Carver. “We were on. He was so attuned to his audience. The Jam felt like it was
watching Top Of The Pops and he comes on with All Around The something I could belong to. It felt like, This was ourtime.”” —>

19
 197%

N' CHESS
45 LSATIAN
Paul Weller, Steve Brookes and Monty Python, we made
Pair We were too young to
@ drive so he'd take us
The Jam's musical baby steps. up our own characters
and had a secret and our equipment to
met Paul Weller in the playground at language. We used gigs. He'd book the
Sheerwater County Secondary
code words that no one gigs too. He was
else could understand. always pushing us.
School in late "71 when we were both
Me and Paul talked We started writing
13. My family had just moved to
about forming a band from our own songs from day
Woking so was the new boy at school. A kid
|

called Roger Pilling introduced us, he day one, we were both very ne, and as soon as we
confident of success despit Rick Buckler in on drums
thought we'd get on and we did the
—

being beginners on the guita?. imate Dave Waller also

moment we found out we were both
interested in playing the guitar. That was the
was the outgoing one, Paul was very played guitar], we started putting
shy, but he had a cockiness where playing them in our live set. We got our inspiration
glue. would go round his house, he’d come
|

and performing was concemed. He had real from everything and anything. remember
round mine and we’d sit trying to work out
|

self-belief. one day in summer Paul couldn't sleep, it was

different chords in our bedrooms. I’d learn
We modelled the idea of the band on The really hot, and at 5am we walked barefoot
something new and show it to him; he’d learn
Beatles’ line-up; Paul was keen to play bass through the streets to the park. There was no
something new and show it to me. It was a one else around, it seemed magical with the
as Paul McCartney was his idol. was to play
very organic process. It helped we shared the
|

guitar, and we would get in another guitarist first rays of the sun coming up. It fired our
same sense of humour. We were really into
and a drummer, that was the plan. We were imaginations.
consumed by it all even at this initial stage We wrote a whole bunch of original
when it was just the two of us. We talked songs. Takin’ My Love and Blueberry Rock
about what our first album would be like, the were the ones we recorded at our first
songs on it, the sleeve artwork, what we recording session in August 1973 at Eden
would wear, and especially where we wanted Studios in Kingston. The studio was small,
to go with it. We wanted to be as popular as very cramped, there were steep stairs
The Beatles, to emulate them. leading up to it, so it was difficult getting the
We played a lot of covers. We learned equipment in. We had cross words with each
them out of Paul’s Beatles Songbook, then other, it didn’t look like we were going to get
we backtracked, and started discovering Takin’ My Love down, we were off-kilter with
Tamla Motown and Chuck Berry and one another on the vocals. The engineer
rock'n'roll through the covers they did. suggested we hold hands while we were
Rock’n'roll was undergoing a renaissance at singing so we could feel what each other was
the time, Chuck Berry and Little Richard doing. We were sceptical but John said to
were touring the UK, so it felt very current and give it a try and we did, and we got it done.
new rather than a retro thing. No one picked up on the demo, though.
Ann and John Weller, Paul’s mum and | left the band in July’75. was 17. I'd
1

dad, used to take us to the local pubs in spent four years in the band, a quarter of my
Woking — like the Albion and the working life. We'd started out as young boys, we were
men’s club. They had bands on, we'd get up becoming young men, and we were striking
and guest with them whenever they'd let us, out in different ways. Paul was getting more
we'd do a Beatles song or a Chuck Berry and more obsessed with The Who and Small
Faces and the whole Mod thing and wasn’t.
aT a song, and the audience was |

was still into our melodic ‘old wave’ Beatles

FP always very kind to us, they
liked to see young kids up on
|

thing. never regretted the decision.

|

the stage. We remained friends, though. His studio’s

i> John was very supportive
from the start. He was the one
not far from where live and go over for a cup
| |

of tea or a curry every now and again. played |

Weller Archive, Getty

who held it all together, he Spanish guitar on One Bright Star on 22

steered us. He obviously enjoyed Dreams, \'m uncredited on Find The Torch,
our company too. He was always Burn The Plans on Wake Up The Nation,
laughing with us he used to say,
— and | play on a couple of tracks on Saturns
“You're cracked in the head.” He Pattern. He likes things to be spontaneous.
Start: Steve
Brookes (left) with has took care of the practicalities too. As told to Lois Wilson.
Rick and bassist
Paul, 1974.

CH ae 20
der) =
ry
 1977

I need you: Paul

with then girlfriend

Gill Price, whom he
met in July 1977.

—_— It wasn’t just in the capital that the connection was

made, as Phil Jones, editor of Liverpool fanzines Time For Action
and The End, remembers. “I bunked off school to see them at the
Empire in Liverpool. I was in my uniform. Paul invited us in,
asked us loads of questions, how old were we, what school did we
go to, what were our politics. He gave us a mini lecture on social-
ism and told us to read. That was one of his main points he tried
to get across. We started to dress more like him after that — suit
jackets, badges on the lapels. It wasn’t Mod at this time, more just
a new dynamic in punk. We’d go to [Mathew Street punk club]
Eric’s every week to the matinees and they looked at us like oiks.
But The Jam were inclusive. It felt new compared to punk.”
“It was great to start with,” Weller recalled. “Of course I want-
ed success. I wanted to make it. So when kids came up and
wanted to hang out, it was like a validation of this street move-
ment, which I thought punk was about. But then by the end of the
first year we were getting 50, 100, 200 kids outside waiting, all of
them looking at me, wanting me to say something, do something.
I started pulling back. I didn’t know what else to do.”
To further complicate matters, Weller had fallen in love with
Gill Price, his first proper girlfriend, whom he’d met at a Jam
gig in Dunstable in July. Soon after, the pair moved into a flat

‘T felt dejected after This Is The Modern World. I

thought this could be the end of The Jam.
Because I was in love I I
wasn’t too. By then had this other life to consume me” — PAUL WELLER

together in Baker Street and a wedge was driven between the going out of tune quickly,” he notes. “We’d be in the middle of a
singer and the rhythm section, who remained in Woking. take and then suddenly hear this ‘Bang! Bang! Bang! Crash!’ and
Says Parry: “Paul was distracted. He went from being a young he’ll have got frustrated and thrown his guitar across the studio,
kid having fun and enjoying playing rock’n’roll to getting a girl- then another one, and another one. We spent a lot of time sourc-
friend, getting serious and questioning what it was all about. In ing him Rickenbackers because he was literally trashing them.
the space of a year, he went from a teenager to something resem- But he wouldn’t play anything else.”
bling a married man. He met a girl, fell in love. He was like, This
is my life, the other stuff is shit, and the recording of that second nce the album was mixed, A&R and band rushed to
album was a struggle. It got messy.” Heathrow airport to catch a plane to Los Angeles. Their first
The Jam, with Coppersmith-Heaven, entered Island’s Basing US tour promoting In The City was to begin on October 8
Street studios in Notting Hill in September with a 20,000 with two nights at the Whisky A Go-Go. “It was a crazy
advance and completed In The City’s follow-up, to be titled This schedule looking back now,” concedes Parry. “Single, album,
Is The Modern World. “The Jam’s deal had been renegotiated,’ UK tour, single, album, US tour and no break. Something
says Parry. “John [Weller] would get a substantial amount with a had to give.”
second album so he was keen to get it done, obviously, and there Weller was homesick from the start — “I hated it,” he said. “I
was also a hunger from Polydor: you know, ‘Let’s have another missed everything about being in London at that time and just
record before Christmas so we get our bonus.” wanted to get back to my life there.”
The sound of The Jam’s debut album had been strictly templat- Then, in San Francisco, their show at the Old Waldorf was
ed by the title track. The approach on This Is cancelled. “Everyone from the US record
The Modern World was to be more varied. “We company was due to see the band there,” says
wanted to push ourselves musically,” says Fox- Parry. “Paul was playing up. Bruce was playing
ton. “We didn’t want to make In The City Part up. There was some voltage leakage on the mic
2. Paul was experimenting with songs, bringing and John said we were putting Paul at risk if we
in harmonies, acoustic guitars.” made him use it. He was overreacting; it was
“We wanted more subtlety, texture,” says quite common, but Paul wasn’t bothered about
Parry. “Paul was looking to The Beatles for performing.”
inspiration musically, but there was no time to Unsurprisingly, Parry continues, the inci-
give it the attention it needed due to the live dent proved a major obstacle to The Jam’s
schedule, and it felt like we were really up reception in the States. “It should have been
against it.” the beginning of a good relationship with the
Another problem, says Parry, was Weller’s US label. Instead we went back to square one.
choice of guitar. “Rickenbackers are known for They couldn’t understand it. They’d paid —>

21
 1977

Bye CUT LR a)

Pee eee
Ute eee ae Cem ee ed
press, October 7, 1977.

ap

itt

‘T thought the new songs were shit. I

heard them and there was no getting round it.
I told Paul that he would have to start all over again” CHRIS PARRY -
for the flights over, a nice hotel, thrown money at them and When it came time to release the next single, Weller had noth-
then they didn’t play.” ing to give. Foxton’s News Of The World was issued on February
At New York’s CBGB, an antagonistic Weller announced the 24, 1978 as a stopgap. Was there a sense that Bruce might take
group had split and urged the audience to riot. After six shows over as prime mover? “Never. The record company needed a
over nine days The Jam’s first crack at America was over. song, I had one, so it kept our name out there,” says the bassist.
They returned to mixed reviews of This Is The Modern World, “At the back of my mind all the time I was hoping that Paul hadn’t
which charted two places lower than its predecessor, stalling at dried up, that this wasn’t going to be it. If my song gave him
Number 22. “[Weller] also won’t want me to point out that the a break that he needed, great. I don’t know if it did, but that was
production... is well on the thin side, that some of the riffs don’t the intention.”
stand up to the amount of repetition that they are subjected to and It was actually a rejection that got Weller back into the swing.
that after a couple of tracks the vocals do lean towards the monot- Aset of demos The Jam had recorded at Polydor studios in Febru-
onous,” Mick Farren wrote in NME. ary intended as the basis for their third album were, according to
Over the years, Weller has regularly disparaged the album, Parry, “shit. [heard them and there was no getting round it. I told
though Parry is more generous. “There are some really great Paul to start again.”
songs on that album,” Parry insists. “Life Through A Window, “T had run out of ideas,” Weller admitted. “Chris Parry was
Tonight At Noon, I Need You, then some good ones like Stand- right. Someone had to say it and I thought, Thank God. [had a bit
ards, but they suffered from second album syndrome. You can see of hurt pride, but it was more a spur. I needed a kick up the arse to
it was a transitional album, one which takes the band from one get back on the case. I went away and wrote most of the album in
place to another. Those albums are always flawed but are vital a few days. I felt we’d been written off, this was make or break and
stepping stones. Paul was never going to leap from In The City to I was going to show them.”
All Mod Cons, he needed This Is The Modern World to get where “We went into Polydor studios in June to demo the new songs,”
he was going.” says Foxton, “and we knew we had something special with Down
In The Tube Station At Midnight, To Be Someone, In The Crowd,
or the moment, Weller was spent. He withdrew from English Rose. We were making something new.”
the band, finding sanctuary in Gill Price. “I felt dejected, had A double A-side featuring a cover of The Kinks’ David Watts,
my tail between my legs,” he told me. “The tour, the reviews... sung by Foxton, and a new song, ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street,
I thought this could be the end of The Jam. Because I was in salvaged from the original set of rejected demos, was released on
love I wasn’t too bothered in some ways. I had this other life August 11, 1978 and made the UK Top 30. It bought valuable time.
to consume me.” “They were our band,” says Gary Crowley, one of The Jam’s
“As the main songwriter, there was no let up for him,” says army of devoted fans. “They could do no wrong. Then All Mod >
Foxton. “He had to continually come up with material.” Cons came out and it was, Wow, the possibilities are endless.” &

22
IN THE CITY for a progressive, post-punk acoustic guitars, dynamic
(Single, April 1977) youth revolt. Its explosive pop art arrangements, harmonies and
In autumn 1976, Weller wrote his energy all but defined the New much else to make In The City
first song inspired by his punk Wave sound. look positively Neolithic.
epiphany; but The Jam were still CARNARBY STREET TONIGHT AT NOON
playing R&B sets at Surrey pubs.
(B-side of All Around The World, (on This ls The Modern World,
Its urban theme, frantic riff and
July 1977) November 1977)
lines about police savagery owed
Bassist Bruce Foxton’s first stab With Weller’s growing interest in WEWS OF THE WORLD
much to The Clash; but its clarion (Bruce Fautsat
at songwriting took The Jam's 60s pop culture came a keen
promoting “the young idea” was ty Vic Semth,
aed
Orne
trademark bish-bash musical appreciation of the Liverpool
18-year-old Weller's own.
punctuation and bullish vocal Poets, including Adrian Henri’s
TIME FOR TRUTH delivery and applied it toa surrealist Tonight At Noon.
(From In The City, May 1977) retro-Carnabetian theme. Dreamy drone chords, a chiming
Misread as a Little Englander Worryingly, though, itseemed to 12-string guitar and a verse that
anthem following Weller’s rue the Street's multiculturalism slips into a one-off bridge
in the '70s — “part of the British broadcast the fact The Jam now
Clash-baiting “I'm voting Tory”
furore, this Beatles-punk hybrid tradition, gone down the drain’, had real musical richness.
was a (slightly clunky) attempt etc. A telling period piece.
to decry the way Establishment
NEWS OF THE WORLD
forces — prime minister Jim
THE MODERN WORLD (Single, March 1978)
(Single, October 1977) A disastrous short US tour anda
Callaghan, bent police, etc
—
Written soon after /n The City lukewarm response to Modern ...

had perverted the liberal values

was recorded, this fanfare for World knocked Weller’s
that Empire had been built on.
album two established Weller confidence, and with the singer
The brusque, martial Jam
as Mod icon and generational retreating into his relationship
Sound' begins here...
spokesman, his struggle against with girlfriend Gill Price it was left
AWAY FROM teachers and music critics (“I don't to Foxton to conjure their next
THE NUMBERS give two fucks about your review!” A-side. A scything riff and
(From In The City, May 1977) on the LP take) set out ina bolshy, twiddling guitar overdubs
Weller’s almost overnight still-empowering screed. Freer couldn't disguise an overwrought
acceleration from Feelgoods use of chords and an edgy guitar if catchy
—
stopgap song.
copyist to exponent of Who- solo drew further Townshend
comparisons. A foundation stone
DOWN IN THE TUBE
style psychological rock is STATION AT MIDNIGHT
well illustrated by this timeless in the cult of Weller.
(Single, October 1978)
cri de coeur of Mod outsider
LIFE THROUGH Weller returns from writer's block
-dom, replete with a gloriously A WINDOW with this terrific poem-story
un-punk, surf-harmonies about a commuter falling prey to
(on This ls The Modern World,
interlude. A major talent arrives.
November 1977) right-wing thugs set toa
ALL AROUND Received wisdom says Weller’s fractured, pop art backing. Lines
THE WORLD classic Beatles-inflected like “they smelt of pubs and
(Single, July 1977) songwriting arrived on Ai/ Mod Wormwood Scrubs” flagged
Crashing waves of guitar and Cons, but Life Through A Weller as the New Wave's
strong bass undertow define Window proves his liberation suburban poet laureate, and, to
this non-album track. Sonically from punk’s rubric was in irk all punk ideologues who still
more textured than anything on evidence a full year earlier. This cared, there was a drum solo.
In The City, its lyrics sneer at wistful, melancholic study of the The ultimate taster for the genius
punk’s studied nihilism, calling eternal outside observer uses of All Mod Cons.

muse U6

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THE MODELHN WORLD

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 ON THE ROAD °77

Boxing clever: John

Weller, Paul’s dad and
The Jam’s manager,
Reading, June 1977.

If they don’t burn themselves out first. It’s now nine o’clock in
PHEW, THAT WAS A CLOSE ONE! the morning and they’ve got to record a live session at Capital
Radio in London and play Twickenham before they get to bed to-
night. Look at them. White faces. Red eyes. It’s like morgue here.
a

For a moment there thought The Jam were going to blow it

|

completely. They were playing like king, but they just weren’t CAPITAL RADIO IS JUST LIKE THE BBC...
getting the feedback from the floor. You know Brum. It’s always
wary of the bands we toast to the heavens down in the Smoke. ...it’s probably like every other radio station if the truth were
And The Jam are running wet with media overkill these days. No known. “Who are we doing this for, anyway?” asks Paul, straight
wonder the locals are treating them with real suspicion. off the train. It’s 11 o’clock in the morning. Paul is ashen-grey from
The Jam are sweating their bollocks off like they did at the the night before, but the studio engineer looks spruce and
Rainbow with The Clash and for 20 nightmarish minutes clean-shaven as be bustles about with mics and screens.
it looks like it’s all going to be for nothing. Then sud- “T dunno,” the engineer replies. “Nicky Horne [Capital’s late-
denly the bass swooped low under the fizzing guitar night FM rock DJ], suppose. There’s no one else who would play
AOF
I

chords and In The City began to crackle and burn. this kind of music.”
The Jam’s producer Vic Smith appears to offer tactful advice,
Om |
The boys sparked across the boards like dodgems
at a fairground, Weller’s Rickenbacker riffs burst- but nevertheless it still takes the Capital crew four hours to work

ean
ing like grenades, Buckler’s snare showering shrap- out where to put the mics. For four hours The Jam stand on the
nel and Foxton’s bass clearing the cigarette smoke. other side of the glass, chain-smoking in tedium.
The Jam have arrived and they have the Birming- Finally, they get down to it and cut the backing tracks to In The
ham crowd firmly in their grasp. And it’s not politics City, Bricks And Mortar and a new song, not on the album, All
that’s done it. Not posturing or pretentions either. The Around The Word. The tracks down, The Jam pile back into the
Jam’s songs are good and they’re played well too. But that ain’t the control room. Play-blacks? Sorry, lads, there are still two more
reason they’ve won through. Birmingham is hopping and bopping numbers to do. Whaaat?
because that band on-stage really worked for their money. It’s three o’clock now and John Weller (Paul’s dad and the
band’s manager) is anxious to get the show back on the road. With

“When these guys get really big they'll be wild on the road. They'll be smashing
up hotel rooms like The Who and the Faces never existed” CHRIS PARRY

In fact, The Jam worked hard enough to earn their fee three London traffic it'll take over an hour to get to Twickenham. May-
times over. And does it ever take them time to wind down after- be even two. And the road crew can’t leave to set up the gear until
wards! It’s the adrenaline on the rocks that takes so long to filter Paul’s amp is back in the truck. It’s going to be a terrible rush.
off. The Jam need no chemical courage. It’s all natural. They’re “Put the amp in the back of the car, John,” says Parry. “This is
good clean boys at heart. Well, almost anyway. good PR we're doing here. It should do a lot to promote the album.
So this is their first national tour, eh? You wouldn’t think it. They use live tracks again and again, you know. We must do a
Already they’ve acquired a taste for hotel fun. Room 710 of couple more at least.”
Birmingham’s Holiday Inn is an open house for The Jam and their It’s only a Vox AC30 so John ain’t too worried about the amp.
entourage of road crew, record company and press. It soon It’s the time factors that disturb him. He doesn’t want the boys to
dissolves into a debris of foaming beer bottles, cheese sandwich step straight out of the car and on to the stage. The logistics of
struggles and shrieks of laughter. Needle Time and the Musician’s Union don’t impress him. But this
It begins to get very late (or short, stocky man, with the big build-
very early if you prefer) and the ers’ hands is soon swayed as the
s

liggers retire gracefully, in- Polydor men lay on the pressure.

cluding yours truly, soaked to The band are jostled into agree-
the skin after a schoolboy ment. “Who are we doing this for
prank involving a bath of hot anyway?” mutters Bruce wearily.
water. But The Jam bounce on, He’s slumped across the mixing
a non-stop round of wine, desk, half asleep it looks like, and
women and song that ends only there are still the vocals and over-
when the birds are chirruping dubs to do yet. Sometimes even he
on the Bull Ring. must wonder if The Jam aren’t just
“T tell you,” mutters Polydor pawns in someone else’s game.
A&R Chris Parry, “when these They’re simply lads, really, when
guys get really big they'll be wild you get down to it. A bit wide-eyed
terstock

out on the road. They’ll be and innocent. That loose-limbed

smashing up hotels like The partying the night before suggested
Who or Faces never existed.” that they were going into this —>&
we
 #
ATE s
pete re at, eRe AD WILE RE REET AE amis pen nd
¥
 ON THE ROAD’ 7

Fab Three: The Jam backstage

at Reading Top Rank, the week
after their Birmingham and
Twickenham gigs, June 13, 77.

€— tour like schoolboys on a drunken jaunt to the seaside, not build on what The Who and The Kinks were doing? In 10 years’
treating it as a serious make-or-break venture. time the bands then will be ripping us off. I see nothing wrong
Rick Buckler is the only one I get through to above and beyond with that.”
the call of duty. Taking the train and my car to the Twickenham gig Paul Weller eats and sleeps music, and The Jam takes total
we talk about everything from their dates with The Clash — “Offer priority. He was most distressed to find political views attributed
[Clash manager] Bernie Rhodes solid gold guitars and he’d say, to him plastered round certain music papers. They made him out
‘No, I want them with silver streaks in’” - to motor cars. Rick to be a straight Tory. Yes, he says, he’s in favour of free enterprise
Buckler is a regular guy still, and he’s into all the things regular and he thinks the Queen is the best diplomat Britain has.
guys are into. Two months on the road will change that. “But I didn’t vote in the last election and I won’t vote in the next
On the other hand, you might already call Paul Weller devious. one. All that stuff about the Tories was only a trivial remark taken
His eyes flit from side to side as he talks and a slight frown clouds out of context. Anyway, I don’t believe politics should have any-
his sharp features almost all of the time. When he smiles it’s thinly thing to do with music.”
and fleetingly. His jacket is tailor-made-in-Carnaby-Street Which means The Jam’s guitarist and songwriter doesn’t hold
hounds-tooth. Very Mod. It’s buttoned on the top button only, so with the sociological Brought Up In A High-rise/Spokesman For
that two folds of material crease down from his armpits. With his A Generation perspective often laid on the New Wave either.
“It’s just pop music and that’s why I like it. It’s all about hooks
straight-legged jeans too short and revealing inches of bright
white sock, he looks faintly ridiculous... a little bit like a sack of and guitar riffs. That’s what the New Wave is all about. It’s not
potatoes on stilts. But he also looks like he means something. He heavy and negative like all the Iggy and New York stuff. The New
looks like he’s not to be crossed. Wave is today’s pop music for today’s kids. It’s as simple as that.
I found that out the hard way. I crossed him a month ago when
And you can count on one hand the bands that do it well and are
I had some uncomplimentary things to say in print about The going to last. The Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, the Ramones
~ and The
Jam.”
Jam’s In The City album. Phrases like “immature songwriting”,
“too much too soon” and “Weybridge’s [sic] Flamin’ Groovies”
showed me up asa real cunt. That’s why I was dumped in the bath
THE JAM ARRIVE AT THE WINNING POST...
in Birmingham (just in case you were wondering) and, although it in Twickenham, fresh from the Capital Radio studios, just as the

“Why can’t we be influenced by the "60s and build on what The Kinks and Who
were doing? In 10 years’ time the bands then will be ripping us off” - PAUL WELLER

was essentially a joke, it was sweet revenge nonetheless. But, as we bar is filling up with an uneasy cross section of kids, vinyl rubbing
sit sipping beer at the Winning Post not half an hour before The shoulders with denim and oily leather. A rumour spreads that Pete
Jam are due on stage, Paul is still eager to answer my criticisms. Townshend himself might well put it an appearance tonight.
“I don’t know why you didn’t think we were ready to do an Twickenham lies not a stoned stagger from those old Who hunting
album. ’Cos we're easily the best band around at the moment. And grounds. If Townshend really wants to check out The Jam he could
with the exception maybe of The Stranglers, we’re the most capa- pick no place more appropriate.
ble musicians on the scene. The Stranglers are from a different Of course, The Jam are secretly excited, although they don’t let
age group to us, so they should be more capable than we are. on. “I can’t imagine he’ll have much to say for himself these days,”
Otherwise we're the best. muses Paul, blasé.
“Anyway, if you don’t believe you're the best, you never get Sadly, the main man doesn’t materialise although The Street-
anywhere.” Weller’s arrogant tone cracks for a moment and he walkers’ Roger Chapman and various members of The Saints and
flashes a knowing smile. He rejects entirely all suggestions that Wayne County’s Electric Chairs flood in through the doors with
The Jam are high-energy bandwagon jumpers. The songs may the kids. By nine o’clock the Winning Post is packed solid and
differ, he says, but The Jam were presenting the same show two when The Jam take the stage, crashing into Art School, the dance-
years ago. And he’s getting increasingly tired of being asked floor heaves and seethes like the Chelsea shed on speed.
whether The Jam are ripping off The Who. By the time they get to Carnaby Street, In The City and London
“People only ask that because we wear the suits. Of course [’m Girl, The Jam are playing like the hounds of hell are behind them.
into The Who. I think their first albums are some of the best rock Bruce is zigzagging across the stage and colliding with the drum
ever. But The Jam have always worn uniforms. We used to wear kit, while Paul zooms in on the front rows to pick out the breaks at
white satin bomber jackets once. Anyway, let’s face it, everybody twice his normal speed and arrogance. If the kids in the crowd
wears some kind of uniform. Even The Clash and the Pistols wear knew that these boys have yet to go to bed since the night before in
uniforms. I think the Pistols look very smart. But they could wear Birmingham, and that they’ve crammed in five wearisome hours
anything and still be the same band.” at Capital Radio too, I reckon they’d stop pogoing and open their
What about the criticism that much of your material bears mouths in sheer amazement. Which they do later, after The Jam
a resemblance to the beat groups of the 60s? have left them with Bricks And Mortar. They open their mouths
Shutterstock

“Of course some of it does. What’s wrong with that? The ’60s is and scream for more. And more. And more.
part of our heritage. Same way as the ’50s. If the Stones and The And what’s to follow? Well, ifthey continue to play sets like the
Beatles were influenced by the bands of the ’50s, why can’t we last one, The Jam might just take over the world.

31
 ALL MOD CONS

starts to a New Year went, January 1978

couldn’t have contrasted more sharply for
Paul Weller than the excitement and promise
his world offered 12 months earlier. The
lukewarm response to The Jam’s quickfire
second LP, This Is The Modern World, had left The Jam uncertain
how to move forward. Alarmingly, their first single of the year,
News Of The World, wasn’t even written by Paul, but instead had
been penned - and was sung - by Bruce Foxton, who had stepped
into the breach created by Weller’s writer’s block.
After a series of four club gigs in London to promote the single,
in March the group returned to the US for a second time, the plan
being to broaden their almost non-existent Stateside appeal via
24 dates, including stadium supports for Blue Oyster Cult.
“We weren’t looking forward to it, we hadn’t enjoyed the first
trip over [in October 1977] and it felt like a ridiculous idea,” says
Weller, baulking at the memory. “And it was truly awful. You
know, playing in front of 15-to-20,000 people, everyone boo-ing.
Our agent thought we'd get across to more people, there was even
talk of us getting American management. But it was a nightmare.
We only lasted three or four gigs before we left. We thought we
were hip and new, and we felt we were going back five years”
It was immediately apparent to Weller that the idea of convert-
ing America overnight to an English Mod/punk mind-set
belonged in Cloud cuckoo land. “The audience, except for a few
punks and neo-Mods, were wearing rock’n’roll T-shirts and
jeans,” he recalls. “They looked like Bruce Springsteen to me.
I fucking hated it. It felt really reactionary after punk. This Is The
Modern World had bombed, so we were already on a downer.
This tour was the last straw. We were dejected and came back to
England with our tails between our legs.”
RATHER THAN TAKE STOCK...
recently moved into their own place in London. There he
on their return in mid-April, the demand by Polydor for new
confronted the unthinkable. “I thought this could be it, the end of
product meant the group immediately set about writing material The Jam,” he reflects. “But then Chris’s rejection acted as a kick
for a third album. When Chris Parry, Polydor’s A&R man who
up the arse to get back on the case. I didn’t like being written off.
had signed The Jam, rejected the initial demo tapes for it, their
I wanted to prove myself.”
despondency intensified. Anew batch of songs was duly penned in under a week, some
“The songs we'd written were awful,” admits Paul. “There was
in London, some in Paul’s parents’ home in Woking - “they came
nothing there that I was excited by, but they were all we had.
Chris said, ‘This is shit’ Those were his exact words. He told us together very quickly,” he says. Nevertheless, Polydor’s choice for
The Jam’s next single, at one point slated to be Billy Hunt, was
we needed to start again. I thought, Thank God someone’s said it
instead another ‘safe’ stopgap designed to keep The Jam in the
because someone had to.”
“I'd put them in Polydor’s studio, Stratford Place, and they put public eye while the group worked on Weller’s new songs at
down three or four songs,” remembers Chris Parry. “I went in and Mickie Most’s RAK studios in St John’s Wood. The group’s cover
of The Kinks’ David Watts, backed with the
said, What’s this? Bruce was singing, Paul
had this half-arsed song: I said, No, no... I vitriolic ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street, was re-
think there was a song Rick Buckler contrib- leased on August 18 and reached Number 25,
uted to. I told them, You can’t come out with out-performing News Of The World by two
another album that isn’t ready. I told Bruce chart places.
he wasn’t a songwriter and that didn’t go Paul had discovered the Kinks song when
down too well. on tour in the States, when he had bought a
“T told them they needed to try harder,” he copy of the group’s 1967 album Something
continues. “Paul liked Bob Marley’s Exodus Else from a second-hand store. “I was home-
a lot, that fluidity. He liked Stax-Volt and the sick and the album had that Englishness to it
Lennon-McCartney thing. He wanted to get that struck a chord,” he says. ‘A’ Bomb In
away from punk and do his own thing. So he Wardour Street, meanwhile, was his condem-
went away and spent time brooding it over.” nation of a punk scene he’d grown to despise:
Paul initially retreated into of the arms of “I’m stranded on the Vortex floor/My head’s
credit

his then girlfriend Gill Price, the pair having been kicked and blood’s started to pour.”

34
 ALL MOD CONS

Somethimg I'm giving:

Weller digs deep, 1978.

engineered In The City and This Is The Modern World, and was
promoted into the producer role after Chris Parry was effectively
barred from the studio after his tense showdown with the band.
“Everyone was deflated after This Is The Modern World,”
recalls Coppersmith-Heaven. It wasn’t a tremendous step for-
ward from In The City. With that first album we were capturing
an already-existing set, so it was more of an engineering task and
choosing the best performances. At the beginning of All Mod
Cons the emphasis was on creativity - looking for new sound
a

that was more refined but keeping that integral Jam ‘snap’.”
The song that changed everything was Down In The Tube
Station At Midnight, a “dashed-off” number which Weller was
ready to discard but Coppersmith-Heaven persuaded the singer
to rescue from the studio bin. Driven along by Bruce’s rumbling
bass guitar, and with an intro and outro of underground train
noises captured at St John’s Wood station, Tube Station’s tale of
right-wing violence showed the huge musical distance the group,
or Paul more precisely, had travelled. “After we’d recorded it,
everything else fell into place,” says Coppersmith-Heaven.
Issued as a single on October 6, 1978, the song reached
Number 15 - and after a testing year The Jam were back in busi-
ness. Coppersmith-Heaven’s role in their comeback had been
critical, with Paul looking up to him as a studio mentor who could
help develop his natural creativity. “He was very encouraging,”
says Paul, “he saw something in me and The Jam that perhaps
other people weren’t seeing then.”
Coppersmith-Heaven has fond memories of the recording
sessions that took place over that summer. “The Jam felt like a
family unit to me during All Mod Cons,” he says, “with John
Weller [Paul’s dad, The Jam’s manager] coming in with the band
cheque book for all the band members to sign for their on-going

‘T thought what punk had became was rubbish — taking cheap speed, causing
fights, that whole uniform of biker jackets and the Sid Vicious look” —
PAUL WELLER

“A’ Bomb In Wardour Street was my comment on what punk expenses. It seemed a fair set-up — even the tailor would come in
had degenerated into,” he says. “I thought the original thing, or to measure for the stage-suits.”
what I perceived as the original thing, was great, and what it “We all knew we were onto something good,” says Bruce. “It
became was people getting drunk, taking cheap speed, causing had been make or break, but in the studio the vibe was right
fights, and the whole uniform of biker jackets and the Sid look between the band members, it all came together. We were doing
was rubbish. what we loved, recording great songs, it couldn’t have been better.”
“T had no time for my so-called contemporaries,” he adds. “I When All Mod Cons was issued on November 3, 1978 it hit
thought Sham 69 were charlatans, sham was the proper name for Number 6, making the album their first to reach the Top 10. Its
them, they were so phony. But from any scene you take what you masterly collection of songs also signalled Paul’s transcendence
want from it, and adapt it and make it your own, and that’s what over punk orthodoxy, with its piquant Kinks-like character
we did. Out of that came All Mod Cons and The Jam’s following sketches (Billy Hunt, Mr Clean), and romantic love songs (the
—
that line of communication between the band and the audience Beatle-y It’s Too Bad, and acoustic folk of Fly and English Rose).
that we have, which is quite unique in a way.” English Rose was like no other song Weller had written before.
David Watts was promoted with “a mini tour of seaside A plaintive, heart-on-sleeve ballad, written with Gill Price in
resorts” and The Jam’s first-ever rock festival performances, in- mind while he was on tour in the States, it is overwhelming in its
cluding Reading, where they headlined the Friday night over emotional power. Again, it was Coppersmith-Heaven who
Sham 69. The dates were used to introduce some of the new songs convinced Paul to record the song.
which would make up All Mod Cons, including what became the “It was very different at the time because everyone was stuck
album’s second single, Down In The Tube Station At Midnight. in that aggressive sound,” Weller explains. “Vic was persistent,
“The recording of that was the turning point in the band’s though, but I was aware that it was something blokes from my
return and the beginning of what they would become,” says background didn’t really talk about. They didn’t reveal their
All Mod Cons producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, who had feelings...” —_-

35
 ALL MOD CONS
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 ALL MOD CONS

Off target: Weller on

The Jam’s ill-starred US
tour, LA, April 1978.

_— English Rose was recorded live in one take - acoustic Costello in the best songwriter category, and The Jam came sec-
guitar, voice - and then atmospheric effects were added by ond only to The Clash as best band.
Coppersmith-Heaven. Yet the song’s sentiments embarrassed Polydor, according to Dennis Munday, The Jam’s product
Weller to the extent it would remain unlisted on the album cover. manager who had taken over the role of A&R from Chris Parry,
Other tracks were also startling in their maturity - remember were surprised by the leap forward. “It was a shock to a lot of
Paul was just 20 - and self-awareness. In The Crowd was a Quad- people,” he says. “It wasn’t what the company wanted. They
rophenia-esque comment on adolescent selfhood and peer-group wanted albums full of tracks like [the ones on] In The City and
belonging; To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time), one of This Is The Modern World. It was obvious they thought punk
two songs produced by Chris Parry, the other the aforesaid It’s would implode sometime soon and all of those bands associated
Too Bad, saw semi-autobiographical ruminations on the life of a with it, such as The Jam, would go down with the ship. But All
rock star; the title track, meanwhile, took a swipe at The Jam’s Mod Cons showed just how far The Jam had come. You knew they
paymasters at Polydor. were going somewhere different, there was no doubt now to how
“All Mod Cons was me telling [label bosses] that basically they talented Paul Weller was.”
were cunts,” says Weller. “I saw how people changed, especially Chris Parry also noticed a newfound confidence and capabil-
the record company people, towards us after This Is The Modern ity in his former charges. “It was a terrific record,” he says. “It
World. How all of a sudden you can be flavour of the month and showed them to be flush with ideas and Paul was really focused.
within weeks, even days, you can be out and looking for new a
They’d moved on, matured, come out of their infancy and broken
deal. I wasn’t ever under any illusion that it was any different new ground. It was their Ziggy Stardust, their Revolver.”
from that, but it just confirmed my cynicism about the whole The group hit the road from November 1 to December 7, play-
music industry. It was me having an unsubtle dig at all that.” ing 22 UK dates to promote All Mod Cons under the banner The
The Place I Love, meanwhile, found Paul taking sanctuary in Apocalypse Tour, which took its name from the final word of ‘A’
the English landscape. “It was bound up in the surrounding coun- Bomb In Wardour Street. The penultimate date was a headlining

English Rose was different at the time as every‘one vas stuck in that aggressive sou
was aware that blokes from my background dia nt reveal their feelings” - PAUL WELE

tryside of Woking,” he says, “which is real, but then also it was slot at the three-day Great British Music
about an imagined place, an ideal. Nostalgia is a very English Festival at Wembley Arena. Even Paul
thing, you hear it in Ray Davies, it’s caught up in that very was proud of the achievement.
English melancholia. ’'m up for embracing the new and the “I knew as we went out on tour with
now, but I have this thing about the passing of time. I think it, we had something special going on,”
there’s a streak of wistful melancholia, you know the missing he says. “It had stepped up a gear.
something that never existed anyway. That’s all in this song.” Everything was more manic, the reac-
The sleeve artwork revealed further influences with the inner tion to us, the way people were treating us
sleeve displaying a Peter Blake-style collage made up of Paul, was different. I don’t recollect a lot of The
Bruce and Rick’s favourite things, including The Creation’s Biff Jam era because it was so full-on, we were either
Bang Pow 7-inch, Junior Walker And The All Stars’ Road Runner touring, or recording and when we weren’t doing that I was writ-
45, a 100 Club matchbox, the Sounds Like Ska LP and a coffee. ing the next record. I didn’t have time to sit and take stock of it. I
The use of the Immediate label’s lettering on the band’s moni- just got on with it.
ker and album title gave a further clue to where Paul was coming “But we knew we were going somewhere else with All Mod
from. The collection of personal effects was an idea Paul would Cons, it was the beginning of something new. For me, punk was
adapt later with the sleeves for The Style Council’s Our Favourite dead. We took its best aspects with us and created something
Shop and his solo album, Stanley Road. special. We were inviting our fans into soundchecks, not just one
“I always come back to that,” Paul says. “I like those totems, or two, there were hundreds of them, it was like doing an extra
they add up to your personality, they say a lot about a person.” matinee show each day.”
All Mod Cons provided a fitting end to The Jam’s first act. By
ALL MOD CONS... the time of its follow-up, Setting Sons, and its accompanying
was an immediate critical and commercial success. Charles single The Eton Rifles, which reached the Top 5, The Jam were
Shaar Murray said in his NME review that the album was “not exciting near-hysteria wherever they played. And now Paul had
only several light years ahead of anything they’ve done been adopted as a reluctant ‘spokesman for a generation’ and a
before but also the album that’s going to catapult The figurehead for what was dubbed the Mod revival.
Jam right into the front rank of international “When I meet people who saw us back then, they say
rock’n’roll; one of the handful of truly essential how much it meant to them as 12- and 13-year-olds. We
rock albums of the last few years.” were saying things that people could relate to, we didn’t
The NME’s endorsement was reflected in its have to try too hard, as me and Bruce were from the
end of year polls: All Mod Cons was voted Num- council estates. We didn’t have to pose or be something >
ber 1 best album, Weller came second to Elvis we weren't. We were just being us.” Os5

38
 Setting Sons Pat Gilbert 42
‘The Jam Fan Club Nicky Weller... 50
Sound Affects Johr Harris 52
The Gift John Harris 60
The Jam’s Final Tour Pat Gilbert 70
Riot Stories John Reed 76
n
don
 SETTING SONS

By Pat Gilbert

BRAVE
NEW
WORLD
All Mod Cons hadproved TheJam had the balls to prise
offpunk’s shackles andpursue Weller’s romantic, class-
conscious observations ofquotidian English life, set to music

inspired by The Kinks and ‘The Beatles. But where to next?

A Mod concept album about a post-warfuture world...
Ala

43
 SETTING SONS

Mod's May Day: the

Jam Pact tour hits
Sheffield University,
May 4, 1979.

groups like Secret Affair, The Chords, The Purple Hearts and The
TALKING TO MOJO IN 2014, Merton Parkas, airily announcing, “I’m not really into the whole
revival thing, it’s a bit pathetic.” But it was still evident that The
Bruce Foxton described All Mod Cons as “the pivotal Jam were the central focus of this born-again subculture, and
benefitted from it enormously.
moment in our career. It was make or break. I think all three of us
The “Jam army” of neo-Mods would quickly become a large
wanted to prove a point that we could write and deliver great
and powerful entity, and the synergy between band and fans
melodic songs.” But despite the critical success of The Jam’s third
interested in Mod culture, past and present, created a vital iden-
album, and a huge leap forward in Weller’s songwriting that now
justified the comparisons to Pete Townshend and Ray Davies, tity and energy that persists today. But there was a downside too:
as early as the band’s appearance at the Great British Music
nothing much changed in the band’s immediate world.
That The Jam were still confined to a limited audience - and Festival at Wembley Arena in November 1978, Mods had clashed
one based mostly in Britain - became patently clear when they with punks and skinheads in the audience, resulting in a stab-
toured Europe in February 1979. One date on the 21st, at the Star bing. Tony Fletcher, a 14-year-old fan who had befriended Weller
Club in Hamburg - as popularised in Beatles myth but now when he interviewed him for his fanzine, Jamming, and who in
housed in a different building - brought to a head their failure to 1980 would go on to run the Weller-funded indie label of that
make much impact abroad. The audience totalled 12 people. “We same title, was witness to the violence.
probably only went there to follow in the footsteps of The Beat- “Weller never encouraged a violent image with the audience,
les,” recalls Foxton. “It’s disappointing when no one turns up.” though, and I think that for a long time the Jam were seen as
The broadcaster and journalist Danny Baker had been pretty soft,” Fletcher reflects. “It was a rough era — but The Jam
dispatched to Germany to interview the group, and found Weller reflected that with songs like Down In The Tube Station and ‘A’
in a particularly dark mood. “They played to the smallest audi- Bomb In Wardour Street.”
ence I’ve ever seen,” he recalled. “Rick and Bruce thought it was Yet despite the confrontations outside on the streets, Foxton
hilarious. Later in the hotel Paul was pissed off. He was drunk. recalls a positive vibe at The Jam’s own shows, and welcomed the
‘It’s all over. Punk’s fucking had it. If we carry on it’s a sham.” fact their gigs “became a social event, a gathering of people who
But the disappointment of Germany was nothing in compari- liked the same clothes and music, and a chance to make friends”.
son to the “frustration”, as Foxton puts it, of their third visit to the As the lines of Vespas and Lambrettas parked outside their
gigs grew, so did the group’s ability to sell-out the nation’s Univer-

neyA go off on tour and the whole office went with them. John Weller would never
ow. The family aspect of the band helped create a loyal family offans” - TONY FLETC

US that followed in April 1979. Though there were sity venues and, increasingly, some its 1,500 to
pockets of interest, America still didn’t seem to under- 2,000-seater town halls. In March, the band released
stand the band at all; but then again, it appears The a new single, Strange Town, backed with an atmos-
Jam didn’t go out of their way to endear themselves to pheric, unsettling track titled The Butterfly Collector.
a nation that knew little or nothing of the 60s Mod cult Both showed a new sense of confidence that the success
that was Weller’s guiding star. Paul, in particular, of All Mod Cons seemed to have inspired in Paul’s writing,
expressed his resentment for the indifference with which au- and both took hungrily from the ’60s - the former with its
diences treated them by become awkward and withdrawn. clipped 4/4 beat and video showing Weller in a beige Beat-
“One time I had to go out to America with them, after All Mod les-at-Shea-Stadium tunic; the latter (inspired by Paul’s liaison
Cons,” recalls their A&R man at Polydor, Dennis Munday. “They with punk scenester Sue Catwoman) in its reference to John
had to do a press conference but Paul fucked off. We had all Fowles’ 1963 novel The Collector.
the heavies like the New York Times waiting while he did this Yet the single failed to break through the glass ceiling of the
interview with a fanzine! This guy came up to me and said I Number 15 position that Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
should do something about it. I said, ‘What for? You go and get had bumped up against the previous autumn, something it would
your head kicked in.” later transpire wasn’t entirely the fault of The Jam themselves.
Chris Parry, who had signed The Jam in February 1977, but When the Jam Pact UK tour hit the road in May 1979, it was
who’d ceased working with the group in summer 1978, recog- met with rowdy scenes, and an undercurrent of expectation
nised a familiar pattern. “I don’t think they travelled very well that something big was about to blow up. Behind the scenes, Tony
back then, particularly Paul,” he says. “At that time he was actu- Fletcher was surprised to discover just how close-knit and
ally very much a Little Englander, which is one of the reasons family-orientated The Jam’s set-up was.
I decided I didn’t want to carry on. John [Weller] was the same. “The Jam were most unorthodox in the way they did business,”
They were all were, you know. Their horizons were very much he says. “They'd go off on tour and the whole office
just Britain, and America... they never felt comfortable there.” went on tour with them. They’d literally all go
Yet back home in Britain, adoration for the group had reached off and leave the answering machine on. John
unprecedented intensity, thanks in part to the Mod revival that Weller [was] one of those managers who’d
> Weller’s trenchant Mod affiliations had sparked. Paul quickly never miss a show. With most managers, the
6 distanced himself from the new movement, which included band start asking why the hell they’re —>

45
 i
Siam 7-0.

on
t

UN AIAN i

i tN |
gel .
a
Pai
 SETTING SONS

Meet me on the
wasteland: Buckler,
Weller and Foxton,
summer ’79.

notback in London making phone calls on their behalf. The

family aspect of the band probably helped create a family of fans
who were very loyal - and the loyalty of Jam fans was second to
none. You’d follow the band round the country, really believe in it
- you'd even think you’d take a bullet for them.”
At the last date of the tour, at Portsmouth Guildhall, the audi-
ence sang Happy Birthday to Paul, who was due to celebrate his
birthday at midnight. The ‘spokesman for a generation’, and the
UK’s most promising young songwriter, was about to turn 21.

fter playing at the Saddleworth Arts Festival in

Lancashire in June, The Jam began preparing for their fourth
album. In between demoing new songs at Polydor’s studio at
Stratford place, the group recorded their next single, a fiery
youth anthem called When You’re Young, whose B-side was
a Foxton-penned track (with a coda written and sung by
Weller) that followed on from the ‘character’ songs that peppered
All Mod Cons. Smithers-Jones told the story of a City worker who
commutes by train to Waterloo each morning, only one day to
find his world caving in when he’s unceremoniously sacked.
“Tt was really about seeing how hard my dad had grafted and
been loyal to the firm he worked for so many years,” explains
Bruce, “only to be dumped when he was considered to be of no
more use. Something that will always happen.”
This time, the single, released on
August 25, failed even to make the
Number 15 spot, falling two places
short of that seemingly unbeatable
marker. At Polydor’s offices in West
London, serious questions were
being asked about the label’s commit-
ment to the band.
“I was really pissed off when
When You’re Young didn’t happen,”
recalls Dennis Munday. “It reminded
me of The Who’s My Generation,
i without saying it’s a direct compari-
son. Number 17 for a band that had
been around for that long? They were
a

getting so far and couldn’t get any further. I was getting pissed off
with the general attitude towards The Jam at Polydor. ‘We’re only
going to sell X amount of records, so that’s it.” And, in terms of
playing them on Radio One, they were difficult, because they
didn’t like them. Then [due to the band’s popularity] they had
it forced down their throat. Around Setting Sons, I was caught
between the two parties all the time. A guy turned around and
said, ‘When that New Wave ship sinks, they’re going down with
it’ That’s how they viewed it. It was a struggle.”
A further problem was the labour-intensive - and therefore
-
expensive approach of the group’s perfectionist producer Vic
Coppersmith-Heaven, whom Chris Parry had first recruited to
work with The Jam on In The City. It’s said there were almost
40 attempts to master When You’re Young to his - and Paul’s -
satisfaction, though few would question the punchy end result.
Meanwhile, Paul, who was living with Gill in a flat near Baker
Street, spent several days in the early summer demoing songs on
his own new songs at Stratford Place. “What’s interesting about
[Settings Sons] is that the arrangements on those early demos —
> Just me on guitar are almost exactly the same as they ended up
& on record,” he says. “When we first kicked off we would —>

47
 SETTING SONS

<— always demo stuff together. Then as I got more confident as winning horse, why do you want to change? Strange town:
a writer I had more set ideas about what the bass should do - or You only change if there’s a problem. OK,
panstage at New
the drums. And this isn’t taking anything away from Bruce and Paul was difficult to work with sometimes, April 14, 1979.
Rick, as they’d stamp their own identity on it. But I wanted the there’s no question, in that area, but they
time to work out the ideas on my own before presenting them to weren’t the right people and Vic was then.”
other people.” Coppersmith-Heaven remembers an
For the new album, Weller had been considering the concept amusing day during the sessions when,
of a series of linked songs, inspired by a poem-cum-short story without telling anyone, Weller let a gang of local Mods into the
written by his friend and old Woking schoolmate Dave Waller. studio, who’d been waiting outside to get a glimpse of the band.
An extrovert, non-conformist rebel, famed for once throwing a Sensing a presence behind him in the control room, Vic turned
punch at a teacher and burning his Sheerwater Secondary School round to see “about 40 youths” in parkas silently gathered behind
blazer in the school grounds, Waller had literary bent and ambi- him. Such moments provided light relief, but the dragging pace
tion to be a published writer that Paul found profoundly inspir- meant that the 60,000 recording budget reportedly crept up to
ing. Like the Liverpool poets of the '60s, whose work striped almost double that figure.
several songs on This Is The Modern World, Waller was proof you Work continued throughout September and into the early part
could be both proudly working-class and a man of letters. of October, with overdubs including flute, acoustic guitars, sax,
Waller’s influence on his slighter younger near-namesake was keyboards, plus Bruce’s cello part and the Smithers-Jones orches-
powerful, and led to Paul publishing six of his friend’s poems in tral arrangement. But even after 10 weeks in the studio, there still
the sheet-music songbook for In The City in 1977. The first of wasn’t enough material to complete the album, so the group elect-
Paul’s own poems were printed in the back of the songbook for ed to bolt on a spirited rendition of their live-set-closer, Martha &
All Mod Cons and included Letter To Dave Waller, a tribute to his The Vandellas’ old Motown hit Heatwave. It would prove to be a
friend, and an early draft of Setting Sons’ Saturday’s Kids, itself prescient move, as the keyboard player co-opted to play piano on
inspired by one of Waller’s early verses. the track was Mick Talbot from The Merton Parkas - credited on
Weller told the NME that the album would unfold the story of the sleeve as ‘Merton Mick’ - who three years later would go on
“three close mates who get split up when the civil war occurs: one to play a critical role in The Jam’s demise...
joins the left, one veers off to the right, while the third one doesn’t The album in the bag, attention turned to the sleeve design. In
feel any particular affiliation whatsoever. He’s the abstainer. keeping with the initial concept of three men caught up in a civil
After the war’s conclusion the splintered comrades plan to meet war, the cover used a photograph of Benjamin Clemens’ evoca-
up again.” tive bronze sculpture of The St Johns’ Ambulance Bearers, cast in
Yet when The Jam booked into Townhouse Studios on The the aftermath of WWI. For the inner sleeve and as inspiration for
Who's old stomping ground of Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush the back-sleeve photograph, Weller commissioned Robin Rich-
in August 1979, Weller had only four songs relating to his grand ards of 5th Column Print & Design - also printers of The Jam’s

I
“To me Eton Rifles was patently a hit. played it to the record company and they said radio
I
won't play it. So sacked the promotion department. It was a decisive moment” DENNIS MUNDAY —

concept - Thick As Thieves, Burning Sky, Little Boy Soldiers and T-shirts - to paint a nostalgic, patriotic scene of a bulldog on
Wasteland. This meant the remaining material had to be written Brighton beach sitting near a Union flag deck chair. The title of
in the studio, with no chance to shape the new songs in rehearsals the LP, referencing the end of empire - and also the middle
or road-test them live. Foxton recalls that, throughout August of three punning Jam album names — completed the picture of a
and September, “Paul would record the initial idea during the day record in thrall to The Kinks’ Arthurand The Who’s Tommy and
and Rick and myself then worked on them through the night. Vic Quadrophenia.
Smith played a big part in the arrangements too.” The indelible Englishness of Setting Sons’ imagery was ines-
The late-night sessions meant that “the pub literally over the capable - but then so was the slangy vernacular in Paul’s lyrics
road took a bashing”, with Foxton and Buckler often sleeping at (“sup up your beer and collect your fags”, “marry the girl next
the studio rather than making their way home to Surrey. door with one on the way”, etc) and the roots of their music.
Though studio time was tight, there was a pronounced empha- Perhaps it was no wonder that, from that point on, The Jam’s am-
sis on experimentation and pushing the creative envelope. Little bition to conquer the outside world was a never a great priority;
Boy Soldiers featured Foxton on cello — “I marked the neck with not least, it would seem, because there was much work still to do
achinagraph pencil to show where the correct notes were, and off at home.
I went,” laughs Bruce - while after a suggestion from Buckler, a The first single to be lifted from the album, in the first week of
20-piece orchestra, billed as the Jam Philharmonic, was drafted November, was The Eton Rifles, a rousing anthem that, even on
in to record a new orchestral version of Smithers-Jones. the edited 45rpm single version, kicked off with radio-unfriendly
“The version of Smithers-Jones is amaz- discordant slashes of guitar and feedback.
ing,” says Foxton. “We didn’t record any of our Weller had been inspired to write it by the left-
songs to a click track, so it was amusing watch- wing Right To Work march the previous year
ing these highly skilled players trying to keep that had seen a group of protestors peel away
up with the ever-increasing tempo of the band. from the main body of marchers in Slough to
Vic Smith had the patience of a saint. The Jam rough up some jeering toffs from Eton school.
liked to work fast and capture the song, but Vic (In a bizarre postscript, prime minster David
was more relaxed, shall we say. Sometimes Cameron, who started at Eton in 1979,
that became problematic for Paul.” declared himself a big fan of the song, to which
“That was another thing with Polydor,” says an incredulous Weller responded - “What
Munday. “They hated Vic. I was for-ever going part of it didn’t he get?!”).
to meetings and they’d go, ‘Get another pro- Yet once again, it seems the old-guard at
ducer, like Martin Rushent’, or whatever, and Polydor couldn’t see the massive hit potential >
I'd say, You’ve got a winning jumper and a of the material presented to them. With the &

48
early success of the Setting Sons campaign riding on the single, the new decade. Going Underground had all the hallmarks of a
Paul and his father’s frustrations boiled over. Jam classic. Weller’s lyrics addressed the issues of the day - the
“To me that was patently a hit - out the box,” says Munday. “I threat of nuclear conflict, the NHS losing out to the military-
played The Eton Rifles to the company and got the same response industrial machine, the compliance of the herd - “braying sheep
that I got from When You’re Young. This time they said, “You on my TV screen make this boy shout, make this boy scream!” -
know, it’s the political content. There’s one line in it that says, all things that drove the singer towards the escapist subterranean
“then went to bed with a charming young thing” - Radio 1 won’t sanctuary of the title, itself recurring phrase in Orwell’s 1936
a

play it” I sat there and thought, Fuck it. I played it to another novel deriding the pursuit of wealth, Keep The Aspidistra Flying.
promotions guy, Clive Banks. He said, ‘It’s going to be hard work Going Underground was a perfect two minutes and 50
but we'll get it on the B-list and we’ll work through it.’ A meeting seconds of crunching Mod pop, and was released in March 1980
was called and I actually sacked the promotion department and as a double A-side with the post-punk psychedelia of Dreams Of
brought in Clive. And it took off, the biggest hit record they’d had Children, a song whose sucking guitar riff was inspired by a back-
to date. It was a key decision, a decisive point.” wards tape of Setting Sons’ Thick Of Thieves. This time Polydor’s
marketing department pulled out all the stops, postponing
oosted by an appearance on Top Of The Pops and live its release date for week to maximise the effect of promotional
a

performance oon the BBC-2 youth programme Something radio airplay, while packaging the first 100,000 copies with a
Else, The Eton Rifles climbed to Number 3 and suddenly The bonus 7-inch featuring three live tracks, Away From The Num-
Jam became a mainstream act in a way that had previously bers, This Is The Modern World and Down In The Tube Station
been barred to them. Setting Sons, released two weeks later, At Midnight, recorded the previous December at the Rainbow
rose to Number 4, and from the brash, clipped Girl On The Theatre in Finsbury Park.
Phone, with its sardonic humour and delightful bass and guitar Going Underground went to straight to Number 1, and The
runs, through the central ‘concept’ songs (scattered around the Jam’s status as one of the great British bands of all time was
LP), to the bleak Private Hell, narky Saturday’s Kids and haunt- secured. But with their destiny finally fulfilled, maintaining that
ing, elegiac Wasteland, it was a triumph. level of success would put a new kind of strain on the group: the
Yet Weller admitted that his grand plan was never remotely
question now was, Where to go now?
realised, though this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Setting Sons “The peak to me of Paul’s songwriting was All Mod Cons,
was incomplete,” he explained. “There were a few tracks that
Setting Sons and Going Underground,” says Munday. “That’s
fitted into this idea [I had], but I never got round to finishing it.
when it was harder for him to go on, but not because he didn’t
Other stuff like Girl On The Phone and Private Hell - they’re just
have the talent: once you’ve reached one peak, you have to climb
songs that needed to be written.” Coppersmith-Heaven’s another mountain. When you look at any great artist, they don’t
approach to recording also received a back-handed swipe: “I want to climb the same mountain every time, they want a new
thought it was a bit too slick, a bit too polished,” the singer added.
On November 17, 1979, nine months after they’d played to a challenge. And if you listen to Sound Affects, you can hear the
dozen people in Hamburg, The Jam set off on a sold-out UK tour changes coming.”
of the biggest venues they'd played to date. On its completion, the Special thanks to John Reed, author of Paul Weller: My Ever
group booked into the Townhouse to record their first single of Changing Moods (Omnibus), for additional interview material.

49
 JAM FAN CLUB

GIRL ON THE PHONE

When your 18-year-old brother's a spokesman for a generation,
there's only one way to deal with the daily avalanche ofpost: start afan club.

Nicky Weller recalls busy days at the Polydor photocopier.

Twin towers: Nicky and

John Weller in NYC fora
record label meeting, ’78.

Once the band got I got a typewriter and Jam Fan Club there were a lot of complaints that they got
signed, letters kept turn- paper and we had the neighbours come in bent in the post. Paul’s always been really
ing up in Woking just and we’d pay them to write envelopes out. good at writing stuff for the fans, but they
addressed to ‘Paul Iused to bunk off school some days and go were awaya lot, so we had to plan how we
Weller - Woking’ or to Polydor and use their photocopiers. It were going to get the letters done for the
‘The Jam - Woking’. got a bit more professional. We had local magazine.
These massive sacks would turn up at our people who’d do printing for us. People would write in, like, ‘Oh, can I
house from the post office, so me and my The response was immediate because get this signed?’ and I’d get everything
mum started opening them and thought of the affinity they had with the fans. signed for them. Lots of times they’d have
we'd start a fan club up. They’d turn up on our doorstep and my to wait quite a few months to get it back!
I'd been a member of David Essex’s fan mum would make them tea and bacon I still meet people who say I used
club. Iremember getting a photograph and sandwiches. There were thousands of to write to them. Me and my brother did
a badge and thinking, Is that it? So we members. We had members from across [arts programme] Front Row with John
made sure it was much better than that. the world — Australia, Japan and America. Wilson on Radio 4 and
Every three months I used to do these It did become a full-time occupation. I he said, ‘I was number
Weller Archive

little booklets or we’d come up with a flexi- got five pounds a week for doing it. was I one thousand and some-
disc for Christmas. I remember going up only 14. We did try to think of more thing, I’ve still got all my
to the 100 Club or the Roxy and selling unusual things to keep the fans interested. stuff!’ It’s like, Bloody
The Jam Fan Club badges for 10 pence. The flexidiscs were really good, although hell, really?

50
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 SOUND AFFECTS

In 1979, The Jam were presented with

proof of their increasing influence:
full-blown Mod revival, spearheaded
by Secret Affair, The Chords, The Purple
He rts and battalions of young men
wearing ex-army surplus fishtail parkas
nd riding scooters. Paul Weller was less
th nimpressed. “The whole thing w_' s
pretty naff, wasn’t it?” he commented,
r und 15 years later. “Those groups
were fucking awful, weren’t they?”

Deep soul: Weller lights

up, Solid Bond Studios,
Bayswater, 1981. A COUPLE OF MONTHS
after the new movement was given its keynote anthem —
Secret Affair’s stompalong Time For Action, released in August
1979 - Weller put together a list of his 10 favourite contemporary
records for Smash Hits. Tellingly, there was only one ostensibly
‘Mod’ single among them: Millions Like Us, a gauche Jam-alike
song by a Romford-based quartet called The Purple Hearts. The
rest suggested much more adventurous tastes: an unreleased
Gang Of Four song titled Elevator, Wire’s supremely melodic
Outdoor Miner, Instant Hit from The Slits’ Cut, and Joy Division’s
Transmission — a song he had first heard when The Jam appeared
with the latter group on the youth-oriented BBC2 show
Something Else.
“T remember being pleasantly surprised to find out they were
very normal working-class lads,” he later reflected. “In my mind,
I had an image of them being poncey art-school, studenty-type
people, and they were quite the opposite...”
Tom Sheehan

Aside from their background, Joy Division were one of the

bands who pointed a way beyond the increasingly lush sound that
was defining The Jam’s records - as evidenced by the more —>

55
 SOUND AFFECTS

€— ambitious tracks on All Mod Cons, most of Setting Sons, section: “I think we’ve lost our perception/I think we’ve lost sight
and watershed single Going Underground - which, replete with of the goals we should be working for/I think we’ve lost our
layers of guitar, chiming piano and plenty of reverb, went straight reason/We stumble blindly and that vision must be restored!”
to Number 1 in March 1980. Sound Affects is an eclectic, confident, regularly surprising
By contrast, Weller was increasingly taken with “deconstruct- record. It has great pop songs, most notably the pretty much
ed pop songs”, and the necessity of paring things back, ideas that perfect Boy About Town. You can hear echoes in it, not just of Joy
united the bands who had started to blaze a trail away from Division and Wire, but XTC: play it next to the more angular
punk’s increasingly tedious ramalama, towards something more moments of the latter group’s Black Sea, which came out two
sophisticated. months before, and you get the sense of two very different groups
“I remember going to see Gang Of Four at the Nashville,” he exploring similar ideas.
recalled, “and buying some of the records. I thought some Wire If you’re looking for the influence of the aforementioned
songs, like Dot Dash and Ex Lion Tamer, were great: pop songs, Michael Jackson record, it’s present and correct in Rick Buckler’s
but slightly jagged. I really liked that. And I was also into that drum parts, and the falsetto middle section of Start! - which,
stripped-down sound: very minimalist. Before that, the sound we needless to say, also showcased the influence of Revolver, and
had - which 1 liked — was very sort of tracked-up. I wanted some- Taxman in particular (Weller also traced its envelope-pushing
thing more minimalist: to get to the bare bones of the song.” guitar solo to Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett).
What became known as post-punk was not the only music on As for the pylons, one of them was included in the array of
Weller’s mind. On an American tour in March 1980, he and images on the LP’s cover, as well as being used in the ad cam-
Bruce Foxton had repeatedly listened to The Beatles’ Revolver. paign - and in a funny way, you can hear a very post-punkish
Another album he couldn’t stop playing was Michael Jackson’s evocation of metal and buzzing electricity in a lot of its songs: the
Off The Wall, released the previous summer. best example is the ominous Scrape Away.
Lyrically, meanwhile, his mind was full of thoughts triggered If the album has a centrepiece, it is surely That’s Entertain-
by a book published in 1975 by the historian and author Geoffrey ment, written by Weller in a state of “beery euphoria”, and full of
Ashe, titled Camelot And The Vision Of Albion: an ambitious brilliantly evocative flashes of everyday English life, many of
text that explored the tangle of myths around King Arthur, and them seen and heard at night: graffiti about “slashed seat affairs”,
their place in a romantic, utopian set of beliefs that had endured “the smash of glass and the rumble of boots”, lovers “kissing

“We had a bit of

a works beano to Glastonbury with the roadies, their wives and the
band. I wanted to see where King Arthur and Guinevere were buried” — PAUL WELLER

into the 20th century. As Weller would later put it, the idea that amongst the scream of midnight”, and “missing the tranquillity of
“we'd lost our way, and been blighted by science, and distracted solitude” — proof, on its own, of the great creative leap the band
by politicians, and we needed to get back to a much more natural, had taken.
pure vision”. Moreover, the sense that The Jam’s audience were being
presented with something significant was heightened by the
e also had an inexplicable fixation with a rather more album’s back sleeve, and its reproduction of a passage from
mundane part of the English landscape. “I had a big thing Shelley’s poem The Masque Of Anarchy - more proof of his inter-
about electricity pylons, at the time,” he told me in 2010. “I est in the mixture of radical politics and English romanticism
couldn't tell you why. I’ve no idea. But it played a big part inwhich he had found in Geoffrey Ashe’s book.
the imagery I was building up in my mind.” Outside the studio, this interest led to at least one exotic
All this was poured into the album The Jam recorded adventure. “We had a bit of a works beano,” Weller recalled. “We
between June and October 1980: their fifth, and the one Weller had a coach, with all the roadies and their wives and the band,
still likes the most. By way of heightening its experimental edge, and I managed to get them all to go to Glastonbury for a few days.
at least some of it was written in the studio, as he and the band I really wanted to go and see where King Arthur and Guinevere
developed ideas from the merest of beginnings. were buried.”
In the hands of lesser talents, working like that This, it is fair to say, was not the kind of
might have resulted in indulgent meanderings. thing that Secret Affair or the Purple Hearts

ec mies
a
But it was some token of the creative energy at were up to; neither can one imagine any of The
work that among the songs worked up this way Jam’s punk contemporaries doing anything
was Man In The Corner Shop, that sighing, similar at the time.
poignant evocation of the English class system Sound Affects was released on 28 Novem-
that remains fondly loved by Jam fans.
aos OUND... ber, 1980 - 10 days before the murder of John
AFFECTS Lennon - and went straight to Number 2 in the
Studio experimentation also sparked Set

ie
The House Ablaze, the fierce portrait of some tat album charts. So there stood The Jam: on top,
knuckle-headed convert to fascism - too many
right wing meetings, and all that - which also
1
=
hae aa out on their own, and seeing visions that elud-
ed everyone else. “Sound Affects, I thought,
contained a reference to what Weller had taken was a fucking classic LP,” Weller reflected, two x
Z5
from Ashe’s book, as expressed in the middle years on. “Possibly, that was the peak.” a
 aen
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 THE GIFT

Ona pedestal: the

shoot for the Absolute
Beginners 45, Chiswick
Park, August 31, '81

a
once said Woking resembled a “fucking bomb site”. Today,
redeveloped and regenerated, his Surrey hometown looks more
like middle America, full of identikit office blocks and an abiding
sense of quiet affluence. On the face of it, the place he once wrote
about - all sticky-tabled cafes, shabby supermarkets, and the
quiet rattle of small change — has gone, though parts of Woking-
as-was still peek from behind the transatlantic facade.
On Guildford Road, just before the approach to the railway
Weller phoned the couple in their hotel. Foxton went on to play
on two tracks on Weller’s Wake Up The Nation, and later
appeared on-stage with him at the Albert Hall and, poetically
enough, Woking Leisure Centre. When I speak to him, he is read-
ying for the launch of a new album, Back In The Room, recorded
at Weller’s Black Barn studios and featuring his former colleague
on three tracks.
It has taken a month to get Foxton on the phone but there is no
reluctance to talk about the most difficult aspects of The Jam’s
history. In fact, he is candour personified - not least when it
comes to the split. “I was gutted,” he tells me. “It was, What the
hell am I going to do now? All of asudden, my career had come to
an end: I was out of work. My head was spinning. At those fare-
well shows fans kept asking, ‘Why?’ And in the end, all I could
come up with was, Well, you’d better ask Paul, because I don’t
really know.”
station, there’s a new Barratt Homes residential development By way of filling the vacuum, Buckler put together a group first
and, in a courtyard surrounded by beige flats, a new sculpture: called The Gift - and then, when Foxton joined, From The Jam,
three towering pieces of wood arranged in a triangular formation, which Buckler has now exited. So, with Weller’s infamous claim
and intended to symbolise The Jam. I glimpse them from a that he would only consider reviving The Jam if his children were
Mercedes saloon driven by Rick Buckler, who attended the “destitute and starving in the gutter”, the chances of a reforma-
work’s ceremonial opening just a week before. He tells me a local tion seem slim, which leaves The Jam untainted and pristine -
wit has already named them “Spruce Foxton”, “Pole Weller” and though plenty would presumably delight in a reunion. “I don’t
“Stick Buckler”. But which piece of wood is he? “Not the ugly think Jam fans will be happy until the three of us come back
one,” he guffaws. together,” says Buckler. “But in a way, it’s too late. It’d be the
Three decades have passed since the 24-year-old Paul Weller handbags-at-dawn tour. Probably not a good idea.”
called time on The Jam. As their wooden incarnation proves, they In 1980, Going Underground had arrived in the singles chart
sit in a place reserved for only a handful of rock groups: not just a at Number 1, and The Jam had released Sound Affects, whose

I
“Tt was about ‘keeping at it”. All can remember is being on the road. don’t think I'd I
been on holiday since my mum and dad’s caravan in Selsey Bill in 1979” PAUL WELLER

byword for their era, but the authors of music forever wired into austere, stripped-back ambience suggested the influence of such
millions of British lives. Their reputation, moreover, is integrally post-punk groups as Joy Division, Wire and Gang Of Four. By this
bound up with the fact that they split at their peak in 1982, the point, having signed to Polydor in 1977, The Jam had been releas-
year they released their sixth studio album, The Gift. ing records for four years, resulting in five albums and a hand-
Unlike so many bands before and since, there were no long some array of singles. Looking back, their workload suggests the
years of decay, nor any gradual droop into comfy nostalgia act. last stand of an old-school career model wiped out in the mid-
Instead, their end was as sharp and confrontational as much of ’80s, when successful acts realised they could release an album
the music. every two or three years, yet still retain the loyalty of their fans.
The week before my trip to Surrey, I speak to Weller on the The Jam did not work like that. Overseen by Weller’s late
phone as he’s transported in a tour bus from Brussels to Paris. father John, who had squired them from the clubs and pubs of
Does any part of him now marvel at what a spectacularly bold Surrey to the height of success in the long slipstream of punk,
decision it was. The answer comes back ina flash: “It didn’t seem their manoeuvres revolved around the studio, and an endless
a particularly monumental decision to me.” A pause. “Any radical schedule of Locarnos, Apollos and town halls, broken by occa-
change in life has an upsetting and awful effect for other people, sional tours abroad.
in whatever relationship. But what’s the alternative? You carry on “It was ‘keep at it’, really,” says Weller. “And it was a good thing
and pretend you’re enjoying it? What’s the point in that? Some- as well, because it kept you working, chiselling away at your
one’s always going to get hurt along the way. You either have to be artform, refining it. There’s a lot to be said for that. So accepted |
true to yourself or live a lie. And I’m not prepared to do that.” it. But I don’t think I’d been on holiday [since] my mum and dad’s 3
Not surprisingly, Rick Buckler’s recollection is more compli- caravan in Selsey in’79. I can only remember being on the road.” $
cated. “We’d grown up with the band, and all of a sudden it was The group’s success, says Rick Buckler, revealed itself not in
just gone,” he says, over lunch at a Woking pub. “The reason for any opportunities for rest and relaxation, but in better working
getting out of bed just seemed a bit... vacuous, you know?” He lives: plusher hotels, more roadies, bigger venues. It’s telling that 5
has not spoken to Weller in three decades. in the hour and a half we spend talking, he mentions the words
By contrast, Foxton finally rekindled his relationship with “pressure” numerous times, and recalls two outbreaks of 3
Weller on New Year’s Eve, 2008, when Foxton’s late wife Pat was stress-related illness: Weller’s shingles (“I was enrolled into g
being treated for breast cancer at a specialist clinic in Israel and putting the medicine on each of the little blisters over his =

62
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 THE GIFT

Face to face: Weller,

Foxton and Buckler,
Chiswick, 1981.

@ back”), and Buckler’s own problems with an irregular The further north you went, the worse conditions were, and the
heartbeat, which sparked a visit to Harley Street. poorer people were. There was lots of cheap skag, lots of kids
“T don’t know how we did it,” says Bruce Foxton. “I’ve still got getting into smack... a sense of hopelessness; no future.”
some of those old itineraries, from when we were out for five or Funeral Pyre, inspired by the increasing visibility of the
six weeks at a time. But you’re young, it’s exciting — you take it in National Front, also seemed to capture what was happening to
your stride.” That said, as demands increased Foxton began to Britain’s social fabric (“the weak get crushed as the strong grow
sense the group’s schedule was taking its toll. “Paul getting down, stronger”). Heading into view were such songs as The Great De-
not wanting to be there - that’s when it was, Hold on, this is not pression, and revolutionary call-to-arms Trans-Global Express:
a bundle of laughs any more. That happened slowly but surely - “my own socialist tract - my own manifesto,” says Weller.
from ’80, ’81 onwards. I understand how much pressure there is Most notably, The Gift would be trailed by double A-side
on a songwriter: you’re on a wheel.” Precious b/w Town Called Malice - the latter up there with The
To ease the pace, it was decided that no album would be Specials’ Ghost Town as a portentous evocation of the early
released in 1981. “I needed to recharge mybatteries,” says Weller, Thatcher years. Meanwhile, The Jam were aligning themselves
though he was not allowed much downtime: there was a Europe- with the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament, which by this
an tour, a trip to Japan, a brief sprint around Canada and New point was staging some of the largest British street-protests ever
England, and a short British tour taking in seaside towns. In seen. “It was pretty scary,” says Weller, “with Reagan and all the
between, The Jam put out two singles: Funeral Pyre (“quite dark, missile sites in England. Also, I knew a lot of people who worked
little bit of a Joy Division influence maybe,” says Weller), and for CND, and that was an influence as well. But it was a very real
Absolute Beginners, its horns and clipped guitar a sign of where threat. It had been for two decades - but with Reagan, he was a
things were headed. complete fucking nutcase and, as usual with America, Britain
By the end of the year, The Jam would be cloistered in a central was a complete lapdog, just going along with whatever he said.”
London studio, working on what would turn out to be the last That October, The Jam managed the most unlikely
studio album of their career. In retrospect, their workload seems performance of their career, playing on the back ofa
mind-boggling: small wonder, perhaps, that the band were lorry on the Embankment, in the midst of 300,000
a

renowned at being seasoned practitioners of what the mod- strong CND demonstration (“Mega,” says Weller,
ern vernacular calls self-medication. When we have lunch, “us, a flatbed truck and a generator”). In December
Buckler orders a lemonade and lime, but happily casts his 1981, augmented by a two-man horn section, they

different kind of live ‘how. and there was a lot of ovvositials

|

was trying to present a :

Zt. That fed into me feeling disillusioned with it all. Trapped” — PAUL WELL

mind back to the regular ritual whereby crates of beer would be played four CND benefit concerts, at the Michael Sobell Sports
loaded on to the tour bus to ease the tedium of touring. Centre in Finsbury Park, and Hammersmith Palais.
In one Jam biography, I remind him, there is a claim that he The supporting attractions changed each night, and included
and a tour manager called Dickie Betts once somehow downed Bananarama, Department S and Fun Boy Three some of whom
34 bottles of wine. The truth, he tells me, is closer to eight or nine, were met with boos and catcalls from Jam fans. “In my mind,”
the night before The Jam were to travel to the Pink Pop festival in says Weller, “I was trying to present this different kind of show,
Holland, in May 1980. “We drank the last bottle on the way to and there was a lot of opposition to it. People didn’t really get it.
Heathrow, missed the flight, spent the next two hours in the bar, That fed into me feeling disillusioned with it all. Trapped.”
and finally got there when The Kinks were playing,” he says. “We The other big element of this period was an almost ideological
ended up fighting in the photographers’ pit. Somebody gave John turn in The Jam’s music, away from rock and into a renewed in-
Weller the message: ‘Your tour manager and drummer have terest in the funk and soul that had long informed Weller’s tastes.
turned up.” “Tt was the start of my Mod purification period,” says Weller. “We
hada DJ on the road with us, Ady Croasdell. He turned me on to
1981 WAS A TUMULTUOUS YEAR. lots of stuff I hadn’t heard before, all these fan-
In Britain, the Thatcher government brought tastic [soul] 45s [and] the first couple of Curtis
about an economic downturn so severe that [Mayfield] solo albums, hearing what an
Britain would lose a fifth of its manufacturing amazing poet he was, mixing poetry and poli-
industry, while unemployment reached three tics together.”
Souza

million. There were riots in London, Liver- Croasdell, who was a record dealer as well
4
pool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester. as a Dj, still lives in the flat near Broadcasting
D’

Weller’s songs had long taken in social House to which Weller would pay occasional
of Derek

comment; now he felt compelled to write lyrics visits, bearing lists of rare soul 45s for him to
more pointedly political. “I was trying to take track down. Among them was So Is The Sun, a
urtesy

more notice of it all,” he says. “With Thatcher- 1969 single by Chicago soul outfit The World
3 ism, you were very definite about where you Column, whose vocal hookline and brass riff
alo col

stood, weren’t you? And touring round Brit- eventually found their way into the song
a ain, you couldn’t fail to see what was going on. Trans-Global Express. Croasdell also —>

67
 THE GIFT

Move on up: Weller at

the soundcheck for The
Jam's appearance on
The Tube, November 5,
1982.

€— recalls Weller asking his then girlfriend - a card-carrying home,”

”
says Peter Wilson. “They weren’t into 12-hour sessions
Northern souler - to teach him some basic moves. “He really and staying up all night. There was another angle to it: a residen-
wanted to be able to dance Northern,” says Croasdell. “He said, tial studio would have meant 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
‘Can you show me how to do it?’ I think after about five minutes, with the same group of people. That wasn’t a preferred option. I’ll
she thought he was best doing it on his own. He seemed to have put it like that.”
two left feet.” Weller recalls at least one incident that crystallised his in-
Weller was tuning in to contemporary records that drew on creasing frustration. “I remember the talkback being on,” he says,
similar sources - Spandau Ballet’s Chant No. 1 and Pigbag’s “and Rick talking to Pete Wilson, saying, ‘Well, these aren’t
Papa’s Got A Brand New Pigbag. Encouraged by his then girl- drummers’ songs.’ I just thought, Well, fuck off and do it some-
friend Gill Price (whose image adorned Beat Surrender’s sleeve), where else then. I'll get another drummer. It was just another nail
he was also paying visits to such Soho clubs as the Wag and Le in the coffin: Fuck this, I want to do something else. Did I raise it
Beat Route, where the New Romantics were easing themselves with him? No. We never really had things out, until it ended in
out of Bowie, Kraftwerk and Roxy Music, and into contemporary a punch-up, or something.”
black music and “rare groove”. “T didn’t say that to Peter Wilson; I said it to Paul,” says Buck-
Here Weller socialised with everyone from Sade and Boy ler. “It was taken completely out of context. We were making beat
George to Neneh Cherry, Steve Strange, George Michael and records, which I thought was great: the Town Called Malice
human work-of-art Leigh Bowery. “I felt a bit like a fish out of thing. If you wanted to make a drummer’s record, you'd be doing
water,” says Weller. “They were very, very sort of hip: the whole Smoke On The Water. But I wasn’t that sort of drummer. It was a
scene almost ate itself. Sometimes I was dragged along by my mistake even making a comment like that. meant that the songs
I

girlfriend. But I was getting back into black music, and black- weren't pushing my expertise: they were down-the-line, sitting on
influenced music, trying to get back to playing soul and R&B. it, keeping it quite strong. And I was fine with that; it didn’t both-
I had a bee in my bonnet about rock music being rubbish, and er me at all. I wish I’d never said the bloody thing.”

‘T felt very fucking strange. That’s when I quit everything — again. I went into
purification. I stopped drinking, smoking gear, whatever else” PAUL WELLER —

over, and soul and funk being the only way forward. I was on that The sessions, Bruce Foxton says, were “stressful”, contrasting
trip for a long time.” with the bonhomie of previous albums. “It got more and more
The Jam later entertained the idea of an EP of soul covers, business-like,” he says. “It was a bit go in, do your bit, ‘Thanks a
material for which would eventually appear on Part 2 of their lot guys, see you tomorrow.’ Whereas in the early days, you’d do
final single, Beat Surrender: Edwin Starr’s War, The Chi-Lites’ a bit of recording and go over the road for a couple of pints. That
Stoned Out Of Mind, and Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up. Areedy side had faded a lot.”
version of James Brown’s I Got You (I Feel Good) was wisely left To add to an occasionally charged atmosphere, Weller was
in the vaults, to be exhumed a decade later. “That was me getting visibly pushing himself to his working limits while continuing his
excited about hearing those records,” says Weller. “It was, I want booze-fuelled circuits of the clubs. One morning at AIR, the two
to play that.” combined in what was subsequently described as a “mini-break-
For all his enthusiasm, in retrospect Weller’s renewed interest down”, but now sounds more like a giant panic attack.
in such music perhaps pointed up an irresolvable tension. He was Weller later compared it to the few times he’d taken hallucino-
trying to push beyond orthodox rock music while stuck working genic drugs. “I felt very fucking strange,” he says. “I’d been at it
in an orthodox rock band. too much. That was when I quit everything — again, I went into a
purification. I stopped drinking, smoking gear, whatever else.”
IN NOVEMBER 1981... Despite such tremors, a great deal of the music was brilliant:
The Jam began sessions for their sixth album. It was recorded at the pared-down Ghosts, stampeding rockers Happy Together and
AIR studios, the plush facility founded by The Running On The Spot, the near-perfect Carna-
Beatles’ George Martin, which overlooked
Oxford Circus. “You literally looked out of the j tion and the murky, yearning Precious. Some
material foundered, like Foxton’s instrumental
Circus and the social-realist calypso of The
windows,” says Rick Buckler, “and you could
‘

see London buzzing below you.” The produc- Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong, while
er, Peter Wilson, had been in-house engineer Trans-Global Express was rather spoiled
at a demo studio at Polydor’s HQ, and begun [ by Weller’s spoken-word vocal being so low
his new role with the sessions that produced in the mix.
Funeral Pyre. But the rarefied territory in which Paul
“AIR was very pro. Slick. Serious,” offers Weller’s songwriting had arrived was clear - as
Bruce Foxton. “It put the shits up you to a was proved by Town Called Malice, and the
Shutterstock

certain extent.” Wh Hh
SHAFT tat ae
wondrous trick of combining poetic socio-
“Paul and the others were very much, ‘Start ALP|
Et cae Willd
political comment with a consummate piece of
about 10, work till six or seven, then go We
pop music.

68
 In the wake of the single split between that song and Precious fairly pressured, so we tried to argue the point, Bruce more than
arriving in the charts at Number 1, The Gift was released on me maybe, that we should take some time out, and think about it.
March 12, 1982, and followed by the Trans-Global Express Tour: But I think he already had been thinking about it. I thought, three
25 dates ending with two nights at Glasgow Apollo. Footage of months down the line he’ll change his mind.”
one of two shows at Birmingham’s Bingley Hall (starting with “Initially,” says Bruce Foxton, “I said to John, Look, if Paul
John Weller’s customary introduction of “the best band in the wants to call it a day, I can’t do it - I can’t do any work. Then after
fucking world”) shows The Jam playing with jaw-dropping assur- afew days, mulling it over, talking with my wife, and John... wasI

ance and power. talked round. But it was very hard.”

On June 17, they finished a short tour of Japan - whereupon During my conversation with Weller, I ask him whether, as
Weller and Gill Price spent two weeks split between Naples and Foxton and Buckler’s minds boggled, any of his friends under-
Rome. Here, in a rare spell of peace and quiet, The Jam’s final act stood why he’d taken such a drastic decision. “I don’t know.
began, with a simple dramatic resolution: Weller would return to I didn’t have a massive circle of friends. I’ve always been fairly
Britain and break up the group he had founded as a 14-year-old insular when it comes to that. My closest friend, my dad, was
in 1972. fucking horrified. His actual words were, ‘Are you fucking mad?’
Today, Weller says it was a profound relief. “I thought, Thank “How long did it take him to accept it? I don’t know if he ever
God, you know? I was looking forward to going somewhere else. did, really. He got used to it, but I think he always missed it. It was
I'd been doing it with the same people for 10 years —since I was 14. a really big thing we built up over the course of those years: the
I was still only a young man. It was time to move on.” gigs were fucking crazy, in a very, very exciting way. He didn’t
give me a hard time about it, but I think he always missed the
THE JAM MET UP AGAIN... buzz. Possibly with my return in the early ’90s, it kind of got back
at Marcus Studios in Bayswater to record one of the most to some of that for him. But he loved those days. He was the fourth
anomalous songs in their career, The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To member, wasn’t he?”
Swallow) - a camped-up evocation of heartbreak on which There followed five months in which, while Foxton and Buck-
Weller duetted with Jennie McKeown, then fronting all-girl ler hoped Weller might somehow change his mind, The Jam got
troupe The Belle Stars. on with their remaining commitments. But the die had been cast:
“We all sat down, and Paul said he wanted to leave the band. The Jam were to end in December 1982, and no one was going to
Right out of the blue. We knew he was quite highly strung, and change Paul Weller’s mind.

69
 S
Jot x Na

PIMLICO
 7
@
F elas Mm
Lol] C-le me] e

dressing room at the Brighton

onference Centre, nodded to the
riends, family and crew assembled
packstage, and paused in the wings,
aiting for the house lights to dim.
he roar of the 2,000-strong crowd
grew deafening. For two of the group,
Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler, tonigh
as destined to be a deeply emotional
event, to be remembered and picked
Remco
But for Paul Weller, it couldn’t be over
auickly enough. After six albums and
 THE FINAL TOUR

It’s not you, it’s me:

Weller backstage
during The Jam's
farewell shows at
Wembley Arena,
December 1982.

all accounts, the previous night’s show in “It was really tough,” says Bruce Foxton. “You'd have fans com-
Guildford had been a high-spirited affair, with the ing up to you after the shows and saying, ‘Why are you splitting
group taking requests from the audience for early up?’ And you’d say, I dunno, you tell me.”
singles and old B-sides, which they duly bashed out Rick Buckler: “Even at the end we wondered whether Paul
with electrifying passion. Tonight, in Brighton, the would change his mind; we thought that if it all went well then
atmosphere was tense and the group’s performance maybe he’d think again. It was hard to believe it was real. We were
muted. On-stage, friction between Paul, Bruce and dazed by his decision.”
Rick was clearly visible. Yet Paul wasn’t to be swayed. A week after the Brighton show,
When, towards the end of the set, Foxton stepped up to the The Jam held their traditional pre-Christmas drink-up at the
mike to remonstrate with some rowdy punters, a bored-looking Greyhound pub in Fulham. According to Dennis Munday, the
Weller sat down on the drum-riser and lit up a Marlboro. He group’s A&R man, “It felt more like wake. Each member had his
a

seemed barely able to conceal his contempt - for Foxton, Buckler, own entourage, and they barely spoke to one another.” Paul
the audience, everything. Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler have never been in the
“After the show Weller didn’t even go back into The Jam’s same room together since.
dressing room,” recalls Tony Fletcher of support group Apoca-
lypse. “He came backstage into our room and... well, he didn’t fter John Weller, Paul’s father and the band’s manager,
exactly start talking about the weather, but he asked us if we Paolo Hewitt was probably the first to hear news of Weller’s
enjoyed our set and whether we were staying the night in Bright- decision to split The Jam. “When he came back from his holi-
on. We were like, Paul! This is the last ever Jam gig! He was like, day in Italy [in July 1982] Paul called me up,” he says. “We met
‘Yeah, so what?’ It was hard to believe his attitude, hard to believe for a coffee, and I was prattling away about this murderous
he was taking it so calmly.” time I was having with a girlfriend. Then I noticed something
“I remember going back to the hotel and Paul saying, ‘Thank was wrong and said, What’s the matter with you? He said, ‘I’m
God for that, thank God it’s finally over,” says Paolo Hewitt, gonna split The Jam up.’ I think he’d put everything into The Gift,
Weller’s biographer and then confidante. and when it wasn’t as soulful and funky as he wanted it, and the

‘John Weller came in and told us Paul wanted a meeting. We'd never done that in our lives!
So we knew something was wrong. Paul said, T want to leave the band’” — BRUCE FOXTON

The sense of disbelief and anti-climax extended to the audi- audiences were just as gung-ho as ever, he’d made up his mind
ence, some of whom hurled bottles and coins at the stage. To “The to move on.
Jam army”, as to most outsiders, Weller’s motives for splitting the “T don’t think Bruce and Rick understood that kind of music
group seemed unfathomable. To many young fans, The Jam were well enough for the way Paul wanted to play it,” Hewitt continues.
areligion and Weller their spiritual leader. And in 1982, the group “They didn’t know about Love Uprising by Otis Leavill or Open
were at the height of their commercial powers and widely The Door To Your Heart by Darrell Banks. Paul wanted to move
acknowledged as the most important rock band in the country. on as songwriter and give himself new challenges. I think Bruce
This ‘farewell’ tour coincided with a Number 1 single, Beat Sur- and Rick saw The Jam in very straight rock star terms: we’re a
render, a Number 2 album, the live collection Dig The New Breed, group, we’re Number 1, we do this, we do that. Paul always saw it
and the re-entry into the charts of over a dozen reissued 45s. as a punk thing, music to inspire and change people. He saw it as
an opportunity to publish poetry, support CND, change the world.
Bruce and Rick were more like, Where’s the champagne?”
| “J don’t think I found it particularly shocking,” recalls their
TH RIGHTON A&R man at Polydor, Dennis Munday. “I knew for along time that
Pentre he wasn’t going to let it wither on the vine. He’d said something
we SATURDAY,
Jith DECEMBER,
at 7.30 p.m.
1982 to me to that effect back in 1980.”
The exact date when Paul broke the news to Rick and Bruce is
M.C.P.
PRESENT
TH E JAM PLUS
GUESTS
hard to ascertain: it was most likely to be in late August, around
the time Paul sounded out Mick Talbot about starting the
STANDING TECKET studio-based soul-jazz collective which would emerge early the
N10 {0°3 MAIN HALL/G@NLY 5.00 following year as the Style Council. What is agreed is that
the group were recording The Bitterest Pill and some soul cover

Ss (May
Opel
Re
Swo
ficent Sea View)
hours priar to
Tr
gst performances
130
versions - War, Stoned Out Of My Mind, Move On Up - at Marcus
Studios, Bayswater, when Weller made the announcement.
Neither the Council or their offices The taking of wu
horived ph
hh
“John Weller came in and told us that Paul wanted to calla
iccept any responsibility for any log during the artiste’s
meeting,” recalls Foxton. “We'd never done that in our lives! So we
ive performance &
or damage (howsocver caused or su breach of Copy ht Act 1956. Cameras
of this regulatt
ained) to any property whattoeve®
brought on to these premises.
u fhe |

ie cloakroom the knew something was wrong. He came in and his actual words
duration of the per for
Ticket cannor be exchanged ment may a
ie
the right to expose were: ‘I want to leave the band.’ It was like, Oh shit! I said, Paul, >
or refu .
film dy the artiste.
let’s not be hasty here, don’t you want to take a break and —>6&

72
 THE FINAL TOUR

Final shift: (opposite) at

the soundcheck for The
Jam’s last-ever gig at
Brighton Centre,
December 11, 1982;
(left) backstage on
their March '82 UKtour.

ly honest, we were going to do well financially, which would help

tide me over until I did something else.”
Rick Buckler: “The band had been experimenting and expand-
ing musically, and he thought there was nowhere left to go. That
wasn’t a view held by me and Bruce, nor anyone else. But Paul had
been central to the whole thing, and he felt more of the pressure...
I just wonder whether if he stood back now and listened to The
Gift his views would be the same. I think what he did was quite
blinkered. We’d all devoted seven or eight years to the band; he
could have consulted us.”
The early dates of the ‘farewell’ tour were universally hailed as
“terrific”; on the first night in Glasgow, the group received a
10-minute standing ovation before they came on, and the five-
night stand at Wembley Arena saw scenes of euphoria of a kind
rarely witnessed.
“It was a wicked tour, because there was no pressure,” says
Weller. “I remember we played load of old songs like In The City
-
and J actually enjoyed it for a change. remember the last second
I

to last? - night at Wembley I smashed my guitar up. [ hit itso hard

on the floor one of the stage boards came flying up with it. That
seemed like a pretty final statement for me.”
The Brighton show — a last-minute add-on — is generally agreed

“The last tour was wicked because there was no pressure. At Wembley Arena
I smashed my guitar up. That seemed like a pretty final statement” — PAUL WELLER
think about it? But there was to be no changing his mind.” to have been a gig too far. (Asked whether any bottles were
“Bruce tried to talk him out of it, but it wasn’t any good,” says thrown, Weller replied, “Yeah, I think that was me throwing them
Buckler. “I remember thinking, God, I haven’t got ajob anymore.” at the drummer.”) It was then that reality of what was happening
Weller: “Yeah, I felt a bit awkward, but once it was out it was began to dawn on Bruce and Rick.
out. I think they were both in shock fora long time. For them it was “It was like this unbelievable feeling,” says Buckler. “We got
like the gravy train had just come to a grinding halt. Time to get into the New Year and there were no more plans. It was very like
off. think they found it hard to get over that.”
becoming unemployed; there was no reason to leave the house.
I

After the news was leaked to the press, an official statement You couldn’t see further than your nose. A horrible feeling, really.”
was released by the Weller camp on October 30. It read: “At the “T was walking around in a daze,” remembers Foxton. “It took
end of the year, The Jam will be splitting up as I feel we have a long time to get over it. I know it was a cliché but I loved those
achieved all we can together as a group. I mean this both musical-
guys. ’'m immensely proud of what we achieved.”
ly and commercially. ’'d hate us to end up old and embarrassing
like so many other groups do. I want us to finish with dignity...
t’s ameasure of the deep feelings underlying the break-
What we (and you) have built up has meant something; for me it -
stands for honesty, passion, energy and youth. I wantit to stay that up that Weller cut all ties with his former bandmates though
he would eventually make his peace with Foxton in 2009, after
way and maybe exist as a guideline to you groups coming up Paul learned that the bassist’s wife was terminally ill. In the
to improve and expand on. Here’s to the future. In love and friend-
year after the split, both Bruce and Rick bumped into him, the
ship. Paul Weller.”
former in a cafe behind Weller’s Solid Bond studio, the latter at,
The abruptness of The Jam’s demise will always be an emotion-
al subject. Of the three band members, Bruce undoubtedly took it of all places, Bruce’s 1983 solo show at Hammersmith Odeon.
the hardest. By his own admission, he initially refused to play on Weller’s only words to Rick were, “Alright, mush?”
the last tour - though he was eventually talked into it. Their relationship was further soured by the legal action in the
“I was pondering it at home, thinking, I don’t believe this, we’re mid-’90s brought against Weller by Bruce and Rick, and eventual-
Number 1 in the charts [with Beat Surrender, released in late ly settled out of court without the parties meeting.
November 1982] and it’s all coming to an end,” says Foxton. “I “I think in recent years there’s a beena bit of revisionist history,
didn’t think I could handle it, going out and playing those venues which has down-played Rick and Bruce’s contribution to the
for a last time. I’m probably the most touchy, sentimental and group,” says Tony Fletcher. “The fact was they were a classic three-
> emotional of the three of us. Obviously, I came round in the end piece; The Jam wouldn’t have been The Jam if either one of them
& because I felt the fans deserved a farewell tour; plus, to be perfect- had left. I suppose it just had to finish sometime.”

75
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 RIOT STORIES

POP ART POETRY

In 1980, Paul Weller set up his own book and magazine imprint, Riot Stories,
to bringyoung authors andpoets to a wider audience. It was an idealistic move
thatfanfared his lovefor the written word. By John Reed.

eople keep saying, ‘Why don’t Mersey Sound, a 1967 anthology of the Dave Waller’s job was to sift through
musicians try and do something out- ‘Liverpool Scene’ poets Roger McGough, piles of poems sent in by young hopefuls.
side the sphere of music?’ But when Adrian Henri and Brian Patten. Weller Later, much of this editing process fell to
you actually do something, they just borrowed heavily from Henri’s Tonight At budding punk poet Anne Clark. “Reading
ignore it.” So said Paul Weller in 1980, Noon and In The Midnight Hour on The the NME one day, I saw an item saying
on the publication of two poetry Jam’s second album, This Is The Modern Paul Weller was setting up a publishing
collections on his new book imprint, Riot World, and toyed with using a third, I Want company,” she recalls. “It would provide
Stories. To Paint, as the basis for an abandoned a platform for young writers who had no
The seeds of Weller’s fascination with song written in early 1978. chance of being considered by the publish-
the written word had been sown by his old The first public evidence of Paul’s own ing establishment. So, being an admirer of
school friend Dave Waller, who after poems appeared in the back of the song- Paul’s work, I sent some of my own texts.”
a brief stint as The Jam’s guitarist in 1973 book for All Mod Cons. Clearly influenced Despite writing to Riot Stories several
decided his passion lay not in music but in by the Mersey Sound style, they included times, Clark heard nothing back. “So I
writing. Weller found his friend’s interest Letter To Dave Waller, humble tribute to
a wrote again saying he could at least bother
in poetry profoundly inspiring, not least his friend, and Saturday’s Kids, a dry run to reply. Almost immediately, I got a
because the would-be bard wasn’t a toffish for the song of the same name on the response saying that if I felt I could run it
aesthete, as most poets seemed to be, but a Setting Sons LP, the overarching concept/ any better, I should try it. So I did!”
Woking secondary school rebel who once story for which was also inspired by an
punched a teacher in the face. early Waller poem. nne became a co-editor of Riot
It was Waller who introduced Paul to Weller had long declared that punk’s Stories around late 1980. “Piles of
the works of George Orwell, whose influ- cheer leaders should put their money work had come in from people all over
ence on several Jam songs was patently where their mouths were and use their the country,” she says. “It was a ques-
clear, from Standards’ “You know what earnings creatively, and so it was in tion of reading through them, deciding
happened to Winston” to Going Under- January 1980 that Riot Stories Ltd was what I liked, what I thought was
ground taking its title from a phrase in founded, with Paul and Dave listed as relevant to what Paul was doing and his
Orwell’s novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying. co-directors. Waller became the author of viewpoint, and at the beginning what Dave
In 1977, Weller chose to include six Riot Stories’ first publication, a primitively Waller felt was important. I went up to The
Dave Waller poems at the back of the produced A5 collection titled Notes From Jam’s office to collect material. made my
I

sheet-music book for The Jam’s debut LP, Hostile Street. This was quickly followed choices, discussed them with Paul and he
In The City, with a heartfelt introduction by Mixed Up Shook Up, a “mixed bag of ultimately made the final decisions. Paul
bigging up his near namesake: “I relate poems by a variety of writers”, which was very actively involved.”
very deeply to his works, maybe a book included a poem by Paul Drew called The early Riot Stories publications were
will follow,” he wrote. Entertainment - the inspiration for the mostly fanzines. December Child was
Paul also took from other, more recent, lyrics of That’s Entertainment, recorded meant to be a pop art magazine with writ-
literary sources, chief among them The later that same year. ing and hand-drawn sketches. It ran —>

77
 RIOT STORIES

You know what happened

to Winston: Weller deep in
one of his early literary
inspirations.

to three issues, and included poetry Riot Stories relied principally on mail
and prose by a variety of young writers - order through The Jam’s fan club, until the
including Gary Crowley, Paolo Hewitt and publication in 1982 of Terry Rawlings’
Weller himself - together with articles and Small Faces photo-led biography, All Our
cuttings of some of Paul’s favourite ’60s Yesterdays, which was available in book-
bands - The Beatles, Action, The Who, shops and subsequently reached a much
Small Faces, John’s Children - and authors wider audience.
such as his beloved George Orwell. In November 1982, on the brink of The
One young writer included in the ’zine Jam’s demise, Paul wrote to Record Collec-
was future award-winning playwright and tor magazine mentioning plans for “a book
screenwriter Tony Marchant, who was about stylists. Though not the rock’n’roll
brought up on an East London council ones, that is the stylists who always hated/
estate and boxed for England. “The fact ignored/weren’t interested in R&R,
that you could learn three chords and be in y’know. The Stylists cults like the Mods,
a band made me realise you didn’t need a skinheads (original ’69 versions not these
degree in English literature to think about horrible little present day fascists), suede-
being a writer,” says Marchant. Among his heads and up to today’s soul Boys.”
first plays was Thick As Thieves, inspired The Soul Stylists: Forty Years Of Mod-
by the Jam song of the same name. Decem- ernism eventually saw the light of day no
ber Child also included the text which was fewer than 18 years later, in 2000, written
subsequently put to music as The Jam’s by Paolo Hewitt, with an introduction
aptly titled Pop Art Poem. from Weller.
Riot Stories’ activities began to peter
eller’s interest in poetry landed out after Dave Waller’s death from a heroin
him a slot at the Poetry Olympics, overdose in August 1982. Paul had always
staged by ’60s poet Michael Horow- admired Waller’s rebellious streak and his
itz at London’s Young Vic on writing skills, and three years later would
November 30, 1981; he shared a bill pay tribute to him in The Style Council
with Roger McGough. Weller also song Man Of Great Promise. “Dave was
contributed a poem to a pilot issue of Pace- the literary influence,” he says. “He was the
maker fanzine in 1981 and wrote a piece one saying, listen to the lyrics, playing
for The Face in 1981 titled ‘The Other Side Dylan, that connection. He was writing
Of Futurism’, which referenced the works poetry and we just wanted to put it out. He
of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and An- had a really bad smack habit so not sure
thony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. He how much he actually did, but the influ-
also penned a lengthy essay on ’60s Mod ence definitely came from that.”
culture, ‘The Total Look’, for Tony Stew- In the very last Jam fan club newsletter,
art’s book Cool Cats, published on Pete distributed a month after their split in
Townshend’s publishing imprint, Eel Pie. January 1983, Weller was still enthusing
More Riot Stories Ltd publications about his indie publishing house (“they are
followed, including Swing And Go, a col- good publications written by young un-
lection of verse by Geordie “mod poet” knowns”) but soon his energies would be
Aidan Cant (“he was a young Jam fan from increasingly diverted into his own record
Newcastle”, remembers Paul) and Jambo label, Respond.
by Dave Ward, a pamphlet of prose which Riot Stories continued as a brand, with
linked together into a running commen- 1983’s Jam biography A Beat Concerto and
tary on the character’s lifestyle. 1985’s glossy Style Council book Interna-
Watson/National Portrait Gallery

Ward recalls Paul’s hands-on approach. tionalists, but both were licensed to outside
“I remember him having a moan about ‘the parties and had left behind the original
high cost of printing these days’,” he says. motivations behind the imprint.
“Tt actually wasn’t that high but it did show Today, casting your eye over Riot
he had an eye on the real cost of things. Stories’ yellowing output provides a fasci-
I also remember a very brief call which nating glimpse into some of the forgotten
consisted of: ‘What price do you think we inspirations for Paul’s songwriting; and
should sell Jambo at?’ I said I thought how, in latter days of The Jam, he felt it was
50p... He said, ‘I think that’s a bit low, let’s the responsibility of pop stars to give us as
ne

make it 70p.’ So I said, OK!” much, or even more, than they took. Os

78
The Style Council A Paris John Harris 82
Our Favourite Shop Lois Wilson 86
The Song Book Tom Doyle 100
The Mod Poet Lois Wilson 106
Paul’s Jukebox Chris Catchpole 116
The Interview 2002 Lois Wilson 120

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late 1982, Paul Weller came close to effectively for this new career phase as a “musical Kama Sutra”, and rejected
putting The Jam and The Style Council on-stage the kind of schedule that had so ground him down with The Jam:
simultaneously. He, Rick Buckler and Bruce Foxton for their first year, The Style Council did not tour, or release an
were preparing for their final tour, and were short of album.
a keyboard player. Weller had already met Mick “There was a lot of pressure from Polydor, wanting to make
Talbot to discuss his post-Jam plans and called him to the numbers up,” says Weller. “I can remember the MD coming
find out if he’d be interested. down, ‘Could you reconsider? Maybe make an album?’ I was
“T said, Is this just down to you? Are you trying to like, No - we want to put some singles out, and take our time.
force me on them?” says Talbot. “He said, ‘No - the Which is what we did.”
other guys just remembered you. They brought you Their first run of records rose to a brilliant peak with the
up. But I was already committed to do some work A Paris EP, recorded in the French capital, and led by Long Hot
with friends in Germany. I was literally sitting waiting for my cab, Summer - arguably one of the most perfect songs Paul Weller
to go to the airport.” has ever written, and The Style Council’s biggest hit, reaching
Talbot - who had briefly served in Dexys Midnight Runners Number 3 in August 1983.
and its offshoot The Bureau - had been on the dole for nine “Being the pretentious twat I am,” says Weller, “I was really
months, and had jumped at the chance of a month play- into the Modern Jazz Quartet. I really loved the sophistica-
ing R&B covers with South London band The Misfits. tion thing they had going. They’d done a record, Place
So he turned The Jam down - but on his return, he / Vendéme [recorded in Paris in 1966, with The Swingle
and Weller began working on the projectthat would / Singers], and I thought, What a great idea — to take us
be launched in spring 1983. off and go and record in Paris. At the time, I was think-
The two had played together before. In 1979, ing about doing a run of these EPs: doing an Alpine
Talbot, then with Mod revivalists The Merton record in Switzerland... and going to different European
Parkas, had contributed piano to The Jam’s cover of cities. It never came about: it was a shame, really.
the Motown chestnut Heatwave, and then guested on “The other thing with me and Mick was that we were
keyboards when the group played at the Rainbow, Finsbury committed shoppers. We were like two old ladies at a jumble sale.
Park. “We're the same age; we had a lot of similar influences, We loved shopping. In between recording, we’d be buying clothes.
from the soul and R&B thing, to the Mod thing, to daft things — It was a beautiful time: getting up in the morning and having our
Tony Hancock, Carry On films,” says Weller. “And we both had croissants and coffee. It was like a little holiday.”
similar humour — taking the piss out of everything, including our- That EP also showcased the mischief that was a Style Council
selves. We got on really well.” hallmark, not least in its comically homo-erotic video (“Me and
In the summer of ’82, the pair had met up and had a long con- Talbot touching each other’s earholes,” as Weller later put it). On
versation in a West End cafe. Talbot recalls talking about shared The Paris Match, he sang a verse and the refrain in French; with

“Me and Mick were the same age, we were both into the soul and R&B thing, the Mod thing.
We shared a smiliar sense of humour, taking the piss out of everything” — PAUL WELLER

suburban roots, Nell Dunn’s Up The Junction, Mods-and-rockers sleevenotes written by The Cappuccino Kid (Weller’s music-
oral history Generation X, French cinema icons Jean-Luc writer friend Paolo Hewitt) and such advert tag-lines as “a new
Godard and Jean-Paul Belmondo, TV show The Prisoner, Abso- record by new Europeans”, it was perhaps inevitable that many
lute Beginners author Colin MacInnes, and no end of music, not reached for the ‘p’ word.
least classic and contemporary soul and the R&B-laden jazz of “Sometimes you’ve got to be pretentious to go forward,” says
Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Smith and Horace Silver. Weller. “To try and show people something. You’ve got to have
Thus was The Style Council born - but Weller was committed those unobtainable dreams to do anything different.”
to five more months with The Jam. “He said, ‘We can start on Both Weller and Talbot say they also could see Weller’s public
stuff when I’ve got gaps,” says Talbot, who recalls some recording changing in front of their eyes. “A lot of people misread what we
during the second half of 1982: basic tracks for such songs as did,” says Talbot. “But at the same time, there were a lot of people
Speak Like A Child, Money Go Round and A Solid Bond In Your who weren't Jam fans who came into the fold. I remember that,
Heart (also tried out by The Jam, but passed over as their final when we first played proper live dates, Paul was quite surprised
single in favour of Beat Surrender). at how many girls and women there were in the audience.”
One big idea, says Talbot, was to “cast songs like films” and “Anyone who came to see us liked it but obviously, it
bring in different musicians and singers. Joe Dworniak from the confused a lot of people as well,” says Weller. “But it’s not like I
British funk band I-Level played bass on Money Go Round; didn’t expect that to happen.”
Orange Juice’s drummer Zeke Manyika was brought in to play By the spring of ’84, The Style Council had released the
on the first three singles after Weller and Talbot saw his band live. impressive full-band version of My Ever Changing Moods - it
In time, Style Council recordings would feature talents as diverse reached 29 in the US charts, still Weller’s highest placing there -
as Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt from Everything But The Girl, and and an expectations-defying first album Café Bleu. The latter
violinist Bobby Valentino, most famously heard on The Bluebells’ included five instrumentals and a rap, and another two of Weller’s
Young At Heart - as well as teenage drummer Steve White and finest songs, You’re The Best Thing and a fully realised Headstart
Weller’s future wife DC Lee, both of whom would soon be full- For Happiness, first premiered on the B-side of Money Go Round.
time Style Councillors. “Tt felt like a weight had lifted,” says Weller. “The first three
With The Jam laid to rest, The Style Council launched in years, I have only happy memories. We had so much fun. The first
March 1983 with Speak Like A Child, whose three minutes proper tour was like being on the road with a youth club. We had
brimmed with a gleaming sense of freedom and optimism. At this a lot of young people playing with us. Anthony Harty, our bass
point, Weller was also busy with his freshly launched Respond player, was like, 16. Steve White was 17 when he first joined us. It
label, and a collective of musicians - most notably, the was just all these kids on the road. It was brilliant.”
plucked-from-obscurity singer Tracie Young and Scots band The “I was trying to challenge people,” Weller adds. “It was a very
Questions. With tongue in cheek, Weller talked about his ideas liberating time.”

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THE INSTANT LIBERATION
PROVIDED BY
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CREATED AN
EXCITING NEW WORLD
WHERE WELLERWAS
FREE TO MAKE THE /4 772,
FUNK AND SOUL MUSIC
HE DREAMT ABOUT. BUT
1 HE MID-80s DEMANDED
MORE: A TRENCHANT
POLITICAL STANCE, WHICH
IN 1985 WOULD COLOUR
THE COUNCILS FINEST
MOMENT, THE DAZZLING
OUR FAVOURITE SHOP.
WORDS
PORTRAITS
 OUR FAVOURITE SHOP

Love uprising: Weller

and peace badge,
October 1983.

recruiting Mick - chiefly, that the singer would be splitting up

a band already journeying down the soul and jazz path. “He
didn’t want to break The Bureau up,” says Talbot. “But we’d
already been dropped by Warners. I was on the dole and I was
thinking maybe this is it for me, because I knew how fickle the
music business was. But The Jam split - that was all pretty hush-
hush at this time. I was told to keep it under my hat but I knew it
Paul Weller, lead singer with The Jam is sat in the frontroom was going to break, there were murmurs in the press. I just
of the flat he shares with his girlfriend, Gill Price. On the record thought, When it does break I hope they don’t think it’s me
player is Otis Leavill’s A Love Uprising, a rare Chicago soul opening my mouth.”
record from 1970, which Weller was turned onto by the Northern It was The Jam themselves that officially broke the
Soul DJ and Kent records compiler Ady Croasdell. news when, on October 30, 1982, they delivered
Nodding his head in approval is Mick Talbot, keyboard- a hand-written press release announcing their
ist with The Bureau, a soul-funk band who’d previously split. A performance on the first episode of
played together in a line-up of Dexys Midnight Runners. Channel 4’s music programme The Tube
Paul wants to start a new band with Mick, something on November 5 and an emotional final
totally different to The Jam, more along the lines of a tour in November and December, which
jazz collective with a fluid line-up. It’s all hush-hush. culminated at Brighton Centre on De-
He pushes a box of sevens Mick’s way, “You'll see cember 11, followed. Paul even appeared
what I’m looking to do from these,” he tells him. Mick on the TV news discussing their demise.
starts flicking through the 45s... there are songs by the “And that was it,” says Dennis Munday,
early Impressions, some Curtis Mayfield productions, The Jam’s A&R man at the time. “Every-
instrumentals by the Jazz Crusaders. Mick starts to get the body was shocked and couldn’t quite believe
picture. This isn’t going to be a standard rock band, it’s going it. Polydor were unhappy. The Jam were climb-
to be Paul’s musical liberation. ing the ladder, at the apex, no one knows where they
“Yeah, it was totally liberating,” enthuses Paul Weller. “With would have gone next. The fans were unhappy - some still are to
The Style Council I had thrown off the shackles acquired with this day. But there was a tremendous amount of pressure on The

“Paul wanted toput the songs we were working on in front of any egos. He saw
his role as directional, in the filmic sense of directing” - MICK TALBOT
The Jam. I still enjoyed The Jam’s music, but this just felt like it Jam, and ultimately Paul, to deliver - from the press, the record
was the right thing to do, the right time to do it.” company, the fans - and The Jam couldn’t go down the musical
avenues Paul wanted to travel. In some ways, the split was inevi-
FOR MANY JAM FANS... table. The Style Council gave Paul the chance to broaden his
Weller’s dramatic decision to end The Jam in December 1982 at musical horizons. The Jam didn’t allow that.”
the height of their success came as profound shock. From the
outside, the break with the group looked like a clean one. But the AFTER ALL THE ATTENTION...
truth was that Paul had been evolving the idea for his new project he had attracted as the Jam’s frontman and reluctant “spokesman
for several months, and had already chosen the musical partner for a generation”, Weller shied away from the spotlight in The
who would accompany him on his forthcoming expedition into Style Council. The idea was that he would ‘direct’ the music, just
jazz, soul and funk: Mick Talbot. The keyboardist’s name would as film director shoots a film, though sometimes he’d star in it too.
have been familiar to Jam fans from his contribution three years “He’d been a part of a regimented band which had a regiment-
earlier to the band’s cover of Heatwave on Setting Sons, but ed sound,” says Mick. “He felt hemmed in towards the end. He
Talbot’s reconnection with Weller had come out of the blue. wanted the Council to be flexible. He wanted to put the songs we
“He rang me,” Mick remembers, “I’d not heard from him for a were working on in front of any egos, to the point where he didn’t
few years and he told me about his plans for new band, asked me
a
play on some of the songs on Café Bleu. He saw his role as more
did I want to be involved and I said yes. Then Bruce suggested directional, in the filmic sense of directing. He’d get involved in
getting me in on the last tour, but I had other commitments. I was the arrangements rather than the playing.”
torn, though. I remember thinking, What am I doing? He’ll get in There was also an unspoken understanding that the music he
another keyboard player, he’ll be the business and that will be it. wanted to create would be fresh and exciting, and as far removed
This was late 1982, The Style Council didn’t exist as a band until from the bristling Jam power-trio format as possible. “He wanted
spring ’83 but we were working together in the pe- -
to experiment, he talked about labels he liked Motown, Imme-
riod bookended by those last two Jam tours [ie diate, Blue Note - iconic labels that had influenced him,” says
the first weeks of November ’82], working on Talbot. “He was very open but he was also in charge, because at
a couple of numbers, Solid Bond In Your that time he was such a prolific writer, he always had a stream of
>
& Heart, Speak Like A Child and a few more.” ideas. He was never without a bag with a notebook in it, he was
Ss
<< Paul Weller had his own concerns about always scribbling down lyrics, ideas. —_

93
 o
enters
en
hase”

Soul salutation: ‘The Council

Collective’ recording Soul
Deep at Sold Bond Studios
{from left) Leonardo Chignoli,
Sheehan

Martyn Ware, Junior

Giscombe, Mick Talbot,
Vaughn Toulouse, Dee C Lee,
Paul Weller, Steve White,
Tom

Jimmy Ruffin, Dizzy Hites.

 OUR FAVOURITE SHOP

< “Whenwefirststartedhehadtwoboxes 3pil <4 was told the position had been tak- At
home:
in
Weller and

>-
of 7-inch singles which were all relatively rare en,” laughs White. “Kenny [Wheeler, White rehearsals,
Sold
60s and ’70s soul, some Northern, some funk,” 5 Jam/TSC road manager] said he’d Boy 1986.
adds Mick. “These influenced his writing on the mention to Paul I was here anyway.
early Style Council singles. By the time of Café n wv Paul was like, ‘We’ve got someone,’
Bleu, we were trying to embrace jazz such as it is. but I was insistent to Kenny - I’ve come
We didn’t see ourselves as jazz musicians, we were a long way to do this, please give me a go.
musicians who liked jazz.” He went back to Paul and related this, and Paul let me in.
“I wanted to get away from the rigidity of having a set band,” “He was getting his coat on, getting ready to go, but asked me
confirms Paul. “I needed someone to work off and Mick was the what I was into. I said jazz, so he said, ‘Play a bit of jazz for me.’ I
perfect person for that. But I wanted to keep it open outside of think a lot of young musicians would have gone in there and tried
that — I didn’t want it that the bass player always had to play bass, to play like Rick Buckler because they thought it would have got
the drummer always had to play drums. I wanted something loos- them the gig. Instead, I did a bad Elvin Jones impression. He told
er, so could bring in the right person for the right track, which is
I me how they were doing a session the next day for the Kid Jensen
pretty much what we did. We all hung out together, too, we had show at Maida Vale, how he hadn’t written all the songs yet for it
a great time. It was a bit like the youth club the first few years of but told me to come along.”
the Style Council.” “T was just blown away by his youth and versatility,” remem-
bers Weller. “And he knew all the musical references, he got what
BY THE TIME THE COLLECTIVE... we were doing and fit in immediately.”
began thinking of Cafe Bleu’s follow-up, Our Favourite Shop, in “Steve was very persuasive about being heard,” says Mick. “He
the autumn 1984, they had coalesced around a line-up of Paul, was good, he had a feel for things, he had a lot of enthusiasm, the
Mick, drummer Steve White, singer Dee C Lee and bassist confidence of youth and the talent to back it up. He seemed wise
Camille Hinds, formerly of Brit funk band Central Line. beyond his years in his playing. That Kid Jensen session was
“It was a natural thing,” says Weller. “We’d been out on the a baptism by fire and he really shone, we didn’t have to draw him
road and had settled down to this nucleus of the four or five of us. a diagram, we’d say what we wanted and he’d do it. We thought
It was a logical progression from playing live all the time. We’d he soundeda bit like Al Jackson of Booker T And The MG’s.”
become a very tight-knit unit.”
Paul Weller had first seen Dee C Lee on Top Of The Pops when IN THEJAM...
she sang backing vocals on Wham’s Young Guns. “I liked the way Paul had written about inequality and working-class struggle;
she looked as a singer, the way she held herself on-stage, she was with the Style Council he went on an all-out assault against
unique. We’d had a couple of girl singers in the Council and none Margaret Thatcher and capitalism. Royalties from the Council’s

“Tt wasn’t a time to be non-partisan. It was too serious a time, too extreme. I wasn’t
waving a flag for the Labour Party, but the socialist red flag” - PAUL WELLER

of them had really worked out, but I had this thing in my mind, I second single, Money Go Round, were donated to
wanted the Council to be like Steampacket, when they had Rod Youth CND, which the Council had played sev-
The Mod [Stewart] and Julie Driscoll on joint vocals, and I want- eral benefits for (as had The Jam previously).
ed a dual lead vocal like that. Dee came and sang on our second Paul was also now a vegetarian and a keen sup-
single, Money Go Round, and it clicked, she sounded different to porter of animal rights, and, in his role as the
all the other session singers we’d met.” joint president of the United Nation’s Interna-
It was Polydor A&R man Dennis Munday, who had continued tional Year Of Youth in 1985, would back the Na-
working with Paul in TSC, who introduced drummer Steve tional Youth Trade Union Rights campaign.
White to Paul and Mick in May 1983. A 17-year-old from Eltham, Weller’s activism drove his creativity: Shout To The Top,
White was something of a prodigy. He’d got his first drum kit at a celebration of workers’ solidarity that drew on Philly soul - it
13, had been taught to play by King Crimson/Genesis star Bill was engineered by former Sigma Sound studio engineer Jay Mark
Bruford (Ginger Baker having turned down his request for - was fanfared with adverts screaming, “Make no mistake/This
lessons), and had worked on Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook’s is all class war/Fight back/Shout to the top”. When it reached
musical, Labelled With Love. Number 7 in October 1984, the Council felt vindicated in so
“Dennis was A&Ring another band on Polydor and I went and brazenly mixing politics and pop. “There was a sense that people
did an audition for them,” Steve White recalls. “I wasn’t right for might actually be listening,” says White.
them but their lead singer mentioned to Dennis that I was jazz- Soul Deep, their next single, set out to raise awareness of one
influenced and a good player. He knew that was exactly what of the country’s most significant political struggles: the miners’
Dennis had been told to find for The Style Council.” strike, and to raise money for the organisation Women Against
After Steve’s mum had called Munday to check the audition Pit Closures. An electro-funk track, it was issued under the name
invite wasn’t a wind-up, Steve made his way from his South Lon- ‘The Council Collective’, which brought in UK soul singer Junior
don home to audition at West Kensington’s Nomis studios, only Giscombe (who’d had a hit with Mama Used To Say in 1982),
to find out on arrival that Paul had already filled the vacancy. Motown star Jimmy Ruffin (of What Becomes Of The Broken-
“Nomis studios was the hub of the pop world at that time,” hearted fame), Animal Nightlife’s bassist Leonardo Chignoli,
recalls White. “When I turned up, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran Department S’s Vaughn Toulouse and rapper Dizzy Hites.
and Culture Club were recording and AHA were rehearsing. Paul The Council had already shown their commitment by playing
had a small office there and he would use the studios to rehearse. fundraising shows for striking miners before its release. “It wasn’t
Sheehan

Dennis had told me the night before I was going along to audition a time to be non-partisan,” reflects Weller. “It was too serious
for The Style Council - Mick had been one of my heroes when atime, too extreme. I wasn’t waving the Labour Party flag but the
I was 15, I used to go see The Bureau play in Deptford. socialist red flag, that’s for sure. In The Jam I didn’t want to be
Ol m

But things initially didn’t go to plan. “As soon as I got there, I apart of any movement. But this was different. Thatcher got —» 8

96
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 into power in 1979, and from the Falklands War onwards have a cup of tea, walk around Oxford Street. It wasn’t until
that was her wielding her power. The trade unions were being recent years that I appreciated what it was and where it was. The
worn down, we had the miners’ strike, there was mass unemploy- Walker Brothers and Dusty Springfield had recorded there. We
ment, there were all these issues. You couldn’t sit on the fence. It foolishly after Our Favourite Shop got rid of [the original desk]
was very black-and-white then. Thatcher was a tyrant, a dictator.” and got a new state-of-the-art SSL desk, and ended up sounding
“In the early days of the miners’ dispute, there were people like every other band.”
who had their benefits stopped,” says White. “We got asked to “It was like a social club,” White reminisces. “Because it was
raise some money and we did. It all went wrong when the taxi in such a lovely position, we could sit outside on the lawn and
driver died [David Wilkie was driving a strike-breaking miner drink tea. Kenneth Williams would walk past, Ava Gardner too.
to work in Merthyr, South Wales, when two strikers dropped a It was great. Kenneth would say good morning to us dressed in
concrete block on his vehicle from an overhead bridge]. That his blazer, college tie and chinos.”
painted the whole thing in a much bleaker light and it made us The producer chosen to oversee work on the album was Pete
feel, collectively, that we were out of our depth here.” Wilson, who’d first come across Weller as Polydor’s house
“Soul Deep seemed like a simple thing to do until all the vio- engineer in the late ’70s. He had since gone on to produce The
lence occurred,” says Mick. “It’s easy to see these things in black Jam’s The Gift and The Style Council’s Café Bleu LPs.
and white, but there is a lot of grey. But I’m pleased we supported “It was a relaxed set-up,” Pete Wilson recalls. “When I took
the miners, highlighted their plight, it was a crunch time.” over from Vic Coppersmith-Heaven on [The Jam’s] production,
Despite very little airplay, Soul Deep made Number 24 in they were hugely successful, there were huge expectations and
November 1984. In a gesture that acknowledged the tragic side to pressure on them. With The Style Council no one knew what to
the dispute, proceeds from the 100,000 or so sales were split expect. After Paul acquired Solid Bond studios, he was doing
between Women Against Pit Closures and David Wilkie’s widow. demos all the time, and demos would turn into songs. He thrived
in that atmosphere.”
IN 1983... As with Café Bleu before it, Mick Talbot takes the lead on the
Weller had bought Stanhope House, the old Philips studio at album’s opener, Homebreakers, a potent attack on Thatcherism.
Marble Arch, and had been using it as the engine room for “’d been working on the music and was la-la-ing the melody
The Style Council since. It was here in the renamed Solid Bond over the top of it and Paul suggested I sing it,” remembers Mick.
studios that the group began work on Our Favourite Shop in “He came up with the lyrics, they reflected what was going on in
February 1985. my own family at the time. My dad had been made redundant
“We would get a call or be gigging and Paul would say, ‘I want after 35 years of working for the same firm, my brother was in the
a couple of days in the studio,” recalls White. “It wasn’t rigid, like, same print union and was about to be made redundant too.”
‘We start the album now’, it was more, ‘Let’s go in and knock Several other tracks — including the 45s Walls Come Tumbling
some tracks down.’ It was a very creative time.” Down, Come To Milton Keynes and The Lodgers - had equally
“It helped that we didn’t have to worry about studio time or pointed subject matter. Predictably, the swipe at Milton Keynes
costs,” explains Paul,“We’d go in every day, almost like a nine-to- caused a stir, not least as Paul had never set foot in the town.
five, no one was pressurising us, no one looking over our shoul- “T was reacting to all the new towns that were springing up,”
Getty

ders, we could go in and work away. We could play some tunes, says Paul. “There was an advert on TV, ‘Come To Milton Keynes’,

98
 OUR FAVOURITE SHOP

In the red: launching left-wing

pressure group Red Wedge,
with Billy Bragg, Labour
leader Neil Kinnock and LCC
chief Ken Livingstone,
November 1985.

yet the reality was totally different. Concrete shopping malls everything that means everything to you — every book you want,
where kids would wander around aimlessly. Smack was massive every record, every poster. We brought in half our attics.”
in the ’80s. It was never about just one town, but was concerned While Weller supplied the George Best coat-hanger, Brigitte
with the underlying soullessness, which had been covered up Bardot picture and record player, Talbot provided the Twiggy
with a belief in monetarism, greed and selfishness and, on the coat-hanger, the Otis Redding T-shirt, Tony Hancock scripts,
street, smack. It was a metaphor for the general wearing down of George Bernard Shaw book and Up The Junction paperback.
society. Of course, the city was up in arms, the local paper had There was even a Gary Crowley radio show sticker on the till.
a piece on the front page about it.” By then, when not rolling their eyes at Thatcher’s Britain, the
Then there was A Stones Throw Away, a song returning to the world of the band had developed into an ongoing conversation
plight of the miners, whose stirring string arrangements courtesy about clothes, films, art and music. “Paul, Dee, my missus and me
of John Mealing (of 60s jazzers the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quin- went on holiday once, and the flight got delayed,” recalls Talbot.
tet) added to its sombre mood; and Internationalists, another “Paul and I bored our respective partners with our nostalgia
rallying socialist cry. “I’d read Robert Tressell’s The Ragged fests, we'd talk of the clothing around when we were 11 or 12, and
Trousered Philanthropists early on, which had influenced my records from 1969 to ’71. Our ‘shop’ was a real reflection of such
view of politics,” explains Weller. “Coming from a reactionary discussions.”
working-class background, it opened up my mind to politics.” On its release in June 1985, Our Favourite Shop became the
Steve White contributed to the songwriting with With Style Council’s first and only album to hit Number 1. Its
Ev 1087. The Cost OfLeoving wac Walle tt
sial government Youth Training Schemes, while create a “modern American soul sound like Jimmy Jam and
The Stand Up Comic’s Instructions featured Terry Lewis”, and while reaching Number 2, marked the
comedian Lenny Henry delivering a biting moment after which interest in the group began to ebb away.
spoken-word satire of racist working-men’s club Part of the problem was, perhaps, the dispiriting result of the
acts. “A brilliant idea,” says White.” June 1987 General Election, which returned Margaret

belief in The Style Council. I lived and breathed it all. I meant ev

w bad total
rd and I felt every action. Our Favourite Shop was its culmination” - PAUL WEL

After Weller came up with the album title, it was designer Thatcher to power and all but ended the era when left-wing
Simon Halfon’s job to bring Paul and Mick’s ambitious idea for politics and mainstream pop were exciting bedfellows.
the gatefold cover artwork to fruition. Harking back to the inner “Once we got involved in Red Wedge [Billy Bragg’s left-wing
sleeve of The Jam’s All Mod Cons, where Paul had amassed musical pressure group], what quickly dawned on us were people
objects which held meaning to him, the pair created a real were coming to see the bands and not taking the message in,” says
‘favourite shop’ for the cover. Talbot. “We'd get to a press conference in the Midlands, and you’d
“Paul’s initial idea was to go to a gentlemen’s outfitter’s in find you weren’t talking to the NME but a political correspondent
Woking and take a picture through the shop window of all their from a broadsheet. They'd be us, a few blokes out of Madness,
favourite things,” says Simon Halfon. “Unfortunately, it didn’t Junior Giscombe, no one’s got a consensus of opinion and we’re
work out, so Plan B was to recreate the shop on a set. Photogra- asked, ‘What’s Red Wedge’s policy on Ireland?’ Back then every-
pher Ollie Ball built the set and then we all made lists of what one just looked at each other, and I just thought, Is this why I
we'd like to go in there. Paul then said, ‘We’ll do it next Tuesday, collected all those Jam and soul records? It’s easy to be cynical in
don’t forget to bring your stuff in.’ Ollie took the shot. It was as hindsight but I’m proud that we did that.”
simple as that.” In 1988, Confessions Of A Pop Group, a mix of ambitious
“We were like two old queens, me and Mick,” laughs Weller. classical-minded piano suites and soul ballads, stalled at Number
“We were always out shopping. We got a lot of suits made up, we 15, while the intended follow-up, Modernism: A New Decade,
were like two old birds at a jumble sale, we were both mad for was denied a release by Polydor and went unreleased until it
clothes. I think we looked the appeared as a back catalogue
dog’s bollocks. I saw what I curio in 1998. The group
was wearing as an extension eventually called it a day in
of Mod, even my mad hair- 1990, after which Weller took
style. That was an amalgama- a year off to concentrate on
tion of the Perry boys up the young family he’d started
North, with the soul boy with Dee.
thing and these older middle- “Thad a total belief in The
aged French birds from Paris, Style Council,” Weller con-
and that geometric ’60s look.” cludes. “I lived and breathed
“It was a Mr Benn-like it all. meant every word,
I

fantasy,” says Talbot. “You'd and I felt every action. Our

walk into the shop and come Favourite Shop was its culmi-
out the other end with nation.”

99
 THE SONG BOOK

IF WE COMMUNICATE FOR TWO

MINUTES ONLY...
From The Jam’sfirst single in 1977, Weller sharpened his songwriting skills to
produce a canon ofmusic that continues to intrigue and challenge. Here he reveals
the stories behind 12 pivotalJam and Style Council tracks. Interview by Tom Doyle.

IN THE CITY and grabbing you and all that. Someone “It was my first girlfriend’s mother. I took
had one side of my scarf and I was getting what I thought I saw and exaggerated it
(In The City, 1977)
fucking choked. And I just thought, Pfff, and built on that. She seemed a very
Punk-inspired, Mod-shaped mission I don’t like this. I’m very grateful for any beaten-down, unhappy person really. Per-
statement. success I’ve had in my life, right, but was
I haps she wasn’t but that’s the vibe I got. I
“We had a different sort of birth to a lot of freaked out. And then I got used to it. That had to get two more songs to finish off
the bands, our contemporaries at that line ‘getting drugged up with my trendy Setting Sons, so remember sitting in an
|

friends’... that came later, man. It was office with just a tape recorder and a chair
time. Because we’d been playing for five
a prophesy.” and a guitar. It felt a bit like the Brill Build-
years — pubs and working men’s clubs and
ing. So I wrote Private Hell, then I wrote
fucking anywhere that would have us,
really. ’'d been playing since I was 14, sort THE ETON RIFLES Girl On The Phone the same day as well.
But we were still fucking short. That’s why
of semi-pro if you like. So I never got the (Setting Sons, 1979) we put [Martha And The Vandellas’] Heat
thing about not tuning your guitar. I wrote Class war anthem written about a Wave on that album. The sound of Private
this after ’'d seen the Pistols and The
Right To Work march disrupted by Hell is quite dense. Looking back on it, Vic
Clash, and I was obviously into my Who
taunting Eton College cadets. Smith, our producer, did a brilliant job. He
phase. I just wanted to capture some of taught us a lot about overdubbing, espe-
that excitement. It was a big tune for us. “We had a week off and I never even
cially with my guitars. I felt like was I

We’d open our set with it, we’d probably thought about going abroad for a holiday at getting onto a different level with the lyrics
play it at the end and if we could get an that time. So went down to my mum and
I
as well. Bit more poetic or story based.
encore, we’d play it again. The reaction it dad’s caravan in Selsey and it pissed with
Trying to get inside people or characters.”
got from the audience, you knew it was a rain the whole week, so I just ended up
big tune. I’m not sure about some of the writing. And I wrote The Eton Rifles. I THAT’S
lyrics in it... Iwas 17, 18, man. But it was a thought it was a powerful statement. The
good youth anthem.” intro, bah, straight in, and all the feedback ENTERTAINMENT
and fucking chaos. That’s the first thing (Sound Affects, 1980)
TO BE SOMEONE you hear and then it settles into this tune. Evocative snapshots of the hum-
And that was the first single we got played
(DIDN’T WE HAVE on Radio 1. It went sort of stellar after that.
drum British everyday.
A NICE TIME) The whole thing with [David] Cameron “It was so easy to write. came back from
I

(All Mod Cons, 1978) saying it was one of his favourite songs... the pub, drunk, and just wrote it quick. I
I just think, Which bit didn’t you get? probably had more verses, which I cut. It
Withering look at the emptiness was just everything that was around me,
of fame from a writer on the cusp People say, ‘Why don’t you write any more
of stardom. political songs?’ But I would just write y’know. My little flat in Pimlico did have
exactly the same fucking things I wrote 30- damp down the walls and it was fucking
“When I was a kid, I thought, I really wan- odd years ago. Every time they fire a mis- freezing. I was doing a fanzine at the time
na be a pop star. And then when we got a sile in the Middle East, that’s 850,000, called December Child, and Paul Drew
little bit of it, didn’t really like it. It made
I
right? And then they talk about the NHS, wrote a poem called That’s Entertainment.
me retreat into myself. My friends used to
fucking selling it off or it crumbling. So It wasn’t close to my song, but it kind of
take the piss out of me, saying I disap- nothing’s really changed, has it?” inspired me to write this anyway. I wrote
peared into a bat cave. They’d never see to him saying, Look, is it all right if I kind
me. I lived in a flat in Pimlico at the time
and I’d just withdraw from it all. I just
PRIVATE HELL of nick a bit of your idea, man? And he
said, ‘It’s fine, yeah” I suppose it was a little
thought it was false and bullshit. All Mod (Setting Sons, 1979) bit like the Liverpool beat poets. The
Cons blew up really big and I can remem- Ray Davies-inspired portrait of things that might seem of no importance
ber an incident in Newcastle City Hall a middle-aged, middle-class or value, when you put them into a song,
where I came out of the gig and it was kind woman glumly floating through that can elevate ’em. Maybe that’s why it >
of hysteria. There were kids clambering life on Valium. strikes a chord with people.”

100
Bia 828 SOG0
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THE SONG BOOK

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 THE SONG BOOK

SIME COUNL MODERNISM: A NEW DECADE

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103
Hh es
oe

onie
 THE SONG BOOK

BEAT SURRENDER it’s about nuclear holocaust as well - ‘The he would be like (mimes nodding out). I
hush before the silence, the winds after the just thought, Is that good? I dunno. It don’t
(Single, 1982)
blast’ and all that. I think it’s probably like look too good. Not everybody makes it
Emotional farewell to The Jam and a lot of songs I’ve done... they start off through, do they?”
rallying call to fans. being about myself and then I get bored
“I wanted it to be a final statement on The with it and I make it into something else. IT DIDN’T MATTER
Was it Top 30 in America? Fuck knows
Jam. A sort of clarion call. It was like, (The Cost Of Loving, 1987)
Right, we’re stopping it - you take it on
how that happened. I love playing there,
now. Was it emotional for me to write? but I don’t have any ambition - obviously Jam & Lewis-smooth R&B, as
at my age now - to ‘make it’ there. It was heard in The Style Council’s
Pfff, not really no. "Cos my head was in
The Style Council towards the last days. I never top of my list, man. It’s not a put- unhinged film, Jerusalem.
was counting down the hours and the days down to the American people. It’s just “Tt was a bit of a nick really from a David
til I could crack on with that. I’d had you’ve got to kiss an awful lot of arse to Sea track called Night After Night [1984].
make it there. Café Bleu was renamed My
enough. It was more emotional for other I was trying to do this modern soul thing,
Ever Changing Moods over there? Is that
people and I felt bad about that. A lot of like these independent soul records
fans were gutted. Which I understood, ’cos what they called it? My idea was to call it which sounded quite cheap in a way. We
I remember seeing, April 1970, ‘Paul: I’m Dropping Bombs On The White House, had our Solid Bond Studios in Marble
which didn’t go down very well...”
Quitting’ [actually ‘Paul Quits The Beat- Arch, which used to be the old Philips
les’] on the Daily Mirror and I was fucking studio. I think I was too young and arro-
devastated. We did little 20-minute set at A STONES gant to really appreciate the fact that
THROW AWAY
a

the end of [live Channel 4 music pro- Scott Walker and Dusty had made
gramme] The Tube, with horns and back- (Our Favourite Shop, 1985) records in this place. Beautiful old gear in
ing singers and a keyboard player. I gave there, which we took out because of the
An Eleanor Rigby lament for the
[presenter] Muriel Gray a hard time ’80s and all this new technology that was
South Yorkshire miners.
during that interview? I know. But I didn’t coming in. After a while, we just ended up
mean to. I was just lousy at doing inter- “Again it was just what was going on really. making records in the control room. We
views then. I wasn’t trying to be an These people who’d been working down never used this beautiful live space. Fuck-
awkward fucker. I was just shy and inartic- the pits and keeping the country going... ing mad that was really. (Grins) Jerusa-
ulate. I had no people skills when I was all of a sudden being fucking hit around lem... fucking what a film, mate! We were
younger. It’s fucking taken me years to the head by the Met Police. I just thought it trying to make our Magical Mystery Tour
learn bloody people skills.” was outrageous. Fucking outrageous! And and I think we succeeded on that level. It
at the same time, there were pictures com- was our state-of-the-nation address. But
LONG HOT SUMMER ing back from Johannesburg, the riots and people didn’t get it. Our sense of humour
(Introducing The Style Council, 1983) the fucking treatment of people there. I didn’t always translate ’cos we were just
name a few places in that song - South piss-takers. Some of the acting’s appall-
Electronic soul swooner declaring
Yorkshire, Johannesburg, Chile. I like that ing, innit. I’ve not made a film since. The
just how different Weller’s new whole album, Our Favourite Shop. 1 acting career was over after that. Fucking
band were going to be.
thought it was a great record. I’ve not ruined me.”
“At the time I just wanted to make singles; heard it for donkeys, but there were some
I didn’t wanna make an album. I thought good songs on that, I thought. Good polit- A NEW DECADE
every single could be different. We’d have ical songs as well.”
(Modernism:A New Decade, 1989.
different line-ups, apart from me and Released: 1998)
Mick [Talbot]. We cut four tracks in Paris. A MAN OF
Deep house collage which opened
I was gonna do this series of EPs and go to
a different European country every time.
GREAT PROMISE the rejected final Style Council
The next one was gonna be The Style (Our Favourite Shop, 1985) album.
Council Go Alpine. We were gonna go to Mixed emotion elegy for original “T first heard house around ’88. Norman
Switzerland and get some of them big Jam member Dave Waller, who Jay did a night at Dingwalls, playing these
fucking trumpets they play - that would’ve died of a heroin overdose. soulful house records, but in amongst
been wicked. It’s not in the same class, but
“He was very, very into drugs and he was a Philly things and some disco. It all made
you know The Isley Brothers’ For The sense, new and old kind of mixed in
Love Of You? I think we were trying to very literary sort of person. He’d read a lot.
He put us onto Dylan and Donovan, say- together. And then I was just buying
sound a bit like that. I think I’d split up -
ing, ‘You’ve gotta listen to these words,’ imports. Being the Mod I am, I thought it
again ~ with my girlfriend at the time. I’d which we never really thought about was the same as someone in 1962, or what-
moved out and into a hotel. Walking the
before. He was a really good poet himself ever, buying the new soul imports. I didn’t
streets, feeling sorry for myself. That was a and he probably could’ve done something, do ecstasy at that time, no. I probably
good summer that year, ’83. It was a big I think. But he fell victim to smack. It’s like should’ve done, really. Probably would’ve
summer record.”
he was destined to do that, really. Even helped me in lots of ways. Polydor were
when we were at school, he was reading like, ‘Nah this is gonna finish your career
MY EVER CHANGING William Burroughs’ Junkie. He was just off’ I don’t think they wanted to pay the
MOODS too heavily into it. But it was a waste and I money, really. And that was the end of The
(Café Bleu, 1984) think really that’s what the song’s about: Style Council. We just fizzled out. The
this life, this potential, has been snuffed band was everything to me up to that
Homage to Curtis Mayfield with out. But it says ‘like a moth going to point. I was fucking besotted with it.
overtones of nuclear threat. But we'd all lost interest. Us and the
a flame’... He kind of knew what
Weller’s biggest US hit. audience. I think our very insular,
he was getting into. He’d go up
> “Itstarted from the title. thought, What a
I to Waterloo, buy a fix and come piss-taking nature just kind of
& great title, My Ever Changing Moods. But back and we'd be in the pub and went against us after a while.”

105
 THE MOD POET

We all know PaulWeller, the bolshy geezer who writes angry rock tunes and gave
Sid Vicious a spanking. But who’s this other Weller: the Mod poet, the musical
contrarian, the maker of “avant-garde mood music”? In early 2010, MOJO sat
down with the singer to learn more about his early life and explore his long, but

oft overlooked, history of creating wilfully strange and experimental records.

18-year-old Paul Weller checks his blue-and- see the Pistols soon after. My enthusiasm was infectious, and
white polka dot tie in the train carriage mirror while I was already making music with The Jam this showed me
and thinks he looks the cat’s meow in an orange the way forward, made me want to do it even more.”
three-button suit jacket, matching socks, white
button-down shirt, moccasins and grey Levi ast forward 34 years to a rainy February day in 2010
Sta-Prest. It is July 9, 1976, and his life is about and Paul Weller is doing that very British thing of complain-
to change. ing about the weather. “It’s shit isn’t it?” he says glancing up
Jumping off the Woking train at London at the dark sky. “Ruins your shoes.”
Waterloo, Weller and pals Tony, Steve, Tufty and Still the sharp dresser, he’s wrapped in a green Burberry
Dave Waller make their way to The Lyceum on parka with black bootcut Levi cords and black Bottega
Wellington Street, nattering feverishly about a Neil Spencer piece Veneta brogues. He looks healthy - “I’m laying off the booze,
in the New Musical Express on the group they are here to see. going down the gym” - as he huddles outside an Italian caff
They score some ‘blues’ from a dubious-looking character outside behind Oxford Street’s Selfridges, and, with lattés and fags for
the venue, glance around the half-empty hall, and for a second warmth, strives to pinpoint just what it is that has driven him on
wonder if they’ve come to the right place. through four decades of music-making.
A few long-haired hippies in kaftans are dotted around, some “Music is everything to me,” he says. “It helps me make sense
standing, some sitting on the floor, all smoking puff in the dark. of the world, provides an escape from it and, yeah, there’s the
But as the band take the stage at five in the morning, there’s a working-class geezer, who’s one of the lads and likes a drink or
small group of spiky-haired punks in mohair jumpers and straight two, but there’s another side as well.”
trousers pogo-ing furiously at the front. Weller stands just slight- Still wrestling with Mod’s Catch 22, Weller is the wilful indi-
ly behind them, chewing gum, right leg shaking in time to the vidual who stands outside, yet seeks the security of the crowd.
music. As Johnny Rotten hangs off the mic, glaring into the The latter need won out in the mid-’90s as he became the
crowd, and snarls “I want you to know that I hate you patriarch of a laddish coterie of ’60s-inspired revanchists,
baby” in a thrilling bastardisation of the Small Faces’ but even when supposedly treading water he could still
What’cha Gonna Do About It, his heart races. ies surprise — like his seraphic Carleen Anderson duet
After the show Weller edges over to bassist Glen ™ Wings Of Speed, inspired by John William Waterhouse’s
Matlock, whois lifting his amp down off the stage. Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece Lady Of Shalott, that closed
Turns out Glen knows who Paul is already. He’d been his Britpop-era hit, Stanley Road.
with The Clash’s Mick Jones to check out The Jam at the It’s this contrary romantic, impelled to rip it up and
Hope & Anchor pub a few weeks before. Weller is amazed, start again, who drives new album Wake Up The Nation,
delighted. He has found kindred spirits. a record mixing reverb and distortion with vintage pop, soul
“The Sex Pistols was an epiphany,” he says today, his head shuffle and raucous rock’n’roll.
nodding furiously. “When they came on stage there was this feel- “We wanted to make a record that sounded urban, tough, to
ing that, This is it, this is our time. They were of my generation, contrast with 22 Dreams’ pastoral sound, because who wants to
speaking to me, they had attitude, were raw, exciting.” make 22 Dreams Part 2? People often think they’ve got me sewn
He’d had little time for the contemporary rock scene (“it was up. They think, ‘He’ll never do that, and that’s really enough
that awful prog rock”) and spent the early ’70s listening to the reason to go and do exactly that. I’ve always been the same, from
music of the previous decade. the beginning. I like upsetting the apple cart.”
“The Pistols plunged me back into the here and now,” says Weller’s refusal to be pigeonholed has taken him to some
Weller. “There was a sense of communion I hadn’t experienced outré places. Notably Jerusalem, the 1987 Style Council film. A
before, an understanding between band and audience and within comment on class that mixed Robin Hood and the Magical Mys-
the audience itself. I’d been waiting for this and hoping for it, tery Tour, it saw our protagonist dressed as King Cnut, wearing
envious that I hadn’t been old enough to go to The Flamingo or waders and sat on a throne by the sea’s edge, instructing the
see Georgie Fame or Stevie Wonder.” incoming waves to retreat.
So began a new phase of Weller’s journey: one of self-discov- Amore recent example: any fool knows Paul Weller will never
ery as much as musical exploration. “Punk introduced a lot of re-form The Jam. Yet here’s Jam bassist Bruce Foxton - a stranger
working-class suburban kids to gig-going,” he says, not the last since the group’s acrimonious split in 1982 - playing on Wake Up
time he will equate musical discovery with class consciousness. The Nation. “Bruce’s wife Pat was really ill a few years ago,” >
“Before that we’d only been to discos. I took Bruce and Rick to explains Weller. “She was such a lovely lady and wantedto —>6
I

108
 THE MOD POET

Happy together: <— see how she was doing. I spoke to power,” says Weller, “it doesn’t go away, it only causes pain. When
with John Weller,
her on the phone and that opened up a I went to see the careers officer at 16, he said to me, ‘What do you
backstage, Wembley
Arena, December 5, dialogue between me and Bruce. She fancy doing when you leave?’ I said, I’m in a band, and he was
1982. passed away sadly, then my dad passed like... (shrugs). Those things inspire you. It’s like, Fuck you. I
away. Losing loved ones brought us thought, I’m going to do something great and people will recog-
closer together. We were nervous to be nise that. No one would have singled me out as someone who'd go
working together again but as soon as on to do something. I was just another number.”
we started playing, it was fine. We didn’t talk about the past.” Pride was Weller’s working-class heritage, but drink was a
The death of Weller’s father on April 22, 2009 brought an end part of that culture too, and the “violence and anger that goes
to one of rock’n’roll’s most venerable partnerships. In his role as hand in hand with that”. In October 1977, Sid Vicious got Weller
father, John Weller had provided unconditional support - “he up against a wall at London’s Speakeasy club, and after the bass-
always said to me, ‘Whatever you want to do you can do it” - ist related with glee how the Pistols had stolen the riff from The
while as manager he had “100 per cent belief” and on the road Jam’s In The City for their then-current single, Holidays In The
“we were inseparable, staying up late, drinking in the best hotel Sun, a fight ensued. Vicious ended up in hospital.
bars. He was my best friend.” “He nutted me, I retaliated, lashed out,” recalls Weller. “I don’t
It would be easy to interpret Wake Up The Nation’s chaotic regret it. It was Sid being a dick. He was so used to people going,
ebb and flow as Weller Jr working through the trauma, but the “Yes Sid, no Sid’, and I didn’t do that. I don’t understand the cult
singer’s not so sure. of Sid. He couldn’t play and he launched a thousand mohicans
“IT loved my dad and still do but I couldn’t bear to see the way and that wasn’t what punk was about. It was about being open to
he was before he died,” he says. “The day after he passed, I came new possibilities.”
down to see him laid out, but I wasn’t in tears. I thought, Thank Were you fuming even behind closed doors?
God you're at peace. I found it comforting. He was in turmoil “Yeah. On reflection a lot of that anger came from my own
beforehand, and I didn’t feel he was my dad anymore.” insecurities and paranoia, an inferiority complex. Being ill-
An amateur boxer in his youth, John Weller drove cabs and educated, the underdog, but symptomatic also of being a kid, the
worked building sites “on the hod”. In Woking, he kept a modest whole teen angst thing. A lot of youth in the ’70s were angry, it
Victorian terraced council house at Number 8 Stanley Road, with was a violent time.”
no heating, no bathroom and an outside toilet. “Imagine no You still sound pretty angry on the new record.
possessions, I wonder if you can?” says Weller. “Well yes I could, “T’ve mellowed, but there’s still that anger inside, that violent
quite easily, because there weren’t any.” streak, and I don’t know where that comes from. It’s who I am,
His mum, Ann, a cleaner, loved music. “She always had the though. But now I’m able to think, I was really out of order last
radio on, but because she had to scrimp and save she only had a night and I will try and put it right. I can say I’m sorry, and there

“My dad understood my passion for music, because he had the same passion for boxing. I likened
him to a boxing trainer, because he could spot someone with potential” - PAUL WELLER

few records: The Beatles’ She Loves You, Roy Orbison’s Oh, was a time when I couldn’t. Very occasionally I will get into a
Pretty Woman, some Pet Clark, Dusty, Matt Monro, the pop fight, but not if can help it. But anger manifests and mainly
I

songs of the day. She likes to tell this story how she took me to see through booze. Situations evolve out of being pissed, someone
an Elvis film when I was young and I was playing in the aisles saying the wrong thing or perceiving things the wrong way.”
with my little plastic guitar. In my mind, that was a sign.”
His father was a Ted, “liked rock’n’roll and Nat ‘King’ Cole. But riting became a healthier channel for Weller, a way of
he would never have followed groups. He understood my passion breaking out of the conventions that constrained him. As
for music, because he had the same passion for boxing, that was The Jam matured from a small-town covers band playing
his thing. I likened him to a boxing trainer, he could spot someone Chuck Berry, Motown and Stax in working men’s clubs
with potential. He saw something in me that I didn’t see.” (“no one was interested until they got pissed, then they just
However, his parents’ relationship could be less than idyllic: wanted to slow dance to us”) to a successful record-making
“As a little kid, only remember them rucking. I'd be sitting on
I trio addressing the concerns of their own generation, Weller
the stairs in our kitchen, dodging plates. They were fiery, found a confidence he didn’t have in other areas of his life.
quick-tempered.” “I used songs to say the things I wanted to say and wished I
Music provided the young Weller with “a world I could escape could articulate in conversation but couldn’t because I was shy.
into”, where being, “working-class, poor, and having the rest of When I was spoken to by an adult I’d go red and have trouble
society looking at me like I’m a piece of shit and factory fodder” answering, so when I told my mum I was going to play my first gig
didn’t mean a thing. “It became my reality, it helped me build this she couldn’t imagine me having the balls to get up on-stage.
little world around me. I created something I Music helped me overcome that shyness. You
could be enclosed in. I didn’t have to care disconnect from that side of your personality
about what went on outside of that.” and you become something else.”
Inside: music and family. Outside: school, English Rose, from The Jam’s third album,
authority, the establishment. In some ways, All Mod Cons, was a breakthrough, signalling
Paul Weller’s window on the world Weller’s transcendence of punk orthodoxy
has changed little in 51 years. On the new and the lyrical constrictions placed on the
record there’s a hard-hitting song called 7&3 working-class boy. In 1978, on tour in the US,
Is The Striker’s Name, which rages with the he was homesick and missing his girlfriend of
same ire and indignation that stoked The Jam’s that time Gill Price. Weller poured his heart
Mr Clean and The Eton Rifles. There’s even a out in song.
pot shot at the Royal family: “the fuckers in the “It was me emotionally naked, speaking
> castle, they’re all bastards too.” openly about being in love. I was aware it
8 “That unequal distribution of wealth and was something that blokes from my —>
 THE MOD POET

background didn’t do. They didn’t reveal their feelings or soul (1984 debut Café Bleu), Claude The soul boy:
bottle-bleached
their sensitive side.” Debussy and Erik Satie (1988’s opulent and suntanned,
Embarrassed by its honesty, Weller left the track unlisted on Confessions Of A Pop Group) and 1986.
the album cover. English Rose acknowledged the inward Chicago house (1989’s doomed Modern-
explorations of Smokey Robinson and Ray Davies, and the ism: A New Decade).
unpretentious verse of the ’60s Liverpool poets. “Whenever I get into any new music,
“A fan had turned me on to Adrian Henri,” says Weller, “and I it takes me over completely, and I want to
learned through those poets that you could be open about your write in that style, explore it fully. There’s
thoughts and feelings and you could juxtapose a grand, classical never any consideration; it’s just, I’ve got to do that.”
image with a street one. I started to write poetry.” His favourite Jam album - the experimental mix of Beatles
Weller’s schoolfriend and sometime Jam guitarist Dave Waller Revolver-style psych and restless, discordant pop that was 1980’s
was the first to demonstrate to the singer that poetry could be for Sound Affects - was the product of just such an immersion.
all. After Waller died from a heroin overdose in 1982, Paul wrote “T was bored by that punky, guitar-driven sound. You’d walk
the ardent eulogy, A Man Of Great Promise, on The Style down the King’s Road and there’d be people with mohicans,
Council’s Our Favourite Shop. posing for tourists. Punk was a disappointment. Then I saw
“Dave was the literary wing of The Jam,” says Weller Gang Of Four at the Nashville Rooms, and a light went on.
today. “He’d play me Donovan and Dylan and make me They were doing something different with that bare-
listen to the lyrics, point out meanings in them I'd boned, cut-down sound. There was a dub reggae influ-
missed because I was only listening to the music back ence: Hugo Burnham, the drummer, played melodica.
then. He taught me the importance of words. He’d read There was a bit of Wilko Johnson in Andy Gill’s playing.
us poetry and he was a right scoundrel, but he wasn’t Joy Division and Wire deconstructed the pop song, they
embarrassed to write poetry. He didn’t see the dichotomy had great melodies, wrote in the pop tradition but came from
of being a pisshead and a junkie and lazing about all day then somewhere else entirely. wanted to see if could come up with
I I

writing all evening. something different for bass, guitar, drums.”

“I was really saddened by his death. The last time I’d seen him Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall also woke Weller up to
was a year before he died — he was in a bad way. We wrote to each contemporary soul. While he was still playing his 60s Motown
other after that, but his death was expected. When someone says, sevens, '70s soul had passed him by. “I wasn’t a big fan of Philly. I
‘Can you lend me 40 to buy a typewriter?’ and you know it will liked The Whispers’ And The Beat Goes On but Off The Wall had
be spent on skag, there’s not much help you can give.” me listening again. You can hear the influence on Pretty Green,
In January 1980 the pair set up Riot Stories, a publishing the shuffle beat on the hi-hat.”
company with a remit to give a platform to street poets. Waller’s When MOJO asks if Sound Affects was an influence on Wake
collection, Notes From Hostile Street, was the first to be Up The Nation’s bracing dissonance, Weller nods. “We used its

“The Jam had become a blokes’ band. Every night there would be a parting of the seas and a
section of the audience would try and kick the shit out of each other” — PAUL WELLER

published, and the imprint also helped launch screenwriter/ sparse, metallic sound as a starting point. Also, the motivations
playwright Tony Marchant. There was also a literary fanzine, behind the records are similar, both then and now. I was
December Child, which featured Paul’s own work. bored with what was going on musically, everything just sounded
“When I’m half in limbo, half in Tesco’s,” went a wry line in a so conservative.”
poem called Weller’s World, Shuttle Flights. Elsewhere, in Apple
Blossom Orchard, a bold piece of prose, he mused on humanity’s is adrenalin-driven flight from musical lassitude may
pursuit of power: “...mankind envies nature. We cannot bear to have led to innovation and critical acclaim but there have
admit that it is stronger than ourselves.” been casualties along the way. His decision to split The Jam
On November 30, 1981, Weller read at Brit post-beat Michael at their 1982 height had a devastating effect. On Bruce. Rick.
Horovitz’s Poetry Olympics at London’s Young Vic. “I really John Weller. The fans. But bounding off the stage at the
enjoyed it,” says Weller. “Michael asked me to do it again recently, group’s last gig, at Brighton Centre on December 11, he felt
and sadly I couldn’t make it. was on tour. He’s someone who is
I no fear or regret, just relief.
still dedicated, passionate, I admire that.” “There was this sense The Jam had become a blokes’ band.
You still write poetry then? Every night there would be a parting of the seas and a section of
“Yeah, I’m always writing, thoughts, bits of prose. Trees and the audience would kick the shit out of each other, which was just
She Speaks on the new album started out as poems. Trees I wrote rude. I’m trying to say and do something here and they are carry-
very quickly and I was just happy to have written it for myself, ing on doing what they do on a Saturday down the terraces. But
expressed what I was feeling and what I wanted to say. It’s anoth- this isn’t Sham 69. This is above that stuff.”
er means of getting stuff out of your head. The process takes over.” Did he care that people might get hurt by the band’s split?
Is being gripped by the musea little like going mad? “T did care how The Jam fans were going to feel. I did care how
“Yeah, when it’s ready to come out I crawl off into a corner. It’s Bruce, Rick and my dad felt, but what’s the last Rolling Stones
like (puts head down, grits teeth, grrrr...) you’re not in control, it record you bought apart from the greatest hits? It was selfish, but
just comes out, and you’re a conductor for it. When lyrics come if you want to move on in life, you have to be that selfish.”
that way they’re often the best, but it only happens twice on every If it ain’t broke, break it anyway: with Weller, success often
album if you are lucky. Sometimes when I look back at some brings chaos in its wake. “He sabotages his own happiness,”
lyrics, Pl think, Wow, that’s poetry, and it confuses me as to how ex-wife Dee C Lee has said. “He definitely did in our scenario.”
I managed to write that but I can’t talk and don’t talk like that “The time Dee is talking about, the mid-’90s, I did do that,”
in everyday life.” Weller concedes. “There was a sense that things were going too
utterstock

Weller’s biography is a litany of epiphanies: literary, political, well, we were too happy, too comfortable, everything seemed too
musical. All three at once, it seemed, when he led The Style Coun- nice. There was a sense that for me as a writer and an artist
cil from 1983 to ’89, leading to albums fired by Blue Note jazz and I might lose my edge. I had to break the shape up, re-arrange —>
= Ww
 THE MOD POET

€— things. With Stanley Road the turmoil was definitely feed- He politely asks the film crew if they could occupy themselves
ing into the lyrics. There’s the line in The Changingman: ‘Numbed in the local pub for the next hour or two, then he makes tea
by the effect/Aware of the muse/Too in touch with myself/I light and we settle down for further discussion; subjects to include
the fuse.’ That’s about the process, of causing chaos around you.” politics, Bowie (Weller is currently reading Thomas Jerome Sea-
Where success in The Jam had upped Weller’s songwriting brook’s Bowie In Berlin and admits to a Low influence on Wake
game, praise as a solo artist appeared to send him off the rails. Up The Nation) and the enduring relevance of Mod. His studio is
“I was having too much ofa good time to see that I was hurting itself a statement of his enthusiasms: signed Curtis Mayfield and
the people around me. I was going from strength to strength Small Faces photographs on the wall and a jukebox with singles
musically and that went to my head. I was doing at 30 what I by Lee Dorsey, The Shirelles, Jimmy Reed, Sandie Shaw and
should have been doing at 18. From 1993 to the end of the ’90s, I Dusty Springfield.
had a problem - we’re talking about drink and drugs - which is On Wake Up The Nation there’s a soulful, Dusty-style ballad,
boring because it’s such a cliché. Every rock biog you read, it’s No Tears To Cry. Penance, perhaps, for Weller’s 1983 purchase of
going swimmingly until they get into coke and then it goes down- the old Philips studio in Marble Arch where Dusty recorded,
hill. But in the beginning there’s a romance to it. There have subsequently rechristened Solid Bond. In 1986, smitten with
always been poets and authors indulging, trying to find new the polished modern soul sounds of Alexander O’Neal and Anita
worlds and create great art. You buy into that.” Baker, he ripped out the analogue desk and replaced it with
You were teetotal at the end of The Jam and beginning of The a digital one.
Style Council, though. Was that a reaction against that culture? “I know, stupid, what can I say? I wanted to recreate that ’80s
“No, I was overdoing it. I felt had to knock it on the head for
I soul sound. But I’m abig fan of Johnny Franz [producer and A&R
a while. There was no one incident, I just didn’t want to wake up man at Philips, who worked with Dusty Springfield and The
with a hangover every day. When I stopped I was a pain to be Walker Brothers in the 60s]. His orchestral arrangements really
around, I was disapproving and horrible. When people got pissed, connect with the emotions and that’s definitely what we were
I’d go to my room and make people feel uncomfortable for having trying to do on that song.”
a good time. But as soon as you put coke into the equation, it will Wake Up The Nation, says Weller, is “a rallying cry to get
always go downhill. I’ve never seen any exceptions, me included.” people up onto their feet and to do something about this sea of
Only once did Weller consider giving up: when, in 1989, mediocrity we are drowning in.” Current bugbears include the
having made The Style Council’s fifth album Modernism: A New inevitable X-Factor (“It’s a bit off when you’ve got Cheryl Cole
Decade - which pinned unifying lyrics to gospel, James Brown judging who can sing”) and major-label A&R (“The only qualifi-
funk and Chicago house - Polydor rejected it. “That was when cation you need to be an A&R man today is liking football — it’s
I thought, This is where it comes to a stop. I’ll have to see what all down to what team you support”).
else I can do.” Elsewhere, there’s evidence that the social politics nurtured at
the birth of the ’80s (a visit with CND youth spokesperson Anna-

“It might have looked an odd sight, this bloke all dressed up riding a scooter around Woking
in 1975. I'd been a suedehead in the early ’70s, so it wasn’t a huge leap to Mod” — PAUL WELLER

At his lowest ebb, with no record deal and no band, Weller joy David to the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common in
visited a psychotherapist. 1981 “had a huge effect on me”) were not completely curdled by
“Pve always had mood swings, depression,” he says, “where I the disillusionment of Red Wedge: “The politicians I met were
get down about everything, I can’t see anything good, can’t see just in it for themselves.”
what I’ve got going for me. I only went for two sessions because it In fact, the solo Weller still writes message songs: the anti-war
was all, ‘Tell me about your father,’ and I realised that wasn’t Whirlpool’s End on Stanley Road, A Bullet For Everyone on
going to help me. What did help was the process of time. In the 2002’s Illumination, Savages on 2005’s As Is Now. “Political
last 10 years they’ve lessened, just with me getting to know myself songs but from a different perspective,” reckons Weller, “about
better as a person, how I work, and having children, that’s helped the effect political decisions have on us as human beings.”
too, being responsible for other people and seeing them happy.” How did he feel when the BNP won two seats in last year’s
European elections?
week on from our first meeting, and Weller’s workplace “They’ve profited by people not being arsed to vote. I’m guilty
~ Black Barn studio near Woking — is bustling. Someone on of that and it’s made me realise I have to use my vote to keep the
a stepladder is moving interrogation-bright TV lights while nutters out. I’1l vote Labour because I could never bring myself to
guitars are strategically positioned around the room. As the vote Tory, but I’ve got no time for any of them. They’re ail liars,
plans are put in place for an afternoon shoot for a promo- self-interested, self-centred. It disgusts me.”
tional film, Paul’s manager Claire runs through his itinerary Weller fiddles with his freshly trimmed Steve Marriott barnet.
for the week. His main concern: can he still Straightening his cords and glancing at his
ferry his kids to and from school? shoes, and finding all shipshape, his shoulders

nell
A tanned Weller is back from a week’s hol- relax. He claims to find nothing strange in
iday in Barbados with his partner, Hannah, his adoption of Mod in 1975, some 10 years
whom he met four years ago in New York and after its heyday.
set up home with 18 months ago. When the “T guess it might have looked an odd sight to
pair first got together, unfortunate footage of see this bloke all dressed up riding on a scooter
them on holiday in Prague, somewhat the around Woking. But I’d been a suedehead at
worse for wear, appeared on the internet.
“For those on the outside it looked like a
wrinkly old rocker having a mid-life crisis,” he
AND the beginning of the ’70s. The love of clothes,
listening to Motown and reggae 45s spun at the
youth clubs, it wasn’t much of a leap to the Mod
says, “but it wasn’t. We’re very much in love. attitude. Then I read an article on Mod by Nick
I don’t think I’ve ever been this much in love. Logan in the NME. The way he wrote, the >
I wasn’t happy and I am now.” photos, it really connected.” é

114
 THE MOD POET

A @

So too did the LP-sized booklet in The Who’s 1973 Reviews of the record men- Land
ahoy!:
with
The Style
album Quadrophenia. “After seeing those pictures tioned AMM and Stockhausen, Council,
The Lodgers video
. .
I bought my first scooter, Lambretta GP 150 for 70,
a
prompting him to buy records by shoot, 1985.
borrowed the money off my old man. I’m still trying to both artists. Which, in turn, led
find out who makes the trainers he’s wearing on the LP him in turn to 2009’s eldritch
cover.” He also fell for the Small Faces, “the perfect band. psych nugget Broadcast And The
They looked like four quarters of a whole, they had street suss Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of
and were smart.” And R&B and soul music — he’s a regular DJ at The Radio Age...
Keb Darge’s Lost & Found soul club at London’s Madame Jojo’s. “That made a big impression. I bought Broadcast’s back
“For me, Mod is always evolving, you make it what you want it catalogue and they changed my perception of things. Their music
to be. But I’m not trying to turn the nation on to Mod. I do it for sounds wonky, like it’s going to fall apart at any moment but
myself. Most Mods will say the same. I’ll get a pair of trousers it doesn’t.”
made up with a little kick [flare] to them, and no one else is Wake Up The Nation is a journey further out into the
going to notice, but I know that kick’s there and that’s all that unknown, with an aberrant bunch of companions, including
matters. I don’t care if I’m a figure of ridicule, I’ve got this Mod Kevin Shields, British session legend Clem Cattini and Move
world I can exist in.” drummer Bev Bevan. They join a diverse pool of Weller collabo-
rators: Steve Winwood, Graham Coxon, Bobby Gillespie,
rtists in middle age are forgiven for settling into a Dr John, Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Terry Callier, Robert
groove, and that would certainly describe Weller’s 2005 Wyatt. And he’s already planning the next album.
album As Is Now: heartfelt, energetic, but unapologetically “It’s probably impossible to invent a totally new music but
straightahead, it proved to be his lowest-charting since that’s the place I’m starting from, because I still think there is
1991’s solo debut. It made him rethink. something else out there. I want to explore that notion of
“T had to shake things up, I’d gone as far as I could with avant-garde mood music more.”
myband,” he says now. “We’d been together a long time. I needed A sonic adventurer charting new musical galaxies? Meet the
to instigate a change to become inspired.” ‘new’ Paul Weller, perhaps not that different from the ‘old’ Paul
Out went drummer Steve White, a part of the Weller furniture Weller after all...
since 1984: “There were no hard feelings, it was time to move on “I’m always waiting to be turned on by the next thing,” he says.
for both of us.” About to turn 50, Weller grabbed his chance to “be “I remember someone giving me Jimmy Smith’s Bashin’ in the
as indulgent as possible, do what I wanted. I thought, Why not early ’80s. That got me into jazz. Then through jazz, and Branford
celebrate with a double album? I’d not done one before. I didn’t Marsalis’s Romances For Saxophone — where he recorded
think how it would sell, didn’t care, I just wanted to make it.” straight versions of Debussy, Satie - I got into classical music.
The result, 2008’s 22 Dreams, was his biggest-selling album Through The Isley Brothers’ Givin’ It Back and their cover of
since Stanley Road, and the most diverse and daring. With Ohio I got Neil Young. Through reading reviews of the last album
elements of soul, rock’n’roll, folk, avant-garde and psychedelic I got electronica. I’m still open to the magic. There are so many
electronica, it took Weller to “a space I’d never been to”. possibilities out there. Why shut yourself off to any of them?”

115
 PAUL’S JUKEBOX

“GONNA PLAY ALL THE RECORDS...”

Paul Weller bought Sgt. Pepper when he was 10, marking the start of a lifetime
ofvinyl addiction. Here he chooses eight albums that sent his world spinning.
Interview by Chris Catchpole.

LITTLE RICHARD come round just to get the money together of stufflike that. The thing I can remember
Here’s Little Richard to buy it. It used to be in a little newsagents really well was Sex Machine by James
called John Menzies in Woking High Brown, which is one of my all-time favour-
Specialty, 1957 Street. They had a cabinet in the front of ite records. There was a dance on at the
«> were both into the shop and they had it in there for at least football club in Woking every Thursday
They
ayear. I remember constantly walking past which I used to go to and the other thing
rock’n’roll, my mum and
dad. They used to win jive it and just looking at it and thinking, “I was fairgrounds. I don’t know why, but
HERE'S
competitions, I’d see pic-
,
fucking want that record.” they used to play really hip tunes. Long
tures of my dad with his I was a massive Beatles fan, that’s an Shot Kick De Bucket/ Liquidator [a dou-
J
'
Ri
»
,
quiff and his Teddy Boy
understatement. I loved everything they
did and still do. I just thought it was all
ble A-side by The Pioneers and Harry
And The Allstars], what we used to call
gear on. My mum especially was very much
into music. She was still a young woman, amazing. I love the trip, the journey they skinhead but it was rocksteady, really. It’s
she was only 18 when she had me. They took everyone on with them. Every record that thing of the British working-class love
both went to see Bill Haley when he played was different, you never knew what to affair with black music. Whatever form it
in the ’50s. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, expect. There are so few artists who can do takes, reggae, soul, funk, it seems to ring
there was all that sort of thing in our house. that, to change every year and go in a dif- a bell with people.
Slippin’ And Slidin’ by Little Richard was ferent direction but still take all your fans
something that stuck with me from my with you. That’s still something I aspire to. DR FEELGOOD
childhood, but I loved all his stufffrom that Thad a chest of drawers in my room and
I don’t know where I kept my clothes, but I
Down By The Jetty
time, all that early stuffis fucking amazing. United Artists, 1975
Although Elvis is crowned the king of kept my Beatles records in the drawers. My
rock’n’roll, for me, it’s Little Richard. I just whole fucking bedroom was a shrine to Wilko [Johnson, guitar-
them. It was just pictures everywhere. Dr. Feelgood
love the wildness of these records, the ist] is fucking brilliant.
abandon on it. It sounds like four or five They were everything to me. Apart from He’s an amazing writer, a
people in a room just going mad, and that’s writing fabulous songs and brilliant music, great songwriter and a
the spirit of rock’n’roll. Obviously, the ’60s they go beyond that. For me personally, great English lyricist. He
happened and music expanded and took they opened up other worlds. It was like,
betty
fy The
was probably the first
everyone on a different journey, but that’s life doesn’t have to be this dull and this
guitar hero for me in the ’70s. Up to that
still the roots of it to me. Even when I suburban - there are other possibilities out
point it had only been the ’60s people that
first started playing at 14, we did all there. I don’t know if I would have got to I had looked up to, but he was the first
rock’rroll covers because we knew them, that without The Beatles. Even as a
person I thought had that raw energy and
we were brought up on them and because 10-year-old, they suggested other possibil- real swagger and danger in his playing.
they had three chords and were fairly easy ities in life. That there was more to life than
to play. Although I’m sure our versions They were brilliant live, absolutely
just getting up and going to school and brilliant. There was nothing else like it
were shocking. getting a factory job at the end of it - they around at the time.
were all those things for me. It was a good two years before I saw the
THE BEATLES Pistols as well. Down By The Jetty is a real
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely JAMES BROWN pivotal record for me. Even though they
Hearts Club Band Soul Classics were doing R&B it was really different. It
was short, spiky, and it had a violence to it.
Parlophone, 1967 Polydor, 1972
Compared to Barclay James Harvest or
The first album I bought WhenI was a bit of a sue- something it was just like, Fuck! It was
myself was Sgt. Pepper, dehead in my early teens, definitely a big influence on The Jam. It’s
hich I didn’t buy in ’67, I Motown was massive, always been the same for me, whenever
“| bought it a year later probably bigger then I’ve had an epiphany or whatever it’s
,
am

when I was 10 because it than it was in the ’60s. always made me go out and copy it or try
took me a year to save up Actually, there were quite and use it in some way. I definitely incor-
for it7
it can remember having a sale of the a lot of records that were reissued, like porated elements of Wilko’s playing into
toys in my bedroom and having my friends Dancing In The Street was big again, a lot mine, or tried to anyway.

116
 PAUL’S JUKEBOX

Something else:
The Kinks, Top Of The
Pops, May 18, 1967.

THE KINKS can feel this summer breeze coming in.

I know it’s ahymn to God and all that but
Something Else By The Kinks it feels like that, it’s got a spiritual element
Pye, 1967 to it.
Ray Davies opened me up
as a songwriter. I knew THE LIBERTINES
all the singles from when Up The Bracket
I was a kid in the ’60s.
Rough Trade, 2002
When The Jam went on
our first American tour WhenI heard [debut sin-
in ’77, you were able to buy all The Kinks |
gle] What A Waster I
original records over there. remember
|

really wish I’'d written it.

coming back with Something Else and I’ve been trying to work
Face To Face, things I’d never heard of at the word “cunt” into a
the time. That was a definite influence on song for years, it’s more
[third Jam LP] All Mod Cons. Just the way difficult than you’d think. Especially “two
Ray writes, his character songs and all bob cunt”, that’s fucking genius. He’s a
that sort of thing were the main direct great writer, Pete Doherty. It’s shamea

influences on me. Waterloo Sunset is prob- he’s got his demons, but when he wants to
ably my quintessential Kinks song but be, he’s right on the money. WhenI first
there’s so many of them. As a lesson in heard them, whoever put me onto it said,
songwriting that’s hard to beat. It’s got “You should hear this because it really
everything - the arrangement, the melody, sounds like The Jam,” which I can sort of
the chordal structure, the words, the sub- see. It’s no bad thing. I remember playing
ject matter’s a bit different... To any aspir- it to Noel Gallagher and he loved it as
ing songwriter you’d hold that up to them well. Without sounding all fucking boring
as great songwriting. and old, it’s a similar thing as with Amy
Winehouse - it’s a shame some of these
JOHN COLTRANE people with so much talent leave so little
in the world. If you’re going to fuck your-
A Love Supreme self up, at least leave a bit more work. It’s a
Impulse!, 1965 shame with the Libs because they could
Towards the end of The have been fucking great.
Ato Sealalatl
Jam days in the early
’80s, I was up at Polydor BUJU BANTON
and getting some free ‘Til Shiloh
records off the A&R Loose Cannon, 1995
man and getting turned
on to Jimmy Smith and people like that, It’s my favourite album of
and this led on from that. I delved into the the last 25 years. What
roots of Mod, the modern jazz thing, I’m looking at is what a
reading [Colin MacInnes novel] Absolute constantly great record it
Beginners, all those influences. I would is, track after track.
have heard Love Supreme around that 4} That’s difficult, especial-
time whenI first got into jazz, but I didn’t ly when you’ve listened to Revolver or
get it all at the time. It’s only been in the Odessey And Oracle, your benchmarkk gets
last 10 years or so that I’ve thought all of pretty high. There’s not many albums like
a sudden, “Fucking hell, that’s amazing”, that where every track is great. The first
and understood it. It’s one of my favourite Arctics record, Definitely Maybe and
records now. It’s like a lot of music, you What’s The Story... are out there but there
have to be in the right place and the right ain’t too many of them. If I was a kid now
time to receive it, really, and for itto mean I probably would be part of this download-
something to you. I love the openness of ing one track thing, which freaked me out
it, ithas a real al fresco feel to it. It sounds when I heard about it, but I’d probabl
like you’ve opened the windows and you be doing the same thing if I was 16. @

119
TSEC ac:
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4
_
 THE INTERVIEW 2002

He arrived on the In black-and-white:

Weller, Canada, March

punk scene as an
1981; (previous spread)
recording All Mod Cons,
RAK Studios, London,
October 1978.

angry teenager,
became Mod icon
nd ace songwriter,
then found freedom
in a left-wing soul-jazz
collective. Here,
Paul Weller relives
his extraordinary
1970s and 80s...
SUMMER 2002...
MOJO is sat in Paul Weller’s studio near Woking, where
he’s just played four new demos. Three of the tracks are really
cool, but one is exceptional. It has a sampled horn intro, uplifting
vocals and gospel backing. Has it got a title? “No, but I’m thinking
of calling the [next] album Illumination,” Weller says. Then he
plays us his emotive take on Billy Preston’s Will It Go Round In
Circles, recorded with Jools Holland And His Orchestra.
Later this afternoon, we’ll end up dancing around the studio
with Paul’s mum, Ann, to a box of 45s the singer has brought
along with him. But for now he has the ominous task of reassess-
ing his years with The Jam and The Style Council, taking in, as he
puts it, “the occasional dodgy barnet” along the way.
“T used to find it difficult talking about The Jam,” he admits.
“Every question would be, ‘Why'd you split up?’ I needed a break
but I’ve proved my point with my solo records. I’ve done what
I wanted to do. I’m even playing old Jam tunes in my acoustic set
Getty

now. It’s enjoyable. OK - fire away...”

122
aay
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soa
 THE INTERVIEW 2002

The new art school:

The Jam, the RCA,
London, April 29, 1977.

€— Your debut single In The City - your musical tribute everyone was still stuck in that aggressive sound. With tracks like
to London? It’s Too Bad and Fly we showed a much softer side. We were one
Yeah, that’s where it all seemed to be happening. Life there of the few who didn’t mind playing love songs. I don’t have a prob-
seemed so removed from sleepy Woking. There was that whole lem about being honest and open about love. It stems back to
thing about boredom as well. Loads of punk songs were about Lennon, Davies and Townshend.
boredom and it was like, “Well you should come and live in the
suburbs where there’s literally nothing going on except drinking
A lot has been written about the similarity between Start!
and fighting.” London seemed so exciting and it was that feeling and The Beatles’ Taxman, but for me it’s as much
we were trying to capture - not just on the single but on the
influenced by Syd Barrett.
album too. We’d make pilgrimages - I used to buy my Yeah, that’s what I was trying to do with the guitar solo.
records at Rock On when they had a stall in Soho market.
I wanted to see as many gigs as possible. I saw the Pistols
y I’ve always loved those early Pink Floyd singles, I was
only nine or 10 when I heard See Emily Play and I
and The Clash. It was mainly the 100 Club I frequented thought it was fantastic. Syd’s got an otherworldly
~ that
two-day punk festival had a big effect. went to
I quality to him. I really like Vegetable Man and Scream
Malcolm McLaren's shop once on the King’s Road but I They Last Scream. People reduce him to this tragic
couldn’t afford anything. That was a big disappointment. figure; but they fail to see a human being going through
pain and mental anguish too.
But in 1977, The Jam had already been going for five
years, in one form or another... In Start! You sing, “If we communicate for two minutes
The Jam were actually going a long time before punk, but it gave only it will be enough!” Who is that directed at?
us something to focus on. We felt isolated before that came along. I was trying to say something about pop music. In two minutes
We’d play all these working men’s clubs in Surrey where the you can communicate so much to so many people. I wanted to
typical punter on a Saturday night had to get three-parts pissed point out the whole value of pop music, whether it’s In The
before he’d get up and dance. It was all good grounding, though. Midnight Hour or Syd Barrett or whoever I’m talking about.
With punk it was the first time we were playing to our generation. I can’t think of any other medium or art form where communica-
We could sing about things our audience could relate to. The tion is so direct. Pop music is as important a cultural force as
actual record was our live set committed to vinyl. anything else. It shouldn’t be derided. The sleeve was also trying

“Syd Barrett has an otherworldly quality to him. People reduce him to this tragic figure,
but they fail to see the human being going through mental anguish” — PAUL WELLER

One the second single, All Around The World, you sing: to depict this; we made it minimalist because we thought the
“You can’t dismiss what’s gone before...” Is this your
message was clearer that way.
musical manifesto?
I can’t remember much about the song, but yeah, one of the major Was Sound Affects influenced by your interest in poetry at
the time?
points of music for me is being able to hand it down to other peo-
ple so they can make it into something of their own. Music is a Yeah, I was reading Shelley. His poem The Masque Of Anarchy,
positive force but punk was just saying “destroy” — it was nega- printed on the back cover, was sent to me by a fan. I wanted to
tive. don’t include The Clash in this, though. I always thought
I show that poetry wasn’t just for the highbrow. I was trying to do
what they said was positive. something different lyrically, born out of that idea on tracks like
Dreamtime. I was writing what I considered to be prose and
There’s a clear Ray Davies influence on your third album, poetry first, then putting it to music, as opposed to sitting there
All Mod Cons, with the cover of The Kinks’ David Watts and thinking verse, chorus, verse. Some of the lyrics are slightly
tracks like Mr Clean and Billy Hunt. disjointed because of this, which I quite like.
Yeah, he’s a genius. He’s one of the few English
writers who wrote about England. With Did Le
What about That’s Entertainment, which
You See His Name? I love how he sets up the THE JAM- SOUND AFFECTS is very poetic.
scenario about the guy who gasses himself and That’s Entertainment is partly derived from a
he’s found in a maisonette. Those images are poem by [a fan] Paul Drew. I wrote the song
bleak but counterbalanced by the melodies, real quick when I got home from the pub. It’s
which aren’t jolly but are very tuneful. That another very English song. I can still see all the
tension is good and I tried to capture that. images that inspired me when play it. I used
to do this fanzine in the early ’80s. I brought
English Rose wasn’t listed on the sleeve. out a couple of poetry books on Riot Stories
Was that a nod to the secret track, Her {his publishing company] and he sent the
Majesty, on The Beatles’ Abbey Road? poem in. I wrote to ask him if it was OK to use
> No. I was more embarrassed because it was so it. He’s probably cursing me now (laughs).
& soft. It was very different at the time because Musically it’s pretty different too. only —>
I

125
 Sock it to’em:
(opposite) backstage,
Top Rank, Reading,
June 13, 1977; (this
page) computing the
cost of loving,
early 1986.
 THE INTERVIEW 2002

Long hot summer: with

Style Council's Dee C Lee
and Mick Talbot, 1985.

€— had three or four songs written and our producer Vic island mentality. The France obsession stemmed partly from
[Coppersmith-Heaven] got a lot of flak for the time we took to the jazz influence and partly the Mod thing. Mod was all-encom-
make the album. But we were trying to stretch ourselves. Gang Of passing, taking the best bits from every culture, which I thought
Four, who I had seen at the Nashville in ’78 or ’79, were an influ- was brilliant.
ence. Then we went ona TV show with Joy Division and it was the
same with them. The madness and feedback at the beginning of Café Bleu is very overlooked these days.
The Eton Rifles on Setting Sons stems from Joy Division. I’m still proud of it. Me Ship Came In! Could have
been better, but Here’s One That Got Away,
Is it fair to say that with the follow-up, The Gift, your song- Headstart For Happiness, You’re The Best
writing had transcended The Jam? Thing are good tunes. I like Blue Café, The
I was trying to branch out to include horns and keyboards; I was Whole Point Of No Return. Out of 13 tracks
getting into soul more. The track Trans-Global Express is a there are five instrumentals, and some of the
blatant nick from World Column’s So Is The Sun. I heard the other tracks have other artists singing instead of
original off [top Northern Soul collector] Ady Croasdell. It wasn’t me, which was unheard of at the time. I didn’t even
an intellectual consideration - it was just, I’ve got to do this. play on some tracks like The Paris Match. We re-
recorded it with Tracey Thorn singing. I didn’t write it with her in
Did you tell Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler that The Jam mind but I thought it was a really good song and sent her and Ben
were going to split during sessions for The Bitterest Pill? Watt a tape of my version. They [Everything But The Girl] dida
It was frosty, to say the least. We had a meeting while we were version of English Rose and I played a gig with them at the ICA.
recording and I said I didn’t want to continue. As for the song, I I thought she’d sound right and Ben played guitar. The fact that
wanted to write a classic duet, a soul love song. It was the first I didn’t play on it didn’t bother me. I sat back and just said yes or
time I’d collaborated with a female vocalist [Jenny McKeown of no to what I liked.

“Early house music was uplifting. I wasn’t a clubber or into E. I was just into the music and the
latest imports, that Mod thing. People were horrified ’'d done a house track” — PAUL WELLER

The Belle Stars]. We knew we were winding down and my head What jazz records were you listening to?
was elsewhere. I was getting into jazz, I wanted to get back to my I was heavily into Blue Note at the time, listening to Art Blakey
Mod roots. Beat Surrender, our final single, acted as a kind of and John Coltrane, hence the cover. There’s a quote from Jean-
bridge between The Jam and The Style Council. Paul Marat on the back sleeve. A fan sent it in and I thought it was
Tell me about Speak Like A Child - The Style Council’s
so right for the LP. The whole CND thing was happening and I
debut single. just thought, “How much foresight did we have?” (Quotes)
“Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to
The title’s from Herbie Hancock and there’s the Northern soul
protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by
logo, that whole Torch thing. The Style Council was a whole pack- servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they
-
age. I was very sure about the way everything should be this is
the right way and everything else is shit. It was liberating after
can, with a flick of the finger, tear a million of you into pieces.”
I was Polydor’s golden boy. During the first year [1983] when we
The Jam. The split had been such a big deal. It had been on the
didn’t have an album, the MD begged me to put the three singles
news, and upset a lot of fans. But it was time to move on. The Jam we'd released out as a mini-LP. We put out Introducing... in
had made great records and had good times but there had been a
lot of pressure and I was still only a young man. Europe, but I wouldn’t let them put it out in the UK.
Did you set out to write a political album with Our
What was your vision for the group?
Favourite Shop?
My first thoughts with the Council were to
have fun. It was a huge weight off my shoul- No, it’s just where my head was at the time.
ders. The critics thought I was being frivolous
There was Thatcher and the miners’ strike. In
but with The Jam we were always touring, and the US there was Reagan, the US airbases and
when I wasn’t touring I was writing and when Trident. It’s good album. [ still like it. Home-
a

I wasn’t writing I was recording. It was nice to breakers is a good song. Mick had a chord
step back from that. I had my first holiday sequence and the melody for the verse. I added
around this time. the words. Down In The Seine and A Man Of
Great Promise - about my friend Dave Waller
What were you trying to say on the - are still good. Come To Milton Keynes is
A Paris EP? about all those new towns that were springing
England was so boring and stodgy at the time. up. All Gone Away is about losing the local
Shutterstock

We had been able to travel and we were trying community, with corner shops and industries
to show that there were other ways of living. It shutting down. The cover was my idea - an
wasn’t just about little Englanders and that imaginary shop with everything you like in it.
The Cost of Loving got a lot of flak at the time. Movin’ from New Jersey. The early house stuff was positive, like
Yeah, it was our modern soul album. I wrote most of it while we Curtis Mayfield, about reality but uplifting. wasn’t a clubber. I
I

were in the studio. I like Heaven’s Above, Waiting, Cost Of Lov- wasn’t into E. was just into the music, that Mod thing of picking
I

ing, It Didn’t Matter. I thought that would do well as a single. up the latest R&B imports.

Were you worried about the follow-up, Confessions Of A Didn’t Modernism: A New Decade, the final Style Council
Pop Group? It ended up alienating quite a lot of fans. album that Polydor refused to release, take the house
No, I was a lot more focused. I knew what I wanted. It was con- thing one step further?
ceptual, like on the track Confessions 1, & 3 where we linked
2 Yeah, it was ahead of its time. I don’t know how it would have
little bits together. The title came from the Confessions series of done commercially if it had been released, probably not very well.
novels (Confessions Of A Window Cleaner, etc). On the title There weren’t many people doing it in England, only a few clubs
track, after Mick Talbot does a solo, I do a guitar solo and Dee C and a few DJs putting stuff out, but it was where my head was.
Lee does a Dictaphone. You can’t quite hear them on the finished Tracks like Spiritual Feeling, Sure Is Sure, High On Hope, World
record, though. There are some good songs on there - The Chang- Must Come Together I like, but a lot of my audience were horri-
ing Of The Guard, It’s A Very Deep Sea - very autobiographical. fied I did a house tune.
The Story Of Someone’s Shoe was influenced by Place De
Tell me about the one-off King Truman single, Like A Gun,
Vendéme by The MJQ and The Swingle Singers.
recorded for Acid Jazz in early 1989.
The 1989 single Promised Land was the first time you Yeah, that was me, Mick, Dee, a drum machine and a sax player
covered a contemporary artist. — I
can’t remember his name. The track had a P-funk vibe, with
Marco Nelson, a mate from the Young Disciples, played me the my vocals repeating a phrase and the sax blowing over the top.
Joe Smooth original. I instantly liked it. I liked a lot of those house There was talk of us signing to Talkin’ Loud. I went up for a
tunes at that time, what people call deep house. I recognised the meeting with their head, Dave Bates, who I met through Gilles
gospel and R&B link. Forget about the fact that it’s all machines Peterson, Talkin’ Loud’s A&R man. I had my demos with me and
—
there’s great gospel piano, gospel melodies. It’s R&B 30 years we were chatting away and he said, “It really puts me off when
later. used to buy imports from this shop on the Goldhawk
I
people put on their tape then walk out of the room.” I was like,
Road in Shepherd’s Bush and from City Sounds in “Yeah, yeah”, so I put my tape on, said, “Where’s the toilet?”, and
Holborn, tracks on the DJ International label from Chicago, or that was the end of it.

129
Tae
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