Revisited: Paul Weller - All Back To Mine - Bbc Transcript

Source Revisited - a occasional series of things that were up and then they weren't.

Recent reading about the Lost & Found - Real R&B And Soul cd comp release (that was put together by Paul Weller and Keb Darge) led me to making a mental note to have a dig for this the next time was messing around in the backend of soul source.

This was originally up on here in the late 90s and would say that my original source was perhaps a grab from the BBCwebsite.

At the time found this an interesting read, and as still think that's still the case and looking around there doesn't seems to be any sign of this elsewhere online. Thought it would be a good way to do the "two birds" thing and use it as an opener for getting the source revisited series underway and also as an opener for the new freebasing section of the revamped articles feature.

1998.02.08 All Back To Mine, BBC Radio 1

Paul Weller interview from the BBC

All Back To Mine was produced by Somethin' Else for BBC Radio 1.

Paul: So what's the aim of this? What's the plot? Is it just me playing my favourite records or records I've got a lot to say about? Otherwise it could just end up me playing The Who all the time.

(Phone rings - Paul answers)

Hello.... Um ..... only thing is I'm in the middle of doing this radio programme. Call me back in a couple of hours - if not I'll call you. Alright, see ya ...

So, shall we start then?

Plays Bill Withers - Harlem

Q: So have you ever used any of those kinds of riffs on your own things?

Paul: It isn't just kind of copying a riff - it might have been years ago when you first start - but it isn't just a question of copying a riff, it's more just a sound. Even just 1 sound or drum sound, or it goes beyond actual sounds and it's more of a vibe. I don't mean a spiritual thing but something in the music where you think, I'd like to get that on the record.

Plays Lee Dorsey - Everything I do Gonh Be Funky

Q: Those records from that period, they've got such a rawness about them.

Paul: The references, R'n'B you know, American black music, soul music, funk, which I would have heard.

Q: But how?

Paul: Dances. We had a disco every Friday, Thursday in probably about 1970/ 71.

Q: But youth club?

Paul: No, not a youth club it was a dance. You know flashing lights and DJ ... that sort of thing. It was post Skin Head. You know it was Suede Head and it was mainly stacks of Motown and it was Reggae as well. James Brown I suppose but at the time you could buy them in normal hardware stores (both laugh) normal record shops, you know.

But that music was mainstream in a way. You could go into this a local record shop and buy Sex Machine because there was enough demand for that record - especially Motown that had its biggest time in England in the early 70s. I mean a lot of those things were re-issues from the mid-sixties and a whole new generation got into it, you know like post-mod.

This next record I'm going to play comes from that era where again, you had another generation of people who had their own clubs, their own music together and they had their own import shops, all that stuff and it just keeps going. To me it's just like a big family tree.

And although I wasn't part of any of the Acid House scene, I remember going down the King's Road and seeing all the kids wearing their Acid clothes and cues outside the shoe shops for the wannabees , you know, Kickers.

Plays Ten City - One Kiss Will Make It Better

and tries a mix into Smokey Robinson's More Love .

Paul: Julian Palmer played this to me and he got into a lot of this independent soul, which was all these independent soul label in America knocking out a few copies...

Q: From what period?

Paul: Mid 80s but it's still going on, it's never stopped you know what I mean? But it became popular in the mid 80s. Still great records come out now but you never get to hear them - hardly anyone's playing them or even getting your hands on them.

Plays Frederick - Move On

Q: You said you'd heard that in the 80s and you were actually bringing that into the music as well, weren't you - into The Style Council ...

Paul: In a way, The Cost Of Loving, the name of the album we made around that time, 85/86 was me being influenced by these records by what people call independent soul - little soul labels in The States, you know. I really liked the kind of rawness of them, they were obviously made on low budgets - that kind of sound and there's lots of little riffs we nicked from that album. Night After Night by David C, we knicked the bass line from that for It Didn't Matter.

Q: But in its own little way it was a very mod thing, wasn't it?

Paul: Yeah, because it was like trying to go out and buy all these imports again and the whole root of all of it, what you come back to at the end of it is American music.

Q: 'Cause even the rejected album was very obviously a mod thing

Paul: Yeah I though it was, it was even called The New Decade Of Modernism ...

Q: That's what the original title was? But no one got it?

Paul: No, no one got it because it was never released it was turned down. It was banned from the waist up.

It's the same thing for me. It's like The Stones buying The Howlin' Wolf records on import, trying to chase around town to find it, covering it - from the one point of view they probably got a hit with it and Howlin' Wolf probably died penniless. That vibe I obviously wouldn't agree with but I'm a fan as well and my consideration is more from that angle.

I got a little flack over that at the time if I remember but it was the right move to make at the time for The Style Council. When I heard Garage and Deep House, I just thought that was kind of like soul music's move back to it's roots a bit more. You could hear the piano a lot more and the whole thing of the vocals building - the things I recognise and like. (Lights a fag).

Shall I proceed anyway?(they both laugh). What am I doing anyway?

Q: Making a radio programme

Paul: Oh yeah, where's my script? Producer? ...(they laugh).

Plays Taj Mahal - A Lot Of Love

Q: You know I can't help but notice you're incredibly annul in your collection - I bet there's a colour code on those record boxes.

Paul: Hey don't point at them (they laugh). It's nice to have some assemblance of order in things - that's just my way of doing it but you're right.

Plays Ernst Rangling - Surfing

Paul: I like anything that's good - whatever that means. I was very much a pop kid and I liked all The Move singles, Kinks, The Beatles and records by The Casuals.

Q: Shall we stick one on?

Paul: Right.

Plays The Casuals - Jezamine

Paul: (Opens wine) I really think it's a beautiful record and I love the melody - something about it still really inspires me. It is nostalgic but it's so inspiring.

Q: It's quite traditional as well in its own ...

Paul: Well it might be but how many records have you heard like that? I couldn't say where it's from. It's kind of MOR but it isn't. Shall we move swiftly on to Elgar? (Both laugh).

Q: With The Beach Boys, was that a constant that you've had from that moment?

Paul: Yes. I love The Beach Boys - the first record I ever had, I didn't buy myself but it was bought for me by my Dad from Heathrow Airport. We use to go on a Sunday night sometimes and watch the planes take off. Seriously that was before colour TV. That was the highlight.

Anyway we use to go to Heathrow and he bought me this album, which I haven't still got but I bought another copy. This is like a cheap MFP compilation and it's got a wicked sleeve. A huge Green wave and 2 surfers on it. But the whole image of The Beach Boys, sort of West Coast, sunshine, surfing and sea. That really caught my imagination as a kid. This is a great, beautiful track this ...

Plays The Beach Boys - Forever.

Q: Is your clock an hour fast?

Paul: Yeah, Summertime

Q: (Laughing) Summertime?

Paul: Yeah Babe, I hate Winter

Q: It's Beach Boys isn't it?

Paul: Well it is Surrey technically but Summertime, yeah.

Plays Ian Brown - My Star

Q: Were you checking like The Roses, when they came out?

Paul: Well no. I heard some of their singles obviously but I never liked the full scale but subsequently I've heard tracks off the first album - Waterfall I really liked, I Wanna Be Adored. So it took me a little while to come around to it but I talked to Steve Cradick on tour and he's a big Roses fan and for him and his generation, they were like the contemporary band. Steve always says it's like me talking about The Sex Pistols - I can't say they had a big lasting influence on me but at the time when I was 17, it was what I needed to drag me into contemporary music. And I think the Roses did the same for their generation as well.

Q: Shall we go through into the other room and look through you're CDs?

Paul: (As they walk through the rooms laughs)...Do you want a beer?

Q: I've never, ever in my life - abuse, drink ... I've never seen someone clean up a wine glass and smash it in their hand. I've seen people drop them, sit on them, step on them but I've never seen that before.

Paul: It's not my fault is it? (Laughing, they walk through to the CD lounge) Shall we carry on then?

Q: Yes, I think we should crack on, now that we're in the CD lounge.

Paul: MMM ... nice. Right, I saw the Stereophonics at this gig we did in Cardiff Bay last year and they played before us and then their manager sent me a copy of their album. Their lyrics are good and his voice is good.

Plays Stereophonics - Thousand Trees

Paul: You havin' that?

Q: Most definitely. What are your points of reference in finding new bands - young bands to come through like that?

Paul: None. I heard this by chance. I wouldn't purposely go out of my way to hear anyone (laughs). It's true. I'm only laughing 'cause I see the awfulness in it but it is true to some extent. Unless someone puts me on to something and says, "Listen to this". I'm not like Sting, I don't go out and check out what young people are up to today. I don't give a f*c*. I do in one way but I don't give a f*c* about today's market but it does lead onto the next record.

This is a think with Robert Wyatt. I did notice stuff. I wouldn't have gone out to buy this album, that's for sure. And just by chance I did a couple of tracks on his latest record. He was using the same studio I was working in at the time and I left a note for him. The fact that I did happen to hear his album turned me on to something else again and it was great. Out of all the people I've worked with in his generation, 60s people, he was the most inspiring 'cause he still added some kind of crazy, personilised vision that this was his record and he had focused idea of what it should be in his own mind - there is hope, there is a way forward.

Q: Does that give you hope?

Paul: Yes it does. I got more from Robert Wyatt working with him in a course of a week than anyone else I've worked with.

Q: Is this the track you did with him?

Paul: Yeah ... a bit of nepotism but I believe in it enough that I want to play it to you.

Plays Robert Wyatt - Free Will & Testament

Paul: Shall we have one more now, for the road? I like the mood on this... it's the right mood.

Plays David Holmes - Don't Die Yet

Paul: It's got a funky mood. It either connects with you or it doesn't. You can't explain it. I wouldn't even want to explain it, would you?

Every time you play a record, you believe in magic don't you? You still find something still fundamentally good about human beings I think. When I hear great music of any kind, whether it's a book or a painting - I'm not being too poncey about it but even I know that.

Art's the property of all people, it doesn't just belong to the middle classes. We can all go to the Tate Gallery ... good-buy.

All Back To Mine was produced by Somethin' Else for BBC Radio 1.

comment from past comments system

member REVILOT

Nice read.

I sold quite a few records to Paul back in the Style Council days and did him some cassettes of Northern and rare Soul records. I remember one cassette in particular that he took with him on his Japanese tour and in one of his letters he wrote that he loved Steve Mancha - Did My Baby Call. I knew then the guy had taste. (If I Could Only Be Sure )

Not easy to remember all the records he bought from me but they did include Otis Leavill and Brenton Wood stuff.

Still got the letters so I will dig em out and remind myself what he bought