Saturday Conversation: Paul Weller On His New Album And Robert Plant

Forbes

a day ago

This was supposed to be a chill year for iconic British artist Paul Weller. Weller is not touring this year, nor is he writing for a new album. So, he had down time to take care of those things on his 'to do' list.
The first thing on that list – Find El Dorado, a covers collection of songs from the likes of Richie Havens, The Kinks, The Bee Gees and other artists Weller admires and respects. The labor of love features Weller's first-ever recorded collaboration with Robert Plant, on 'Clive's Song,' as well as appearances from Noel Gallagher and more.
I spoke with Weller about the record and more.
Steve Baltin: Congratulations on the record. I love the simplicity of it's very clear you just love these songs
Paul Weller: Yeah, and hopefully some of the song people won't know and it'll turn them on to the originals. I thought it's just a nice collection of tunes and before we made the record, I selected what songs, and I put them into a running order, and it just sounded like a great compilation or like a little mixtape.
Baltin: Most of these songs I imagine you go back with many, many years, correct?
Weller: Yeah, some do. Stuff like 'When You Are A King' and 'I Started A Joke,' but they'd be the oldest ones I guess. They're from when I was a kid, like 10, 11 or whatever. They were big pop songs I would know. I've always loved them two tunes and then the others, the Richie Haven song, which is the first on the album, that comes off an album of his in 2002 called Wishing Well and the rest I guess are old but they're relatively new to me. People have been sending me or playing them for me over the last two or three years. I've just been collecting them up in my mind, put them in a little list in the back of the heads of tunes I'd like to try one day. And this year worked for me because I'm not touring. I'm not writing for an album or anything, taking a bit of a year out. So, I thought this is a good time to make the covers record. But I've been thinking about it for a good sort of four years, five years or so, a long time.
Baltin: The reason I ask about how far back the songs go is because I found from talking with people, your relationship with songs changes because of course you bring a different experience to it. So, when you went into making this album, did these songs change for you?
Weller: My own songs certainly do. But as you're saying that I was thinking with something like "When You Are a King," which is by White Plains which were like a put together session band anyway. But I loved that song, at the time, when it came out in '68 so I would have been 10. I love that song anyway because I just love the melody and it's just a great pop song. But then when I was watching the King Charles coronation, when he became the King when the Queen popped off, just the absurdity of it and the pomp and ritual and nonsense and millions of pounds it cost to put it on. That song came back to me in a big way, in a far more relevant way, you know. I think it just showed us the ridiculousness of all that royal family bulls**t. So that took on a different meaning for me, a more relevant meaning, apart from just loving it anyway.
Baltin: When you started this record, you said you had a running order. So much of music is subconscious. Once you put it together, were you surprised to see how the songs fit together?
Weller: Yeah, definitely. Most great records, not saying mine's a great record, just saying most have always got this brilliant flow to the music and different dynamics as well, all those things that keep you interested as a listener and as a journey. So, I'm pretty conscious of that putting it together in the way that complements all the other songs.
Baltin: Were there any songs that really surprised you because you can love a song but when you do a song it takes on different nuances that you weren't aware of?
Weller: For me I realized there's quite a few songs as well, which I never really knew the correct lyrics to. So, I was singing my own version, because I heard something different from it. But I love that whole thing of how people interpret music anyway, it is individual interpretation, and that's always fascinating, I think.
Baltin: I imagine it was a lot of fun as well, because this was just a labor of love for you, songs that have memories for you.
Weller: Only a couple of them. Only the late '60s ones I mentioned because the rest of the songs I've heard in recent years. And when I say recent, I mean over the course of the last 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, So, I don't know if they've got particular personal memories for me. I just thought they were great songs. I'm not particularly transported back to a time or any of that stuff. I'm just listening to the music.
Baltin: Take me through some of the songs you chose and how you chose them. For example, how did you decide on 'Nobody's Fool,' from The Kinks?
Weller: I love so many of Ray's songs, man, it's ridiculous. I love that whole period from like '64 to '71. So, for me, there are just so many classics. But I don't know what you're going to do with 'Waterloo's Sunset.' Are you going to change it or make anything different about it? I thought 'Nobody's Fool' because it's a great Ray Davies song but it's fairly obscure. It was a theme tune from a TV series in the early '70s, '71, called Budgie. So, it was a theme song from that, just not sung by Ray. But I always thought it sounded like a Ray Davies song. I didn't know who it was at the time. It was only some years later. Maybe it was released on a box set, or something like that. Anyway, there's Ray's demo of it, and it's just him on piano so we took the cue from that as opposed to the one that's on the tv.
Baltin: It's an interesting mix. I love the fact that you do Flying Burrito Brothers, but then I also I love the Bee Gee's because I think even as big as they are they're underrated.
Weller: Yeah, I just think they're great songwriters. A lot of their stuff, I've got to be honest, I've loved by other people. 'Nights on Broadway,' by Candy Station, and Tavares did one of their tunes ['More Than A Woman']. So, I knew a lot of their stuff. And apart from the '60s stuff, I knew their stuff by other people.
Baltin: Is there one thing you take away from this collection?
Weller: Songs stand up, and that's what matters really at the end of the day, isn't it? I've always believed in a good song as a good song, whether it's The Burritos or Richie Havens or Jake Fletcher, whatever it may be. A good song is a good song for me, and I stand by that really.
Baltin: Have you ever worked with Plant before?
Weller: No, I've met Robert a few times. And I think we played one song one time at a charity concert. Anyway, he's always been lovely, always been a real gem. We've talked about music and we've often said it'd be great to do something, or I've said to him It would be great if we could do something together. So, it was always just finding the right thing. And he was great, man, he was just a stand -up fella.