.:Paul Answers Your Questions:.

Hi Paul, huge fan from the USA here. I was wondering if you're looking to form another band or just go out as a solo artist. Also, as a musician myself, what do you find is the hardest part of the song writing process: starting a song, or finishing it off? Cheers!

Firstly, thank you very much to everyone for taking the interest in the project I am undertaking, after returning from America its great to find people still interested in my writing.

I'm going to blog the album as I'm making it so everyone can get an inside picture as to how I'm doing it. At the moment I'm starting this project with a blank canvas, using my own name at the moment, and in my blog, as the project goes on I'll be honest and open about how it develops, I could become a band name, or stay as my name, but at the moment, its me. Ill discuss this in more detail in my blog, so subscribe to my mailing list to receive it.

I've tried a few musicians out in the studio, with half a mind on a future band to play with, but really its just to get the feel of a good backing track / groove in, and I'm trying to cover most of the instruments myself, a la prince who is one of my most respected writer/producers.

In terms of the song writing process itself, i find every aspect of it incredibly difficult, only because I've written hundreds of songs and i have a style, so my main objective is to not repeat myself. Sometimes i can wait for days and nothing will come, even if I've gone off on my own to write. Sometimes an idea will come in a flash, possibly from tv, newspapers or a passing beat in a car, my song writing radar is always on and ill dive on the idea, but it may sit there for ages with no direction in mind to finish it, then it becomes a struggle.

I don't force anything anymore, whatever comes to me, comes to me, I don't know where it comes from, its just i have my radar on, anyone could do it, its not magic, but its not a craft either, if i knew myself id just churn em out all the time, but I've learnt song writing is a lonely dedication, and patience is the key if you want to be true to yourself and have self respect as a writer.

What are your expectations from your future projects, are you just happy with having stuff out their or will you be kinda annoyed if you dont break the top 40 with the album etc? what are you albums of the year if you stil get excited by new music?

I'm not interested in charts, only the quality of the songs I write. I have no expectations of this project in that sense, just to be able to be happy with what i've written, and (fingers crossed) people who are open to my songs will like it, that's mission accomplished for me. If I can keep focused on the simple fact that i loved writing songs from the age of 10, then that's what makes me happy and keeps me motivated!

In terms of new music, i listen to everything and have an opinion on everything and check everything out, but wouldn't want to be negative about stuff I don't like. On the positive side I love the Arctic Monkeys album, and I'm still playing bloc party who I think are brilliant. I like the new Chilli peppers record, but i've been a long time fan of there's anyway, and i've been liking The Editors record and the Arcade Fire album.

Will your live sets and songs be adapted around a full band, or using synths, samples, etc.

Well your moving ahead too fast there dude, I'm making my record which started electronic and has moved more to the live band sound naturally during the recording sessions. Hopefully this means I'm not going to end up like Howard Jones, on my own surrounded by keyboards triggering samples while I'm in the middle throwing off my mental chains etc..

Do you expect you'd be playing Mansun songs too?

Who knows, there's a few Id have no problem doing and a few I wouldn't bother with, but that depends if i do any at all, at the moment I'm just concentrating on getting my album made.

Will you be making gigs availiable to buy online? I imagine we'd all buy them.

Dunno, but good business idea, you should go on The Apprentice. I'm sure at some point this year you'll see me playing something on the internet, but i wouldn't make anyone buy it, just watch it if your interested!
 

Hi Paul.I am interested to know what (if any) is your favourite Christmas Song. (seriously) Thanks

I love that Little Drummer Boy thing Bowie did with Bing Crosby, how fucking weird, i love it, not as weird as tom baker narrating an opera about Brian Jones drowning in a swimming pool, but still fucking weird!

if you tour do you think you'll go all over? i mean bristol really..

Again, I'm not thinking about tours, just recording at the moment, but check my blog for some detail about touring, or lack of, and the reasons why, i don't want to sound cryptic but my blogs will explain a lot over the next few months, I hope!!

i don't really have any questions really just looking forward to the future

same as me, the future is something precious! (who said that?)

on kleptomania you wrote that the home demo of love is, was more as you intended, does this mean you were unhappy with the finished version of i can only disappoint u since you included the home demo of that? i really like both versions (the remix ain't bad either)

Well I wanted 'love is' to sound funky (white men being funky is the worst type of music, but you have to learn the hard way), like a young americans era bowie track but with funky loops in it, like i always injected into mansun tracks, but it was made to sound m.o.r. I just wrote the songs for that record, I cant listen to it, sorry.

The demo of disappoint u was only there to give an insight in how i put the mansun tracks together, Little Kix was the only album I had to make demos for, the rest I just made up as I want along.

what's your favourite prince song?

Something in the water.....off 1999, the worlds best recorded scream, ill try and beat it one day. And Head off Dirty Mind, about getting blown off by a bride on her way to church to get married, excellent, why doesn't shit like that happen to the rest of us?

Is there a song (by any artist/band) that makes you feel all happy inside?

Oh yeah!! Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights, its my party piece, I can do the leotard dance from the video, but I have to be with good friends to do it and very out of my tree

Will you be touring europe?

I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago
 

Paul, will the new material be self-produced by you at your home studio? Have you any plans for any more collaborations? Cheers!
 

Ill be producing all my music from now on in a combination of places!! I'm a control freak unfortunately, and I know that alienated the people I've worked with, some for good reasons, some because they couldn't cut it, but there was nobody else to take the lead in getting things sounding great, in the past we tried working with other producers but it didn't really work because i always hear the finished song in my head when i write it, and the recording and producing process is just trying to get to that version in my head, but its impossible, and everything gets abandoned.

Sometimes it gets me down when i cant realize an idea, but when i go away and think about it, i know I'm doing things for the right reasons, i.e. because I'm passionate about music, i don't know why, i just am. If id have worked with a producer or collaborator who could have taken the songs to a new level id have been right there for them, but it never came along for us.
 

Hi Paul.
was wondering about what you think about isolation. What is the longest time you have spent on your own without meeting anyone?

I've spent weeks or possibly months on my own many times, but i love my own company and i can focus on writing when i'm on my own.

Could you think it is OK to sit on your own on for example Christmas, New years eve and birthdays?

I've been on my own on many a birthday / Christmas etc.., sometimes thru choice, sometimes not, the others in Mansun did there own thing after gigs, so i would mainly spend the evenings alone with my note books, not thru choice I may add!

I'm quite a solitary person, sometimes hermit like, but then ill go thru a phase of going out every night for ages until my body cant take the hammering any more, and ill go away and write about my experiences.

Luckily i've got understanding friends who i can not see for a while if I'm writing / recording, and i know i can always pick up the phone and there's a friend there for a few sherbets. That helps when i go into hibernation, because as Chancey Gardener once said, "after winter, there is spring!"
 

When you do tour will you come to Edinburgh, say Liquid Rooms? that would really make my day...

I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Also I wanna get a new tattoo, mansun related...can you give me any ideas? I already have a purple rose with Mansun written through the stem, i need help cause i'm bad with decision making

I'm bad at making decisions too, so I would not give anyone advice on a tattoo. I've been contemplating a new tattoo for a long time now but I don't know if getting a tattoo is too conformist these days, but the one i contemplated is the old "what doesn't kill you......."
 

How did Christoper Eccelston fare? i haven't even seen this dr who yet!

Well that's old hat now coz Chris is gonna be the new Prisoner!! Fuckin get in there!!!

and which foe are you?

Well after I came back from america I was as fat as a fucking sontaron, i put on a third of my bodyweight in Dennys, but now I'm more like an auton, i don't move very much, but am in proportion. My fat elvis period is over.
 

will you be looking to work with/collaborate with anyone else? DJ's or musicians etc? either for your own project, or working with them for theres?

Definitely, i loved working with Skin, she's great, and I loved working with Oakey and Howard Devoto, all people i really respect, and id do it again although nobody is definite at the moment, I've had offers obviously, some of them hilarious, and i bet you wouldn't believe me if i told you who and what, but id work with other musicians id respect in the future.
 

Is there any chance to see you playing live in some club in Rome?

I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

By the way, have you ever been here (Rome, I mean) on holiday or whatever? If yes, did you enjoy your staying'?

Yes I've been to Rome, but never really got to see a lot of the city as i've been touring or passing through. Its on my list of stuff to do, a driving holiday round italy.
 

What was it like working with Devoto?
 

Really interesting, he works in a totally different way to me, he's much more lyrical and arrangement, and i'm more a top line melody movement type of a writer, but we cobbled something together in the end.

Could you ever work with him again?

Who knows, its probably best to move on to pastures new, but never say never!
 

What's your favourite film soundtrack and what film do you wish you could write a soundtrack for?

I'll definitely write a movie soundtrack one day, that's one of my ambitions, but ill save that for the twilight years off my writing days, I've got a grand piano and I want to write a movie soundtrack on it one day and also write some classical music, which i've been chipping away at for years.
 

why the name norway salmon? ;)

It was on the news about norway salmon quotas at the time i opened an email account, so it came in thru my ear at the same time my brain was looking to type in an email address name, it must have passed into my brain and down my right arm, into my finger and I just typed it.
 

What's your change from being at mansun to now? Or do you think you're still the same? Thanx for answering!

love ya !

I meditate a lot now, doing that Harry Krishna shit, I'm not buddhist, but I have a buddha in my studio and I buy into a lot of buddhist ideas. I'm calm because I believe if you pass through turbulance in your life and emerge on the other side, you gain that corny 'inner strength' thing. A lot of the time in a band situation you are getting tripped up on a daily basis, jealousy, envy etc... so it makes you edgy and tense and defensive, i don't need that shit any more, i much prefer working on my own, where all the energy around you is going into making the music as best as it can be to get the song thru to people, and not to just do any old improvised old hat crap.

Q&A Continued