PREVIEW

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Headline: Paul Weller at 60 (25MAY18)

Caption: Paul Weller is 60 by Mark Worgan & Jon Gillespie Father of eight children Paul ‘The Modfather’ Weller has birthed hits with The Jam, The Style Council and as a solo artist in a long-running career that took off in the ‘80s. Paul Weller, one of Britain’s greatest musical icons, is turning 60. After a storied and evolving career with legendary Mod group The Jam, The Style Council and as a solo artist he’s showing no signs of slowing down, having recently completed tours of Asia, Australia and the U.K. and Ireland. Born John William Weller in 1958, the man who became known as ‘The Modfather’, began his music in his hometown of Woking, Surrey - the suburban town immortalised in The Jam’s song Town Called Malice - where he started performing as The Jam with his school friends Rick Buckler, Bruce Foxton and Steve Brookes in local working men’s clubs. After Brookes departed the band, Weller, Foxton and Buckler hit the big time with their 1977 debut In the City, an album that fused the contemporary sound of punk music with that of 1960s bands like The Who and The Kinks, and whose ‘Mod’ fashion sense the trio emulated. The album’s title track was the first of 18 of the band’s singles to break into the top 40 of the U.K. chart, starting a run of hits that made them one of Britain’s biggest acts. It wasn’t until 1980 however, that the band had their first number one, with Going Underground and its companion track Dreams of Children topping the charts, the first of four the group would have before their 1982 split. Ever restless, Paul shocked his bandmates by walking away from the group when they were at their peak and were arguably Britain’s biggest rock band. Announcing the end of The Jam in an interview with BBC news show Nationwide, he said, "I think it’s a good time to finish it. I don’t want to drag it on and go on for the next 20 years doing it and become nothing, mean nothing, end up like the rest of the groups. I want this to count for something.” Instead of cashing in on his first band’s success, he formed The Style Councilwith Dexys Midnight Runners’ keyboardist Mick Talbot - leaving The Jam’s jagged angst-filled sound behind to draw on the soul music that he’d begun to listen to and be influenced by. As well as a new musical direction Weller’s new project also helped him find love - as he married Dee C. Lee, a soul singer who regularly collaborated with The Style Council, in 1987, and had two children, Natt, 29, a musician, and model Leah, 26. The couple split in 1998, after the rocker fathered a daughter, Dylan, with make-up artist Lucy Halperin. Despite his new group’s radically different sound, Weller’s new project was another huge success, racking up seven U.K. top ten hits in six years, including their hazy sunshine anthem Long Hot Summer and the overtly political Walls Come Tumbling Down! During the 1980s, the rocker made no secret of his distaste for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. He took his political activism to a new level by helping found the Red Wedge movement - a collective of musicians formed to promote socialism and the Labour Party and oust the Conservatives from power. As part of the campaign, The Style Council led a tour of Britain that included The Smiths, Elvis Costello, and Bananarama on a tour of Britain. He has continued to be politically outspoken, playing a gig in 2016 to support politician Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to become prime minister. The third act of Weller’s career has proved to be his most experimental and prolific, as since The Style Council’s 1989 demise he has embraced life as a solo artist, producing 13 albums, including the universally acclaimed Wild Wood and Stanley Road, which takes its name from the Woking street where he grew up. Late in life, Weller has been as productive in his personal life as he has musically, as he became a dad for the eighth time in July last year (17) when his second wife, Hannah, gave birth to a daughter, Nova - who shares a name with a song from his latest album A Kind Revolution. The couple also has two more kids with musical names, twin boys, John Paul and Bowie, who arrived in 2012. In 2008 he split from his long-term partner Samantha Stock, who is the mother of his children, Jesamine, born in 2000 and Stevie Mac, in 2005, to be with Hannah - who was only 23 and acting as his backing singer when they got together. Just months after news of their relationship broke the couple hit the headlines when they were pictured lying in a gutter together after a drinking session in Prague. “They’re my real legacy, as much as my music. Life is full on because I’ve got so many kids,” he told Q Magazine last year, admitting he couldn’t afford to give up work. The rocker hasn’t let his growing brood distract him from his music however, as since going solo, he’s experimented with a variety of sounds, with A Kind Revolution featuring contributions from long-time collaborators, Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock and Andy Crofts of psychedelic indie band The Moons, as well as veteran musician Robert Wyatt, and fellow 1980s star Boy George. “Mainly it's just the feeling of mortality,” he told website Gothamist when asked what drove him on. “I don't know, maybe the older you get you think, ‘f**k’. You know, you look around and someone says, ‘25 years ago this record was out’ or, ‘It's 40 years you've been making records’, and you're just like, wow, it goes by so quickly...Time's running out.” Pictured: The Jam.

Keywords: Pop,Paul Weller,Portrait,Group

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