Paul The Girl - Talented Singer/Songwriter
Aug 03, 2006
Paul the Girl is a unique and talented singer songwriter who invites the inevitably easy comparisons with PJ Harvey and Tori Amos simply because there’s precious few other female artists to compare her to. In reality, she’s much more diverse and complex, embracing a multitude of influences from jazz, blues, pop, rock and folk and she plays guitar like she’s been possessed by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix! As you might expect from someone who defies categorisation to the extent that Paul does, she’s rejected the traditional record company route and embraced the DIY ethic, releasing her new album ‘Little Miss Weird’ on her own Inconvenient Records label.
WAREZ: How did you first start playing music?
PAUL: When I was at school I started on classical guitar; there was a teacher who came and played folk and classical guitar so it was quite early on, maybe around ten. But I didn’t take it very seriously at the time.
WAREZ: Did you come from a musical background?
PAUL: My dad was into classical music, always playing records and my brother played the clarinet.
WAREZ: When did you make the transition from classical to electric and rock guitar?
PAUL: Around 15 or 16. I suppose it was prompted by mates at school being into top of the pops and stuff, and then discovering bands, what was out there.
WAREZ: Where are you from?
PAUL: I was born in North London but I went to school in Macclesfield.
WAREZ: How did you develop your style?
PAUL: I spent quite a long time in cabaret bands before I started to properly write my own songs. I was playing a lot of different styles, from James Brown to chart music. We played gigs at British army bases in Germany and RAF bases all over the place. I started doing that because I’d gone to college after failing A level music, to retake it. I wanted to play electric guitar but I didn’t have any real experience, I was still only trained to play classical. There were too many guitarists on the course so they said I could do it if I played bass. There were a lot of cabaret bands looking for bass players, and my dad said ‘if you want to do music, you have to think about earning your living’ so I answered an ad in the paper and went to an audition at Pontins in Wales, then joined a band.
I was briefly in an original band in Manchester but it didn’t work out, so then I started to write my own songs on an old computer. It was on drum machines and all on midi because you couldn’t record audio on computers then; I just used sounds from here and there and sequences.
WAREZ: Did you move to London from Macclesfield?
PAUL: No, initially I moved to Runcorn, then to Chester, then eventually to London. When I recorded my first album I was in Chester and I was looking for a place to move out to. The studio I’d recorded in had a sort of big guesthouse with 10 bedrooms and the studio was in a separate building. The guy who was running it was renting the rooms out and I’d got to know some of the people living there so I moved in. It was a bit like a little community.
WAREZ: Did your first album get released?
PAUL: Yes, through Arista. I was sending demos out to people, then the A&R guy from Arista was living in Nottingham and he came to one of my gigs in Runcorn.
WAREZ: What was that album called and is it still available?
PAUL: It was just called Paul… by Paul. I have a few copies left but I’m thinking of getting it re-pressed. It was a very studio-based album; it has much more of a sequenced sound than the later stuff. The album didn’t get put out until quite a long time after it was recorded and it didn’t get promoted very well. Then I moved down to London and that was the beginning of the end of the deal with Arista.
I’d never been to London before so it was all new to me; I started going to lots of gigs, looking for musicians to put a band together, meeting lots of new people and then I did a few gigs. I recorded another album which didn’t get released; it had much more of a band sound as I was using musicians I’d met in London.
WAREZ: What did you do after the deal with Arista fell through?
PAUL: I started working with different musicians, writing songs and recording new material. I normally write the songs on my own and then get the band in to play the parts. Then in 2003 I released an album called Electromagnetic Blues.
WAREZ: How did you go about making your own album?
PAUL: There’s a guy I know who’d got into Logic Audio and I learned how to work with that. Then I booked a day in a rehearsal studio and started off recording a day’s live drums and bass for 2 or 3 songs. We also recorded some drums and bass in my flat which eventually upset the neighbours… on my new album there’s only 2 tracks with live drums on and one of them is kind of Keith Moon style, so I was saying to the drummer, ‘think Keith Moon’… the neighbours definitely didn’t like that!
WAREZ: Did you use the same musicians on your new album as on Electromagnetic Blues?
PAUL: No, it’s all changed as they’ve become successful with their own bands. (Mercury-nominated jazz band Polar Bear and jazz/indie band Acoustic Ladyland) I seem to end up playing with jazz musicians because they know what they’re doing… I write the parts out and they sight-read them.
WAREZ: What music do you like to listen to?
PAUL: I guess I would have to say Jimi Hendrix as a guitarist but I listen to all sorts of stuff. I like Roy Harper, Johnny Dowd, John Martyn, Tim and Jeff Buckley, the last Strokes album because I like their songs and vocals, and there’s an American guitarist I like called Paul Curreri… I’ve got one of his cd’s.
WAREZ: What’s the new album called?
PAUL: It’s called Little Miss Weird. It’s much more of a solo album. This one was recorded in my flat and I did it all on Logic version 4.8. I stick to that older version because I know how to use it well.
WAREZ: How does this album differ from the previous one?
PAUL: It’s better sound quality because I’ve got a 24-bit sound card now, and it’s better produced. This album has a lot more space on it and more acoustic songs although there are some rock-out tracks as well. I think the songs are better and the singing and guitar playing are better as well.
WAREZ: Did you try to get a label to release this album or did you intend to release it yourself from the start?
PAUL: I decided I’d do it myself and it’s being distributed by Cargo… they also distributed the last album.
WAREZ: Can you tell us how a distribution deal works?
PAUL: I sent a cd of four songs I’d recorded to Cargo and I thought they weren’t interested because I didn’t hear anything back. Then I sent them an album when it was finished 6 months later, and they said ‘yes, we really like it, we’ll distribute it for you’. I don’t think there’s a standard type of deal, it’s more about building a relationship with them. Last time, I paid for the pressing of 1000 albums and they took a percentage to distribute them. This time, they paid up front for the costs of pressing and duplicating cd’s and artwork, which has to be paid back out of sales. They take a % fee of cost price (as opposed to retail price) for distribution. The only thing is they don’t do any promotion at all so I have to do all that myself. I don’t have a press agent or a plugger; I just concentrate on building up relationships with people I’ve met. I sent 200 cd’s out in advance of this release to press and radio, you have to do that about 2 months before you release something, then start chasing them up and annoying them. Being able to send emails has made that process easier because you can think about what you want to say instead of getting flustered on the phone.
WAREZ: Have you got a booking agent to help you get gigs?
PAUL: No, not yet.
WAREZ: You seem to be getting a lot of critical acclaim… is it translating into record sales and big audiences?
PAUL: A lot more people seem to have heard of my last album than the amount sold would indicate; we’ll have to wait and see.
WAREZ: What’s your verdict on the effect the internet is having on music?
PAUL: I think it’s mostly a good thing. If you think about how things were 20 years ago, musicians didn’t have anything like it so in some ways it’s made it a lot easier to reach other people, to get in touch with them. But you still need DJ’s, journalists and tastemakers as filters, I think. Now you can hire pluggers and press agents to get publicity for you instead of signing a huge percentage away to a label. Doing it the way I have, by sending lots of advance cd’s out, the difficulty is in maintaining a campaign; you have your album launch which you can make into a bit of an event but you need to have something planned to do next, to follow that up. If you have someone else working on it they can make suggestions on what gigs to do and plan what interviews to do to keep up the momentum.
WAREZ: Do you think it’s harder for female musicians?
PAUL: Yes, female musicians can tend not to get taken so seriously as their male equivalents. You have to prove yourself more, but on the other hand you can stand out more because there’s not so many of you.
WAREZ: Any message for the masses?
PAUL: Buy my albums and come to my gigs!
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A few days after this interview, Warez went to Paul the Girls’s album launch gig at the 100 Club in Oxford Street. The support act was Duke Garwood (who also plays sax with the Archie Bronson Outfit) performing stripped-down jazz-blues on acoustic guitar in a Tom Waits-esque manner. He was joined by a drummer who provided dynamic expression on pots-and-pans style drums. Duke’s material is authentic and moody, but Warez couldn’t help thinking it would be more suited to a more intimate environment.
Paul the Girl was joined on stage by a double-bass player, drummer, mandolin player and Michael J. Sheehy on guest backing vocals and guitar. She effortlessly breezed her way through a set of songs from the new album and a couple of old favourites from Electromagnetic Blues, seemingly thriving on the occasional moments of chaos caused by the lack of intensive rehearsal. The lyrics on the new album are particularly sharp and satirical and the music ranged from full-on rocking out to subtle jazz-influenced whimsical pieces. As ever, Paul’s usual self-deprecating demeanour was transformed and beautified by her music to the point where you couldn’t take your eyes off her. One song in particular, ‘Down the Lane’ stood out as having huge commercial potential, which we hope will translate into reality. It’s rare to find a talent as unique as Paul’s that hasn’t already been oversold; in her case it’s definitely been undersold.
