Weller hasn't written any songs for the album about John's death. And he was a great dad I could speak to him about anything. It's not always a good idea to go into business with your family, but we were successful. Also, I was so lucky to have the relationship that I did with my dad. When I saw him at the hospital after he died, he looked peaceful, and that made it easier. He wasn't my dad anymore he was a man in torment. However bizarre it might sound, it was a relief to see him go. He was ill for such a long time, and I found it much sadder to see him deteriorate mentally in those four years than I did to see him dead. "To be honest," Weller replies, "it didn't change anything at all. His passing, I suggest, must have had an effect on the new album.
#PAUL WELLER YOUNG PROFESSIONAL#
Despite his dismay when Paul disbanded The Jam, the pair's professional relationship remained as close as their personal one until illness caused John's retirement in 2004.
#PAUL WELLER YOUNG FULL#
The Wellers left with their pockets full of tenners. When The Jam signed with Polydor in 1977, John told the A&R men that he didn't have a bank account they'd have to pay him the £6,000 advance in cash.
#PAUL WELLER YOUNG DRIVER#
John Weller – former boxer, factory employee, construction worker and taxi driver – bought Paul his first guitar when his son was 12, and became his manager a few years later. Weller lost one of the few constants in his own life last year, when his father John died of pneumonia, aged 77. If you're playing music and the music's good enough, all the other baggage stays outside." It wasn't like 28 years had elapsed we didn't talk about old times, just had a laugh. He said if I ever fancied playing something together we should do it, and I know it made Pat happy to think that we'd work together again. "I called to see how she was doing and that opened the door to us talking again. I think ultimately it'll be better for music and for their own creativity." But I guess when you get to that sort of level and there's big business involved, it's harder to stop.
![paul weller young paul weller young](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/86/d0/6486d030b81d9f12703782ddc56d1e44.jpg)
![paul weller young paul weller young](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xt7pLVUQJ6k/T9m-tDhDVMI/AAAAAAAABmg/zTRZNzYyPnQ/s1600/young_paul.jpg)
"I don't want to talk out of turn because I love Noel and Liam, but I thought there was a bit of going through the motions by the end. One of Weller's best mates is Noel Gallagher, and I have to ask whether he thinks Oasis should have called it a day sooner than they did. I still see some of the people I've worked with in the past from time to time, and I don't think there's any bad feeling. You have to kick that up the arse sometimes. In any relationship you can fall into that trap of taking each other for granted.
![paul weller young paul weller young](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-q5TMOXrvEXQ/TVXDIKDNKJI/AAAAAAAABCI/Ti6S3OCauMU/s1600/Paul%252BWeller+young.jpg)
If you want to keep moving forward you've got to work with different people. "I've been called ruthless," Weller admits. He replaced his entire band before 22 Dreams, save guitarist Steve Cradock, and most famously broke up The Jam at the height of the band's success. "Yet he could also be aggressive, bullying, selfish, highly intolerant, and thoughtless."Ĭertainly, Weller has been unafraid to sever professional ties in the past, which has not always made him popular with former colleagues. "Paul has a very good heart beating away inside him," Hewitt wrote. Though his alleged grumpiness may not have been inflicted on many interviewers in recent years, it was one of the themes of The Changing Man, a 2007 biography by Paolo Hewitt, a music journalist and once-close friend of Weller's.
![paul weller young paul weller young](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/72/40/98/7240987b8e2661ad7859cf8450245e57.jpg)
At first it was a fucking shock to see myself, but there's nothing I can do about it." "I've got used to it, but I had to get over my own vanity, because it took a while to get my head round the fact I'm getting older. "I'm happy enough having my photo taken these days," he tells me. It was the photographer's idea, but Paul liked it. I come across him in an empty room at the top of a gastropub in London's Kensal Green, a stuffed magpie in his lap. Nor am I the first to come away pleasantly surprised: he's reticent, perhaps – but polite and engaging, too. I wouldn't be the first journalist to approach Paul Weller with some trepidation, warned of his bad temper and dislike of the media. Still, here we are, Weller a critical and commercial hit once more – and with another invigorating leftfield LP, Wake Up the Nation, on the way out. Three career high points might be enough for most men, and the Britpop sheen had long worn off by the time 22 Dreams came along a decade later. That's where my friends and I came in, falling for the pastoral charms of Wild Wood (1993) and Stanley Road (1995).