Paul Weller: 'My New Songs Are Right On The Button'
They'll be released next year...

by Jason Gregory
Friday, March 20, 2009
http://www.festivalwise.com/article.php?id=50019



Paul Weller has said his new material is “right on the button”.

The former Jam frontman is currently previewing new songs alongside already released tracks on a UK tour.

In an interview with the London Lite, Weller said the tracks were being better received than the last time he attempted to preview unreleased material live.

"We play at least half the album. On the last tour, we played '111'. It wasn't like people were booing and walking out,” he said.

"We've got strings and a brass section, plus we've got some brand new tunes. There's this great one called 'Wake Up The Nation'.

"It won't be coming out 'till next year, but I wish it was fucking coming out next week, man, 'cos it's right on the button."

Weller's last studio album, '22 Dreams', was released last year to widespread critical acclaim.

SIGNING: All's Well That Ends With Paul Weller for Universal

By Stuart Clarke
http://www.californiachronicle.com/arti ... /132795767

Universal Music Publishing has extended its long-term partnership with Paul Weller, signing a new deal with the Brit legend that covers his entire back catalogue as well as future output. The renewed agreement was concluded after much negotiation last week.

Weller's latest album, 22 Dreams, was released by Island in June last year and debuted at number one in the UK. The album featured guest appearances from Oasis's Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer, as well as Ocean Colour Scene's Steve Cradock and Graham Coxon from Blur.

The album is currently enjoying a new lease of life courtesy of a sync for the album track Echoes Around The Sun, which is being used to soundtrack the trailer for the new Johnny Depp movie, Public Enemies.

Universal's president of Europe and UK music publishing group Paul Connolly says Weller is currently working on the follow-up to 22 Dreams - Wake Up The Nation - scheduled for a spring 2010 release.

Elsewhere the publisher is looking at new opportunities to exploit his work. Connolly says, "Certain quality clothing lines, bespoke art prints and collectors' merchandise items all utilising Paul's catalogue are in the works."

Weller has continued to develop his profile over recent years and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brits in 2006.

Copyright: UBM Information Ltd.

WELLER CLOSER TO THE JAM REUNION

09 August 2009 22:56
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/st ... on_1112333



PAUL WELLER is reportedly considering a reunion with THE JAM after growing closer to former bandmate BRUCE FOXTON after his father's death.

The Modfather split from the group in 1982, and refused to talk to bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler for the following 25 years.

Weller and Foxton met up again in 2006 for a Who concert, and they've been rebuilding their friendship ever since, with Foxton showing his support by attending the funeral of Weller's dad John earlier this year (09).

The pair has spent several sessions recording new material for Weller's upcoming solo album, sparking speculation the band may reform.

A source tells Britain's The Sun, "Paul and Bruce get on well now. It didn't take long for them to re-establish their closeness after they met each other again. Bruce attended Paul's father's funeral in May. John Weller was instrumental in The Jam's success. Following that, Paul decided to invite Bruce to his studio to work on some ideas."

BUCKLER QUITS FROM THE JAM

24 September 2009 08:11
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/st ... am_1117018

RICK BUCKLER has parted ways with BRUCE FOXTON, ending their collaboration as the last members of THE JAM.

The drummer has quit the duo, which recorded under the name From The Jam, after Foxton agreed to play bass on the pair's former bandmate Paul Weller's upcoming album Wake Up The Nation.

Buckler, who provided no explanation for the split, says, "It is with some regret that I can no longer be involved with From The Jam.

"Many thanks to the fans for all their support over the last few years... It has been a pleasure and an honour."

Foxton has confirmed he will continue to play as part of From The Jam after recruiting a new percussionist to fill Buckler's place.

However, a spokesperson for Weller is adamant Foxton is not joining forces with the Modfather to reform The Jam.

The rep adds, "Paul and Rick still don't talk. He said he'd have to be in the gutter and his children starving before he ever performed as The Jam again, and he means it. The Smiths are more likely to reform than them."

OUCH!

I knew there was animocity there, but I was almost hopeful until the end of your post, Linda!

What a shame - I've seen Weller many times, the Jam twice, always an excellent show - would have been really nice to see a reunion.....maybe we need to work on the Smiths now

Yeah, like that's gonna happen......

Weller and Morrissey should just start a new band together and put all this Jam and Smiths reunion stuff to bed...

I'd rather see Weller and Marr together....

Well that's allready happened..........

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiKRdBHL6H0[/youtube]

Here's the promo video for the first single from Wake Up The Nation, which will be "7&3 Is The Striker's Name":

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0i6L1Q9kzU[/youtube]

Cell phone previews of two songs from Wake Up The Nation — the title track and "Fast Car/Slow Traffic":

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZVXhgiw_HE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4enxS4tM6ls[/youtube]

This is an extended club remix of another new song, "No Tears Left To Cry", which will probably appear on Wake Up The Nation is its original mix:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbgfeh ... emix_music

Paul Weller reunites with The Jam's Bruce Foxton
Duo reconvene on Weller's new album after both 'lost loved ones last year'

January 19, 2010
http://www.nme.com/news/paul-weller/49288



Paul Weller has reunited with The Jam's bass player Bruce Foxton.

Speaking to NME.COM, Weller revealed that his old bandmate plays bass two songs on his forthcoming new album 'Wake Up The Nation'.

"It came about because we had both lost loved ones last year," Weller explained. "He lost his wife at the early part of the year, and I lost my dad, and it opened up a bit of a dialogue, and it seemed like a nice thing to do at the time. In fact it was a wonderful thing."

Weller is preparing to release 'Wake Up The Nation', which also features a collaboration with My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, this April. It's the follow-up to 2008's '22 Dreams'.

According to this story in the Guardian, the release date is April 12th.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/ja ... foxton-jam

from paulweller.com

The track listing and comments on each song from PW.



News
New Weller Album - 'Wake Up The Nation'

19th Jan 2010

You may have seen the first snippets of news of Paul's new album being announced in the press recently and today we can confirm those details.

Entitled 'Wake Up The Nation', the album is set to be released on April 12th and will be preceded by the double A-side single 'Wake Up The Nation'/'No Tears To Cry' on April 5th.

'Wake Up The Nation' was produced and co-written by Simon Dine at Paul's Black Barn studios in Surrey.

We asked Paul to talk us through a special track-by-track guide for his fans, to explain the origins of each song and to introduce the special guests that appear on the record, including Bev Bevan from ELO and The Move and Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine.

Paul also re-unites with Bruce Foxton for the first time since The Jam split in 1982.

Here's a glimpse into the making of 'Wake Up The Nation':

1. Moonshine

“Bev Bevan (The Move/ELO) plays drums on this one. Simon and I are big psychedelic music fans, so it was a real buzz. I was back to being a ten year old Move fan again.”

2. Wake Up The Nation

“It’s political with a small ‘p’. There’s a line in there about the death of the post box. It’s about how technology brings advantages but it also depersonalises things.”

3. No Tears To Cry

‘‘It’s s a definite nod to the Walker Brothers and those epic ballads. I thought it would fitting to get the man who played on a lot of those records to play on it. He’s seventy odd, but Clem (Cattini) came down and did it in literally two takes. He’s that good.”

4. Fast Car Slow Traffic

“It’s a real London tune. It’s a pretty full on. We played this on the last tour and people were really mad for it. It was really interesting to hear Bruce (Foxton) playing on it. You can instantly tell it’s him.”

5. Grasp and Still Connect

“It’s about how technology is meant to get us greater levels of communication, but I’m not convinced. It’s silly things like not talking to a conductor when you get on the bus - you buy a ticket from a machine. We’re forgetting how to talk to each other.”

6. She Speaks

“I’ve never really done anything like it before. It’s based on a poem I wrote about a year ago. Lyrically, it’s about the sea as a metaphor for life. Sometimes, however, you just have to plunge in and get on with it.”

7. Find The Torch Burn The Plans

“Thematically, it ties in with the title track. We’ve got to reclaim our heritage and our culture. Claim it back from the fucking politicians and the establishment. Charles (engineer) played drums. My daughter and her mate sang on it too.”

8. Aim High

“Stevie Pilgrim is on drums on this one. It was initially one phrase repeated over and over. I hit that falsetto voice, which was nice because I haven’t used it for a long time. Once I had the melody I wrote the words really quickly.”

9. Trees

“The words were inspired by going to see my dad just before he died. Simon liked them and he had the idea for five different musical parts to interpret them. My cousin Mark played guitar on it.”

10. Andromeda

“It’s about someone leaving a dying planet. I love the image of the last verse: “My mood gets lifted with the gravity’s pull/Looks like I’m smiling but I’m dying too.” It’s just about us mirroring our surroundings.”

11. Whatever Next

“It’s an instrumental. The album is made up of fairly short tracks but they’ve got a lot of information packed into them, so it’s nice to catch your breath for a minute, then get on with it.”

12. 7 + 3 Is The Strikers Name

“Kevin Shields plays on this one. He came down to the studio with a big bag of effects pedals and we took it from there. There’s a dig at the royal family in the lyrics – that whole invisible establishment is still in power, nothing’s changed.”

13. Pieces of A Dream

“We’d played it on the last tour and I was really surprised at how well it went down. People seem to really fucking love it. Stevie Pilgrim is on drums.”

14. 2 Fat Ladies

“I played bass and Little Barrie played guitar. It’s got a nice raw sound to it. What are the lyrics about? Hard to say. I was making them up as I went along! I think it’s a case of people taking what they want from it. What seems meaningless to one person can mean everything to someone else.”

Stay tuned for details of where you can pre-order the album and single...

Paul Weller, 'Wake Up The Nation' - First Listen

By Matt Wilkinson
Posted on 29/01/10 at 03:17:52 pm
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog= ... 909&more=1



Paul Weller returns on April 12 with new album 'Wake Up The Nation'. He's hailed it as "political with a small 'p'" himself, and it's clear straight away that he's got rather a lot to get off his chest. There'll be a full, considered review in the issue of NME onsale the week before that, but seeing as we've just had the album on the stereo, here's a first-listen, track-by-track run down.

'Moonshine'
All guns blazing from the off. Messed-up background feedback and honky-tonk piano compliment Weller's offbeat, slightly pished sounding vocals. "A bag of nerves I seem to suppress," goes the very first line, while the second chorus intones "there's something I cannot possess" – but this isn't a 'poor me' record at all. He's sounding up for it and energised here, and that's something that's a running theme throughout the album.

'Wake Up The Nation'
"Get your face off of Facebook and turn off your phone" sings the God of Mod at one point, his voice sounding as venomous as it's ever been. Another straightforward rocker, this one's punctuated by loads of funky "ooh"s, blasts of '60s harmonium and a great brass section (not to mention an even greater line about "scratching around in a second-hand gown...").

'No Tears To Cry'
Legendary session drummer and Tornados member Clem Cattini (age: 72) plays on this, and while he's relatively low in the mix, his inclusion is perfectly justified. It's a more than decent stab at the woozy, slightly slower paced Northern soul classics that practically gave birth to Weller's love of all things blue-eyed and dancey. You could imagine Dean Parrish turning to murder to get his lungs around something like this.

'Fast Car / Slow Traffic'
AKA the one featuring Bruce Foxton. You'll know it's him straight away, as he's back with one of those classic Jam basslines - part meat'n'potatoes simplicity, part Kinks bounciness. It's exactly two minutes of Weller shouting his mouth off… about traffic queues mostly. Listen closely and it sounds like he's actually singing "fuck off slow traffic" over and over, the same way Oasis substituted "white lime" for "white line" in 'Cigarettes & Alcohol', perhaps.

'Andromeda'
The most overtly psychedelic track on the album, and the most instantly catchy. It may be under two minutes long (spot a theme here?), but it's got a glorious melody that's as infectious as anything in Weller's solo oeuvre. The verse melody recalls The Beatles' 'Sun King' too.

'In Amsterdam'
Off-kilter instrumental with brush-stroke drums, dubby bass, a mellotron and effect-laden, high-as-a-kite guitars. Dreamy, to say the least.

'She Speaks'
Classic solo Weller on this, which sounds like it's been lost in his back pocket since the 'Stanley Road' days. Lyrically, it sees him vulnerable - focusing on feeling lost and the battle between weak and strong. Also features a ghostly spoken word bit and loads of reverb-tinged "oooohs".

'Find The Torch, Burn The Plans'
Weller does drone, with pretty much one chord played the whole way through on this (though there are added lashings of Mellotron and a descending lead guitar line). The vox can't help but make you think of 'Ticket To Ride', but this is no pastiche. The drunken singalong style chorus actually makes it the one bona fide anthem on the album, and lyrically, everything is positive, with "shout like you mean it" being the rasping, repetitive message. Backing vocals come courtesy of Weller's daughter "and her mate".

'Aim High'
The first of two funk tunes (second is 'Whatever Next'), this one features the return of the 'Weller falsetto'. Offset with nice '...Walrus'-esque strings, it reminds you of forgotten Liverpool tunesmith (and sometime Weller bassist) Edgar Jones, partly because of it's eclectic nature. It veers from Beefheartian fuzz-jam to a Liquid Liquid-style chorus, before snaking back to a classic outro that by rights should have soundtracked a Huggy Bear scene in Starsky & Hutch.

'Trees'
Weller condenses five great individual tunes into little over four minutes, for a sort of Legoland version of a rock opera. First, we get kooky dinner-party acid-jazz, then there's the trippiest bit of the whole record (think 'The Sound Of Music' crossed with the sound of lift muzak), followed by a burst of classic punk-pop stomp, and then some backwards electro-mindfuckery (fed through a Britpop guitar rack). Finally, it end's with 30 seconds of Weller sitting alone at the grand piano, singing "take me back to the fields". That bit's about his dad (RIP) and it's the most beautiful part of the record.

'Grasp And Still Connect'
Weller wants his woman but she don't want him. Essentially 'Grasp And Still Connect' is a rag-time blues version of 'Can't Buy Me Love'. "Wonder if you'll ever change," sings a bruised-sounding Modfather at one point. Awww.

'Whatever Next'
A second instrumental, but with more kick than the first one. Harps, flute, piano, programmed drums, more mellotron...they're all here. Cleverly, like The La's 'Looking Glass', it includes bits from the album we've heard already - a snippet of 'Find The Torch, Burn The Plans' here, a bit of 'No Tears To Cry' there.

'7 + 3 Is The Strikers Name'
This one you'll already know, what with it being the single and that. Kevin Shields, while not at full sonic force, owns the track - but it's actually quite tame in terms of weirdness compared to some of the other stuff on the album. "I don't want to fuck it up this time" Weller sings at one point, before going all Small Faces on us and pushing through regardless. A "sha-la-la" outro also adds to the (modest) modishness of the track.

'Up The Dosage'
Weller takes on disco and wins. It's disco in the same way Rose Royce or Blondie were disco, though, rather than The Cheeky Girls. His vocal sounds spirited and youthful, like his 'All Mod Cons' self if he'd truly got 'the soul' at that point of his career. It's got a bassline Franz Ferdinand have been dreaming about all their life and stonking drums - not to mention numerous weird, misplaced samples and loads of echo. "Ill make it right," Weller sings over and over. It's the message of the record.

'Pieces Of A Dream'
Initial acoustic guitars get punctuated by OTT pianos and backward drums, which somehow manage to keep the whole thing in place. The lull behind the final gale of the storm, you could say...

'Two Fat Ladies'
Little Barrie's Barry Cadogan plays guitar on this one, and you have to wonder why he's not in Weller's band full-time. While the Modfather sprouts gibberish about bingo numbers, of all things (supposedly made up on the spot), his band - led by Cadogan - whip out lashings of thunder-paced Motown brilliance, all swirling and pinned around a riff that's come straight from The Beatles' 'Revolver' sessions.

First-Listen Verdict: Weller proved with '22 Dreams' that he was still worthy, and on 'Wake Up The Nation' he takes that notion even further. Essentially, he doesn't give a fuck. Chuck a bit of falsetto funk in here, an OAP drummer there… whatever, it'll sound good. While it probably won't dissuade his dad rock-hating critics, '…Nation' is effectively the sound of one of the most accomplished songwriters ever enjoying himself in the studio and striving to push his music into the least predictable places possible.

Let's hold off on the import unless it turns out to have exclusive content — Yep Roc has announced that Wake Up The Nation will be released domestically on May 4th.

Linda is actually advising people to hold off buying something by Paul Weller? I'm shocked!

Well, when I say "let's" ... I mean everybody else.

Actually, I want to see if the 2-CD deluxe version is going to be released by Yep Roc as well as the standard edition, otherwise we'll still have at least one import version to consider.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppTqstrfQa0[/youtube]

This is scheduled for release in Japan on April 14, 2010 as a limited double-SHMCD. According to HMV in Japan, here is the track listing:

Disc 1

1 MOONSHINE
2 WAKE UP THE NATION
3 NO TEARS TO CRY
4 FAST CAR / SLOW TRAFFIC
5 ANDROMEDA
6 IN AMSTERDAM　
7 SHE SPEAKS
8 FIND THE TORCH, BURN THE PLANS
9 AIM HIGH
10 TREES
11 GRASP AND STILL CONNECT
12 WHATEVER NEXT
13 7&3 IS THE STRIKERS NAME
14 UP THE DOSAGE
15 PIECES OF A DREAM
16 TWO FAT LADIES

Disc 2

1 Wake Up The Nation -Zinc's The Crackhouse Remix
2 Fast Car/ Slow Traffic - Erland&The Carnival Carnivalization
3 Grasp & Still Connect - The Bees Version
4 She Speaks - Tunng Remix
5 Andromeda - Richard Hawley Remix
6 In Amsterdam - Noonday Underground Remix
7 No Tears To Cry - Leo Zero Remix
8 Find The Torch / Burn The Plans - Prawns In The Sun Remix By Little Vampire
9 Aim High(Aim Higher)
10 Pieces of A Dream( A Dream In Pieces)
11 Aim High(The Higher Aim)
12 Aim High( Like Water Needs A Flower)
13 Pieces Of A Dream - Original Version -bonus tracks for UK
14 Grasp & Still Connect - Original Version -bonus tracks for UK

Just read a great 5-star review in the May issue of Q Magazine -- it makes me really excited to hear it!