Paul Weller's ever-changing grooves

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Paul Weller isn't one for anniversaries. But, for the man who has had some of the most influential haircuts in British music history, they've just been mounting up lately.

This year marks 25 years since the Jam - led by Weller, then a Mod-suited, angry, articulate 18-year-old - released their debut album In the City.

It's 20 years since he split up the band after six albums and turned his back on rock music for the jazz, soul and cafe moods of the Style Council.

It's 10 years since Weller emerged as a solo artist - the Council having foundered with a fifth album that his record label refused to release - and he has followed up his solo debut with five further albums under his own name.

The new one, Illumination, is as good a blend of Britrock, singer-songwriter introspection and nods to his 60s influences as most of its 90s predecessors. Save perhaps the truly exceptional Wild Wood, which came with a track entitled Has My Fire Really Gone Out?.

Weller, on the phone from London, clearly thinks not.

He might have a reputation as a prickly interviewee but he's matey - youknowworramean? - in the extreme.

Or maybe he's just a soft touch. When I mention that it's always weird talking to someone who was a musical hero in those post-punk days, he sympathises.

"I've been lucky in my time, man. Last year I played with Pete Townshend for a charity thing and I also worked with McCartney a few years ago, and even to me that was pretty weird. Just trying to get over the initial sort of shock and trying to get on and actually playing music."

He also sounds chuffed when he's told the Jam track Precious filled the floor when played at a mate's wedding a few days before the interview: "Did it go down? Good."

No, it seems, he's not too worried if people peg him to his past. But, yes, he has been intimidated by it.

"I think maybe after the Jam split, starting up the Style Council was kind of intimidating. There was a lot of resentment splitting the Jam and I think it took a long time for people to forgive me or people to get over it.

"And after the council sort of fell apart, there was, like, a lean period for me. A couple of years of me not doing anything - well I was still out working and touring - but I couldn't get a record deal. That took a long time for me to get myself together and my direction together and crawl my way back up again, really. They are all good lessons. All good things that steel you or strengthen you."

The various anniversaries seem to bemuse him.

"I don't know what to say about 25 years. It's just like a quarter of a century has flashed by. And from being young to being 44 or 45 next year, it's strange.

"When I am just going and doing what I am doing now and going out and playing and making a record, you don't kind of notice it. Everything seems contemporary and still fresh and ongoing.

"If I sat down in front of a pile of records I made in that time or if someone showed me a list of all the gigs I had done it would be quite mind-boggling really.

"But I think I really notice it more outside of music. Like, my son's 14 now and all of a sudden he's a young man. All those things seem to speed the process up, really."

Those things included his divorce from one-time Style Council backing singer Dee C. Lee, with whom he had two of his four kids. Perhaps inspired by his own father, John Weller, who has managed his son's career since the Jam days, he says he's a good dad.

"Yeah, I think I'm a really good dad. I treasure my children. I just try and spend as much time as I can with them when I am not working. They mean everything to me."

They occasionally now feature in his songs, like the sweet Who Brings Joy? from Illumination. Which might also beg the question: What would the Jam-period Weller think of his latest, personal work?

"I think there are certain things the 19-year-old would really like and there are certain things he would really hate because there are certain things he wouldn't understand or would be too mellow.

"But even at the age regardless, there still was a tender side to the Jam. There was English Rose and songs that showed another side. It wasn't all crashing and banging and shouting.

"By the same token I couldn't have written Who Brings Joy? when I was 19 because I wouldn't have had a child and I wouldn't have understood that. Whereas the difference now is I can understand a 19-year-old writing Eton Rifles as well as being a 44-year-old writing about my baby daughter.

"I think it's important at that young age to be that kind of narrow-minded and focused on one thing. That's part of being that age and it's quite a valid thing ... then comes age and wisdom, and there's room for both."

Illumination spans a couple of Britrock generations itself, with the supporting players including Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer from Oasis. And on Call Me No 5 he duets with Kelly Jones of Welsh rock trio the Stereophonics.

Weller laughs heartily when asked if it was the younger singer's similar work on a Tom Jones duet album that got him the job.

"No, but he's just got this great bluesy voice."

So, are they paying some sort of tribute to the "Godfather of Britrock" (which in some quarters has acquired the description "Dad-rock")?

"I don't take it one way or the other, to be honest. I'm happy if someone says, 'You inspired me to get a band or brought me through bad times or good times'. That's compliment enough, really. It's not as though I take myself seriously as the godfather of Britrock or any of that sort of bollocks.

"I never wanted to be Bono or Mick Jagger or any of that. I just want to be me and do my own thing."

And as for what keeps him doing his own thing ...

"There is still something inside me that wants to find out, wants to be the best I can and wants to see how far I can go or if I can better the last record.

"I think there's still that inner competitive spirit in me - not competitive against other bands or contemporaries - but just for my own personal reasons.

"That's what drives me. When you get complacent about it all, that is when the rot sets in."

* Illumination is out September 30.