One of the UK’s greatest ever songwriters, Paul Weller has returned with his 17th solo album, 66, titled for this 66th birthday, which occurred a day after its release. It’s another bravura collection of rock anthems, exquisite ballads and gorgeous soul excursions, all imbued with the melodic flair Weller has exhibited since his days in punk pioneers The Jam.

With such an extensive and glittering CV, I wonder how different the songwriting process is for Weller these days?

“I don’t know if the process is too different,” considers the singer, when Hot Press catches up with him in Soho in London. “I guess the only thing that’s possibly different is that there are some songs I write at home, which are fairly complete. They’ve got a lyric and an arrangement, and they’re normally fairly easy to get together. In the last 15 to 20 years or so, I’ve also tried to construct songs from nothing – just go into the studio with a couple of bare ideas and see what occurs.

“I’ll experiment with them a little bit, see what happens and where they go. That’s really exciting and I love doing that. I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to do that years ago. But these days, I suppose it’s different in that I’ll write a song at home, and then I’ll go in with the band and we’ll rehearse it before recording. I like to keep a spontaneous edge, just to see what happens on the day.

“It might turn a corner and go somewhere totally different you hadn’t thought about. There’s a bit more creative freedom now.”

In his younger years, Weller was known for biting social commentary on Jam classics like ‘That’s Entertainment’ and ‘Going Underground’. Is songwriting more personal for him now?

“I find it difficult to write those sorts of political songs,” he notes. “Because if I do turn my mind to writing something like that, I just think I’ve done it. I couldn’t possibly think of anything else to say than what I said in ‘Eton Rifles’, ‘Going Undergound’ or songs like that.

“My views wouldn’t have changed too much. I’d just be rehashing what I did 40-odd years ago, unless it comes to you naturally and you feel compelled to write it. But otherwise, for me to sit down and write that kind of song, I don’t know if I could do that anymore.”

Paul Weller, Nicole Nodland

ANYTHING’S POSSIBLE

Among the most memorable tunes on 66 is the beautiful ‘Soul Wandering’, which has a notably spiritual quality – you can sense a search for meaning in the lyric.

"The words were written by Bobby Gillespie,” explains Weller, referring to the Primal Scream frontman. “I didn’t write all the lyrics for the album. So we wrote that track together. Also, Noel Gallagher wrote ‘Jumble Queen’ and Suggs wrote a couple of songs, including ‘Ship Of Fools’. Erland Cooper wrote ‘Burn Out’. There was a lot of collaboration from that point of view – not so much on the recording side, but in terms of writing the stuff, definitely.”

Collaboration is increasingly prevalent in songwriting, but there must be a gear-change involved when you started out your musical life as the lyrical driving force...

“I didn’t use to do it,” says Weller, “but I have done it since True Meanings, which came out in 2018. That was the first time I did it, and again, I wrote a few songs with Erland on that record. I think he wrote three sets of lyrics for that album. Also, Conor O’Brien from Villagers wrote the lyrics for a song called ‘The Soul Searchers’. But that’s been good for me, really interesting. I’m known for being a lyricist as well, but I like getting someone else’s view. I guess after a while, you just become bored with your own views!”

Weller teases out the subject further.

“The older you get, the less revelatory life is to you, because you’ve fucking seen that and been there and whatever,” he continues with a grin. “Consequently, I don’t have much to say, if I’m really honest. I’ve said and thought a lot of it already. I don’t see the point in trying to say the same things, but just trying to change the words or something. It’s fucking pointless. I only write what comes naturally, and I like some of the lyrics that are more abstract as well. That suits me more in terms of where my head’s at anyway.

“It’s interesting to sing other people’s words as well. Obviously, you’ve got to relate to them in the first place. But I like the challenge of doing that, of interpreting someone’s else’s words and putting them into my music. More than anything else, I don’t have so much to say. So it’s like, don’t say nothing then! Get someone else to write the words. I’ve plenty of musical ideas, but lyrics get more difficult.”

Is Gillespie someone Weller has known for a long time? And was he a fan of Primal Scream’s 1991 masterpiece Screamadelica?

“Yeah, I loved it, but I loved most of their records to be honest,” he enthuses. “I really loved their period from Vanishing Point through Xtrmntr and Evil Heat. They made a few albums close together and I thought that was an incredible period for them. But they’re great, man, I love Bobby.”

I wonder if Weller has ever been tempted to do a full-on dance record a la Screamadelica.

“Well, I sort of did one with The Style Council, but the record company refused to put it out!” he chuckles. “So, no! That’s the sort of thing where it would only work if it came naturally. People would be going, ‘Why does it sound like he’s trying to make a dance record?!’

“It would just be fucking naff, you know what I mean? I let stuff happen naturally, so I don’t know if I’d do that. But then, I love all sorts of different music as well, so anything’s possible. There’s a song on the new album called ‘Flying Fish’, and to me, that’s a disco/dance track.”

Other standouts on 66 include the soulful ‘Nothing’, as well as ‘Rise Up Singing’, which has an up-tempo, optimistic feel.

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t write the words to it!” says Weller. “Dr Robert of The Blow Monkeys sent me the backing track, cos we were talking about writing something together. He had some words, and I think I just rearranged his lyrics a bit, and added a couple here and there. Mainly it’s Robert’s lyric, really. The idea was already there from him, to be fair.”

During recent live performances, with songs from the record taking their place, Weller has had a Palestinian flag onstage. Is it an issue he feels passionate about?

“What, genocide and ethnic cleansing?” he responds. “I do, funnily enough, yeah. Fucking hell, man, how complicated is it? It’s really simple, isn’t it? Yeah, I do feel very strongly about that.”

Unfortunately, Joe Biden has been somewhat more equivocal in his outlook.

“Yeah, I wonder why that is,” says Weller. “He doesn’t know what fucking day it is, mate, does he? He probably doesn’t even know where Palestine is. It’s very a sad state of affairs in the world, man, letting that go on. It’s not the first time, obviously, and probably won’t be the last. I would have thought in the 21st century, we would have got rid of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but evidently not.

“It’s disappointing, but that’s the way of the world, and that’s how it always was and always will be. I don’t know. It’s not really good enough for me, but that’s what it is.”

THIS IS SURREAL

Of course, Weller has a track record in political engagement, notably being one of the figureheads of the Red Wedge movement, which aimed to connect the UK Labour Party with the youth vote ahead of the 1987 general election. Does he engage much with UK politics these days?

“I don’t like any of them,” he responds. “We’ve possibly got an election coming up this year and I probably won’t vote. We’ve got the Tory party, which I hate, and you’ve got Keir Starmer in charge of Labour, who’s a fucking joke man – it’s just another Tory party. Maybe a slightly more palatable Tory party. I don’t think there’s any choice, really.

“Who would you vote for, you know? You can waste your vote on the Green party or something, and it’s not really going to make any odds to anyone. So I’ll probably abstain to be honest. I haven’t had time for any of them, really. There’s a few good people in the Labour party, but they’re not at the top. Keir Starmer might as well be the head of the Tory party really, cos it’s the same fucking thing to me.”

Returning to 66, Noel Gallagher co-writes the fantastic ‘Jumble Queen’, which features the lyric “Take what you want from me.” I take it it’s not about Liam…

“Don’t think so, man,” says Weller. “I could hazard a guess, but I won’t! I don’t think it’s about Liam, not at all. Noel turned it around really quick. I sent it to him and said, ‘Have you got any ideas for this?’ About 20 minutes later, he sent me the words back. Unless he already had them written, but he wrote them for that, I think. But I don’t know what it’s about!”

This isn’t the first time you’ve written together...

“We wrote a song for The Monkees on their last album, before Mike Nesbitt passed,” says Weller. “Mickey Dolenz, Mike Nesbitt and Peter Tork were on the record, so that was a buzz doing that. We did a demo of it and and sent it to them, and they pretty much copied what we did. That was on the last record they did, five or six years ago.”

Another notable moment came with 1995’s Warchild benefit The Help Album, which found Noel, Weller and Paul McCartney – as The Smokin’ Mojo Filters – collaborating on a cover of the Beatles classic ‘Come Together’.

“It was one of the best days of my life,” Weller reminisces fondly. “We were doing a Beatles song, with a Beatle, in Studio Two in Abbey Road, which is The Beatles’ studio, really. That’s what we always called it. For me, it was just mind-boggling. So it wasn’t wasted on me and I just thought, ‘This is surreal, really.’ It was great, because you had me, Macca and Noel – three different generations of musicians. If you’d told me that when I was a 10-year-old Beatles fan, I wouldn’t have even been able to comprehend it.”

• Paul Weller’s new album 66 is out now. Paul plays the Trinity Summer Series, Dublin on July 4.