Paul Weller Quotes & Sayings

I don't like the royal family, I don't like the establishment, I don't like the civil service. — Paul Weller

In my old age, my mind gets more open, and I listen to so many different types of music and I guess that all reflects in my work. — Paul Weller

The way that house music has become so white and so sanitized over the decades and the fact it's still going on, well I think it's sad really, but at the time I really loved it. I loved all the black house music that was coming out of Chicago and New Jersey, which I just thought was really soulful. — Paul Weller

For me, there's always an early-'70s sense. There's always a sprinkle of it - if I do it exactly like that, sometimes it becomes too costume-y or too thought out. But the influences are there, without a doubt, always, because to me, that was the part that I also felt was the most defining of my own personality and my own style, and I also think that it's timeless. You never look wrong. — Paul Weller

When I discovered blues - I was 12-years-old - I didn't discover it in America where it was from; I discovered it from Fleetwood Mac - the original Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, Saveloy Brown - like British blues interpretations of it,' which then, when I started the liner notes and seeing all these names, I was like, 'Who's Willie Dixon?' Then I go to the record store and ask the guy there and he goes, 'Oh, you don't know anything.' And so, to me, that's the root of most of it anyway. — Paul Weller

The whole nostalgia thing, and just sticking with what you always liked and what you know and not taking a chance on something or expanding. I think especially after a certain age. — Paul Weller

When I told my mum I was going to play my first gig when I was 14, she couldn't believe it, cause I was painfully shy at that time. But I just done it, put my head down and got through it. And I suppose there's still a little bit of that, even though it's many years later and I've been doing it for a long time. — Paul Weller

Young people can listen to music at any moment in the day or night. Which is great, but I think it kind of devalues it as well. They don't feel the need to own it. They certainly don't feel the need to pay for it. I'd have to save up for weeks to buy an album when I was a kid, and that made it even more great for me when I finally got that thing in my hand. — Paul Weller

People say you make your best work when you're in despair and all that, and at your lowest - but for me, I think happiness makes you positive, and I think that's a good creative place to write from. — Paul Weller

I don't really wanna talk about politics, I'm not clever enough. — Paul Weller

No man should have cowboys boots in his wardrobe. That's fair enough, isn't it? Unless you're a cowboy, of course. — Paul Weller

When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar. — Paul Weller

In the past we used to come over to see what was going on in London or Paris or Milan or wherever - it's pretty much the same stuff everywhere [now], and people are wearing the same things, because it's all instantaneous with the Internet. — Paul Weller

Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I'd sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person. — Paul Weller

I saw an interview with Keith Richards. He said, 'How else could a kid in Dartford suddenly connect with and understand what Muddy Waters is singing?' There's a cultural difference, but there's just something in that music that subconsciously or internally you just understand; it just makes sense. — Paul Weller

I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else. — Paul Weller

A lot of young artists and musicians that we work with, you think they're gonna want to come in and buy the rock star-looking leather jacket - whatever it is that you think they're gonna want. They all want a suit. They want a tuxedo jacket, they want a suit. They don't want to look like their dad in it, but they want a suit. — Paul Weller

In the early-'60s, when you look at that period of time - up to the mod time - when everybody was wearing skinnier suits and skinny lapels and skinny ties - that came out of the States, and that was quite cool. — Paul Weller

When I was a kid in Woking, every week you went to the football dance, and every week the top kids would be wearing something different. You were constantly trying to catch up with them - which you could never do because, by the time you'd saved up enough to buy the item, they'd moved on to something else. That's the whole Mod thing, I suppose. — Paul Weller

Playing live is what it's all about for me. It's cathartic, it's emotional, it's about communing with people. The way you feel after a gig is a such a powerful thing. — Paul Weller

I've always liked my clothes, even before I could properly afford them. Clothes for me were never a cloak, a cover. They were how I chose to express myself. — Paul Weller

I think people are just really disappointed, disappointed with Blair as well, who's just like Bush's lapdog. I think everyone's just disillusioned with politics in our country, and it must be the same in your country. — Paul Weller

For me, my entry point, when I was old enough, was the skinhead/suedehead thing, sort of like '70/'71. People didn't have much money - they would save up, or whatever - but everyone always dressed up. You'd go to a dance at the football club on a Thursday night and all of us kids - all of us from maybe like 12 to 16 - were all dressed up. — Paul Weller

I never, ever wanted to be the Rolling Stones. Bless their hearts, but I don't necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing for the next 10, 20 years ... I could see how easy it is to get into that rut, the whole touring mindset. — Paul Weller

I'm fine with being thought of as a guitar player, and if I can get any recognition or respect for doing that, that's a pretty good thing for me. — Paul Weller

I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. — Paul Weller

Led Zeppelin would never have reformed if he or Jimmy Page were bald. — Paul Weller

Going to college was never an option. I was passionate about music, but how much talent I actually had was another matter. — Paul Weller

I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music. — Paul Weller

Most people my age, their musical life ended in the '80s. They stick with what they know. But my tastes are much broader. And I don't want to stop learning. — Paul Weller

I don't feel old or young, I just am — Paul Weller

I think anybody goes through a crisis of confidence from time to time. You have to kind of doubt yourself, sometimes. It's the way forward. — Paul Weller

In the '90s, I think I rediscovered my guitar. The Jam was obviously very guitar-based, but in the Style Council I just got really disillusioned with playing the guitar. The further it went on, the less and less I played, to a point where I couldn't pick it up any more. — Paul Weller

I think part of what we do is there is a bit of dandy influence, always, or a little sprinkle of it. Not literal Savile Row dandy, but there's a bit of sartorial dandiness in everything that we do - every collection that we do. — Paul Weller

There is a shy side to me that evaporates when I play on stage, and I like that. I think it's another facet of my character, and I need to do that. — Paul Weller

The '40s were quite austere and super glamorous. — Paul Weller

It's always good to play New York. The Apollo is a great gig. I loved that. — Paul Weller

There are so many artists who get to my age that get comfortable and just stick in a groove, and I really don't want to do that. — Paul Weller

There were aspects of stardom I didn't like, which were of no consequence, really, but the positive things far outweighed the negative. By the time I came to write 'Setting Sons,' I felt my writing was more like prose, set to music. — Paul Weller

I love soul music, that's my real love in life and in whatever shape or form it is. — Paul Weller

No one told Miles Davis or BB King to pack it in. John Lee Hooker played literally up to the day he died. Why should pop musicians be any different? — Paul Weller

I think I come from a time when all the artists I grew up with and I loved always used to try and push the boundaries, and there doesn't seem so much of that, really. — Paul Weller

I look for that stimulation constantly. I'm looking for inspiration and stimulation. Not bored with what we've done. — Paul Weller

People say that if you're still angry at 52, you're not an angry young man, just a grumpy old git. — Paul Weller

It can get boring. Not the playing the songs necessarily, or doing the clothes. You know, you need stimulus. — Paul Weller

I never get too many problems. You can never please everyone anyway, obviously. And some people take the easy route and just play the greatest hits, and their audience is happy to hear that as well, and that's fine, but it wouldn't please me. But it doesn't trouble me. — Paul Weller

I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it. — Paul Weller

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. I don't wanna get ideas above my station, but why shouldn't this be comparable? Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later, and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important. — Paul Weller

For me, the best thing I can do is play live. The best way for me to put over what I'm trying to do is to play live. Whether it's an acoustic show, electric or whatever ... if I shine at all, that's where it all really happens - it just took me a while to rediscover that. — Paul Weller

The Beatles changed the world. They certainly changed my world, and many, many other individuals as well. — Paul Weller

Nothing wrong with pop! — Paul Weller

I come from a time when every kid dressed up. Everybody. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to hang out. It was very tribal. There's nice things in that. It's culture; it's roots for me. — Paul Weller

If you're in music, you're in music, and if you're in music you just want to keep making records and playing. That's what it's about, isn't it? At least, that's what I always thought it was about, anyway. — Paul Weller

I think if you're a creative person, then you're always kinda looking to move things along - 'Where else can I go? Where can I take this?' From painters to photographers - anything creative in the arts - if you're a true artist, I think you'll always look to do something else. 'Where else can I go with it?' Do you know what I mean? — Paul Weller

I'd heard a lot of Motown and Stax when I was a kid, but the more well-known end of it. On Jam tours, we had a DJ called Ady Croasdell who ran a '60s club. He turned me on to underground stuff and what people call northern soul. It just blew my mind. — Paul Weller

It's quite liberating to get to a certain age, 'cos you're not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I've done all that. I'm not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make. — Paul Weller

So much is filtered by pop music today, because the music industry is driven by single, single, single, single, the next single, not the nurturing of artists and that kind of thing. — Paul Weller

Worldwide, most people dress more casually these days, don't they? They have done for the last 20 or 30 years, I suppose. So, every place that I go to, the majority of people really wear jeans, trainers, T-shirt - everybody seems to dress more for comfort. Whereas, even in my lifetime, even up to the early-'70s, there was still that thing of dressing up. — Paul Weller

Coming from a little suburban town, I wasn't a hip city kid. I was quite the opposite, really. Songs like 'Saturday's Kids' rang a bell for kids all over the country. That song was about the kids I grew up with. — Paul Weller

I suppose I was much more serious-minded in the '70s and '80s. — Paul Weller

If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you ... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there. — Paul Weller

I was such a massive fan of all the '60s pop bands, but if I had to single out one band, it would definitely be The Beatles. — Paul Weller

I take my hat off to people like the Stones, but it's not for me. I couldn't do that. Jagger is brilliant and long may he rock. I couldn't make my career out of old songs; it would do my head in. — Paul Weller

I get bored quickly. I kind of take my hat off to bands who have been around for a long time and still do the same thing, because it's hard to keep a band together for decades. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't play the same songs night after night or just trade on my past glories, because it wouldn't interest me as a person. — Paul Weller

I never saw myself as a spokesman for a generation. It was all a bit heavy for me. I saw myself as a songwriter and wrote for myself, which I still do, and I also wanted to communicate with my audience. — Paul Weller

Today, we're even into the whole sweat thing. They'll wear a [suit] jacket like this, but they'll wear it with sweat pants and sneakers. But I do think there is every generation - and it won't be as big as it was when you and I were those ages - but every generation all of a sudden experiences that they want to dress up. — Paul Weller

There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. — Paul Weller

I don't like to get pigeonholed. I don't like it when people think they have you sewn up. — Paul Weller

I've not had Botox, no. — Paul Weller

The Jam were a good band, however I feel that the Style Council were better. A lot of people I know will disagree with me. Some things we did with The Style Council were misinterpreted or over their heads. — Paul Weller

There's always peripheral things that you like that you don't know, but starting with whatever his British influences are, are some of my favourite artists, and the American things are what I grew up on as well. In the end, for me, it's those foundations of the music business - those things that are a lot of the foundations of what music today is. You can hear a bit of all of those things that we talk about in almost all music today. — Paul Weller

You can listen to music at any moment in the day or night. Which is great, but I think it kind of devalues it as well. — Paul Weller

When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble. — Paul Weller

The whole thing with eastern music and instruments, I love all that stuff. — Paul Weller

I wear jeans and a T-shirt sometimes. I just like clothes - since the first time I can remember, like age ten or eleven; I was just obsessed with music and clothes. Just like a lot of people in England from my generation. — Paul Weller

I wanted to make a record that sounded like a continous piece — Paul Weller

It's important to know all those things, but part of our jobs is to move people along and to make people excited to buy music or buy clothes, and give them enjoyment, I think, too. — Paul Weller

I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want. — Paul Weller

I'm always looking for something. Not in an unhappy way. I just like to try different things. I don't want to be morbid, but I'm not getting any younger. — Paul Weller

I could say that 'Exile On Main Street' was my favourite or whatever, but I'm more about the songs and the artists and the sound that they bring. — Paul Weller

If you take skinny jeans - skinny jeans didn't just happen in the US, they were happening in Japan, they were happening in the UK, they were happening everywhere. Some places a little faster than others. But, if we look at our best sellers in this store, they're the same best sellers that we have in the States. — Paul Weller

Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like that. I look at Amy Winehouse, and I think perhaps she just don't want to do it that much. — Paul Weller

Bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names — Paul Weller

The Zombies were really unique - they had elements of jazz and classical music in their songs and songwriting. They had a very, very different sound compared to a lot of their contemporaries at the time. — Paul Weller

There's such a wealth of great music, clothes or whatever. There is so much great stuff out there, that why would you not still be interested if you've grown up in that kind of culture? — Paul Weller

I hear an album so many times during the course of making it that when I've just finished it, I don't want to hear it again. After you've taken a little bit of time away from it, you can come back to it, which can be scary. I'm happy with 'Sonik Kicks,' man. — Paul Weller

Being a musician is a noble profession. — Paul Weller

I try to have an open ear, but at the end, it would never change direction to where I think I should go. Because if I listened to everybody else, they're thinking about what's right now or what was the last thing - they're not thinking about what's next. — Paul Weller

I want to see where and how far I can go as an artist. I look back and see what I've done, and I want to do as much as I can in my lifetime. I love doing it. If I didn't have that passion or love for it, I wouldn't do it. — Paul Weller

Sometimes you're ahead of the game and sometimes people don't get it and that's just one of those things you have to accept and carry on. — Paul Weller

If we get through for two minutes only it will be a start! — Paul Weller

I'm sure there's a subconscious 'go for it' thing with turning 50. You want to do as much as possible and there are thoughts of how little time we have on the planet. For a lot of musicians in their 50s, the best days are behind them. I'd like to try and show that there is a future. — Paul Weller

Why not go down the pub? A guy once came up to me at a gig and asked me if I had MySpace. I said, 'This is my space, and you're invading it.' — Paul Weller

I think the biggest influence for me is when I hear a great piece of music, whatever the style, I'm kind of inspired by that greatness and I'm inspired to try and obtain something that comes close to that greatness. — Paul Weller

I'm still a mod, I'll always be a mod, you can bury me a mod. — Paul Weller

There are areas of music that I've never been to before, so that's always nice thing to have in life. That there are other areas you haven't been to. You haven't covered all the ground, and there's plenty more uncharted territory to cover as well. — Paul Weller

I only put an album out every two or three years. — Paul Weller

If you gave me a fresh carnation, I would only crush its tender petals ... — Paul Weller

I want to hear as much music as I possibly can before I leave this mortal coil but it's impossible to hear it all because there's so much of it. — Paul Weller

Music is the most natural thing in the world. When we go to a gig and we all like it and we share that experience, it's the same sense of communion as a sacred rite in Borneo or wherever it may be; it just gets dressed up different. Its good for the soul. — Paul Weller