THE ICON - PAUL WELLER
Published: Music Australia Guide #77, June 2010.

In The Icon we profile those who change music. This month, Dan Rule follows the ever-expanding creative vision of the man known as ‘The Modfather’, Paul Weller. 

He may have shot to stardom fronting the most popular band of the British punk era, The Jam, but Paul Weller’s creative journey has transcended singular notions of success, style or art. A driven, single-minded creator and true musical journeyman, Weller has expanded and reinvented his approach, palette and craft time and time again. His divergent work with The Style Council and later as a solo artist flew in the face of his previous commercial successes and his sheer individuality inspired a generation of British acts,‘90s Brit-pop gods Oasis and The Verve among others.

Born in 1958 to working class parents in Surrey, England, Weller’s first musical love was The Beatles, before exploring the grittier sounds of The Who and The Small Faces. He picked up the guitar in early high school and began jamming Beatles covers with his best friends Steve Brookes and Dave Waller, with whom he would form the first incarnation of The Jam in 1972.

With Weller’s father John taking the role of manager in 1975, the group would go on to become a signpost act of the punk era. They toured with the likes of The Clash, released a host of hugely successful records – classics All Mod Cons (1978), Setting Sons (1979) and Sound Affects (1980) included – and, thanks to Weller, crafted an astute, often political, but innately melodic sound that offered a sophisticated edge to the otherwise abrasive punk aesthetic.

By at the height of their powers in the early ‘80s, however, Weller began to feel limited by the group’s approach. To the shock of both his band and the music world, he disbanded The Jam in 1982, citing a want to explore Motown and northern soul music, and later forming jazz-pop group The Style Council. It was to be the first of countless shape-shifts for enigmatic songwriter, many of which would leave his fans and critics confounded.

But more than anything, Weller’s musical meanderings revealed an artist unwilling to temper is inclinations. Indeed, Weller would do just about anything – burn bridges, sack bands, break marriages – to follow his creative whims. His solo career has visited terrains as varied as stylised, groove-based jazz and electronica (1992’s Paul Weller), masterful, roots-flecked rock (1993’s Wild Wood), sophisticated modern soul (2002’s Illumination) and vibrantly organic and colour-drenched pop (2008’s 22 Dreams).

Weller’s vast sonic explorations, however, are not without a compass. More than perhaps any of British punk’s surviving artists, the man dubbed “The Modfather” has proven to be a true student of music and the art of songwriting. Though he may be misunderstood, for Weller, every song, every record and every musical tangent is a devout learning experience. 

Wake Up the Nation is out via Universal 

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