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
You can't live a lie. You have to follow your heart.
I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is.
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.
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.
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.
I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it.
Playing music is a lifetime's work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you.
I really enjoy playing America. I like the audiences there. It's the home of a lot of music I grew up with.
In all honesty, I don't know what one song can change.
I've not had Botox, no.
I get labelled as just being about one thing, but there's lots of layers to what I do.
Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I'd sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person.
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.
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.
There was a time in my 40s where I thought, oh, it's all over - not just work, but I'm never going to feel young again, I'm always going to feel like I know what's going to happen, I'll know what to expect. Looking back I don't know if that was a midlife crisis, I don't know - but I don't feel that now. There's possibilities. It gets better.
I don't think about what I can't do or what I shouldn't be doing. I just think there are endless possibilities musically, really.
Going to college was never an option. I was passionate about music, but how much talent I actually had was another matter.
It is nice to make a record and people like it, and it's encouraging.
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.
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.
I had a total belief in The Style Council. I meant every word and felt every action.
Being a musician is a noble profession.
I could write songs about politics, but I'm conscious of not writing songs that sound the same as the ones I wrote 30 years ago.
Nothing wrong with pop!
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.
When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.
I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else.
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.
I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music.
I suppose I was much more serious-minded in the '70s and '80s.
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.
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.
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.
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.
People say that if you're still angry at 52, you're not an angry young man, just a grumpy old git.
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.
I don't really wanna talk about politics, I'm not clever enough.
I think politicians are so far out of step with what people really want.
