“THE key to it with Paul, the thing that makes it such a pleasure, is that there’s no time pressure. That makes a massive difference when it comes to creativity. Ideas are allowed to develop at their leisure. You’re allowed to chase ideas and try things that will lead you to the last place you thought. With Paul, there’s no demos as such. There are pieces that he records on his phone; that can be something quite basic or something that’s pretty much done. With ‘Cosmic Fringes’ [from Fat Pop Volume 1], there was very little to add. But then you get something like ‘More’ [from On Sunset], which we built up into this amazing sevenminute epic. It all started with a little guitar riff on his phone, which survived the entire process, so on the finished version it’s still in there. With Paul, I get the support and encouragement to do what I want to do. The only time it gets a bit more structured is when someone sets a deadline for the record to be finished; then it becomes more of a case of: ‘Right, what does this need now?’ It’s hard to pick out favourites, but I have to mention ‘Village’ because it was the first single taken from On Sunset and it was a Weller/Kybert co-write. Paul sent me the7" single, which had the Polydor logo on it. ‘One X One’ [from Illumination] was a pivotal moment in my career. We were doing a session at [Noel Gallagher’s] Wheeler End Studios. There must have been something I did that made Paul see something in me, because 20 years later, we’re still working together.”
