PAUL WELLER’s new album is an A-Z of roads less travelled, from 2005 to now. An opportunity to explore some unfamiliar and unexpected flipsides of The Modfather – like, for instance, his tattoo? “I thought, Fuck it, I’ll get one done,” he tells PAT GILBERT.

Portrait by KEVIN WESTENBERG.

IT’S A SUNNY AFTERNOON ON MARYLEBONE’S fashionable Chiltern Street, and Paul Weller and MOJO are enjoying a coffee outside a buzzing delicatessen. With Weller sporting a white mac and smoke curling skyward from a French cigarette, to passers-by the scene might recall a 2022 update of The Style Council’s Café Bleu cover shoot. But the retro Left Bank ambience is suddenly shattered by the appearance of a youth displaying a heavily tattooed leg.

“What the fuck is that?!” growls the Modfather, whose nom de guerre salutes a lifetime of strict sartorial – and, quite often, musi-cal – codes. “Did you see that online Q&A with Noel?” he expands, “where someone asks, ‘Does Noel Gallagher have a tattoo?’ Noel goes, ‘No, Noel Gallagher doesn’t have a tattoo, because he’s not a cunt.’”

Weller laughs uproariously. He sips his coffee.

No body art yourself, then, MOJO fancifully ventures?

He hesitates. “I have one…” In public view, Weller slowly lowers the waistband of his trousers until it threatens an unsolicited view of – in Wellerspeak – “me what’s-his-name”. Then, there it is: a small blue heart encircled with the letters ‘C F C’ – Chelsea Football Club. “It was my kids’ birthdays a few years ago,” he explains, entirely necessarily. “We went to lunch in Portobello Road and they all wanted to get tattoos done. I thought, Fuck it, I’ll get one done too.” Blimey, Paul Weller, no longer a blank canvas. “It’s a bit pathetic but there you go.” He smooths back his silver mane and stubs out his fag. “Anyway, where were we?”