So, you take a Yorkshire wurzel who loves to write songs but hasn't got the equipment, patience or actual ability to record them well. Then, you need to add the North East's answer to Miles Davis (in trumpeting ability, not in terms of serious intravenous drug abuse) who has equipment, and patience, and bucketloads of ability to record songs, but isn't as keen on writing them. You stick them together, add ridiculous amounts of laughter, and quite a lot of playing FIFA and swearing at the computer for giving ridiculous free kicks against you and what do you come out with? Various States of Undress, that's what! Recorded in Newcastle over the summer of 2011, the album really brings together the best of both Pauls, and basically if you enjoy this album even half as much as we do, then we enjoy the album twice as much as you! Hang on, that doesn't sound right.
It says on here that I have to tell you as much as I want about my music. I don't know what to put, really. I've been told it really fuses all my influences, which mainly revolve around The Beatles, Queen, Beach Boys, and Billy Joel. But they're not the only artists I've ever listened to, or been inspired by. I'm always on the lookout for new ideas, always trying to push my own creative boundaries while echoing the music I loved as a kid and grew up with. I think I've achieved that on this album, and it also ties in with the first time in my life I've felt comfortable enough to write happy, laid back and high-spirited songs. So now, what I want is to share them with, well, you! So...you know...what are you waiting for? Buy my album! I only need six or seven million people to buy it before I can jack in my day job and call it a day...why not make a humble northern yokel's dream come true?! :-) Hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording it - cheers for dropping by!
Paul
All songs written by Paul Staveley
All songs produced by Paul Riley-Gledhill
All guitars, pianos, basses, woodblock solos, triangle quartets and Didgeridoo symphonies played by Paul Staveley.
Dirty Trumpet on Desire by Paul Riley-Gledhill.
All drums programmed by Paul Staveley and Paul Riley-Gledhill. (Mostly Paul Riley-Gledhill. Like, 95% him.)
All vocals (even the high bits) by Paul Staveley.
Special Thanks to:
Sarah – raison d’etre.
Paul RG – Patience and genius personified.
Steph – Liebowitz’s day is done.
Sandy Z – distant relative, Twitter buddy, album name inventor.
Mum - I literally couldn't have done this without you!
John, Paul, George, Ringo - Apotheosis.
Billy Joel - You may be right, I may be crazy.
Thanks to:
The nice people at CD baby for distributing this
Hal Stewart for his incredible beard
Ian Dolamore: satisfactory, but odd.
My hilarious, awful, wonderful and terrible primate of a sister, I love you despite your face
My nephew Sammy (look at what your daft Uncle Paul did!)
Olympic Florence
Silk and Tugboat
The Diplodocus. What a dinosaur.
Monday 14 November 2011
Sunday 6 November 2011
Why I would sell out...probably.
I started off writing a blog about something else. I’ve got an album coming out, and someone asked me what I would consider a “success” for it. I don’t really know how to answer that, and my first instinct was to say that I already consider it a success, because I’ve recorded an album and I’m releasing it on itunes for people to listen to, and hopefully enjoy. Regardless of how many copies it sells, I will have actually recorded and released a proper album, instead of the home-spun charming, but amateurish stuff that’s currently available online. That is success, to me – and I’m delighted about it. I’m also bulletproof in terms of how it’s received, because even if everyone who buys it thinks it’s rubbish, I don’t. Of course it would be a shame to work so hard on something and then have everybody who heard it think it was awful, but it would be even worse to compromise and sell it out, and STILL have everyone hate it. I looked at what some people consider success, and had a think about it.
Justin Bieber has 14 million followers on Twitter, Rebecca Black had 167 million views on YouTube, Westlife had 14 number one singles, Ke$ha has sold more singles than The Beatles did in the USA and yet I wouldn’t want to be any of them, not for all the tea in China. I don’t drink tea, actually, but you get my point. I would gladly have their money, and more than gladly have the chance to have that many people listen to my work, but I wouldn’t want it at the price that they have paid, ie people like me having the opinion I have of them. I wouldn’t sell out to get fame and riches. I thought.
But then I thought again. Wouldn’t I? Believe me, I have a very strong sense of my artistic identity and what I want to achieve. I also have a very strong personality when it comes to being challenged and having my vision questioned. I have a huge ego, mixed with occasionally crippling crises of self-confidence. I feel artist-y. I feel like I wouldn’t make sacrifices to achieve financial gain while losing my personal integrity. There are definitely songs that I wouldn’t be caught dead singing. Yes, Justin Bieber has had a lot of success but Jesus Christ, the kid’s a tool. I mean, come on, he is. And the songs are awful. I checked, just to be sure. I didn’t want to be one of these people who just hated him without having actually listened to the songs I professed to hate. But yeah, they’re terrible. My immediate instinct is to say that I would have too strong a moral code to ever lower myself to singing bilge like that. But would that moral code really cause me to turn down commercial success, at that kind of level, if all I had to do was sell out a bit?
It’s a difficult thing to say for sure. I think that absolute refusal to sell out under any circumstances is nice and easy for people to say once they’re already rich and famous, but really, how many struggling musicians who have an audience of about 40 wouldn’t rather be playing to thousands of people and making absolute sack loads of money? It’s all well and good sticking to your guns and gallantly failing, staying in obscurity for the rest of your life cuddling up to the fact that at least you never sold your integrity even a little bit, but does it really make it alright?
I’m 29 now, and I really don’t have any illusions about the avenues that exist for me in the music industry. They are few, and far between. It’s also hard to properly balance reality with your dreams. It’s extremely easy for me to play the card of “well, I know I won’t sell a million copies of my album, but what really matters to me is that the people who do buy it like it” – and that’s true. From the bottom of my heart, I would much prefer it to be 20 people’s favourite album of the year than a million people’s 20th favourite album of the year. But of course I still have that little part of me that wants word to somehow spread enough that I sell loads more copies than I ever thought I could. It’s not financial either – well, not primarily. I want more people to hear it, because then maybe more people will like it. Maybe people will want me to make another album, and maybe I will be able to. Obviously, the financial side of it would matter too, the more copies I sell, the more money I make, but fundamentally the money is secondary.
But what if I could cash in? What if somehow, someone offered me the chance to release an album that brought me financial security? Would I really be able to turn it down? You don’t hear much from Ashanti these days, for example, but when she turfed up with those bloody awful songs, she sold over 10 million records. If I’m lucky, I will make approximately £1.20 from every £5 album sold. Extrapolate that to the usual retail price of an album, and she is looking at the best part of $25m. Wouldn’t it be worth being terrible for that? If I had that much money, I could make all the albums I wanted, preserve all the artistic integrity I needed for the rest of my life. Justin Bieber is apparently worth $80m and he’s not even 18 yet. Couldn’t he call it a day and work on turning himself into a proper artist? You look at some of the most artistically appreciated musicians to have ever walked the earth, and a massive number of them started out singing songs that weren’t their greatest musical achievements. Listen to “Love Me Do”, or “Great King Rat”, or “Why, Judy, Why?”. Look at how Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix got started. The hardest thing about any of this is definitely getting your foot in the door. I have a high enough opinion of myself to believe that if I ever did get a foot in the door, and make some kind of name for myself, I could stay there. My passion for music is all-consuming, I’ve never yet run out of ideas for songs to write, and I love performing and playing. But how do you start? START?! It’s so frustrating, and if a way out was offered to me, if someone rang me up to say, “Hey, I loved that rubbish song you wrote, would you fancy giving it to Justin Bieber, or some other such bloody disaster of a musician, so he can take it and ruin it but you get 20% of the royalties,” what possible part of me could say no?
Fundamentally, the question is, Would I be willing to accept commercial success for something that I was not only not proud of, but actually despised myself for? My worry would be...could I afford not to? I hope that people like the album, I really do – and I’m so proud of it because I haven’t compromised my vision for it in any way. I hope I never do, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and the songs I’ve written, but if you are a very rich and successful record producer and you need me to churn out a two and a half minute piece of utterly awful but nevertheless commercially acceptable pop disaster, please give me a chance.
Justin Bieber has 14 million followers on Twitter, Rebecca Black had 167 million views on YouTube, Westlife had 14 number one singles, Ke$ha has sold more singles than The Beatles did in the USA and yet I wouldn’t want to be any of them, not for all the tea in China. I don’t drink tea, actually, but you get my point. I would gladly have their money, and more than gladly have the chance to have that many people listen to my work, but I wouldn’t want it at the price that they have paid, ie people like me having the opinion I have of them. I wouldn’t sell out to get fame and riches. I thought.
But then I thought again. Wouldn’t I? Believe me, I have a very strong sense of my artistic identity and what I want to achieve. I also have a very strong personality when it comes to being challenged and having my vision questioned. I have a huge ego, mixed with occasionally crippling crises of self-confidence. I feel artist-y. I feel like I wouldn’t make sacrifices to achieve financial gain while losing my personal integrity. There are definitely songs that I wouldn’t be caught dead singing. Yes, Justin Bieber has had a lot of success but Jesus Christ, the kid’s a tool. I mean, come on, he is. And the songs are awful. I checked, just to be sure. I didn’t want to be one of these people who just hated him without having actually listened to the songs I professed to hate. But yeah, they’re terrible. My immediate instinct is to say that I would have too strong a moral code to ever lower myself to singing bilge like that. But would that moral code really cause me to turn down commercial success, at that kind of level, if all I had to do was sell out a bit?
It’s a difficult thing to say for sure. I think that absolute refusal to sell out under any circumstances is nice and easy for people to say once they’re already rich and famous, but really, how many struggling musicians who have an audience of about 40 wouldn’t rather be playing to thousands of people and making absolute sack loads of money? It’s all well and good sticking to your guns and gallantly failing, staying in obscurity for the rest of your life cuddling up to the fact that at least you never sold your integrity even a little bit, but does it really make it alright?
I’m 29 now, and I really don’t have any illusions about the avenues that exist for me in the music industry. They are few, and far between. It’s also hard to properly balance reality with your dreams. It’s extremely easy for me to play the card of “well, I know I won’t sell a million copies of my album, but what really matters to me is that the people who do buy it like it” – and that’s true. From the bottom of my heart, I would much prefer it to be 20 people’s favourite album of the year than a million people’s 20th favourite album of the year. But of course I still have that little part of me that wants word to somehow spread enough that I sell loads more copies than I ever thought I could. It’s not financial either – well, not primarily. I want more people to hear it, because then maybe more people will like it. Maybe people will want me to make another album, and maybe I will be able to. Obviously, the financial side of it would matter too, the more copies I sell, the more money I make, but fundamentally the money is secondary.
But what if I could cash in? What if somehow, someone offered me the chance to release an album that brought me financial security? Would I really be able to turn it down? You don’t hear much from Ashanti these days, for example, but when she turfed up with those bloody awful songs, she sold over 10 million records. If I’m lucky, I will make approximately £1.20 from every £5 album sold. Extrapolate that to the usual retail price of an album, and she is looking at the best part of $25m. Wouldn’t it be worth being terrible for that? If I had that much money, I could make all the albums I wanted, preserve all the artistic integrity I needed for the rest of my life. Justin Bieber is apparently worth $80m and he’s not even 18 yet. Couldn’t he call it a day and work on turning himself into a proper artist? You look at some of the most artistically appreciated musicians to have ever walked the earth, and a massive number of them started out singing songs that weren’t their greatest musical achievements. Listen to “Love Me Do”, or “Great King Rat”, or “Why, Judy, Why?”. Look at how Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix got started. The hardest thing about any of this is definitely getting your foot in the door. I have a high enough opinion of myself to believe that if I ever did get a foot in the door, and make some kind of name for myself, I could stay there. My passion for music is all-consuming, I’ve never yet run out of ideas for songs to write, and I love performing and playing. But how do you start? START?! It’s so frustrating, and if a way out was offered to me, if someone rang me up to say, “Hey, I loved that rubbish song you wrote, would you fancy giving it to Justin Bieber, or some other such bloody disaster of a musician, so he can take it and ruin it but you get 20% of the royalties,” what possible part of me could say no?
Fundamentally, the question is, Would I be willing to accept commercial success for something that I was not only not proud of, but actually despised myself for? My worry would be...could I afford not to? I hope that people like the album, I really do – and I’m so proud of it because I haven’t compromised my vision for it in any way. I hope I never do, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and the songs I’ve written, but if you are a very rich and successful record producer and you need me to churn out a two and a half minute piece of utterly awful but nevertheless commercially acceptable pop disaster, please give me a chance.
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