‘Joesolo’ is the alter ego of Paul Thompson, formerly of Hull guitar-pop outfit, Lithium Joe. As the band’s songwriter and vocalist, Paul played in excess of 350 gigs as the group released a string of self-funded records through their own label, ‘Resolve Records’. After a musical hiatus, 2004 saw Paul commence recording as a solo artist with his debut CD ‘An Exile In Suburbia’. Paul talks to Nick Quantrill about his new musical direction and life as a fiercely independent musician.
Nick: It’d be fair to say that if people know you, they know you through your former band, Hull - based Lithium Joe. What can you tell us about those days?
Joesolo: Well, me and the Joeboys spent ten years between 1991 and 2001 trying our damndest to make people listen. We toured over and over, released as much as we could afford to release, and basically ran the show out of our back pockets with whatever money we could scrimp and save from the string of shitty jobs we barely managed to hold down. We gave it our best shot. We never made it. Simple as that. I loved every second, and I wouldn't change a thing.
Nick Are any releases still availbale?
Joesolo: I've a couple of boxes of a 7" EP we put out in 1998 called "War Stories" left....maybe 50 copies. Other than that it's all sold out now I believe. In actual fact I'm just in the process of putting out a special edition of our 2000 album "Upstairs At Park Street" which will include six new tracks that were previously only available as downloads. That should be out in a month or two. Being back on the scene has renewed people's interest in Lithium Joe so the cds have been shifting again. There will also be a new-look website up and running soon at www.lithiumjoe.co.uk with free downloads and news of anything we may or may not get up to in the future.
Nick The was a gap of maybe three or four years between the last Lithium Joe release and the first Joesolo record, and then we get two albums in a year! What brought on this burst of creativity?
Joesolo: When the Joeboys effectively parted company in the summer of 2001 I thought I was finished. I'd literally given every last shred of myself over to the band for ten whole years and then it was gone. Your life becomes meaningless if you let it. Me and Mrs Solo had just had our second son so I gave myself over to supporting them and being the best husband and father I could. I didn't pick up a guitar for over a year. Then Joe Strummer died. It's hard to put into words what Joe meant to people of my generation. The Clash had motivated and inspired us in ways that you just can't see any group doing now, and when he died I just started thinking about all the good guys and how they were disappearing one by one. I just got the old bee back in my bonnet. There are so many negative signals out there and so much inanity and blandness. I think if you've got the ability to give voice to your opposition and maybe suggest an alternative then you should quit moaning, get off your arse and do it.
The reason so much material came so quickly was that I opened the floodgates at the same time I quit drinking. You don't realise what a fog alcohol creates around your brain until it lifts. I wrote so many songs so quickly and had so much clarity and sense of purpose again. It was unbelievable. I was a habitual drinker. Not an alcoholic exactly, but someone for whom alcohol was as much a part of the evenings routine as bed. I quit in the February of 2003 and I've never looked back.
The problem was I had too many songs for one album. So I made two. There's another on the way.
Nick: Which artists and records have influenced the Joesolo releases, ‘An Exile in Suburbia’ and ‘The Man Who Dreamed Of Fairyland’? Are these different to what inspired you within a band context?
Joesolo: Well I wanted to throw the rule book out of the window as to what you could and couldn't do with a solo record. The stereotypical singer-songwriter has either surrounded themselves with session musicians and made a band record, or is quietly noodling away on an acoustic guitar moaning about some dark inner pain or something. I decided to carry on as if there was a band behind me. I think it's quite unique in that the drums and bass are clearly missing but I've tried to do enough with the guitars and backing vocals to suggest their presence anyway. In that sense the people who have influenced me over the years are no different. My tastes are a lot more varied now and that is probably reflected in the kind of songs I write, but overall I'm not comfortable with the idea of being "influenced". I don't want to sound like anyone. I'm not interested in being the new this or that. I want to be the first Joe Solo.
Nick: Sending out the Joesolo cd’s to people in exchange for a donation to one of the charities listed on your website is a fairly different approach, maybe even unique. What’s the thinking behind this?
Joesolo: I want everything about Joe Solo to mean something. Every last little detail. I write a lot of songs about honesty and compassion for people around you, the idea of putting the whole before the self. You see I grew up with Thatcherism, and one by one I watched my schoolfriends become self-obsessed money-grabbing wankers, and I hated it. I absolutely loathed the whole concept that you had more value as a person if you had money. I decided that the only thing you could do was live out your political principles, become a little socialist state all of your own. There's a writer called Zygmund Bauman who puts all this better. He believes the only way for the world to survive is for a system of Moral Socialism to rise out of the ruins of Western Society. My song "A Silent Revolution" tries to put these ideas across. I have very few overheads these days, and because I record at home in my shed the cost price of a Joe Solo cd is round about £1. I sell them at gigs for £2 so that I can afford to give them away over the internet. The idea is that you email me your address and I send you a cd. You then make a donation at your own discretion to one of the charities listed. I have my costs covered and I'm trying to actively encourage the redistribution of any excess wealth. I could just take your money and give it away myself, but this way it encourages you to give directly and you get to choose who benefits. Of course you could just order a cd and not make a donation, laugh at my politics and call me a c***. But then....I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!!!!
Nick: Both Joesolo albums are the ultimate in solo productions in so much as you write, play and produce everything. Is this a policy that you’re going to pursue on the next record or can we expect something different?
Joesolo: The next album is going to be different again. I'm co-producing this time with David Foy who was the lead guitarist in Lithium Joe. Four of the songs will also feature a full band, two will have a drum machine and three will be just acoustic. I didn't want to repeat myself which is the danger when you're releasing records so regularly. David has experimented with dance music so his ears will hear ideas mine don't. I want each album to sound distinctive and carry different themes. The next one is called "USandTHEM" and is based around the cultural relationship we have with America and Americana. I'm really pleased with the songs and I'm hoping it's going to be that great record I've been promising everyone I'm going to make one day.
Nick: It seems that you pay particular attention to the lyric writing aspect of music. It seems to be a definite strength. Is this the most enjoyable part of the process for you?
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Joesolo: Definitely. I spend hours poring over the words to make sure they're just right, that they work on two or three levels, that I've got as many internal rhymes in as possible, that I've got it as close to poetry as I can. I hate lazy lyricists. You'll often catch my swearing at the radio then I hear all those "ocean/emotion" "fire/liar" "stay/pay/way/lay/may" bastards passing this shit off as a days work. Great lyrics can be written down and work as poetry outside of the context of the song, and that's what I aim for. A good lyricist can paint you an unforgettable picture in as little as eight lines. Bob Dylan is the master. When you look at rock music before Dylan it was all "Baby Baby" stuff but he just shuffled up and changed the rules overnight. Joni Mitchell too. Songs like "For Free" or "The Last Time I Saw Richard" are true genius. Strummer was a fabulous writer and I'd group him and Shane MacGowan together in that they are very literary. There's Blake, Orwell, Lorca, Conrad all lurking in the shadows. Some of their songs are like entire history lessons. I learnt more about Franco and the civil war from "Spanish Bombs" than I ever did in school, because the lyric tantalised, it made me want to pick up a book. MacGowan's "A Rainy Night In Soho" and "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" are quite simply two of the greatest songs ever written. To have beauty and despair, love, death and romance all pouring out in equal measure without the slightest trace of sentimentality is just stunning and I tip my hat in his direction....wherever he may be. Elvis Costello too, he doesn't have Strummer or MacGowan's flair for imagery but he's a superb player on words. Probably the ultimate in packing it all in is the Tom Waits song "Johnsburg, Illinois" a picture so vividly painted in so little time. Genius. True genius.
Nick: ‘The Man Who Dreamed Of Fairyland’ sees your lyric writing noticeably expanding to consider wider, more political issues like on ‘We’re All Gay’ and ‘Ms Seventeen’. Is this a natural progression for you, or is it a more deliberate attempt to have your say on what’s happening in the world?
Joesolo: I think it is the responsibility of a writer to reflect the times they live in. You see that in literature and art, but you're beginning to see that in rock too. Now that there are forty or fifty years of popular music you can hear history as well as read about it. From the hippy and anti-war movements of the 60's, through punk, new wave, rap, grunge, acid house to R&B you can hear the sound of youth from any given era. It's actually quite fascinating if you think about it.
What happens to singers over a certain age? They start making albums about their latest divorce, or worse, they still write about splitting up with their girlfriend pretending their still 19. I decided to write about who and where I was now as a 35-year-old father of two living in a backward smalltown hell. On "Exile" I tried to capture how you come to terms with the past whilst trying to find your own place in the present. On "Fairyland" I had a look at the political forces that shape who we are for better or worse. It was two ways of looking at the same thing really. Judging by the reaction I'd say that quite a few people recognise themselves in the songs so I must be doing something right.
Nick: It’s very noticeable that the packaging of the Joesolo releases carries a lot of information. I particularly like the way that the housing shadows on the cover of ‘An Exile In Suburbia’ represent coffins. What’s your thinking behind this?
Joesolo: Suburbia is where once valid and vibrant people are put out to seed. Where they rot in their own weaknesses, wither and die. Does that tell you enough? In actual fact I can't take the credit for the coffins. I draw up the initial ideas for the sleeves and then I pass them over to a friend of mine called Jason Goodwin who brings them to life and embelishes them with his own little flourishes. The coffins were his touch. I like them a lot.
Nick: It seems that you have always taken pride in being an independent musician and in retaining control over your affairs. Does the Internet have any impact on the way you operate? Is it opening up your music to a new audience?
Joesolo: Yes, yes and yes. The Internet is a great leveller. Everyone sounds rubbish through those tinny little speakers so it really doesn't matter if you make records in your shed, your toilet, your sandpit..whatever. You can make new fans everywhere and your music is working for you 24/7. The record industry really hasn't worked out how to ruin it for us yet cos the blockheads that run it didn't see this coming. I remember doing an interview for a punk fanzine in 1997 saying that the only way musicians could win was to work together outside of the mainstream, and the Internet has given us the power to do just that. Now it's up to us to make it count while we have the upper hand. I've been recording and releasing songs now for fifteen years and do you know how many people from the music industry I've met in that time? One. You have literally no future in music unless you get out there and do things for yourself. Our motto in Lithium Joe was: "Make The Best Of What You Got" If we had a grand for a record we went into a decent studio, if we only had fifty quid we'd go to the local community centre. We always made sure we made the most of whatever came our way, and I've taken that line of thinking over in to Joe Solo. I'll just run with it and see what happens.
Nick: On your website you state that the aim of Lithium Joe was to be the best independent band, but that in itself didn’t necessarily make you any less ambitious than any other band. What are your ambitions and hopes for ‘Joesolo’?
Joesolo: I want to make a great record. Not just a good record, but a great one. A "Revolver", a "Pet Sounds", a "Highway 61 Revisited" or a "London Calling". And I'll keep going until I have......then I want to make another.
www.joesolo.co.uk
www.lithiumjoe.co.uk
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