In Mod we trust
an interview with Paolo Hewitt

RSG! contributor Pete Wallace talks to writer and man of the people Paolo Hewitt about his writing, love of music and his life experiences...

Paolo Hewitt MBE is the acclaimed author of over a dozen books and has written for numerous periodicals over the last three decades.

Paolo wanted to be a writer from the age of fourteen, and when he bought a copy of The Melody Maker one day and saw an advert 'Young Writers Wanted' he applied and immediately began working there. Within a few years he had moved to the hipper NME, where he championed Black American music and became the first writer in the country to cover the Acid House scene. By the time everyone else had finally caught on, Paolo had decided to move on from the NME and the restraints of writing for a paper that seemed to be one step behind. He soon published his first novel Heaven's Promise, a fictional account of the Acid House scene and began working steadily for magazines and writing sleeve-notes for records, most notably for The Style Council under the guise of 'The Cappuccino Kid'.

Paolo has written possibly the best book there is on The Small Faces, The Young Mods' Forgotten Story, a pictorial account of the band which features exclusive material from Kenney Jones and a much sought-after interview with Steve Marriott. He has also written The Soul Stylists with Paul Weller, The Robin Friday Story with Guigsy, Steve Marriott: All Too Beautiful with John Hellier and The Fashion of Football with Mark Baxter. Although his finest work is almost certainly The Looked After Kid: Memoirs from a Children's Home, an autobiographical account of his abusive childhood.

This interview was recorded on the 23rd of September 2005.

RSG: How did you start writing?
PH: How did I start? I come from Woking in Surrey and I moved to London 'cos I've wanted to be a writer since I was fourteen. I moved to London in about '78 or '79 'cos I knew I couldn't be a writer in Woking, d'you know what I mean! I enrolled in a college here and the first thing I did was to start writing for the college paper. I used to review albums or if bands came to play at the college I'd interview them. And I used to buy the NME religiously. It was on a Wednesday in Camben and I went down one day to buy it and it had sold out and I was really, really gutted so I bought Melody Maker, which I never bought 'cos at the time it was an old man's paper. The NME were really hip and were writing about Punk and New Wave stuff, while Melody Maker were still on that Jazz and Folk thing or writing about Led Zeppelin. I bought the Melody Maker, I got it home and there was an advert 'Young Writers Wanted'. I sent in my stuff to them and the next day I got a phone call from the Melody Maker saying "do you want to come in for an interview?" Which was like "fucking hell!" Now, I'm half Italian and I really like football, so I walk into the manager's office and on the wall there was a poster of the Italian football team from 1970 and he went
"do you like football?"
And I went
"yeah"
so we got on really well. And then he started giving me work. I was interviewing groups round pubs in London and then it was "go and review Madness or The Jam." So, I kinda got more and more work from Melody Maker and in the end I thought, 'well, this is why I came to London, because I wanted to be a writer and I'd rather write at Melody Maker than be at college, so I left college and went freelance. I got a staff job on Melody Maker after about three months and I worked there until about 1982 or '83. In '83 I went to the NME and I stayed there until 1990.

RSG: So what made you want to start writing at fourteen?
PH: I was just really into music and I was really into reading and one day I was at school and somebody brought in the NME, I didn't know there was such a thing as music papers, and my mate who'd brought it in said "hey, have you ever seen this?" And a light bulb just went on; I thought 'Fucking hell!' I thought music, reading, writing... I just became obsessed with the NME. I couldn't wait for it to come out.

RSG Have you ever done any other style of writing?
PH: I did a fictional novel called Heaven's Promise which was put out on Heavenly Books in 1993. But apart from that all the rest has been…

RSG: In your spare time you haven't done anything else like poetry or song writing?
PH: No, no, no… just writing. I'm a bit suspicious of people who do all things. I'm a bit of a purist. I think if you're really good at something you can only dedicate yourself to that. It's like I see comics writing novels and I think 'well, what are you, a comic or a fucking writer, d'you know what I mean? It's probably me just being a purist. You see, I think you've got to be obsessed by what you do to do it really well and I think if you're going off and doing other things then you're not that obsessed.

RSG: What was it like working at the NME?
PH Well, for the first year when I got there, there was nothing to write about 'cos it was fucking horrible! It was Wham! and Spandau Ballet, but then I suddenly started hearing hip hop records and I really got into that, then I started writing about that stuff. From about '85 I just wrote basically about American Black music which was Run DMC, the whole Def Jam thing and then the Acid House thing started in London. I was the first person to write about that, for the NME and I really got into that as well. So, basically I was writing about Black music but the trouble with the NME is it doesn't know what to do with Black music, d'you know what I mean? They kinda struggled a bit with me… I would be going "look, I gotta go to Ibiza 'cos there's this rave culture over there and the kids are all going mad." And they would be saying "What are you on about? You're just trying to get your holiday. Oh, Paolo's off on his disco/clubbing thing!" They didn't get the significance of it. Yet, I wasn't a threat to all the main writers there, they all loved Morrissey and all that kind of gear, and I just didn't have time for it. It just wasn't my cup of tea, so I was just doing my thing. But, what was funny about the Acid House scene is when it started I was the only one into it and then as the months went on suddenly people would come over to my desk and go "err, Paolo what's that record that goes 'can you feel it?'" and I would have to tell them. Then they started taking ecstasy in around about '89 and they were "oh, this was what you were on about!" It was good, I was very happy to work there.

RSG: You interviewed Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield…
PH: Yeah, I interviewed Marvin while I was at the Melody Maker. I was too young, I was too fucking young! That's my one regret if you ever ask me what my one regret in life is; I was too young to interview him!

RSG: Weren't you happy with it?
PH: If I interviewed him now I'd talk to him all day long because I know Blues music, I know Doo Wop and Soul, and I know Funk and I know my music now! I didn't know my music at twenty-two, d'you know what I mean? I would just love to have him now and go "do you know when you layered the vocals here was that… You were a Doo Wap singer in the Fifties was that anything to do with..." I would ask him something very different from when I was 22. I interviewed the Holy Trinity; I interviewed Stevie Wonder, Marvin and Smokey.

RSG: What's Heaven's Promise about?
PH: It was about the Acid House scene. It was a precursor to Trainspotting. In fact, it influenced Irvine Welsh into writing Trainspotting and the follow-up The Acid House. I got to know Irvine Welsh about that time and he gave me a copy of The Acid House and I read one bit and I went,
"have you read Heaven's Promise?"
and he went
(in thick Scottish accent) "Aye, aye, only twice!"
I said
"you've fucking had this!"
And he said
"Oh aye, aye."
So I was very happy, I was very proud of that.

RSG: I can't find much from a fan point of view when I type in your name on the internet.
PH: I don't think the people who buy my books write very much. I think they just buy 'em and like them. I have people come up to me in the street and say (in a deep geezer's voice) "oh, I like your book." And that's it.

RSG: And I've noticed whenever I go to the library to get your books they've all been nicked!
PH: (laughs) You see what I mean about the people who buy my books. I do get loads of people writing to me through my website, especially about The Looked After Kid.

RSG: Was that book 100% autobiographical?
PH: Yeah, absolutely.

RSG: What are your thoughts on your upbringing now?
PH: Oh, it was a bowl of roses! It was awful, it was fucking dreadful. It was the worst childhood you could imagine. It was horrendous. I'm amazed I got through it. I lived with a fucking insane woman for six years who used to beat the fucking shit outta me, d'you know what I mean? She terrorized me; she humiliated me; she beat me up! A fucking lunatic. And then at ten years old she throws me into care. It was very traumatic. But, the thing is, the human spirit is amazing. Time and the human spirit can heal loads of stuff. I couldn't write about it for years and years. A mate of mine used to say "you should write about it" but I just couldn't. I knew I would one day but I just wasn't ready and I got to about forty or forty-one and I thought 'yeah, I'm ready now.' I spent about six months writing that book.
I was going to look at my files as well, it was a difficult time for me, 'cos you know they keep these files on you when you're in care and obviously it brings back all that stuff and it throws you. I think the writing… it took about two or three years to get over the writing of it! But it was great in another way because before I never used to tell anyone about being in care because I didn't want their sympathy, so to do it was probably how a gay feels coming out. And that was like me, 'cos I'd be round my friends' houses and they'd be talking about their dads or just normal things and I'd just sit there… I remember this girl saying once "you never talk about your mum" and I wouldn't reply. I couldn't, you know. That felt really good. And, of course it's great now because I can join in conversations where people are talking about their childhood and I can go "yeah, at the Home we had this geezer and he…" d'you know what I mean? So it's very good from that point of view. It was very much a weight off my shoulders.

RSG: Four-Four-two have just put The Robin Friday Story and The Football of Fashion in the top fifty football books of all time...
PH: And so they should be! (laughs) I was very chuffed with that. I really like both of those books. On the Football in Fashion book I just go off in all sorts of tangents... I was meeting Steve Perryman and Frank McClintock. It's a journey to find out about football and fashion and this is what we've found. I was trying to write about what it is to be a fan.

RSG: And your book on Steve Marriott came out last year…
PH: That's just got nominated for an award in America. Five hundred copies went out there and somehow one got to Seattle and we've been nominated for an award. I'm really pleased. I love that book. I think that's one of my best biogs. I was really lucky because I had John Hellier and he was feeding me with all this stuff. You know that story where a geezer is trying to get Marriott to do a tape for a kid in hospital in a coma and he says,
"fuck off I won't do"
And he then says,
"okay I'll do it."
So he shouts,
"WAKE UP YOU CUNT!"
into the recorder! I laughed myself silly for five minutes when I heard that. It was brilliant 'cos John was doing the research. I'd go,
"John, any idea when Marriott first took LSD?"
I'd get this email back the next day
"on the 11th of May 1966 at 22 Westmoreland Terrace…"
You know, he was incredible. I thought we'd done a really good job there.

RSG: So that was how it worked; you would do the narrative and he would supply the facts?
PH: Yeah, I mean he's a complete Steve Marriott obsessive. John really knows his stuff. He was doing the interviews and the research and he would give it all to me. And I would say
"well, what did this guy mean about that?"
Like in one interview with Toni there was this line
"and then we had a sit down with the mafia."
And it just this line and I was "John, what the fuck is this?" Then he would find out more. It was great, really good. And Marriott was such a great character. I think you can learn a lot from people like that, not to take life too seriously. 'Just do what you're gonna do, man!' He had that kind of attitude.

RSG: What was Guigsy's contribution to the Robin Friday book?
PH: It was me and him together. It was just after Knebworth and they had three months off so we'd get a train, we'd go down to Reading and we would sit there in the newspaper office and go through all the old Reading Evening Post and find stuff out about Robin. We got all the information, did all the interviews and then we just sat down for two to three weeks fitting it all together. That came out in '98 and I still get royalty cheques from that. And. I think it would make such a great film.

RSG: Normally you can't make a good football movie though…
PH: My idea was you wouldn't show any football because you can't replicate football on the telly. It just looks silly. I thought maybe every now and again you'd see Robin walking up the tunnel and then you would find out the result through the newspapers. People were just going mad for him… screaming girls!

RSG: That's what we all want…
PH: Yeah, with Mild and Bitter tattooed under both his nipples.

RSG: What was it like writing that book?
PH: It was lovely, it was a great summer that. It was Euro '96. Oasis were fucking huge at the time and secretaries would come in every half hour, "oh, I'm just getting something" 'cos Guigsy was there. And someone would come and say "erm, the local MP has said that young kids shouldn't take drugs"
and we would go
"well, he's a fucking old idiot then isn't he."
Then the next week we would go down there and we would see their paper and it would be 'GUIGSY SLAMS LOCAL MP'. (laughs) It was fucking great!

RSG: Did you do all the interviews for the Soul Stylists yourself?
PH: Yeah. It took about two years, that book. I really like that book because, number one it's social history that's never been written about and number two, I thought it was really good to have it from the horse's mouth. It would be very easy for me to go "The Twisted Wheel was about this, this and this…" But, when you've got a guy saying
"I used to go to The Twisted Wheel and it was this, this and this…"
I think that social history is invaluable.

RSG: Before working with Paul Weller on the Soul Stylists you did The Jam's official biography; A Beat Concerto…
PH: It's soon gonna be thirty years since In The City so I'm gonna try and do and updated version of that.

RSG: And you wrote the first biography of Creation records…
PH: Somebody was doing a really intellectual book about Creation Records and Alan McGee was like, "It's not fucking intellectual! It's a rock and roll label." They took drugs, had loads of girls and made these mad rock and roll records. So, I did it more as a job really. Though I like Creation 'cos you got Oasis, Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream; three great groups.

RSG: You've had a lot of stuff come out in the last five years…
PH: I did three books last year. It was really full on last year. I had to write the Fashion of Football in three months.

RSG: What new stuff do you have planned?
PH: I don't know at the moment. I'm sort of recovering from last year. I've got a couple of ideas for books but nothing solid just yet. I've been doing a lot of these things like Uncut Specials. It's all in my head at the moment. I have ideas about things, themes, you know what I mean.

RSG: What is your writing process? Do you think up something then start mapping out how to do it?
PH: No, you gotta listen to John Lennon about that… "Genius is 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration." Which basically means; 'there's no good sitting round waiting for inspiration to strike.' This is why I love computers right, if I'm on my computer I think 'sod it!" I go to my documents and I just start writing. And when you're writing, that's when the ideas really come. I write and then I go away and I think about it, or go for a swim, or just walk into town and I'll think about it and something will come and I'll think 'oh, yeah that'll be a good way of doing it.' Then I'll go back and write for another two hours. Then I'll walk away and think about what I've done. It's quite painstaking but it's a good way of doing it.

RSG: How long did it take to write Getting High?
PH: Oh, that was an epic! That was a year of getting up at seven in the morning, working 'til about one o'clock in the morning. It was fucking full on. I had one week's holiday break from it, that's it. I was just exhausted. I had a week of just sitting on the sofa sleeping. It was just mad, it was completely full on. I really felt I had achieved something with that book. You couldn't really write another history about Oasis… You know all those other books I always felt like they were alright; but Getting High had everything. It had them, it had the history… it was full on, that lot. I think that kinda set me up. I think that's up there with the Marriott book. Marriott's just above it, but it's in my top five, Getting High

RSG: What were they like to be around?
PH: Oh, they were fantastic! It was when they were the hottest thing going. I mean it was just fantastic. They were on their way up and everything they ever wanted was coming to them. And they were making these amazing records. I saw a quote from Noel the other day saying 'that time was the best of my life.' And I thought, 'yeah, you're right.' It was just amazing. It was a really special time. I was very privileged to be around then.

RSG: Did he write his songs before he got famous or was he writing them at the time?
PH: He did have quite a lot of songs. He had… I think All Around The World was an early one. He was sort of writing and stock piling them. Then when they had to do an album he would write some more and then maybe three he'd written in '95 would appear in '96. I think he was on such a roll during that period. And, I think that they got so big that it just threw them all. They didn't know what to do with it. After Knebworth that was it really, 'cos what could they do? Where could they go? They'd done it all in two years. It was just phenomenal.

RSG: And what are they like?
PH: They're lads! (laughs)

RSG: What did you think of the Britpop era?
PH: It was a great time. All these bands were coming up from nowhere and we were having it! There was a lot of good music and we were back tracking and discovering all this great music from the sixties and seventies, d'you know what I mean? It was a really healthy time, I thought and it kind of just…

RSG: Died.
PH Died, yeah. But then things always do.

RSG: That time all ties in with Paul Weller, did you know him around Woking?
PH: Yeah, that's where I first met him in 1974/75. He's basically remained the same. And he's played it really well has Paul; he hasn't played the celebrity game. You don't see him in Hello magazine or any of the celebrity tabloids. He won't do all that. He's just obsessed with music. His next album's just fucking amazing, and it's amazing because he still just wants to make the best album ever. He's driven by it. And he's really funny but that never comes over because when he does his interviews he's always on edge 'cos he's talking about music. He hasn't got any airs and graces about him. He's down to earth. He's a top man, top man.

For more Paulo Hewitt news check out his official site @
www.paolohewitt.co.uk