And the kids continue to seek him out, he marvels. Fortunately, Weller doesn’t have far to go when a song idea inspires him-he’s got a home studio he’s dubbed Black Barn outside of town, where he’s also begun producing younger artists who have caught his fancy. The rest of the new Weller disc-written and recorded after pandemic lockdown, and arriving only a year after his last album, On Sunset-is equally immediate and feel-good simplistic, like the New Wave-buzzing opener “Cosmic Fringes,” a gravelly rocker called “True,” the funky perambulator of a title track, a bluesy celebration of marriage, “Glad Times,” the faux-Gospel “Testify,” and a chiming, ’70s-vintage ballad, “In Better Time.” The only anomaly is the funky, soulful stroll “That Pleasure,” a veiled protest anthem the singer penned after watching TV coverage of the suffocation of George Floyd last year at the hands of brutal police. In fact, just last week Oasis anchor Noel Gallagher, in a livestreamed show from his home studio, featured Weller (waiving his guitar for pounding keyboards) and his longtime band (guitarist Steve Cradock, bassist Andy Crofts, and drummer Ben Gordelier), playing the flagship Fat Pop single “Shades of Blue.” It’s a bouncy, summery romp that he co-wrote with his eldest daughter Leah, who sings on the number, as well. But hey, inside I’m still young, and that’s the main thing!” Over his four-plus decades in rock, this stylish icon has: won four BRIT Awards launched his own line of ’60s-chic men’s clothing and influenced several generations of younger musicians, like Oasis. “I dunno, I saw myself on TV the other night when I did this show, and jeez! I couldn’t stop thinking how old I looked, and how my face is looking more and more like a carrier bag!,” he adds, compulsively. “Bless you,” he says, but pauses to think about it. And he’s pleased with the roundabout compliment. And Weller, phoning last week from his home in London, readily laughs at the possibility of some hideous, face-melting Dorian Gray oil painting scaring the household mice in his attic somewhere. His once-dark signature shag haircut may have turned a becoming silver a few years back, but-as clarified in new interview footage of him in Lee Cogswell’s informative 2020 documentary on The Style Council, Long Hot Summers-he still looks fairly untouched by the withering hands of time. After all the showbiz wear and tear he’s survived since launching his legendary mod-retro outfit The Jam in the mid-’70s, before streamlining his tastes into a jazzier, more soulful Style Council from ’83 to ’89 and then flying solo afterwards with a volley of diverse solo sets leading up to his new ear-candy-effervescent Fat Pop, out today (May 14), the man affectionately known as The Modfather hasn’t changed too much since his punk-era genesis. But-if you’re a believer in all things eerie, inexplicable and otherworldly, or at least the classic Oscar Wilde novella of the same name-it seems quite possible that Paul Weller might have a creepy Dorian Gray portrait hidden somewhere on his British estate, its image rapidly aging while his, at nearly 63, stays inordinately young. We have no actual proof of this, you understand, and it’s therefore merely random speculation, an unproven theory with no solid facts to back it up.
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