Paul needs a little time with his kids

Sep 5 2008 By Andy Welch

YOU’D be hard-pushed to find a better drinking buddy than former Housemartins and Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton. He has a wickedly dry sense of humour, as demonstrated over the years in his songwriting, and he quite happily tells anecdotes about places he’s visited, chats about music and is wonderfully opinionated.

He put these characteristics to great use when penning some of the most original pop songs of the last 20 years.

The Beautiful South’s Song For Whoever, with its opening line of, ‘I love you from the bottom of my pencil case,’ perfectly summed up teenage crushes, while A Little Time astutely examined both the male and female perspectives of a relationship, but always in the most typically British way – self-effacing, understated and with a wry smile.

During their eight years together, the band released 10 albums and sold more than 15 million records around the world.

Carry On Up The Charts, the singles collection released in 1994, briefly became the fastest-selling album in chart history. Not bad for a band who dubbed themselves “everyone’s second-favourite band”.

Out of the blue in 2007 came the announcement The Beautiful South were to go their separate ways, and in their inimitable style, they blamed it on “musical similarities”, poking fun at that oft-used excuse for a split, musical differences.

For Paul, splitting up the group he formed from the ashes of previous band The Housemartins was a natural move.

“There were a series of events over the years that helped me arrive at the decision to leave,” says the singer who is appearing in concert with Cerys Matthews at Wolverhampton’s Wulfrun Hall on November 6.

“I’d done a solo album already [2001’s Fat Chance, under the moniker Biscuit Boy aka Crackerman] and [the band’s guitarist] Dave Rotheray had done three solo albums with his Homespun project. That was a factor.

“Me leaving Hull in 2001-2002 was also part of it,” he continues, referencing his move from East Yorkshire – the place he’d called home since moving there in the early 80s – over to Manchester.

“Being in Manchester meant I was less part of The Beautiful South, and I’ve got two daughters now, so that’s changed my priorities, I want to spend time with the kids.”

Paul, now 46 but looking as fighting fit as he did in his twenties, thanks to a new-found love of the gym, has recently released The Cross Eyed Rambler, his second solo album and the first to bear his name.

Like most Beautiful South lyrics written after 1993, Paul wrote the album in the Netherlands.

“I usually pick a different Dutch town each time I go, but I liked Alkmaar so much that I went there again for this,” he explains.

“I’ve always liked to travel and go away to write lyrics anyway, but I chose the Netherlands because it’s about the nearest country to us that’s foreign. I like to be away from English-speaking people because it makes me a bit more lonely and melancholic and thoughtful.

“I have to get into that frame of mind to write songs, there’s no point being really happy,” he says, only half joking.

Paul’s regular visits to the Netherlands have been productive, and, as he’s a “massive creature of habit”, he’s been reluctant to change his successful formula since it began 15 years ago.

“When I’m away, I’ll converse in the language as much as I can, and I’ll go in the same bar every night, for the whole two weeks I’m there, because I like to get to know people.

“By the end of the first week, someone might take me to a football match, or out for a meal. I like to immerse myself in one part of a culture.”