Paul Young talks about his career highlights and capturing them in his new book
With his luxuriant hair and soulful voice, it was no wonder Paul Young became a heartthrob of the 1980s.
After singing in a number of short-lived bands, he topped the charts and launched a solo career with a powerful cover of Marvin Gaye’s Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home). The hits kept coming and in 1984 he found himself singing the opening vocals on Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?
With such successes, it may come as a surprise that Young never wanted to be a solo musician.
“I was always happy in bands because I was in a soul band before I took the solo deal, and 30 years ago I started another band with my friends because I do enjoy it,” the 67-year-old admits as he reflects on the early days of his more than four-decade career.
“But having said that, it happened to be the most creative and lucrative part of my life. But it wasn’t something that I chased.
“I’m incredibly lucky that I had the freedom to try by taking the solo deal and it really, really worked.”
Stating his solo career simply worked is putting it modestly. After fronting a series of soul and new wave bands – Kat Kool & the Kool Kats, Streetband and the Q-Tips – he took the plunge to try to make it on his own.
When the Q-Tips went their separate ways in 1982, Young signed to Columbia Records and began writing and recording songs for his 1983 debut album No Parlez. It was a smash hit and went to number one in the UK, Germany, Italy and more.
His time in the bands not only built up his experience, but also his confidence. He had started as a bass player before moving into singing once he felt more comfortable with his stammer.
“I did become a singer, which was probably an unusual choice for someone who had a stammer,” he muses. “But it actually works very well, because talking to a rhythm is the same as singing to a rhythm.
“Over the years, it’s got much better because of my confidence levels, but I always find that it comes back if I’m tired. I guess my brain slows down a little bit so therefore I can’t always get the words out. But that makes me a good listener.”
No Parlez contained some of his biggest singles, including Love Of The Common People and Come Back And Stay, but it did not gain much traction stateside.
However, the tide turned when his single Every Time You Go Away, from his 1985 follow-up album The Secret Of Association, reached the number one spot in the US charts. And Young has a theory of how he cracked the code on the American market.
“I was actively trying to work out why America couldn’t really get a grasp on my first album. I think it was because, in the UK, when synthesisers came into the music business, we totally embraced the technology,” he reflects.
“And in America they used it as just another instrument that was part of the band. It was very synthesiser-led, my first album, so when I made the second album I thought they really don’t seem to be able to grasp that and it doesn’t really fit easily into their radio format.
“So the second album, I did what the Americans did and the synthesiser just became another instrument, the same as you might have a guitar or a piano or bass, so it didn’t overwhelm the sound of the record. And I think that’s when American radio loved me because there are some synthesisers on it, but they don’t swamp the records.”
The singer has won three Brit Awards, including best new act in 1984, but singing the opening line on the Band Aid single remains one of his career highlights.
“I can feel really proud (of it),” he says. “I was probably the newest star on the block at the time, and all the others had a fair amount of success, so I was lucky to be asked.
“To look back on that, and there is a piece of history, that’s great.”
Taking the frontman spot in Queen for one song during the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert is also up there among Young’s top moments.
“I was working with one of the biggest bands in the world and I was only their lead singer for one song but it felt incredible,” he tells me. “I chose Radio Ga Ga as that’s one of the songs where the whole audience clap along on the chorus and it’s incredible to see a sea of hands go up and do that.”
Another not quite so subtle namedrop from Young comes as he recalls his collaboration with the late George Michael on Every Time You Go Away at a Prince’s Trust event, which came about as Michael was a big fan of the song.
Forty years on from the release of his debut solo album and with a repertoire of envy-enduing anecdotes in his back pocket, Young felt it was time to tell his story in a new musical memoir – Take A Piece Of Me With You.
It was initiated during a tumultuous time in his life as he was living in lockdown and his wife and mother of his three children, Stacey Smith, had died from brain cancer in 2018.
He says he found it to be a cathartic process and he is now on a UK tour, called Behind The Lens, in more intimate venues to allow space for him to tell stories, perform acoustic songs and take questions from fans. While Young is enjoying the more personal format of the show, he admits he is keen to get back on the road with a full band as soon as he can.
What does he want people to take from the book? “I hope that they take away that sometimes to have a career and go from the bottom to the top in a short space of time, it’s fantastic and it’s exhilarating’ but it’s not half as good as working for 10 to 15 years to eventually achieve success, because there’s so many great moments and stories that can be told,” he says.
“When I read the book back, I’m really glad that I was in the business when it took time to work your way all the way up the ladder from the bottom to the top, because although it seemed tough – sometimes I had no money and I’d have to make food that would stretch the whole week – (but) it’s good. It’s character building.”
Paul Young’s album Behind The Lens is out now, his coffee table book is available to order and his tour is running from September with a performance with his Tex Mex band Los Pacaminos scheduled at The Forge Camden next March.
