THE PADDINGTONS - Back with a Bang

WORDS: Mike Robbo

Hull’s own prodigal sons, The Paddingtons, are back. While they’ve reunited several times over the years for one-off gigs and nostalgic celebrations, this time feels different. There’s a renewed sense of purpose, of unfinished business, and most excitingly, the promise of something new.

image: Darren Rodgers

Along with their long sold-out homecoming shows at The Adelphi presented by Spit It Out, the band played Nottingham; they also played Stockton Calling Festival, which is sandwiched between the Adelphi dates on 19th April. In July, they play Margate, then in October, they play Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow and London. This sudden surge in activity is because this year sees the 20th anniversary of their debut album First Comes First, but there seems to be more to it. A sense of unfinished business. We know about their history, you can refer to my 2017 article for that, but we’re here today, in Dive on Prinny Ave, to talk about the present. And, excitingly, the future.

Spring seems to have finally sprung; the sun is out and we’re not wearing our winter coats anymore, thank god. As an example of pathetic fallacy, i.e. weather reflecting the mood, it couldn’t be more apt. I have a fag, a Guinness and a bacon sarnie outside with Lloyd, bassist and co-writer, and we head inside, into the darkness of the pub. That’s not an example of pathetic fallacy by the way; I’d have rather done the interview outside.

image: Mike White

Inside, we sit round a round table like it’s some kind of indie Camelot. Myself, Tom Atkin, lead singer and co-writer, Lloyd and guitarist Stuee Bevan and we talk about The Paddingtons in 2025. Grant, the diminutive, dynamic drummer, is also buzzing around in the bar, but he’s quite happy with his Guinness.

So, you’re off on tour, we say, what’s all that about? There really seems to be a hunger for it this time.

Lloyd: Fuck off! 20 years innit since our first album came out, and he’s up for it (points to Tom) and if he’s up for it, we’ll do it. That’s it really. The hunger is definitely there for doing the gigs, and we’re trying new music. When we’ve been rehearsing for these gigs we’re doing, which we need to do, Tom’s been saying we need to do some new music this time around, and if he’s saying that, it’s sorted, but it’s kind of hard to fit it in innit?

Tom: Yeah, at the minute we’re trying to get ready for playing a set for the shows, so we haven’t had much time to work on new ideas, but it’s there, it just needs bringing to life or back to life. We’re gonna be working on some stuff that we’ve had hanging about for a while…

We ask if it’s stuff they’ve been working on together or separately. They tell me it’s a bit of both: one of them would bring an idea to the band and it would just go organically from there.

Lloyd: We used to write, like on the first record, some of the songs were mine, some were Tom’s, some of them were the two things glued together. We’ve been trying to write songs on Facetime, which is a bit mad. He’s sat at home in London sober and I’m sat in Hull pissed, so it’s hard to play together but we did it. Panic Attack for example, we literally glued it together from both of our parts. We’ve actually just done one. I had this song that I had with this band I had called Gelder, and I liked it so we’ll probably do something with that.

We mention that Gelder was very American alt-80s/90s indie. Is the intention to Paddington-ise it?

Lloyd: No, not really. When we started we were more like The Buzzcocks or The Clash, but as we’ve gone on, we’ve started to move towards that 80s/early 90s American stuff, stuff like The Replacements, we were kind of going that way anyway, and Gelder was me trying to do that cos I didn’t have The Paddingtons that year, but we’ve got The Paddingtons now. I mean, it was what we were gonna do anyway.

Image: Darren Rodgers

They go on to assert that they all share what music they’re listening to all the time, and that it’s a diverse melting pot. I note that Tom has been quite vocal about his love for The Stone Roses, a passion that I can obviously identify with.

Tom: Yeah, that’s when I really started to get into music, with Ian Brown. I was into stuff before that and I had a weird phase where I listened to rave music for a year. Happy hardcore. I went from listening to Dylan and stuff from my old man, and my sisters were listening to Fleetwood Mac and stuff. I got introduced to indie or guitar music by my sister’s boyfriend so it started there I guess, with Ian Brown.

Lloyd: If you listen to Panic Attack, the melody is pure Roses, which one is it?

Tom: (singing) You wanna die…until the sky turns green…soz mate it’s a bit of a rip 

It’s (Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister. Don’t worry, I say, The Roses ripped off Primal Scream for Made of Stone. Velocity Girl if anyone’s remotely interested. 

I recently saw an interview where Tom disclosed that Panic Attack was written for friend and mentor, Pete Doherty. I quiz him about this.

Tom: Yeah, did you know this? (to Lloyd & Stuee) I’m sure I’ve said it before years ago. It wasn’t meant to be dark at all. We were all on a kind of wrecking mission, we were being very disruptive, but it was just like, we wanna…we don’t wanna die really, do you know what I mean? That’s kind of what it’s saying. I wonder if he knows that.

Image: Darren Rodgers

Stuee famously joined the band as a supersub when Marv gashed his hand and couldn’t play on the upcoming tour to promote the first album. He was originally a fan. I ask him how this came about.

Stuee: Yeah, originally I was in a band called Kill City; we were playing in London. Lisa Moorish was the singer in Kill City, and Lisa was signed to Poptones, Alan McGee’s label, and so were the Paddingtons, so there was an inevitable crossing of paths, and also I was a fan of The Paddingtons. I used to go to the gigs before I knew them. I always think it was really nice that I was at your first gig accidentally. Then I used to go see them at the Rhythm Factory and was always awestruck at how good these kids were. There were a lot of good bands around at the time, but the Paddingtons were always a cut above. I’m 100% still a fan. I mean I love them like brothers, but it was the music that was at the core of it and it was exciting then and it’s still exciting now. Anyway to answer the initial question, Marv hurt his hand before the first album tour, and I was working on Camden Market and I remember I got the call from Josh and he was like, ‘you couldn’t help us out could you?’ I was like ‘nah see you later’ (Laughs) No, I jumped at the chance.

I wonder what the difference is for bands trying to break through these days as opposed to when they did. The Paddingtons were famously signed by Alan McGee, former Creation boss who’d signed such heavyweights as Oasis, Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream to name a few. Their success was guaranteed by association; of course they had to have the tunes, which they did of course.

Lloyd: It’s tougher now, innit? The major label thing is fucked. But looking at all these Browse magazines, BDRMM are on the cover here. They tour like fuck, but they don’t tour like we did, and they’re getting 5/5 in the NME, and they’re not signed to a major label, cos that’s out the window now. They’re four working class kids from Hull and they’re brilliant, but they didn’t do the toilet tour. We had to do it about four times before we got anywhere. It’s hard to compare because the industry’s totally changed. We were probably one of the last bands to get signed the way we did, before the internet age. I mean it was there but still very much in its infancy. Alan McGee signed us for 150 grand, I mean it’s money you’ve got to pay back, but it was a big deal. He was going ‘the internet’s going to kill it in two years’ and we didn’t really get what it meant. But it was right, no indie band gets signed to major labels now.

Image: Darren Rodgers

Stuee: I think it was Limewire that was the death of all that. I was DJing around the time, 2007, and if I wanted anything I’d just go on Limewire and get it for free. I was also in a band at the time, and we were going to sign for 50 grand, but it fell through, ‘cos it all just froze, everyone started panicking and they chucked everyone off, and sacked everyone. Also, everyone was just passing their music around for free. I do think the industry’s recovered somewhat now, and there’s more opportunities to be a DIY band now.

Lloyd: Yeah, BDRMM are essentially that, and Life are essentially that.

Stuee: Yeah and you can take control of what you do, and you don’t necessarily need the labels for you to have a great career and you can actually make a living out of it. Also there’s an argument as to whether guitar music’s as in vogue as it was twenty years ago. I mean there’s always going to be a few, but if you look at the way things are going, it’s quite minimal the amount of guitar bands. Technology has moved on and with that, so has music.

 Lloyd: I keep pointing to BDRMM because they’ve really embraced dance music, check them out (to Stuee) cos it’s really interesting what they’re doing. They’re essentially a guitar band, but when you go see them DJ, they’re not playing The Smiths.

I spoke to Stuee the day before and he made a really interesting analogy about why The Paddingtons connected with so many. I ask him to expand on that.

Stuee: Yeah I think what I was driving at was that for most great bands, be it The Specials, Oasis or The Paddingtons, that there’s a struggle making your way through life. There’s an Oscar Wilde quote about being in the gutter looking up at the stars and I’ve taken that with me through life. And I drew the comparison that it’s like British sitcoms, things like Porridge, Only Fools and Horses onto The Office and Peep Show, and it’s a big British theme: finding courage in the face of adversity, and it’s there in the bands you love. I’m not calling Tom Delboy or anything, but it’s that triumph of the underdog. Ronnie Barker, in Porridge, is in prison, but he gets these ‘little victories’ to get through the mundane existence, and it’s a little victory for me being back in The Paddingtons; it kind of galvanises you, and gives you something to strive for and that’s through the power of music. I’ve met so many people all over the world, and every time I come to Hull I’ve got hundreds of people wanting to say hello and it’s beautiful.

Image: Darren Rodgers

I ask Tom what excites him at the moment.

Tom: Well, it’s been this for the past six months. I’ve been pretty focussed on this; my head’s fully in it. We’re going to do a single. Collectively and individually, we’ve got lots of ideas, some of them will make sense for The Paddingtons and some won’t. We’re just figuring that out, but yeah that’s what’s exciting at the minute. And with photography I’m keeping busy with that, I love it and it’s another outlet for me.

I ask them what they are listening to. There’s a consensus that Fontaines DC’s last album was a masterpiece. But it’s mainly music from their formative years. For Tom, Pixies are a major influence that he always revisits. The Thermals and Weezer too. For Stuee, it’s Drop Nineteens, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and LCD Soundsystem. Lloyd waxes lyrical about his Apple Music recommendations, not that he’s keen to advertise Apple too much. Through this, he’s discovered Bull from York who toured with another of his favourites, Pavement. Also Kiwi Jr, also suggested by the algorithms.

As this year’s tour is to commemorate the band’s debut album First Comes First, it’d be remiss of me not to mention it. I know Lloyd is keen to talk about it.

Lloyd: I want to talk about it because it’s been 20 years. Also a lot of interviews we do and the one we did with you before was more about the origin story, and sometimes it feels like we skirt over the music. When we first started it wasn’t going to sound like that. It’s a punk record, not a jangly indie album which was more what we were listening to initially.

Tom: One thing about that album was that it didn’t sound like the Libertines or The Strokes. We were influenced by them and we tried to look like them, but when the music came through, it was more like a punk record, whereas a lot of the bands around at the time that were part of that scene sounded more like The Libertines.

 Lloyd: Yeah, a lot were plain Libertines imitators and it annoyed me when people said that about us cos we fucking weren’t. I think because we did better than a lot of those bands on that scene, that label was kind of chucked on us just because we knew The Libertines. Full credit to Mark Beaumont from the NME who gave us a great review, but the opening line was ‘we didn’t expect this’ and went on to say that he expected a jingle-jangle Libertines rip-off record. It’s a ferocious record, it’s full-on from start to finish. And there’s about 9000 guitar parts on it (laughs).

Tom: The writing process, how we got that sound, was pretty organic. We didn’t have this aim of what it should sound like. There was no blueprint. That’s what I love about it and I think that’s why people took to it.

 Lloyd: There’s some fucking bangers on it. Why didn’t we release First Comes First (the song) first? Johnny Hopkins (press officer, and famously, press officer of Oasis) kept saying ‘Why are you releasing Sorry? Spending all that money to rerecord it? He said to me on the bus in Paris, ‘why don’t you release First Comes First?’ and I think we probably should have done.

Finally, I ask them if they’d have changed anything.

Lloyd: No. Nothing. (Emphatically) Maybe when Josh went onstage in yellow shorts when The Fratellis supported us. (Laughs) Someone set the fire alarm off that night too which I think was one of their fans trying to sabotage our gig. Fuck the Fratellis. The curse of The Paddingtons: The Fratellis, The View and The Enemy all went to number 1 after they supported us (laughs).

All that remains is to ask them their favourite place to play. It’s Adelphi without hesitation. Other than that, they all love Glasgow, especially when Tom’s goading a load of Rangers fans about Celtic being the superior team. Best gig they’ve played was, unanimously, Leeds Festival in 2005. And one final question, mainly for my own peace of mind, are they excited about the Oasis reunion? All three answer in the positive. They were, after all, a bookmark in all three members’ lives. Only Stuee is going though, with his partner, who will then be his wife. Some honeymoon, that!

I wrap up the interview, mindful of the fact that they have a rehearsal in 15 minutes in the practice room at the back of the Adelphi. Where else? It’s been an illuminating conversation, and it’s truly heartening to see them so chipper, so upbeat, so full of positivity for the future. We probably got a bit of a scoop there with the tease of new music, and it looks like that will definitely happen, possibly once the tour is over, but it’s something to look forward to. The determination is very real for all to see. They don’t have anything to prove, but it looks like they’re going to prove it anyway. They were absolutely buzzing when talking about the shows and the album and the prospect of new music. And for that, we should be absolutely thrilled. The Paddingtons’ timeline is unquestionably malleable. There’s some unfinished business to take care of. 

Eyes or it doesn’t count!

The Padds play two sold-out homecoming shows at The Adelphi, Friday 18th April, and Sunday 20th April, as part of their UK-wide tour