The new issue of Uncut – in shops now and available to order online by clicking here – features a wide-ranging and candid interview with Paul Weller touching on movie acting, King Charles’ coronation, the travails of Kneecap, the revived Sex Pistols, and the musical discoveries behind his new covers album, Find El Dorado. He also looks back at the early days of The Jam, prompted by the recent death of his bandmate, Rick Buckler.
“I’m just really sad,” says Weller, to Uncut’s Pete Paphides. “I mean, Rick’s passing was a real shock; it was a real fucking … perspective-changing moment. Because even though we weren’t close and we hadn’t spoken for decades, nevertheless, we were intrinsically joined together and always will be, really, the three of us. So that was a real moment of, ‘Fuck, man, one of us has gone’, do you know what I mean?”
“It made me realise how ridiculous it is not to speak to someone, right? Just before Rick’s passing, I thought, ‘Maybe, I think I’d really like to go and see him,’ even though we hadn’t seen each other or spoke for 40 years or whatever it’s been. But then I was like, ‘Maybe it’d be awkward, maybe he doesn’t want to see me.’ Later, I heard from a mutual friend that he had the same conversation with Rick, saying, ‘Should I tell Paul? Do you want Paul to come and see you?’ Rick was like, ‘Oh, I dunno, could be awkward.’ So we were both saying the same fucking thing, man.
“I regret that, because I should have… I wish I’d have done that, just to see him one time. Because even though, like I said, we weren’t best of mates and all that… when he passed, I was just transported back to me little bedroom in Stanley Road with all four of us rehearsing in there, and just starting off and making a fucking racket at first and then gradually getting better, and doing more shows and all that stuff. It just took me back to all those times, you know?
“Sometimes I forget about those days until something like that happens, then all of a sudden, you’re transported back into that moment, and… yeah, I mean, just coming from nothing, at the time four of us, then [after Steve Brookes left] it was three of us, just coming from nothing; just a bunch of kids trying to get it together, then from playing pubs and working men’s clubs and all the rest of it, to getting a record deal. It’s just mad, really. I mean, I always thought we were going to make it, but only in a really pretentious teenage way, you know? I didn’t know what that really entailed.
“When we made our first album In The City, the A&R man said we should put two albums out a year like The Beatles and all that – I was just like, ‘Fucking hell, I’ve got to write another 12 songs?’ I didn’t realise I had to do that! So some of it is naivety, as well. But we went beyond our wildest dreams, man, really, where we got to, and our legacy continues… for lots of generations and all subsequent generations as well.”
Read much more from Paul Weller in the September 2025 issue of Uncut, in shops now or available to buy direct from us here. Every copy comes with a FREE 10-track Weller rarities CD.
