‘Red’ has to be Devilskin’s finest album to date and would surely have seen the band take another huge leap up that ladder with a European Tour ready to go just as coronairus put the world on standstill. We caught up with Jennie just before the release of the album and Paul whilst we were all ‘locked down’. This is the second part of our interview with Paul – if you want to read the first part then ‘CLICK HERE’
We pick up again talking about influences…
Mark: So who personally inspired you?
Paul: Sid Vicious was a big inspiration for me. I was from a pretty straight poor family, we were pretty working class sort of thing, and this Punk phenomenon had hit in the UK and there was none of that in New Zealand – you couldn’t walk around with a spiky haircut here, you’d get a hiding, you know. But I just loved the whole ‘renegade’ sort of vibe that was all around it and I think Metal was the easiest progression from that hard Punky stuff I was listening to. So when I play bass I still play like a Punk (laughs).
Mark: (laughs) The day coronavirus restrictions are fully lifted – if we could invite you out to a restaurant with four musical guests from any point in time who would you most like to chat music with?
Paul: Lemmy, Ronnie James Dio – I got to interview Ronnie two or three times and he was the loveliest guy and my other band World War IV got to open up for ‘Heaven and Hell’ when they played in New Zealand years ago, and I was stood next to Ronnie and I was absolutely too frightened to say a word. It would have been so easy, I could have just said “Hey man I’m the guy that interviewed you on ‘Axe Attack’ the other day” and he would have been sweet, but I was just tongue-tied and dumb-struck you know (laughs).
Mark: I can’t believe that of you mate!
Paul: Well I was. All I could do was move behind him then I sniffed his hair.
Mark: (laughing).
Paul: (laughing) He was just so little and he was right there and I just kept thinking, so I say something, do I say something? But instead I just leaned forward and (makes sniffing sound) he smelt so clean, I knew he’d smell clean, it was amazing. And he got up and sang like an angel that night. But I kind of kick myself for not shaking his hand.
Mark: As long as you didn’t combine the two – a handshake and a sniff!
Paul: (laughing) So definitely Ronnie and Lemmy and Kim from 12 Foot Ninja, he’s such fun, he’s great fun man so it would be great to have him along. And maybe Lzzy Hale (Halestorm), because she always livens up the party. She’s absolutely amazing, such a lovely woman and their whole crew are just incredible – we all got on like a house on fire, we’ve toured with them a few times now so it’s a bit like family, the Halestorm crew and us. So that’d be, it’s be a fun party.
Mark: Sounds like one I’d like to crash. Just back to Ronnie for a second because I saw him on that tour when it hit Australia, and when you were close to him he was so slight, and he was quite frail on that tour too – but from that small frame, the voice that came out of that guy!
Paul: It was jaw-dropping. I remember watching ’Down’ from the side of the stage one night, who were the other support band and Ronnie came up and stood next to me and that’s when I basically fell to pieces! (laughs).
Mark: That’s my Steve Marriott moment, my biggest regret I saw him play a small pub as a kid and he came to the bar stood right by me and I couldn’t say anything. He just smiled, had a puff on his fag, a sip of his beer and I was speechless.
Paul: (laughs) Yeah, I know what you mean and I definitely made up for that in the times I got to hang out with Dimebag and with Lemmy. I got a phone call once and it was ‘The Axe Attack presents Motörhead in New Zealand’ so I kind of hooked up with the promoter and helped bring me over here. I got a call at work and it was the promoter who said “Can you get over here in about an hour and look after Lemmy, I’ve got to go out. We’re in a Strip Club and I don’t want to leave him alone.” I just said “I’m on my way” and holy crap did I break some speed limits getting up there but I got to spend a whole night in this Strip Club looking after Lemmy, chatting to him and hanging out, I had the best time.
Mark: When I was a kid I met him a couple of times just waiting outside gigs, he always had time to stop and chat and sign something for you. A real down to earth honest kind of guy, what you saw was what you got.
Paul: And the same with the Abbott brothers too, Dime and Vinnie – what you saw was what you got – they treated everyone equally and everyone like a friend. Pretty inspiring stuff.
Mark: There’s some great people out there in the business.
Paul: It’s crazy, touring with Halestorm who are a band that’s never really stopped touring since they started. The first time we toured with them they said “Oh man, I can’t believe how easy you guys are to work with” and all we were doing was making sure we didn’t make a mess, making sure we were on time, not getting in anyone’s way and being as ‘pro’ as we can. And they said ‘Oh man we can’t believe it, normally opening acts are a pain is the arse, they waste time and do all this shit, we can’t believe how cool you guys are” and we thought the same. So apparently there’s lots of arsehole bands out there who won’t give people the time of day, won’t come out of their bus to meet anyone or anything like that. We were just enjoying ourselves and having a good time, and Slash’s crew were the same “It’s really cool that you guys are so friendly”. Jesus man, why wouldn’t we be?
Mark: With an attitude like that and an album like Red’ I honestly think that this is the one that’s going to do it for you and take you to that next level.
Paul: Thanks so much man.
Mark: If you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great Rock album, what would you have liked to have seen being put together in the studio?
Paul: I’m just going to go with the first one that pops into my head right now because there’s hundreds clamouring to get in there. T-Rex did an album called ‘Tanx’ and I absolutely love the vibe of that album, it sounds like there’s children running around the studio and everyone’s having a laugh, and there’s all these little bits in the songs that you hear, it’s just one of those magical moments and magical albums that you hear. It’s always spoken to me and wow – imagine being there and seeing Mark Bolan do that stuff. But there’s so many – Black Sabbath – Sabotage, Led Zeppelin – Presence, I could go on all day Mark. But today it’s ‘Tanx’.
Mark: I would have loved to have seen Bolan in the studio, that was the follow up to ‘Electric Warrior’ I think.
Paul: I think so. (We were both a year out – it came after ‘The Slider’ which was the follow up to ‘Electric Warrior’ but all were released within a year of each other)
Mark: And the easy one to close – what is the meaning of life?
Paul: I’d probably go against the current wave of thought which is ‘42’.
Mark: That’s what Jennie said.
Paul: (laughs) I think the meaning of life man is to have fun and be kind and to share love. And I think my role in this life is to share the message and share love through music and melody and that’s all I really want to do. The biggest buzz to me is when someone comes back to me and says “Hey those lyrics that you wrote in that song really touched me.” We’ve had people come up and say “Hey, your songs have saved my life, I’ve been suicidal and your lyrics touched me and helped me.” So to me that’s the best answer, I just hope that what I do can get people to take a moment to think for themselves and lose themselves in music, the moment and emotion.
Mark: And that depth of feeling comes across on the album.
Paul: To me music is very emotive and this album ‘Red’, there’s stories behind every single song on the album. ‘Do You See Birds’ I wrote that over a year ago about basically being incarcerated, not in a jail, but more like someone looking out of a window and they’ve got no freedoms anymore and they’re watching birds fly but they’re just stuck. And here we are a year later. ’All Fall Down’ I wrote that about an Orwellian, Dystopian scenario – a Big Brother type of deal…
Mark: And here we are…
Paul: So there’s all kinds of things that are kind of real and Jennie’s written a couple of lyrics about being overwhelmed by everything – ‘Bright Lights’ is about being away from home and missing her baby, and so for us it’s a real personal album and that is the meaning of why I’m here – to write music that moves me and hopefully will move other people.
Mark: Four months into the year and ‘Red’ is still my album of the year and I can see it holding on till the end of the year.
Paul: Thank you so much Mark, we’re had a lot of love from Australia so far the feedback on ‘Red’ has been wonderful so far.
Paul: So listening to a lot of music as you do, what would you pick for the next single? We’ve had as you know ’All Fall Down’ and ‘Corrode’ what would your next pick be?
Mark: How hard is that! I’d personally do the wildcard – the first song you mentioned purely because it is so different –‘Be Like the River’ but and I was talking to Jennie about it, the first track that really grabbed me was ‘Do You See Birds’ and because of the situation too- when I first heard it I thought “This is like it’s about now and what’s happening to us all”…
Paul: It is weird, and funnily that was the last song that we were working on before we started on the album. We were working on a lot of songs and it almost didn’t make it, it was hard to pare 30 songs down to 12.
Mark: To be honest with you this album, I have a different favourite every day, it’s that kind of album. I can’t skip a track.
Paul: That’s exactly what we wanted. And you know what, as hesitant as everyone was but me and our producer about ‘Do You See Birds’ as soon as we recorded it Jennie came out of the vocal booth and we were all stunned by what she did and said “You know what, I think we should open the album with this.” The album kind of evolved itself in a lot of ways in that a lot of the songs kind of put their hands up to be in the places that they’re in. We wanted it just to be immersive and like a roller coaster ride for the listener and didn’t want them to stop listening after they put on track one so I’m glad you liked it.
Mark: It’s the variety too that works, it’s the complete Devilskin album. You’ll have to do very, very well to top that next time out.
Paul: Well I’m up for it (laughs), it’s just so great too finally get it out there. The song ‘Sweet Release’…
Mark: And that’s another contender for next single…
Paul: I don’t know if you knew the background story about that? There was this 21 year old guy here in Hamilton who was under mental health care because he was suicidal and they basically dropped the ball because they let him out for a cigarette break and he just went down to the river and drowned himself. And this is five years ago now, and it’s such a horribly tragic story, and the family have been trying really hard for the last five years to try and get some sort of acknowledgement from the hospital that they screwed up and they’ll make changes so it won’t happen to someone else. And it’s just this long drawn out tragedy that’s been in our newspapers over here every day for five years pretty much. So one night I just sat down and wrote out the song pretty much verbatim. Then I went to rehearsal and said I’ve got this bass riff, let’s see what you guys have got? And that was it, it was basically written so quickly and so easily. As soon as the guys were playing on it I was sat in the control room in tears. The song was becoming bigger than I ever dreamed it could be you know. So when we had recorded it I took it round to the boy’s parents place and I said to them “I’ve written this song and it’s basically your story about your son and it’s been breaking my heart for years and I wanted to give you a listen and if you don’t like it or don’t want us to do anything with it, we’ll ditch it, so I played them the song. Oh man, it was the most emotional moment ever – this family of three sitting around and listening to the song for the first time and it’s about their son, there were just tears everywhere and big hugs, and they were absolutely blown away that I had taken the time to do it and they were really grateful. So that’s part of the meaning of life for me – being able to do something for someone like that.
Mark: That’s a wonderful story.
Paul: And the song ‘The Victor’ – we’d been away at a song-writing retreat at Manukau – it’s just south of Auckland but its real out in the middle of nowhere. And we’d written this song musically and Jennie had a melody but she didn’t have lyrics for it yet and we’d written about eight songs that weekend and we were driving back to Hamilton and we were the first car on the scene to this really bad accident. It was nasty, someone had deliberately run this family of four off the road in a people mover. It had rolled three times and a ten and a twelve year old child had been ejected from the car and we came round the corner to all this carnage and blood and wreckage. So the song ‘The Victor’ is basically about me holding this poor little boy in my arms not knowing if he’s gonna live or die, not knowing if his parents are dead or anything and he’s covered in blood. And we’re waiting for the ambulance to come and I’m telling him to hold on, there’s hope, you know. But he doesn’t speak English. But that was a really traumatic experience for us and I think it was quite cathartic for us to be able to turn it into a song. ‘The Victor’ meant move on past it – it was such a horrible tragic story, but thank God in the end no one was killed in that accident, but what a thing to witness. As we came across it I was in the car with Nail and Jennie and Nic were behind us and I thought “Oh shit, I don’t want my son to see this.” So there are some very real moments on the album and I’m sure you heard the story of ‘Endo’ and Jennies story about that. Every part of the album means a lot to us and to be able to put them all in one place and get people’s feedback is really cool for us.
Mark: One of the things I hope does come out of lockdown is that I hope people start to listen to music more rather than just consume it. There are so many great albums like yours that need to be savoured, not just blindly streamed.
Paul: All the albums I’ve talked about today I could quite happily put on and lose myself in them: the lyrics and the melodies and the music and that’s why I’m a musician. And Devilskin are all like that, we support the artist that we love and we climb inside their songs and we strive to get better and be half as good as those artist that we love. But to get the opportunity to be able to write songs and play songs and record and release them really is a dream come true man, and not something that I can take for granted ever. It’s a powerful position to be in, but it takes a lot of hard work and craft from a lot of people. It takes a lot of people to make anything work for a rock and roll band. But when all the starts are aligned, nothing beats it. And as a performer and as an artist one of my happiest moments on stage is when we were in Vienna with Halestorm and once our logo had been added to the Halestorm posters people found out who we were and started doing some homework, so we’d get to these gigs in Europe and people knew the words to ur songs! They were holding up the love heart signs and things like that, and one moment for me I was really feeling the love on stage that night and I looked down and there’s a hundred people doing the love heart symbol to us! And all that in a country that we were playing for the first time ever – and that to me is pretty fricking special! That’s the feeling I love about being a musician – communicating with a crowd and getting that good vibe back.
Mark: That’s the power of music. I know the name of the band came from an idea you had on one of Jennie’s lyrics in that first session but do you ever get tired of being asked questions about the name and what it means?
Paul: As you said, came from that lyric of Jennies about that guy who could be an angel one minute and a devil the next. But I just wanted to make it all one word so it was our word. You’d be surprised by the number of times we get asked if it’s ‘Devil Skin’ or ‘Devils Kin’ but it’s all one word, there’s no hyphen, no two words. That’s a bit of a pet peeve! And honestly it’s so hard to find a name for a band (laughs) if you had to think one up now! But remember that at one point in time someone said “Oh I’ve got a good name, let’s call ourselves The Beatles.” (laughs).
Mark: (laughs).
Paul: What! And of course they’re the biggest band ever in the world. But we just wanted something that sounded cool, that as you said came from Jennie’s lyrics and the way I interpreted them. The idea that someone could be good one day and evil the next, put a skin on and be an angel or Devil.
Mark: It’s a shame though that there aren’t more bands out there with the name of insects though!
Paul: (laughing) imagine that!
Mark: Just imagine after The Beatles if every band had the name of a different insect!
Paul: (laughing) And what about Foo Fighters! Imagine that – coming up with the name ‘Foo Fighters’ I’d be like – “You’re out son!”
Mark: (laughs).
Paul: What the hell does that mean! But you make it your own don’t you, if the band is strong and you make it your own you get through anything! I just wish people would stop asking us if it’s “Devil Skin or Devil’s Kin” (laughs).
Mark: I’ll remember to ask you that next time! (laughs)
Paul: We might just change it for every gig from now on! We do live in a world of fake news!
Mark: Don’t forget “D. Evil Skin”.
Paul: (laughs) I know sometimes we put our back drop up and if there’s not enough space we end up as “EVIL SKI” we’ve played a few gigs as “EVIL SKI” (laughs)
Mark: (laughing) I’ve had so much fun Paul, we’ll have to do this again! It’s been great to talk to you today mate.
Paul: Any time at all man.
Mark: I’ll take you upon that Paul, maybe 5 albums to take into isolation?
Paul: I’d love to. As soon as the borders are open man, we’ll be over to see you.
Mark: Don’t leave it too long. Stay safe and have a great weekend.
Paul: You too Mark, take care. Cheers.
