Paolo Nutini Interview

As a highly talented, ridiculously handsome and multi-platinum-selling rock star, Paolo Giovanni Nutini has many strings to his bow, zeros in his bank, and awards on his mantlepiece. However, an affably modest type, the olive-skinned Scotsman obviously doesn’t feel the need to put it all out there. For if he did, he’d surely be calling himself Dr. Paolo Nutini...
In recognition of his achievements, the Paisley-born singer was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) in 2012. “That’s true, yeah,” the 28-year-old acknowledges. “I think if I had the inclination I’d be able to put it on my passports or credit cards. It’s never really sprang to mind, though. Yeah, that was an interesting little surprise.” He chuckles. “It probably made a lot of doctors sick.”
Thankfully, he’s been far too busy to get sick himself in recent times. Since last year’s release of third album, Caustic Love, Paolo’s mostly been touring throughout Europe, Asia and the US. “I’ve been predominately touring for most of the year,” he says. “But we’ve been able to leave some good gaps in the middle so I can practice. So that’s one thing: it’s always good to leave some time to practice (laughs). Even in the bits when you’re not on the stage or you’re not in the studio, I’m just trying to keep on, either being somewhere where you can just listen, just feed yourself with music you haven’t heard. It’s nice now I’ve been able to get myself a piano in the house. You can sit and play, always trying to move on, move forward.”
So presumably album number four is already well underway?
“I was on album number four a little while before album number three was released,” he laughs. “There’s times when you write a song a day. That’s cool. There’s no quota.”
Rather than waiting to go back to the studio, he tries to write whenever inspiration strikes. “You try to leave the antenna up and catch an idea when it comes,” he explains. “Sometimes you can have an idea, it might be four o’clock in the morning. Half of you has already resigned itself to your duvet, and then you get the idea: you’ve got the option to either get up and catch it or wait till the morning and take the chance that at a more convenient time it’s still going to be there.”
The way he sees it, all music is already floating out there in the ether. If he doesn’t catch that moment then somebody else will. There’s an almost mystic aspect to it. “The weird thing is you hear something through your mind,” he says. “It could be a turn of phrase or it could be a melody. It could be a guitar line or sound or something – and then somebody else has clearly got it when you let it fly by. So you’re always trying to keep on, always try to have some recorder on you, whether it’s a phone or even just little notepads. It’s always good to have something. I always feel strange, or a bit uneasy, if I know I can’t record something if I wanted to.”
The musical moments Paolo has managed to capture and record have served him incredibly well so far. Both his 2006 debut, These Streets, and No 1 follow-up, Sunny Side Up, in 2009, have been certified quintuple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. Following a five year hiatus, Caustic Love debuted at No 1 on the UK Albums Chart last year, and has just been nominated by public vote for the Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award. Other artists on the ten-strong shortlist include Belle and Sebastian, Happy Meals, Errors, Honeyblood, Slam and Amazing Snakeheads.
“If you look at the company I’m keeping there on the shortlist, it’s pretty deep," he observes. “It’s amazing. A few of those records I’d heard already, and the others that I hadn’t, I’ve since got to hear. So it’s an honour, very much so. To be considered is great. Musically it’s a great thing for me. Just to be in that company. I don’t know who I would pick if I was to do it, but, you know, I wouldn’t be very high up on that list.”
Was he disappointed with the result of the recent Scottish independence referendum?
“Yeah, I must say I was,” he admits. “But it certainly galvanised the country. Yes and No voters all seem to be pretty galvanised by it. There’s a hell of a lot more people that are more politically charged after. People I know that weren’t politically charged certainly are now. They’ve got their eyes open a bit wider and they’re asking questions. But in a short answer, yes, I was disappointed.”
Back to music. Paolo has often cited Damien Rice as one of his chief inspirations. Has he heard the talented Irishman's long awaited My Favourite Faded Fantasy?
"Yeah, I've heard the new record. Then after enjoying that and ingesting that, it led me back to the other records and the EPs. It reignited a lot of admiration. It was his music that really encouraged me to pick up a guitar. There was something there. I mean I can’t remember what age I was exactly, but I think I was about 16. He was the one that, all of the songs, although I couldn’t play them exactly like he played them, the tunings and the sort of things, you could do an interpretation of them over the few chords that I knew. I just loved to sit and play the songs. And I think everyone around me at that time fell in love with Damien Rice.”
Has he met Rice recently?
"We encountered one other in Korea actually last year," he recalls. "It was a very surreal breakfast where I'd been very jetlagged, and one day become the other very quickly. I think we were playing the same festival and I appeared at the hotel for breakfast – well, I didn't really know what it was, it was breakfast or dinner! – and god knows what he thought of me that day, but let's just say I was quite excited to have met him there. I hope I didn't ruin his breakfast in Korea."
'Breakfast in Korea' sounds like a good movie title. It was recently reported that a Saturday Night Fever style film of Paolo’s life was being considered by Hollywood producers. However, he dismisses the prospect with a weary sigh. “I’ve heard nothing about it. In fact anything that was put in the media I’ve not even looked at. It’s nonsense. I think maybe someone has some idea about doing it. I think somebody put out a book – a kind of unofficial biography. I don’t even really know who so, yeah, I wouldn’t read too deep into that.”
The biography in question is Colin MacFarlane’s Paolo Nutini: Coming Up Easy. Paolo hasn’t read it. “No, I haven’t. No. As I said, I had nothing to do with it so I haven’t read the book. And I know nothing about a film.”
Staying with Hollywood for a moment, Paolo’s dad recently told reporters that his famous son was “a bit miffed” that he’d met Al Pacino backstage at one of his son’s shows...
“That’s right, yeah,” he laughs. “My Dad met Al Pacino – and I didn’t! My dad’s an Alfredo and so
is Al Pacino. He’s Alfredo. Which is something my dad had known. He’s a big fan of Al Pacino and a lot of the stuff he does. He got me into Al Pacino. I think it began with The Godfather, and then Serpico – what a movie. I remember watching the film Scent of a Woman, and I still carry that film pretty dear. I just really dig that film. Anyway, my dad and Al really got along, and apparently both of them were named Alfredo after their grandfathers as well. Strange little connection going on there! And the best thing about it was, from what I gather, Al Pacino was an absolute gentleman and was every bit the legend.”
He may not have gotten to meet Al Pacino, but at least Paolo can console himself with the fact that the legendary British actress Joanna Lumley appeared in the creepily sexy music video for [Caustic Love cut] ‘One Day’ last year. How did that come about?
"We just asked her if she would consider doing it," he says. "We knew there was that role of the woman who's absorbed with all the young starlets' energy, and is constantly bringing her to life and restoring her looks and beauty, and I just thought about who maintained that for so long. To me it was Joanna Lumley. She’s an amazing woman. She has been for so long. And I just thought it was something about her class. There’s something very prestigious about having Joanna Lumley in your video. I was blown away. I had no inclination she was going to say ‘yes’. So when she got back to us saying she would do it, it was amazing.”
Paolo hit the headlines last year when, speaking out in defence of members of One Direction (who’d been secretly filmed toking on a joint), he told a Q journalist that he’s smoked cannabis every day from the age of 16. So given that this is Hot Press’ Drugs Issue, what are his thoughts on legalisation?
“I don’t know, man,” he says. “You look at somewhere like Colorado; we went there recently and it had really taken a step up in that the medicinal thing had gone – well, that was still there, but now they’ve legalized it to the point where, if you’re of age, you can go in there and spend your money on marijuana the same as if you were going into a bar buying alcohol or a newsagents buying cigarettes – all of the variations of things that we put into our bodies.
“You can look at it both ways – how good they are for us or how bad,” he continues. “I got to speaking to a lot of people, and there’s a lot of the money and the tax that’s being made off these things is going directly back into the community, back into building things like schools – like, things that are very positive. There’s so many ways to look at it, you know, and I think there’s times I’ve been misquoted and times I’ve been quoted correctly on the subject. But everyone’s so different so you can’t say one thing’s a good idea for one person or a bad idea. It’s impossible. Everyone’s so different. Some people smoke and their eyes close and they drift away. And others, it’s like a jolt to their system, and to some it’s a very creative thing, and to others it’s a sedative.”
How does it affect him?
“Even for me, having indulged in it for so long, every time I enjoy it, but it has a different effect. It matters what you’re doing, what you’re going through. It’s not necessarily an escape. Something I’ve enjoyed about it is how it’s made me think. How you experience it often depends on what’s happening in ‘real life’.”
Paolo’s speaking to Hot Press today predominately to publicise his upcoming Marlay Park show next month. A regular visitor to Ireland, he’s genuinely looking forward to it.
“Obviously it’s going to be the biggest show I’ve done off my own back,” he enthuses. “It’s quite an exciting prospect because we played the Electric Picnic: that was something that I’d always wanted to do. I’d built it up a lot, and I’d heard a lot about it, and for years of going to Ireland always would’ve loved to play Electric Picnic. Heard everybody who’d been there raving about the festival.
“I feel that perhaps I was overwhelmed a little by the whole reality of it when we played. And I think I’m going to take a few things from that to try and sort of learn from them, and hopefully play a better show this time around. It’s a mad place to be. I can remember finishing the night dancing to Nile Rodgers and Chic, pretty oiled up, and then I remember, before that, going and checking out Portishead. I’d never seen Portishead live before and hearing that track ‘Machine Gun’...it was just amazing.”
Sharing his Marlay Park stage on July 4th will be Imelda May (“She’s a bit of a national treasure in Ireland, isn’t she?”), Gaz Coombes and Alabama Shakes. He chose all the support acts himself.
“I’m just really, really lucky they wanted to do it,” he says. “You know, because I think it’s a proper bill, all day, for people to come and enjoy. If I had my way, I’d try to make the day longer and squeeze on another act. I think it’s trying to give everybody in the park as much music as you can for spending their hard-earned money to come to the show. Trying to make the show a good one, to say the least.”
Does Paolo Nutini get nervous before shows?
“Oh yeah, man,” he admits, “but especially when you’re on after very good musicians. It’s not often you find yourselves on bills at festivals who aren’t, but I think you certainly do get a bit of, when you watch somebody and you’re absorbed by it, it makes you think, ‘Okay, that’s good’. It shakes you. I always get nervous before I go on because I’ve never known any other way. But it always turns – well, usually turns – to adrenaline at the right time. It makes that switch, and then you can use it as a positive thing.”


Paolo Nutini plays Marlay Park, Dublin on Saturday, July 4