Nice guys do win

If there are two sides to every performer, there’s no better example than the King Of Soul, Otis Redding. In the six years before his death, the inimitable singer-songwriter flipped happily between the roles of tender balladeer and untamed soul rocker. Sadly, there’s a great portion of the music-loving public who will never know his fiery sweat-soaked, chest-baring side, and for whom his name will conjure the image of a cool-headed Sunday morning crooner.

It’s a story Paolo Giovanni Nutini knows all too well. His lilting, chart-topping drawl conjures up images of a certified prettyboy, grinning out at you from the window of HMV, making you feel 30% paler and 50% less attractive. Nutini the live performer is something entirely different. Crouched over a microphone with his eyes closed, shuffling his feet and digging his fists through the air, he forms the silhouette of an ageless soul skanker wrapped entirely up in the music.
“That’s what I love about it,” he tells me. “It’s not as if there’s a particular stamp or seal of approval. Music is available to every different kind of person and gets heard by every different kind of person and gets judged – and then gets recycled and passed down… or else headed away, never to be heard again.”
The one degree of separation between Nutini and his idol Redding is Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, who released Redding’s very first single in 1960. Shortly before his death in 2006, Ertegun personally welcomed Nutini to Atlantic, proclaiming: “I’m as sure about Paolo as I’ve ever been about any artist I’ve had.”
He wasn’t wrong.

With a face that could tempt Smash Hits! back into production and an almighty soul rasp, it’s only logical that Paolo Nutini would make his way into the hearts of the public, but who’d have predicted that the Scottish Italian kid would do so by channeling Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, and of course, Redding.
To date, the Paisley native has sold four million albums, played two shows in the Royal Albert Hall, performed with Mick Jagger – another Redding connection: the Georgia man covered the Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ in 1965 – and just 12 months ago, he received an Ivor Novello for the songwriting on second album Sunny Side Up. Today, he’s equally welcome on the celeb-packed couch at The Graham Norton Show and the stage at Later… With Jools Holland. Critics, musicians and teenage girls all seem to find something different to love. It’s a great place to be in.
Paolo Nutini does not court fame, but the tabloids still manage to craft a story out of him losing his phone or getting a haircut. He regularly gets papped on holiday. It would be too easy to attribute this kind of media attention to Nutini’s toothpaste-commercial good looks, but then again, the 24-year-old has done little to incur the attention of the tabloids. He’s never been to rehab, he doesn’t go out with supermodels (he’s been dating girlfriend Teri for nearly a decade), and he’s yet to be photographed pouring Kahlua down Charlie Sheen’s throat or injecting cooking oil into Lindsay Lohan’s forehead.
When I call him up at his parents’ home in Paisley, he sounds relaxed but energised, and distinctly un-showbiz. The family dog barks intermittently in the background and every so often, his dad’s hollering bleeds down the line. So far, so provincial. Is this an everyday occurrence, then, journalists phoning the house?
“Nah,” he dismisses. “I wouldn’t say it happens a hell of a lot, but they’ve got used to expecting the unexpected!”
If anyone has a penchant for the glamorous life, it’s Paolo’s mum, who’s been known to invite herself along to the odd red carpet event and aftershow party. Paolo chuckles at the thought. “How can you say no to your mum?” He instantly manages to put me at ease, ending each answer with a jaunty, “It’s cool, man” or “Who knows, man?” So what has him in such a laidback mood?
“What have I been doing,” he mumbles. “Today in fact, I’ve been doing a little bit of sketching. I’ve always liked animation and I’ve had a couple of wee ideas for a little comic strip. I’m more... good at the ideas for the content. I’m not the best at the sketching, but the only way you can get good is to practice. Today I thought, ‘You know what? I’m gonna just sit and sketch away’! I’m not much on comics, but graphic novels, I remember a friend of mine gave me one called The Preacher a few years back and I’ve kind of been hooked since.”
With millions of fans waiting patiently on his third album, it’s remarkable Nutini has the time
for doodling.
“You get plenty of times on planes,” he assures me, “and I’ve been on a few more recently so that’s been good, a little gap between. We’ve got some more live dates to prepare for and obviously festivals. Coming over to Oxegen is a big one. But I suppose it kind of clears a bit of rhythm in the head.”
While bright-eyed pop is very clearly Mr. Nutini’s forte, I suggest it must be fun to mess around in an artform that doesn’t come quite so naturally.
“You give yourself a wee shake,” he nods. “And it’s good, that. Go with what you’re doing and do it with conviction, rather than trying to spread yourself too thinly. Sometimes I’ve tried to bite off much more than I could chew and my ambitions got carried away past my ability. When I do something, I kind of launch into it. I make myself leave whatever it was the day before behind.”
This was certainly the case with 2009’s Sunny Side Up, which saw Nutini move on from his poppy debut and cast his net in the murky waters of reggae, ska and blues. Themes ranged from the whimsical (“I’ve got food in my belly and a license for my telly”) to the profound (“It was in love I was created and in love is how I hope I die”), so it makes perfect sense when Nutini tells me that Christy Moore is one of his favourite artists.
“Just recently he came over with Declan Sinnott for a show in Glasgow, and I missed it by one day!” he rues. “Two of my friends were in and they said it was fucking great. There’s something about going to see performers who are that sort of fragile – but assured at the same time. I mean, Christy Moore, man, he’ll make you cry but don’t fuck him about! Don’t mess him about! Apart from a few of the more traditional folk songs, I remember his version of ‘Ride On’ was one of the first pieces of Irish music that I’d ever heard. I remember just the line, what’s the wee line? “I turn to face an empty space, where you used to lie/And look for a spark that lights the night/Through a teardrop in my eye”, and I remember hearing that. At the time, I had nothing really to feel too melancholy about… but I did after that song!
“That’s him walking on emotion, that’s just bringing it there. It’s not amplifying it or anything, that’s just putting me in that spot, you know? I was gutted to miss the latest show. Whenever we get the chance, I do a little version of ‘Ride On’, just a little wee nod, but I do it no justice.”

Christy Moore isn’t the first Irish musician to have a hand in shaping Paolo’s career. Like many young songwriters, he’s been hugely influenced by Van Morrison’s rock ‘n’ roll growl and, just last year, he told Hot Press that Damien Rice inspired him to pick up the guitar.
“It’s something about Irish musicians,” he muses. “The last time I was there for Arthur’s Day I got given some mad, ‘How many can you name in a minute?’ sort of question and I missed out U2 at the end! You’ve just got the wealth. Again, I remember hearing Thin Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word’. There’s a lot of amazing Irish musicians, nobody needs to be told that, and coming over there and getting an Irish crowd going means that you’re doing something right. They’re used to some good music, so they can spot the rubbish!”
Nutini was given an especially big pat on the back last year at the Meteor Awards, where he beat competition from Lady Gaga, Mumford And Sons and Florence And The Machine to scoop the gong for Best International Album.
“Everybody was saying earlier, ‘Do they tell you if you win?’” he remembers, “and I assumed they probably did and there was a reason I didn’t know! The first category that came up, the record label said, ‘Let’s get to the seat! We need to get to the seat now! Quick, quick, quick!’ Lo and behold it come up that we’d won the category! Then after the next one came up, I’m saying to them, ‘Let’s go to the seat, we’re gonna be late’ and they’re like, ‘Nah, just take it easy, you don’t need to rush for this one…’ I was like ‘Okay, I get it, I get it!’
“It’s one of those things, you go up, you say thanks and you enjoy your night, I mean, you don’t really want to be wallowing in an award, everything else keeps going, you can’t stay looking at all your awards. It’s good to have it. Colin Farrell presented it, and it was cool getting to meet him. Not only that, but I got to go and see a lot of the people from the studio that we worked with over in Grouse Lodge, so I got to do a bit of catching up… and I got my Dublin coddle and my boxty...”
Which was?
“... dynamite!”
Part of Sunny Side Up was recorded in Westmeath’s aforementioned Grouse Lodge Studios, a place Nutini has always spoken very highly of.
“Some of the sights – it’s nothing too grand, just subtle beauty. Aye, it tickles a different bit than a city would do, or going over to London. Different things come your way each day and different things keep you up at night. If it’s not the cows, it’s taxis!
“That seemed to be a real kind of thread, where we went to record. They were quite secluded places, where you had a lot of time to think, which in itself shapes the tone of the record. We did it in Glasgow and even when I went over doing a little bit of recording in Amsterdam, you always seem to find yourself on the move and the music can be good for that. When it feels like you’ve got that endless amount of time, it’s a funny thing, sometimes you can’t come up with a decent line in a month!
“It’s hard to gain perspective on whether your stuff’s good,” he sighs. “If you’re writing for a purpose then it’s different, but even if somebody tells you, you can never gauge. The moment you start thinking what you do is great, that’s the moment everybody disagrees!”
Nutini is keen to talk about album number three, which he began work on in a little barn in Plymouth earlier this year.
“That was nice, but then I had to go somewhere that was maybe going to be a little bit more happening,” he laughs. “We got a flat in Amsterdam, set up our gear and worked out of there. I’d never seen too much of Amsterdam in the sunshine, there’s a lot going on that you don’t really see. Sometimes if it’s raining you might not make it out of the coffee shop!”
Of course, that can be fun, too…
“That’s the beauty of it!” he laughs. “That’s what’s good about going there, everybody doesn’t label it! In Amsterdam, there’s nothing smart about going smoking pot, there’s nothing cool, there’s nothing weird or ‘Wahay!’ about it. To them over there it’s like going and buying a couple of pints of beer.”

For all his everyman anecdotes, Paolo Nutini is the eighth wealthiest young musician in the UK, according to the Sunday Times, who estimated his fortune at £7 million. Whether that’s a gross exaggeration of the truth or he’s just particularly adept at hiding his collection of classic cars, he doesn’t strike me as someone who has much of an interest in what people call the ‘finer things’ in life.
“It’s not nice to be too comfy,” he shrugs. “Too much comfort, as you said, might seep into the sound. Even in the band, we’re all young guys, we’re all young boys, we don’t need to be fucking laid out with a nice fancy tablecloth. We can roll with the punches. Definitely a little bit of tension goes a long way in the studio, because it means you don’t start thinking too much.”
From the sudden animation in his voice, I can tell that he’s bursting to get the new material down
on wax.
“There’s a lot more of a kind of, not punk, but even Squeeze... the lyrics and the narrative and the line. The stories about common grotty things that we all deal with at some point in our lives. There’s some electric guitar and it sounds a bit more like a band, just rock, just clean... rather than maybe a little trip through my head.”
If Sunny Side Up was born from listening to ragtime cats like Cab Calloway and Louis Prima, the follow-up should bear more than a hint of early Stateside punk.
“There’s a record we got in America and it’s by Richard Hell And The Voidoids and they’re credited as being one of the first big things in the New York punk scene. They’ve got that attitude, they’ve got that direct sort of, chest-out have-it thing, but you find the melody in it.”
Understandably enough, Paolo’s reluctant to drop the P-word.
“It’s weird when you put genres on it. Are you going to do a record that’s punk or rock or folk? I always find it quite dangerous ‘cos you never know how things are going to adapt and go. They’re feelings and emotions, they’re not genres. That’s what’s on an HMV shelf: it doesn’t encapsulate what the songs are really like. But I’ve got a nice Telecaster and I’ve been playing a hell of a lot more of that. Naturally enough, it’s coming through.”
Sounds like we’re in for a totally new live show.
“It might not be so brassy,” he agrees, “that could become a section of something else. I don’t know, the way that things are going now, there’s a lot of different sounds and pedals and atmospheres and things. It’s not as atmospheric or it’s not as severe, to my ears anyway. There’s quite a lot of space in it. That’s something I remember somebody saying to me, ‘I like your songs but you just gotta think about more space, time for you’. I’ll never forget that.”
Yet another titanic honour for Nutini came earlier this year when superstar Motown guitarist Dennis Coffey invited him to sing on his forthcoming
solo album.
“I got to do a track that he made with (psychedelic folk pioneer) Sixto Rodriquez, called ‘Only Good For Conversation’. Rodriguez to me was Shamanistic. He kind of floated two inches above the ground. I mean, you paint these pictures, man. I was 14 or 15 when I first heard his record and thought it so superior. He just fucking writes gold. I remember speaking to a promoter in Holland and he said he was promoting one of his shows in Rotterdam. He said, ‘Oh, we were speaking about you’, and I was like. ‘What?’ I didn’t get it! Then we got a call from Chicago saying that if it was okay, he was going to come down and see the show! So we bum one, we skin one up, we bum one, we have a couple of glasses of wine, and we play some guitar and play some songs and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’ He’s asking me some stuff about lyrics in my songs and I’m asking him about his lyrics in his songs. Two people from completely different worlds and completely different eras, and we were just sitting there that night, talking and playing music. It sounds clichéd but it brings folk together, like not a lot of other things can. It felt good to do that tune and Dennis Coffey… one funky man!”
It seems like the only part of the 1950s Motown dogma that Nutini doesn’t adhere to is employing a team of writers to serve him up with custom-made hits.
“I did a lot of co-writing on the first record, when I didn’t have so much confidence in my writing,” he recalls. “There was no harm in trying, but that time wasted trying out the stuff that you don’t need to, you could be thinking of things that will actually help you move forward.
“Maybe I don’t know what the best thing to do is, but I’m getting a better grasp of what to steer clear of. I’m just writing a hell of a lot more. This time, I thought, ‘What’s going to come of this?’ and well, fuck me, to my ears it’s working! I’ve got scrolls of stuff that I want to do and we said, ‘Let’s go in and see what we come up with together’. I’m feeling pretty good about this tour, and I’m feeling pretty good about this record, I just have to get it on CD! Well, I say get it on CD, but it’s more get it on iTunes or whatever!”

ITunes. It is, as they say, a whole other story. As a self-confessed technophobe, it comes as no surprise that Nutini is seriously concerned with how the consumption of music is developing in 2011.
“The whole idea of something being convenient has completely overtaken people believing in something real and tangible. It’s hard! People like Jack White making records – and those records all of a sudden showing up unfinished on some internet site, you go, ‘There’s something fucking wrong, man.’ Bands need to be able to make the record in order to get it out. It’s nice to have something that you can get behind and you can put a bit of faith in that’s tangible, rather than just download for nothing. Some of the sites you don’t even pay, it’s just free. I don’t know how it’s allowed to happen, I don’t get it.
“Vinyl is the polar opposite. The generation I grew up in, it wasn’t vinyl it was almost archaic then as well. Before it was, ‘Spin that thing to get it working’, I don’t see how that became the hard part! A lot of the stuff I have on vinyl, I end up buying it anyway. I don’t carry my deck around with me! But when you get that chance in the dressing-room or in the house or at a party, I like having on my favorite ones. And it doesn’t have to be old classic vinyls. Anything, man. I got ‘Still D.R.E’ and it just felt like it was how it was supposed to sound, and that goes the same with an old Allen Toussaint record or a Nat King Cole record or a bloody Dennis Coffey record: it sounds better to me than it can when it goes through an MP3.”
But then, Nutini wouldn’t be an old soul if the future of music didn’t play on his mind from time to time.
“There’s always gonna be people that understand and grasp the concept of that album being a little part of your day or your life and not just something that you’re owed. But for a lot of people, music will take on a new meaning and a new purpose. It might just be in the background.”
In the meantime, Nutini will be focusing on fusing his recent horn-led hits with his mysterious new sound.
“I don’t know whether I’m going to be able to get over to Ireland to do some new music before Oxegen, but I’d love to be able to do that. I’d love to go and just fizzle through some songs, try to marry what we’ve been to where we’re going. It’s hard to do in a headline slot, but we’ll see! That’s
the challenge.”
2011 will be Paolo’s third consecutive year playing the Main Stage at Punchestown. Does he get time to hang around and soak up the atmosphere?
“Not last year but the year before, I had some real time to hang at the bar and chill out. I ended up hanging with the boys from Iglu And Hartley. They wanted to party, they wanted to enjoy themselves, so yeah it was us, plus Iglu And Hartley, plus the fucking Red Bull Jägerbombs and the rest was a bit murky, but I remember seeing their show and I remember enjoying it a hell of a lot!
“Last year I flew in from T In The Park, did the set and ended up flying straight back out the same day for the T In The Park party! But I’m not going to T In The Park this year, so I’ve got my chance. Normally you can pitch up a tent, that’s the plan, but last year the weather wasn’t too great, man. But there was some absolute heroes floating about in the mud that made my day. I hope they’re there!”
Two years back, Nutini caused a major commotion at the Hot Press Signing Tent, where he spent over an hour autographing the scrapbooks, rainwear and forearms of the nation.
“The energy those guys are putting into the dancing,” he beams, “I can scribble on a bit of paper, at least! I can even do a little doodle on it, draw one of my wee characters. Stinky Pete, that’s one of my up-and-coming characters! You never know, I could unleash… was it Stinky Pete? That wasn’t what it was! What is it? He had a wee sidekick… ach, we won’t get into it, it’s a work in progress! I’ve got the Danger Mouse, Penfold sort of thing going on, that’s the inspiration!”
The man who made his live debut opening for David Sneddon (Come on, BBC’s Fame Academy? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already?) has now been making music, playing shows and challenging perceptions for six years. In another six, Nutini will be facing 30. Where can I find him if we want to wish him a happy birthday?
“Well, let’s hope that I’m nice and fit and healthy for a start! I was doing a little bit of whittling earlier, a bit of wood carving...”
Well, that’s something to fall
back on…
“Ach, you just stole my joke!” he laughs, “that I’ll start whittling walking sticks and it’s something to fall back on… wahey!”
Oh, dear. And he’d been such an engaging interviewee up to this point. Here’s hoping he can pick up the slack with the answer to my final question, the seven million pound one – what’s the dream?
“To just keep getting the chance to go out and express myself. Right now, I seem to get my point across best through music so that’s what I’m doing. I’m an optimist in that sense. It’s only just beginning, man.”

Paolo Nutini plays Oxegen on Saturday July 9.