Paul Weller in The Big Issue: The Modfather gets paternal

 
The Modfather, Paul Weller, says that he’s finally got to grips with responsibility, at the ripe old age of 54. 

Weller, once an angry young man of the post-punk generation, reveals his softer side in an exclusive Father’s Day interview with The Big Issue, out now.

Weller and his wife Hannah welcomed twin boys Bowie and John Paul into the world in January. Now, the former Jam frontman says he’s finally got the hang of fatherhood.

“I was feeding one of me twins the other day and I thought, ‘F**king Hell. I’m properly responsible for this little person. He relies on me. It hit me in a very clear way… it still knocks you out every time,’” he tells The Big Issue.

In a candid interview, Weller talks about fathering his own seven children, but also the influence his own father had upon him.

“He took time and encouraged me and my sister. So that’s what fatherhood is in my eyes: to be friends with your kids, involved,” he adds.

He reflects too on when – in the booze and drug-fuelled 1990s when even Oasis’ Noel Gallagher described him as “a nutter” – he wasn’t so hands-on. Now drink and drug free, Weller reveals how it’s “brought sanity and clarity to everything”.

“Going out proper on the piss, it took me two or three days to get over it, depressed, and that’s just not me," he says. "I can’t afford to be like that with my kids. You’ve got to be there. And God knows what it would be like with the twins, having a f**king hangover, Jesus!”

Read the full interview in this week’s Big Issue