As the former singer, songwriter and guitarist in Mansun, Paul Draper needs little by way of introduction. The band went on to release four albums, including a number one with their debut ‘Attack Of The Grey Lantern’ and are now cited as one of the most iconic bands to emerge from the Britpop era.

Last Monday (5 March), he was due to play two sets at Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms. The first containing material from last year’s solo LP Spooky Action, the second to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Mansun’s most celebrated record, Attack Of The Grey Lantern which would have seen it played in full, chronological order.

However, things didn’t quite turn out as planned. The first set, due to last approximately fifty minutes, was aborted after four songs. In that time he appeared to confront then dismiss his keyboard player off the stage while clearly unhappy with someone or something throughout.

Nearly an hour passed before he eventually reappeared to perform the second segment of the show, only to forget the words to the opening song (‘The Chad Who Loved Me’) which engineered a chorus of boos from the audience. With the show now sinking into a shambolic mess, it was clear something wasn’t right and after exchanging words with audience members in the front row, the show was finally aborted during ‘Egg Shaped Fred’ two songs before the end.

Afterwards in an apology to fans via his official Facebook page, it transpired ”A personal issue raised its head just prior to the gig” which deeply upset him and affected his performance.

Just a few hours earlier I interviewed Paul Draper prior to soundcheck. The 27 minutes I spent with him gave no indication of the drama that would later unfold. It was actually one of the most candid, forthright and open interviews I’ve conducted with any artist in recent months. Aside from discussing his solo record and current tour, he also opened up about the dissolution of Mansun.

How’s the tour gone so far? What’s been the highlight?

It’s been good apart from the beast in the east wrecking a lot of it. All the gigs were great. It’s just that the Manchester show was sold out but 250 people didn’t turn up because of the weather. A similar thing happened in Glasgow and Sheffield, maybe 100 or so couldn’t make it to those shows. Newcastle as well. The atmosphere was still great. You wouldn’t know the shows weren’t rammed. It did affect us. We were lucky getting out of Glasgow because of the snow. My manager Keith (Wozencroft) was 20 minutes behind us and he only made it as far as Carlisle. We wouldn’t have been able to do the Manchester gig otherwise because you literally just couldn’t get out of Glasgow. Dublin was a great gig. It’s been great so far.

Has the reaction to your Spooky Action set been the same it has for the Attack Of The Grey Lantern material?

I would say it’s like being your own warm up act! I’m actually thinking about playing Attack Of The Grey Lantern’ first so they’re warmed up and get a madder for the Spooky Action stuff. But then by the time we get to ‘Dark Mavis’ I’ll look down at the crowd and half of them are in tears. I know it sounds odd but Mansun was a pop group of its day. Nowadays we’re considered alternative as are most bands from that era. I guess Liam Gallagher’s still considered a pop star but Noel’s alternative now, Suede are alternative now, even the Pet Shop Boys have become the alternative these days. But then I meet so many people who say things like “When I was 14 you were my favourite band and I was too young to see you.” You could see they were in floods of tears. It was quite emotional. I never thought I’d want to do stuff like ‘Stripper Vicar’ again, but now I’m doing it you’ve just got to laugh at yourself. It’s part of the whole arc of the record so I guess it’s alright in that context. One concern I did have was that the solo stuff might be a bit flat and then the reaction to Attack Of The Grey Lantern would be massive but it’s not been like that. It’s been a lot closer. Although I have to say one of the main reasons for doing this tour was to reconnect with people.

Musically, a lot of Spooky Action is quite upbeat. For example ‘Who Wears The Trousers?’ reminds me of Depeche Mode or even Einsturzende Neubaten. It’s very industrial.

I have to say it’s better live than it is on the record. There was just a drum machine in the studio so as soon as we get one of those you become Depeche Mode. You’re alright having a drum machine now but back in the day Mansun had a drum machine on every album and we got laughed at. But now, drum machines are everywhere. ‘Who Wears The Trousers?’ really works live. It’s good. We deliberately come on slow and do 10 minutes of pseudo prog rock before we really get into it.

Is the first set exclusively taken from ‘Spooky Action’ or are there any other songs in there as well?

Pretty much, yeah. Mainly because of time and also getting the effects together as well. We have a lot of effects running in a sequencer. To have done Spooky Action and then Attack Of The Grey Lantern fully I’d have probably had a heart attack. We were literally up until five o’clock in the morning the night before coming on tour. When you hear Attack Of The Grey Lantern it's really accurate. The biggest cheer’s for when some backwards baby starts crying! I’ve never seen a moshpit for a mellotron sample before. That’s the first time it dawns on you that its really accurate to the record. With Spooky Action we did the first couple of tracks as the album opens then I do a b-side, ‘Silence Is Deafening’. Just because it went down well on the first tour. Then I do my stool segment. I’ve jumped on the Noel Gallagher bandwagon to give myself a breather. We do one from the album as an acoustic thing. The set lasts about fifty minutes but misses a few off the album. At a later date I will do that album on its own.

Quite a few of the songs on Spooky Action date back quite a long time. What made you decide to release the album in 2017?

I just think fashion changed and Keith who’s my manager used to be my A&R man at Parlophone. After Mansun split up they used to call me in every three months for about four years trying to persuade me to do a solo album. I just didn’t have it in me plus if I had done it back then I don’t think it would have done anything. It was that era of skinny jeans with bands like The White Stripes and The Kooks. The new rock revolution and all of that. Even an artist at the level of Richard Ashcroft wasn’t doing much. Now that’s all gone he’s back up to arena level. I don’t know…. I just didn’t have it in me for many factors.

Was there ever a point where you thought the album might never come out? Are there any more tracks from that era which are still to be released?

Yeah, loads. I never thought I’d put out any of the Spooky Action stuff to be honest. I just backed it up off my hard drive onto a DVD-R and that was it. I just left it. I never ever thought I’d revisit them or use them to work with another artist. I just put them away. That was ‘Grey House’, ‘Feeling My Heart Run Slow’, loads. Half of them I thought wouldn’t get further than that. ‘Feel Like I Wanna Stay’. At least half of them, and then the others became b-sides. I don’t know what made me release it when I did? They held a Mansun convention in Chester four years ago and that’s what did it. They’d all just meet up anyway because they were a lot of people’s favourite band. It was a similar following to the Manics.

It was. Mansun, the Manics and Suede from that era. All three had and still have very devoted fanbases.

Yeah I think so. So they just kept meeting up then one year, this guy Andy Lyth who I didn’t really know. I’d only met him once as a kid and he’s still only about 34 now or something like that. He messaged me to say they were going to do a convention to celebrate… I didn’t even know what it was. Twenty years since our first release or something like that. I honestly didn’t know what it was. So he said we’re going to do it in a pub in Chester. I think originally he probably thought they’d get around 50 people but in the end 600 people turned up and there was a two-page feature in the NME. I thought what the fuck’s all this about! But that was it, afterwards I literally had loads and loads of record companies calling me up asking if I’d do a solo album or even put Mansun back together. I said Mansun could never back together then spoke to several different record companies and did it.

Listening to the album there seems to be a common theme running through it. Songs like ‘Jealousy Is A Powerful Emotion’, ‘You Don’t Know Someone, Til You Fall Out With Them’ and ‘Who’s Wearing The Trousers’ seem to be about the same person or subject.

The same group of people. Mansun and the people around them.

Have any of the people you’re referring to heard the album and if so, have you had any feedback?

I’ve spoken to Andie (Rathbone) the drummer. He said he couldn’t listen to it. That’s all I know.

What’s your relationship like now with your former bandmates? Do you even have one?

No. I got a picture of a gun sent through on Facebook that said from Maidstone in Kent!

So that was from (Dominic) Chad then?

I’ve no idea. It was just sent to me from an anonymous account with his name on it so I presume that means “Fuck off”. I’ve been for a drink every now and again with Andie. I think Andie was easily led by the others. I think he was convinced the others were going to get some sort of band together that would be better than Mansun basically. It backfired. I don’t think anyone wanted to work with them so Andie now says can I work with you but I’ve moved on, so… We might do something together in the future. I haven’t got a mega problem with him. He could have come and played this tour with me.

I read somewhere that he was meant to be playing on this tour.

He was and I wanted to have a clear the air conversation with him, but we never got that far. Then a few things happened and it turned a bit nasty but we’re OK now. Then right at the end I said come along which he did but ended up getting snowed in at Wrexham on the night of the Manchester gig. He was going to do a little guest thing at the show. So that’s where me and Andie are. The bass player, I’d be glad if I never saw that cunt for the rest of my life.

Are you happy for that to in the interview?

Sure. Absolutely. Capital letters. I’D BE HAPPY IF I NEVER SAW THAT CUNT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Use it as your headline. I don’t even care! And the guitarist, I was never mates with him if you know what I mean. He wasn’t interested in being in Mansun. He just wanted his own record deal. He went to extreme lengths to get himself a record deal but he does back massages in Farnham now. So if anyone wants to have their back done he’s an artist, apparently.

Going back to your solo material, your third EP comes out next Friday (15th March). What made you choose those particular tracks? Also, you worked with Public Service Broadcasting on one of the remixes. How did that come about?

Someone called me up and said do you know Public Service Broadcasting, and I really liked a couple of their early tracks. The whole space thing I thought sounded quite interesting. Then someone else called me up and said you know that band you like, Public Service Broadcasting, they’re taking about you in The Sun newspaper. And I was like, Public Service Broadcasting, this mad prog rock band, are talking about me in The Sun newspaper! There’s them in The Sun saying our favourite album of all time is Six by Mansun, so I literally just messaged them on Facebook and asked if they’d be up for doing a remix, and they were. So they did it and sent it back asking what do you think of that, and everyone was into it. So we got to this point now and didn’t really do anything with the remix as we’d already put out the album, two EPs and a live album as well. It’s really hard to keep selling things to people even though we’re all trying to make a living. So we thought let’s do a digital EP and people can hear it on You Tube or stream it if they like. It’s the first time you can buy it if you want. Some people love it. Loads of people have messaged me saying they love that track and it’s great working with Public Service Broadcasting. Before that, The Twilight Sad did a remix on the first EP as well. That was more of a heavy, industrial Nine Inch Nails/Depeche Mode type of thing. I really loved the last Twilight Sad album. I thought it was amazing.

What was so significant about last September’s Scala show that it’s now been released as a live album?

There was no intention to do a live album. We’d got out on the road and done the first gig in Leeds which went way better than we possibly thought it would. We thought this sounds alright so let’s record the show and we might get a b-side out of it or a free track or whatever. So my engineer PDub (Paul Walton) came down and we recorded the show. When we got home and listened to it we thought wow, this sounds pretty good. Not like The Who: Live At Leeds where basically nothing’s live in Leeds. Not even the bass drum. We just left everything and that was it, we didn’t replace anything. I think there’s one bit where I fluff the words and we thought shall we keep it in but repaired that one little bit. Just for the listener but everything else stayed. We didn’t tighten anything up with the band playing or replace anything there. PDub did a great job on it. It was The Twilight Sad actually who said you’ll never afford to go on tour. I was having a beer with them and they said the best thing you can do is put out an exclusive live vinyl record and we’re the same. We can only make the gigs pay for themselves by doing something like that.

It’s sad though isn’t it that musicians aren’t getting the rewards and recognition they deserve. I guess it must be even more difficult for you having been in Mansun during a lavish era when ridiculous amounts of money were being thrown around the music industry then seeing how artists struggle now. Having to constantly tour and release limited edition vinyls or focus heavily on merchandise. I meet so many people in music now that have day jobs, sometimes three or four jobs at a time. How does it feel experiencing both ends of that spectrum?

It’s like when Liam Gallagher said he used to have someone to stir his tea whereas now he has to do it himself. It sounds so funny but I know what he means. You have to completely readjust your mindset to do it now. And I don’t think about doing Top Of The Pops or going on a tour bus and playing big venues now. I see myself as a jobbing musician now. It’s a different job. You’ve got to put yourself into another place, literally, to do it. So that’s what I’ve done. I said in another interview you can’t be bitter or harbour any resentment. But you do a bit. I’m always a little bit hurt by the journey through music but you can’t let it affect you otherwise. I think it was Ray Davies who said don’t come into music if you have any emotional issues and I know what he means. I’m sort of over that which is why I can talk about it in a half jokey way.

If you had the benefit of hindsight is there anything you’d do differently? Attack Of The Grey Lantern for example. Would you change the tracklisting, the theme, the singles even?

The singles definitely. I can’t even tell you what happened there. I don’t whose fault it was. It could have been my fault, it could have been the manager’s fault, it could have been the other band members’ fault. I honestly don’t know. You can’t get any answers from anyone. Have you read all the books about The Smiths splitting up?

I have, yes.

It’s all about the communication and in the end, Johnny Marr blames the lawyers and this is the same. We didn’t even release ‘Wide Open Space’ anywhere else in the world and then we put it out in the UK. I think even our own manager thought it was shit and then it went into the charts at number fifteen and straight out the following week, but that’s why I’m still here now. Then the album went in and knocked the Spice Girls off number one. It sold something like 200,000 copies in five days off the back of a single that everyone thought was shit and then there was a big scramble. OK, we’re gonna re-issue it and then we’re gonna put ‘Disgusting’ out as that will be a bigger hit as well, then you’re gonna go round the world. All I know is a couple of days later you get a call from your manager saying you know it’ll only cost me four grand to have you murdered. The next thing, the record’s not coming out and I’m like, why? He says we asked the record company for £10 million but they would only give us £7 million and I’m like, what are you talking about? Then we’d speak to the record company and they’d say we’ve dropped the album because you wouldn’t speak to the record company. So I said our manager told us not to speak to the record company! I genuinely think our manager thought the band were shit. They also managed Cast and I think they were more their type of music. I won’t say anything derogatory about them but they used to say to us at the time that Cast will go on and be a worldwide arena band. I’m mates with Pete (Wilkinson) from Cast and he says the managers would just turn up with our tracks and they’d literally roll around the floor pissing themselves laughing.

How do you feel about Mansun being labelled Britpop? Even to this day in some quarters.

I don’t mind that at all.

Musically you had very little in common with most of those bands.

When you listen to Dark Side Of The Moon there’s little bits Pink Floyd are playing that sounds like The Beatles. There’s areas of music that are connected everywhere. Listen to grime and you’ll hear connections to Kanye West. Music moves in slow, big circles of constant change so we were certainly there in one way. I suppose we were a little bit different but then Placebo weren’t really a Britpop band but came from the same era. I think ultimately, when people look back on it they’ll probably see Suede as the start of it. I’ve always regarded Suede as being the first Britpop band. Although Blur were out before them they were just this baggy band. Before them there were all these bands like The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Jesus Jones and all that malarkey. That wasn’t Britpop to me. Then from Suede onwards until… I don’t know. When did it end?

When ‘Be Here Now’ came out.

It was that year wasn’t it? 1997. The Blur album came out with ‘Song 2’ and that was a lo-fi, slacker record that threw Britpop out the window. Then Attack Of The Grey Lantern went to number one and that was gonna be a big record until no one spoke to each other. That was an odd record to get in the charts. Then of course there was OK Computer, Spiritualized (‘Ladies And Gentlemen We’re Floating In Space’) which probably was the most critically acclaimed record of that time. Which was really different, very gospel-y. And The Prodigy with Fat Of The Land as well which is not even remembered in the top records of that year. Urban Hymns came out that year as well. I was a big fan of The Verve before Britpop. I thought they were great. Everything went a little bit more deeper and darker that year so I suppose that was the end of it. Be Here Now was the death.

What was the reason for touring ‘Attack Of The Grey Lantern’ on its 21st anniversary?

There wasn’t any particular reason or amazing plan to do it on the 21st anniversary rather than the 20th other than the whole Mansun catalogue was being caught up in a massive legal wrangle. It has been for years. When EMI was bought out by Universal they couldn’t keep the Parlophone label as part of it so it was sold off to Warner Brothers. But then the European Antitrust Commission can sell off a proportion of their catalogue, so Radiohead bid for their catalogue and they got the whole thing back. Now they own it themselves. I didn’t have any money to buy my catalogue but then was approached by a couple of record labels who thought it was a really undervalued catalogue so asked me to work with them on it. Which I did so they bid for it. It was signed off in November, four or five months ago and that was it. It was only then that we could legally get our hands on the tapes and come out and do the live show and even release it. So as soon as this tour’s finished… We literally couldn’t get it done in time so on the merch stand we’re asking people to sign up to the mailing list if they want the record… I never even expected to play live again. I thought I’d make a solo album ‘Spooky Action’ then play six gigs and that would be it. But then I got asked to do Attack Of The Grey Lantern as that was coming out so conversations started about that. Initially I was going to do my solo show then come back on and do twenty minutes worth of ‘…Grey Lantern’ songs for the encore. Then they said why don’t you just play Attack Of The Grey Lantern in full? So I was like, OK let’s do two sets. It just evolved so realistically we should be selling it here but when we got back off the tour they’ll announce the reissue – maybe in a couple of weeks time. We’re doing a box set. Paul Stokes has written a good article about how it all came together. We spoke to a few journalists and record company people who were involved in it about how it all came about. It was a really odd record but it’s nice that Kscope, the record label who bought it from Parlophone are really into it.

Were any of the songs difficult to revisit? Or even rehearse up to a standard good enough to take out on the road again after all these years?

Well the band I work with now are fucking professionals so it’s like… I don’t speak to them but Keith does and he let them know everything so from day one for the first hour, we ran through everything and everyone knew it. We kept running through it and it’s been great. The biggest thing for me was learning all the chords again. I couldn’t remember most of them! I made a few fluffs on the first couple of nights but just laughed it off. It’s not rocket science.

Six turns 20 in September. Will there be anything happening to coincide with that?

I think so, yeah. Basically, once they’ve done the …Grey Lantern thing they’re going to do a reissue of that. Hopefully my second solo album will be out next April and if there’s still an interest we’ll do the same thing for the 21st anniversary of Six. Maybe do a bigger tour where we do a set of my solo stuff then a set off ‘Six’. If it gets that far.I’m amazed I’ve got this far!

What advice would you give to new artists that are just starting out?

What advice would I give? Go and do something else! There’s no money it. You literally have to sacrifice everything. You can’t aspire to be a rock star any more. You just got to see yourself as being a jobbing musician.

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