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 Once in a while you come across a band or an artist that leaves you quite speechless.
Maybe their stage antics? Maybe their charisma? Sublime voice? or unusually precocious talent as is the case with Paul Millings, singer songwriter and guitarist with Essex based duo [with Gary Adams, drums and backing vocals] Chauffeur Driven Aviator.
CDA is fairly new on the London scene but wherever they appear live they break hearts [that could be their good looks], collect fans along the way [good music and good looks] and have talented professionals asking to work with them [good music of course and probably their good looks].
Anyway I have recovered my power of speech and am meeting up with main man Paul and his manager Tracy Cunliffe of DirtE records [both talented and good looking!].
Florence: Chauffeur Driven Aviator is quite a new band on the London circuit, isn’t it?
Paul: We started gigging properly about a year ago.
I met Gary in an art college and it went on from there really.
It’s a very tight friendship, it’s good because he lets me do what I want to do.
I do all the song writing and he’s a better drummer than me!
Florence: At 21 years old you are very young and yet you’ve achieved quite a lot in a very short space of time including being about to release a single.
Which is your biggest achievement and your proudest moment to date?
 Paul: I look at it like that, the last six months have gone very quick and hopefully another six months down the line and things will be even better. I am looking forward to the next six months really.
My biggest achievement has been getting into the studio and putting down a couple of tracks, ‘Leather Jacket’ and ‘London’s Torn’ with Russ, Aka producer Junk Scientist.
He has worked with The Rakes and Larrikin Love and we are so lucky to have him. He’s brilliant and it’s a good starting point for us.
I must add as well that one of the highlights in my career so far is obviously to do this interview with you!
Florence: Wow! so young and yet so devious, I’m impressed!
Anyway not having recorded anything before how did you approach Russ?
Paul: He picked us!
Tracy: Russ heard Paul play a couple of tracks and offered to produce the single for nothing!
He thought that Paul was amazing and decided to take a punt on him.
Obviously you don’t come across someone like Paul very often and Russ is very confident that he will go on and do quite well and get a deal.
Needless to say we want to take Russ with us.
Paul: Russ is also very good because he understands my vision and knows where I am coming from.
It’s rare to meet a producer who is on the same level as you.
Florence: It’s also a huge compliment for you to have someone of that calibre pick you out of what is a very crowded and competitive environment.
Paul: The biggest compliment so far and it really means a lot to me.
Somehow and thanks to our manager Tracy, I have been able to surround myself with good people. It feels like a good, strong family.
Florence: It’s obviously more a case of who you know rather than what you know?
Paul: It is really and it isn’t!
Your music has to do the talking.
If you’ve got the right people behind you but the music is crap, it’s still gonna fall on death ears.
Florence: So, a single out, ‘Leather Jacket’ this side of Christmas and hopefully an album beginning of next year.
Paul: Yes, fingers crossed we’ll release an Lp in 2007.
Florence: You mentioned somewhere that you had too many songs!
Can you ever have too much material?
Paul: Probably not, but it will come in handy if I have a writer’s block some day!
Florence: Isn’t it a bit overwhelming sometimes to have so much talent at such a young age?
It must be quite a lot of pressure to try and live up to the praise.
You have the talent but do not yet have the experience!
Paul: I try to learn from other people’s mistakes.
I also take in what other people have to say. I do listen but at the same time I know that I have to make my own mistakes on the way.
Florence: Chauffeur Driven Aviator is just yourself, playing guitar and drummer Gary and supposedly that’s the result of you not being able to find a good enough bass player!
Paul: We live in Essex and all the bands around our way are pretty lame, it’s all really ‘chav’!
Finding a good bass player is like looking for a needle in a haystack!
Florence: But if you could, would you have a bass and maybe another guitar....or was it your intention all along just to be a two piece?
 Paul: When I write a song I visualise all these things like a piano, a bass...obviously I want the songs to be as I’ve intended them to be, they can’t really be proper songs as a two piece.
I want to get more players in when I’ve got the money to either put a band together or hire musicians.
Really right now I am thinking about what is best for the music rather than the band.
Florence: If you look at the White Stripes you can see that they’ve achieved so much as a two piece, so many good albums.
It’s totally doable long term.
Paul: Jack White writes the songs for a two piece band. It’s intentional.
Personally I would prefer my songs to have many things going on so listeners can take something away from them.
Different layers going on, maybe something fiddly.
You can only go so far with a two piece, you can’t really progress.
Eventually my dream is to have a full band.
But at the stage we’re at now, we’re quite comfortable just the two of us.
Also no one else is being creative apart from me and I like being in control.
Florence: Do you accept that one day you may not be able to enjoy that level of freedom?
Paul: I hope not to get to that stage, I am choosing carefully and the people around me choose carefully as well not to take the creative control away from me so I can do what I want to do.
Obviously people are thinking about money but that’s not even in my mind, but then again I don’t know what the future holds.
Florence: Whose career do you most admire?
Paul: I really idolise two people, John Lennon and Syd Barrett.
They’ve also been a major influence on me but unfortunately they’ve ended up completely ‘the wrong way’.
Every single idol I’ve had has pretty much ended his life in tragedy!
There isn’t one person really whose career I can look at now and think “I would love to be in their place”.
Florence: Would you say that of Iggy Pop for instance?
Paul: He’s great in his own way but he’s not someone I would look up to. He doesn’t have any influence on me.
All my influences come from the sixties, to me that’s where the real magic came from and I don’t really need to look further than that.
Florence: Do you not listen to any of your contemporaries?
Paul: Not at all.
I think that most bands are doing it for other people rather than themselves a lot of the time but again there are a few exceptions.
But the majority of mainstream bands do it to be liked by everyone and that’s not a good reason for doing it.
They do it for the money and not for the music.
Also I think that there aren’t any real visionaries anymore. Back in the 60s everyone seemed to make a statement, have something to say and they didn’t really give a fuck what everyone else thought about.
Florence: This is a good point but I believe that maybe the record companies are to blame. The business has changed so much...
Paul: The Majors have got a lot to answer for.
Tracy: It needs to be said that labels don’t develop bands anymore, managers do and that’s also the difference with the 60s.
Everyone hates big labels but if you think about the A&R guy, he signs up a band and has six months to come up with a hit or get sacked, he doesn’t have the time to develop a band.
People working for majors are under so much pressure to produce hits. They need a certain amount of units sold before they will touch you.
Someone like Richard Branson couldn’t do now what he did in 1976-77, back then there were thousands of little independent labels and it was more open but now it’s all been taken over by four multinationals.
Florence: For the bands it hasn’t changed for the better.
Once upon a time a band could be playing in a pub and an A&R guy could have been in the audience looking for good bands or bands with potential to sign up.
Nowadays bands have got to be opening for established acts and still are not guaranteed to be noticed, but it could be years and a hard struggle to be able to share a stage with a big band.
It must be very demoralising at times.
Paul: Labels need a guaranteed meal ticket.
Tracy: When accountants started taking over record companies it all became about making money as supposed to art.
Florence: Paul name me a song you wish you had written.
Paul: It would have to be ‘In My Life’ by The Beatles from a great album,
‘Rubber Soul’.
Lennon wrote it when he was only sixteen, about his mum and it’s really sought out with so much emotion in it.
Beautiful melody and beautiful words...
Florence: What would be your message to the world?
Paul: Don’t be a puppet and do what you want to do.
Do what you want to do and not what you’ve got to do, that’s my message!
Words: Florence ACHERY
www.myspace.com/cdaband
www.dirterecords.com |
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