I didn't ask Paul too many Damned related questions since pretty much everything related to his Damned days is covered in depth on his personal website. This interview mainly focuses on him and his bass playing history in general.
Very special thanks to Paul for doing this interview for me!
Q:How old were you when you first took up bass and what
made you decide on bass? Did you take lessons or are
you self taught?
Paul: Self taught - have a look on mischief-music.com for more on the above,
plus paulgraybass.co.uk
Q:Do you recall the first song you ever learned?
Paul: er, no idea. Might have been "Is it love", a T.Rex b-side, only cos I
didn't know how to tune a bass and whenever I plonked along to it it
sounded about right! Probably something fron "Deep Purple in Rock" too
ad "Get down & get with it" by Slade - crackin' song.
Q:What was your first bass/amp setup?
Paul: see my website, I'll be addig loads about this later.
Q: What other bassists had the biggest influence on you?
Paul: Roger Glover, Lemmy, John Entwistle. Rather gives the game away
doesn't it!!
Q: How soon after starting to play did you form your
first band and what did you call yourselves?
Paul: First concert was school, I was 13, about a year after I got my first
bass. I played alomg with the school orchestra for some dodgy rock
operathe music teacher had written. It was actually the hardest thing I've
ever had to play! He wrote all the bass parts out in notation and it
meant bugger all to me, so I learnt the whole thing by ear and
pretendedto read along. Basically I bluffed it! After taht I did one gig in a
dockers club in Tilbury, Essex, with a bunch of older guys, i remember
doing "Black Magic Woman" by Santana and "Hey Joe", but the rest is a
blank. The rest of the time I was a bedroom bassist - Black Sabbath,
Hawkwind - until I answered the ad for Eddie and the Hot Rods in June
1975.
Q:What/Where was your first live gig and who were you playing with at the time?
Paul: Apart from the two above it was at the Queens Hall, Westcliff, near
Southend, a week after I joined the Hot Rods, supporting a local r'n'b
bloke called Mikey Jupp. I was 16 and had to learn 15 songs in a week!
There were about 300 punters and it was fantastic. Exactly a week
later we had our first London gig at a pub called "The Kensington".
Just four months later we signed to Island Records. I never really stopped
until a couple of years ago! (Continued....)
