from the daily record this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!

27 April 2007
PAOLO: DON'T BE HASTY
Exclusive Nutini shrugs off accusations of being drunk on stage and explains why critics jumped to wrong conclusion
By Rick Fulton
HE'S supposedly drinking too much, he's tired, he's not sleeping and he's the "kid with the voice" who's playing Live Earth and T in the Park in one weekend ... and he's still just 20.

Welcome to the world of Paolo Nutini, Scotland's hottest star who is about to make a bit of Scottish musical history.

On Monday, the Jenny Don't Be Hasty singer starts four sold-out nights at the Carling Academy, Glasgow, plus a sold-out charity matinee at the same venue on Tuesday for Rachel House hospice and Nordoff Robbins music therapy.

It's fair to say that next week Glasgow belongs to this Paisley boy.

However, first he'll have to get past this week which has had English audiences - especially in Swindon - claiming he was drunk.

The handsome singer shrugged: "I'm surprised people comment about my drinking.


"I'm a young guy and I've been on the road for a year since the album came out but I'm not drinking to excess. I'm drinking in moderation.


"At one point I was drinking too much and falling into the rock-star-on-the-road cliche.


"Then I got stomach acid problems and, because of that, I've reduced my drinking in order to play gigs every night."


But Paolo does admit that he may have had a couple more drinks at Swindon than he usually does to take his mind off a sore throat and cold he's been struggling with after playing America, Australia and Japan already this year.


While he is his usual upbeat self, there is also a weariness in Paolo's voice as he adds: "People aren't dealing with a machine, I'm a human being. I wasn't wasted."


To those lovely English folk that likened him to TV's stereotypical drunken Scot Rab C.


Nesbitt, he added: "I naturally mumble anyway so maybe they think I'm a drunk, mumbling Scotsman.


"That's fine - I've met many in my time and it has only added to their charm." It is probably right to say that Paolo is longing to be back in Scotland just as much as his ever-growing home fanbase.


The singer will be staying at his mum and dad's home in Paisley and he'll get to see his girlfriend Teri Brogan. Paolo nodded: "It's going to be a great week.


"I will give it my all, I just can't wait. I just hope the people enjoy the shows.


"I'm going to try my hardest to make each night fantastic."


Since his debut album, These Streets, was released in July last year - going to No3 in the UK charts - it has sold more than 1.3 million copies around the world, including 700,000 in the UK alone.


And Paolo's star is certainly rising. He sang with Robert Plant and Ben E. King at the Montreux Jazz Festival last year.


More recently, Rod Stewart and Paul Weller have revealed they are fans while Iggy Pop labelled him "the kid with the voice" after Paolo played before him at the South By Southwest festival inTexas.


And this year he will perform for his biggest audience yet.


He will play to around two billion potential viewers on July 7 from the Wembley leg of the Live Earth concerts aimed at highlighting climate change.


The next day he will nip back to Scotland for T in the Park.


Oh, and he's also playing Glastonbury and the V Festival.


Paolo laughed: "It got to another level of surreal in Australia when Ray Manzarek from The Doors came to the show and gave me his number saying,'If you ever need a keyboard player, call me.'"


And most of this happened while he was still just a teenager - he only turned 20 in January.


Paolo admits the pressure can be intense for young stars - just look at Lily Allen, who quit her American tour in the last week claiming she was homesick.


He said: "If I didn't have the luxury of a steady family base that I know is going to be there for me and didn't have a girlfriend who doesn't want to have a post-gig quickie in the toilet so she can tell her mates, I don't know where I'd be.


"Teri is not that kind of girl and that helps me.


"When you gig for so long it makes you feel secluded. I'm not surprised people resort to drugs, like Pete Doherty, or sleep around to take away from their monotonous everyday reality.


"Instead, my girlfriend, my friends and my family base is almost like my drugs."


Despite the record sales, the royalties haven't yet come flooding in which could enable the young singer to buy his family - who own a fish and chip shop in Paisley - houses or cars. Instead, he pampers them in other ways.


Paolo said:"It's not about physical gifts, it's about doing something nice when I have time.


"Teri and I went to a log cabin up north for the anniversary of us getting back together and we had money to make it as nice as possible.


"It's good and we're having fun and she's real. She's not got stars in her eyes. She's a normal girl, living a normal life and not striving to hit the cover of OK! magazine.


"I got my mum and dad a weekend at a spa. Cars and houses aren't a reality ... but maybe one day."


For the moment, it's all about the gigs. He hasn't even had time to start recording his follow-up album.


Instead, he has been rotating new songs during his tour, including one called Funky Cigarette.


He said: "There isn't time to make the second record.The time has been put aside and then we've gone to Australia or Japan, where we are just back from.


"I don't want to put out an album just for the sake of it. What I found out is that I don't strive to be successful. That's not what is driving me.


"What is, is getting the personal satisfaction from the gigs and seeing people who you relate to, relate to your music."


And there are hordes of people relating to Paolo. You see them in Glasgow all the time - the mini-Paolos - with copycat bushy hair, V-neck jumpers and Converse shoes.


The real thing guffaws: "I'm wearing a brown jumper, brown cords and red shoes. I don't think that's much of a fashion statement - it's more Paisley jakey chic."


Yup, Paolo has a sense of humour. It was that naughty side which caught out some papers when he claimed a pelican had sat on his head as a boy and given him an old soul.


He laughed:"I was messing. I come from Paisley, how many pelicans are there? And it gave me an old soul...? Oh aye."


But he is more straight talking about fellow Scottish artists.


He is fine with Dundee band TheView after they covered his song Rewind on Radio 1 DJ JoWhiley's Live Lounge section.


But he is less positive about Glasgow band The Fratellis.


He said:"A couple of times I've been in the same room as Jon Fratelli, maybe he doesn't like my music or doesn't like me.


"I like their music but I can't be doing with that. I was sitting at the Brit Awards and they are saying,'Thank f*** forThe Fratellis.' I was like,'I come from Scotland too.' There was no need for that."


And there is no need for Paolo to worry. He's fast becoming an international star likely to achieve his dream - performing at Celtic Park. He laughed:"At the moment I've still got another 50,000 seats to sell.


"But maybe a couple of albums down the line... It's something I'd really like to do."


But call this stadium wannabe the new RobbieWilliams and he cringes: "That makes me want to give up."


But Live Earth could make all that possible when he is beamed into millions of homes around the world.


He said: "I've heard people say, 'Who are these bands to tell us how to live our lives,' but that's fine.


"It's not about someone making a difference on their own, it's about everybody pulling together to make a difference


"I was also slightly concerned it wasn't just a campaign for Al Gore to become president until I read He has been promoting climate awareness for a very long time.


"Being chosen to play Live Earth has made me think about the climate.We've had ideas.


We're even wondering about teaming up with the Green Party, but nothing has been fully decided yet.


"I'm proud to be part of Live Earth but you have to think, if we'd started this 30 years ago we'd be in a better position.


"It's something so obvious.


Marvin Gaye was asking What's Going On? so long ago." Remember he's still only 20.


The pelican didn't land on his head but Paolo is right - he has an old soul.


'I've reduced my drinking. People aren't dealing with a machine, I'm a person ... I wasn't wasted'


and another one
From The TimesApril 27, 2007

Paolo Nutini

David Sinclair at the Brixton Academy, SW9


Who the hell is Paolo Nutini? The facts are well enough known by now. The 20-year-old singer and songwriter from Paisley in Glasgow has sold more than 720,000 copies of his debut album, These Streets, since it was released nine months ago. He has performed in the smallest clubs and the biggest stadiums (supporting the Rolling Stones). And he has amassed a fervent, predominantly female, following.

But his musical identity is a lot harder to pinpoint. Just when you think you have him pegged as a lovelorn ballad singer, perhaps, or a blue-eyed soul star, or a mainstream pop-rocker, or even some kind of Richard Hawley-type retro songsmith, Nutini shapeshifts into another musical guise.

At Brixton his show began with a blaze of sound and light. As multiple copies of his name swirled around on a screen at the back, and orchestral theme music blared from the PA, you half expected Bruce Forsyth to come on and ask us to give Nutini a big old Brixton welcome.

The bushy-haired kid in the plain brown leather jacket who then appeared, together with his unshowy three-man band, could not have looked less like an heir to the light-entertainment tradition. As they pushed off with the breezy shuffle of Alloway Grove, Nutini adopted a classic indie-kid pose, slightly stooped with one hand on the microphone stand to steady himself, focusing all his energy on the song rather than making a show of “entertaining” the audience.

But entertain us he did, with a string of romantic songs, some of them, such as These Streets and Autumn Leaves, presented with an unbelievable gentleness of touch given that he was facing the huge bear pit of the Academy. With each number, a different contour of his remarkable voice was revealed. Its default setting was a firm, slightly serrated tenor. But Million Faces brought a lovely falsetto chorus. Applying a tougher, more careworn touch to Moby’s Natural Blues, he followed it with Last Request, a delightful, old-school soul song that could have been written by Macy Gray. Rainbows and Jenny Don’t Be Hasty were the closest he came to a traditional rock performance, but even with these he never allowed himself to get sucked into any of the time-honoured performance mannerisms.

As if to emphasise the range of material at his command, the encores produced an unexpected version of I Want to Be Like You (the King Louis song from The Jungle Book), followed by a very Glaswegian-sounding country shuffle called Funky Cigarette. Whatever else he might be, Nutini is not your average pop pin-up. Tour continues in Plymouth tonight

i read the half of it!the other later.....i'm at school now!
clara...chatzy??

leave it...i have amother lesson now...see ya later*kisses*
btw,paolo's reply was veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery good!!ha!

quote:

focusing all his energy on the song rather than making a show of “entertaining” the audience.

thanks for posting!

Thanks for that! I love how he's so matter-of -fact and nonplussed about what some idiots might say about him. His head is screwed on straight. I may not be his personal chum, but I think that's very evident about him...Another reason all the whining Swindoners irked me so.

Do you have a link to this article? The first one?

Thanks!!

the swidom vids ae in youtube... i had a big laugh....
he was just paolo being paolo, mumbling and speaking in paolonish as always.... maybe these people need a copy of Sambista's paolonish dicctionary.......

quote:

Originally posted by marcela-chile:
the swidom vids ae in youtube... i had a big laugh....
he was just paolo being paolo, mumbling and speaking in paolonish as always.... maybe these people need a copy of Sambista's paolonish dicctionary.......

I agree!!

quote:

Originally posted by Jersey12:


I agree!!

hun... why did you denied my myspace comment???

I love how he reply !! lol he 's honest and simple...
I think he's just unik !
<3 paolo !

Thank you for posting! Paolo definitely sounds very dignified in his responses. He's so charming!

quote:

Originally posted by marcela-chile (Southamerica):

quote:

Originally posted by Jersey12:


I agree!!

hun... why did you denied my myspace comment???

I didn't...I just hadn't seen it yet...

You can see it there if you go to my page (which I really need to update...!)

These articles are just lovely... I really like it when he says what everybody thinks, but nobody dares to say And he hates people who have a haughty manner, good boy ^^