Interview with Paul Garred transcript

When did you start playing the drums?

I started when I was about 9, I think. I just got a snare drum for Christmas one year and that was it. I never had a full kit till I was about 13.

I know people who over the years accumulated loads and loads of different parts. It’s a lot.

It was like that.

Isn’t it quite expensive to get to the point where you’ve got the full kit?

It’s an expensive hobby. It really is.

Who gave you the snare drum? Did you ask for a snare drum?

I got a snare drum, yeah. I said I would like to play the drums and my Dad was like, “well we can’t fit a kit in the house.” So that was that gone. It was only when we moved house did I get a full kit.

There was more space?

Yeah yeah, that was it. And every Christmas or every birthday I asked for a new bit. It got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

You must have got really excited for every Christmas and birthday.

Big style. Although one Christmas my Mum and Dad bought me a keyboard instead. Awful. To be fair it’s worked out pretty well.

Was it kind of just left in the box and dust got all over it?

(Laughs) Yeah, kind of! I’d never played keyboard in my life. But it’s worked out now. That was kind of a weird one.

Did you just have an idea to start playing the drums?

I think my teacher just said I was one of the best in my class at percussion or something like that. I sort of just blossomed a bit.

So it’s all from a young age?

I think so.

Leah: I got a guitar because my friend, her Dad had an electric guitar and he’d bring it out and I’d be like, “I want one!”

The few gigs I ever went to I thought the drummer was the coolest guy in the band. But yeah, there was probably something at the time that I thought, I duno, it’d be a really cool way to get girls or something really bad like that (laughs).

Girls do love musicians.

(Laughs)

Is this for your course?

Yeah, it’s for my course. I have to write a 1500 word profile on someone and you’re the lucky person!

(Laughs) Wow, I’m honoured!

You were obviously in The Kooks and you wrote the song Seaside. Do you think now you’ll go more towards the song writing area of music?

It’s kind of gone that way.

Well you are song writing with Leah!

Yeah, it’s kind of gone that way. It was something I always wanted to do but when I got injured I had to stop playing for quite a long time.

How did you get injured?

I don’t know. I just really hurt myself over quite a while.

Was it due to the drumming?

Yeah, probably a lot of things: posture and things like that. So that kind of all became a problem with my nerves, like actual nerves as opposed to getting nervous. So yeah, I got nerve damage and it just meant I couldn’t do that thing anymore and so song writing became more permanent. It was always something I did anyway but its sort just a continuation.

Do you find it easy to do the song writing thing? Where do your influences come from?

Good question. I don’t know. I think, much like yourself Leah, you just hum something to begin with and then it forms.

Are you like Leah who starts with a melody and then go onto the lyrics?

That’s it! Exactly the same.

Some people do it the other way round.

I don’t know how they do that. I think that’s really out of my world! I love the way that songs, much like paintings, it’s just one thing that’s like a catalyst for loads of other things. It comes out of the air almost. It’s quite cool. Very satisfying.

Do you find that you could do a bit of a song and then wait a while and then go back to it and know how to finish it or add things to it?

Always yeah. I mean the best ones I’ve ever done have sort of just happened very quickly, but sometimes yeah. Sometimes some songs take longer. But that’s just the way it is. There’s no real rule in music.

Did you always want to go into music? You had your drum kit growing when you were a little boy but did you ever think you might want to do something else?

I was actually going to go into acting. That was where I was at. I duno. I can’t really remember what happened. There was a definite fork in the road and it was going to be one or the other and the drums just happened. I duno. It sort of just happened organically. I didn’t really have time to look at it.

Did you go far with the acting? Did it become a serious idea at all?

It became a serious idea when I was at school. Then at A Level that’s where the point changed. I think to be honest I just didn’t want a real job. I knew I wasn’t really capable of that. No office job or anything like that. And also, I like to sleep a lot and stuff like that. I can’t get up really early in the morning but I’m a bit of a night owl so that works well.

So it’s basically Leah in male form!

(Laughs)

What do you want to do in 10 years time? Do you have a list of certain things you would like to achieve?

Obviously there’s the stuff like start family and things like that, but, I duno, I gave up putting too much pressure on myself like that. I spent all my time in the band [The Kooks] putting so much pressure on myself, trying to be the best at what it could be that I forgot to sometimes enjoy myself. And yet now it’s almost like a complete antithesis in that I don’t have to worry about all of that. I have nothing to get too stressed out about. I feel more free and working with Leah has just emphasised that.

What kind of bands do you like at the moment?

That is a tricky one. I kind of struggle with new music a lot. I struggle with new music because it never seems to be like someone out there who you can 100% rely on. You know, they’ll be brilliant for a fleeting moment and then they come back and they’re maybe not as good.

Sort of like ‘one hit wonder’ bands?

Yeah, there’s a lot of that out there. I mean I really like the singles that La Roux put out a while ago. I really like that. And I like MGMT’s first record but their second – this is what I mean about relying on bands, it’s like they didn’t want to be that band and yet all my favourite bands are the bands that did want to be that band. You can focus on them, like The Police and The Beatles, you know, and the Stones. It’s hard to say. What about you Leah?

(Leah: New bands? Mumford and Sons – love that album! Ellie [Goulding] obviously.)

Yeah, that album’s really good.

(Leah: Rihanna’s Rude Boy song.Tune!)

Oh yeah that Rude Boy song’s amazing!

(Leah: Florence and the Machine.)

Paul gives a strange look

Do you not like Florence and the Machine?

No, I didn’t say that! I didn’t say anything!

I don’t like Florence.

You know what. There’s clearly something there but I thought it was a copout bringing a single that’s already huge by Massive Attack. I thought that was a massive copout. I’ll tell you what though. I really like Yeasayer’s new album. I think they’re cool and experimental and they don’t worry about their audience too much. The whole album’s so kind of higgledy piggledy that...

(Paul’s phone rings. It’s his girlfriend Orsolya. Arranging to all meet up at the pub after the interview. Orsolya is running away from Chace Crawford!)

How long have you and your girlfriend been together?

About 4 years.

Did you ever have issues when you were in The Kooks with your personal life and your girlfriend and balancing the two out?

I found that part quite easy. But, you know, there were moments when it was quite difficult. It was quite wholesome to come home and just be normal and that was nice.

(Orsolya calls again. Still hiding from Chace)

What would you say is the most memorable memory from being in The Kooks?

Easily, easily Glastonbury when we played just before the headline on Saturday. When I was a kid I remember watching Glastonbury every year on TV and I said to my Mum one year that I was going to do that one day. So that was a real incentive. I would only ever really make it if I played at Glastonbury on the main stage.

­That’s pretty amazing. That doesn’t happen to everyone.

But it goes to show to anyone that it’s just determination. It is. When I met Luke and Hugh, who were in The Kooks, we were so determined we’d cancel anything that got in the way of getting a record deal. It was great to meet two fellow people exactly like that.

What was it like being in The Kooks? Being in a very well known band around the world and playing at places like Glastonbury.

You know it’s weird because when you’re in it and amongst it it’s essentially still you and your mates playing. You know you’ll have happy times and bad times but it’s just you and your mates playing. It appears as if everything just falls on your lap but it’s not really the case necessarily because there are so many people behind the scenes working for you and helping you and moulding this career and all you have to do is come up with the goods, like the performance has to be better than the last one, the songs have to constantly get better and grow. There’s a craft there but everything else is catered for. It kinda happens. If you have the right team, which we did, to help us then... the only thing I would say is it was like being in a bubble. You know, everything seems like the end of the world if something happens or hasn’t happened.

Would you ever say there has been a time when you were really nervous before going on stage to perform something?

Yeah.

What would you say is the most? Glastonbury?

Glastonbury would definitely be on the top but there were other ones where we headlined a festival in Holland and we had a new song and I had this beat that I had overcomplicated it so bad and a lot of the song was just me and so I was bricking that. I look back at the footage and we played it so quick and then it’d go really slow and then really quick again. There were little things like that when you come to make a record you look at those problems and you think right we’re got to simplify things. Yeah, that was awful. It was the song ‘Do You Wanna’. It used to go (starts playing ‘air drums’ and beating out the rhythm). I really tried to break it up like Charlie Watts in the Rolling Stones would play. He plays kind of a bit weird anyway. It was just difficult.

Do you have songs that remind you of fun and good memories?

Yeah, loads. Definitely. You know when you’re in a couple and you have certain songs that are like ‘our song’.

I don’t think I have that with Matt. Hmm...or maybe I do and I just don’t realise it.

(Leah: yeah you do! Like ‘Slide Away’)

What’s Slide Away?

(Leah starts singing Slide Away and playing the guitar)

Noel Gallagher. It’s beautiful.

Oh yeah! It’s a brilliant song. Stunning.

How’s your house hunting going?

I’ve had the worst year for house hunting. Not that there’s been a previous year of house hunting. There were four places, including this one, where we thought we bought it and then it fell through. Four different places! It’s just the most the annoying thing. It’s so frustrating.

Are you still looking in Clapham?

No, that’s off the agenda. Queen’s Park now.

How long have you lived in Brighton? Are you from Brighton?

I’m from a small town near Brighton, about 20 minutes out.

When did you move to Brighton?

I moved to Brighton about two and a half years ago. It’s weird because it’s a place I’ve always been to as it was the main city near me but I never actually knew a lot about the nooks and crannies of it. I only knew the main area.

I love Brighton except it tends to get messy whenever I go to Brighton. End up in Casablanca. Have you been there?

Yeah, it’s good fun. I was very messy there too. Go there at the end of the night when you fancy a bit of a dance, and I’m not a big dancer. Their live bands are good too. You can’t not dance there, even if you can’t dance like me I’m just like “Woooooo!”

Whip out a few moves.

Laughs. Yeah, the three moves I have got.

What does the rest of the year hold for you?

Moving house and writing songs. That’s it.

What do you think you might do, in terms of music, maybe start a new band or see how it goes?

I don’t know. I’m not kind of thinking that way at the moment. I had such a crazy time with The Kooks I just fancy taking it a bit easier and doing things my way. I don’t really know what that entails yet. But eventually it will all become clear.

Things always sort themselves out.

Yeah, they do. My Grandma says that. Full of wisdom!

Have you ever tried playing the drums for Guitar Hero?

The Rock Band one? It’s nothing like playing the drums. I’ve played it at a party so everyone was a bit drunk anyway but I was rubbish! I was really bad!

Were you drunk at the time?

I don’t remember!

There you go! What actually happened with The Kooks? How did it move from being injured and not being able to play to no longer being part of The Kooks?

Well it sort of goes hand in hand really because I was in there mainly as a drummer and a songwriter second.

Was it Luke who did most of the songwriting?

He’s the main guy. Everyone wrote but Luke was writing so many good songs and you wanted to keep that momentum going. The thing was that when we went back into writing the third record I had just deteriorated so badly to the point where I was going to rehearsal and I hadn’t slept the night before because I was so worried that something was going to flare up again and it wasn’t a good time for me. That kind of just progressed that way for quite a while. I had to take some time out again and that was probably the third time I had to do that and I just knew something wasn’t right.

Was it partly your decision? Or partly the bands?

It was a group decision really. I couldn’t lie about the facts really. As much as I wished that it hadn’t had been like that. I was very upfront from the off and so was everyone else. It was kind of at the end of the day we’re all mates and it was just not working and not happening. That was the reason why that happened.

Does it still hurt? Do you still have issues when you play?

There was pain but it was never an issue of the actual movement, which is really hard to say something I’ve done for so many years. I’m trying to think of the equivalent. It would be the equivalent of a footballer coming back from a really bad injury and it not being quite right. You know, I don’t think it would be quite like that I think I could get back to that level at some point just not yet.

Are you still all good friends then?

Yeah, very much so. I mean we don’t see each other as much as we did. The thing is when you go through something like that together with a group of friends you know that’ll always be there. There’s something that no one else will understand. It’s a real kind of brother thing. In the early days we lived in and out of each other’s pockets, we really did. Couldn’t afford a hair cut or any food, but that was the way it was. That’s brilliant. It really brought us together, but work just gets in the way.

Do you think there’ll be a time when they come to you and ask to help write a song?

Well yeah, funnily enough me and Luke still write together. I don’t know. Yeah, if something’s good enough.

You could be the behind the scenes man for them.

Yeah, like a ghost writer.

Have you ever had issues with groupies?

I have a stalker in Japan! She’s a nightmare. She’s everywhere! If I go over there she’s everywhere. She’ll follow me everywhere. She’ll get there before I do. No matter where I am, doesn’t matter which situation. Let’s say I’m in a hotel she’ll get there.

Even in England?

Well here’s the thing. I thought it was only a Japan thing and then we played a little gig and she brought her and three mates along. She wanted to meet my Mum, my girlfriend, my sister. She had pictures and everything. I was like, “Oookay”. And then when I went to Japan the next time she wanted to show me all of the pictures. I was like, “Oh god, shit.” She follows me everywhere!

Is she nice though or a bit creepy?

Yeah, she’s really polite but it’s still a bit terrifying.

What’s your girlfriend think?

It’s become part of life. I mention her name and Orsolya’s like, “Awww”.

Any specific bands/artists – dead or alive- that you would like to collaborate with?

I’d say Bob Marley.

Shall we go for a drink now?

Yeah, drinky time!