Paul Cook Interview
The Professionals 1 2 3 EP Series
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The
Professionals are back with their first new material since What In The
World; a set of three EPs released monthly, January to March 2020.
Paul
Cook explains to Phil Singleton how the EPs came about and what to
expect.
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Phil:
You mentioned in our chat a few months back you were considering
putting out songs every few months and that's exaclty what you've done,
starting with Kingdom Come.
Paul: We
wanted to do something different, rather than waiting around to get an
album together, which being realistic wouldn’t be out for a while. What
In The World’s been out over 2 years so we thought let’s do a series of
EPs.
What inspired me was doing the EP with Gareth Proctor; Jonny
Weathers' Sonic Assault. We put the EP out and that looked good. It
seemed a pretty
cool idea so I decided The Professionals could do something similar for
a change. I just want to keep getting new stuff out, if it means EPs or
whatever and hopefully still work towards a new album at the end of
next year. But yes, keep the new tracks going and drip feed the
audience.
We’re putting two new
songs on the A-side and two live ones on the B-side. We’ll be picking
out the best live ones, some old some new, which sound pretty good.
Phil: The production is fantastic yet again.
Paul: We recorded the tracks at Zak Starkey’s place in Henley like before -
which is where the Kingdom Come video was done - and finished them at
Dave Draper’s in Worcester.
The second EP track is recorded, Curl Up & Cry, and we’ve just
got to record the third, Twenty Twenty Vision. The
other new studio track on the second EP will be Fade Away. We’ve a few
others to go with Twenty Twenty Vision so we’ll see which one works out
the
best.
We
set the bar
quite high with What In The World so we’ve got to keep the standard up
song writing wise, it keeps us on our toes. We could churn out three or
four chord songs all day long if we wanted to.
Phil: Kingdom Come would sound at home on What In The World. In fact,
it inspired me to play the album again! It was a pleasant surprise as
it doesn't repeat your other stuff but is very much modern day Pros. The boys have done a good job with the
guitar. I enjoyed the backing vocals as well which are a part of the new Pros
sound, and distinguish the old from the new. It certainly hits the spot.
Paul: I think we’ve moved
along a little bit musically with the new songs compared to the album,
but they’re still gonna always sound like The Professionals. On the
album we had a lot of guests but this time we’ve got a band together
and we can do it all ourselves.
We’re
happy with the overall
package. The I 2 3 idea was mine and
Tom’s. It worked out nicely, obviously there‘s the 1 2 3 track itself.
We’ve got Tom’s stained glass window work in there as well. Tom worked
with
the design guy Rich Jones and that was the first thing they came up
with, and we said perfect, leave it alone, it’s great!
We’ve
had a few teething problems with the cost of the postage
but we’re sorting that out, it’s been beyond our control. We didn’t
realise all the pricing, we didn’t set it, but we’re looking to
re-arrange that for those that bought the full package.
Watch the Kingdom Come Video
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Special thanks to Paul
Cook
Paul
interview April 2019 >
©Phil
Singleton / cookandjones.co.uk / www.sex-pistols.net 2019
All rights reserved. Not
to be
reproduced without permission.
God
Save
The Sex Pistols / Kick Down The Doors ©Phil Singleton /
cookandjones.co.uk / www.sex-pistols.net 2019
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