Paul Janeway, the voice of the frankly brilliant soul outfit St Paul and the Broken Bones, joins us from his home in Birmingham, Alabama to tell us what has been happening in his world. Having just had a narrow escape with a tree coming down on his neighbour’s house, he sounded happy to be alive and in very good spirits.
With his Southern drawl dripping down the phone, we begin talking about the journey that’s brought he and his band this far, and will give them an extra push all the way to Australia this month to play Bluesfest in Byron Bay, along with a run of headline shows.
“I am one of those people that kinda keeps their head down and keeps working. I love what I do, and I love that I have the ability to do this for a living, and I am very grateful for that,” Janeway begins. “I am not very good at, and I have to get better at it, at sitting back and thinking we have done this, this and this.
“It’s like we have a tour and then we are going to be in Texas tomorrow and I kind of think that is what I have to focus on, or I think new record, or I think Australia. I don’t really sit back and say, ‘look at what we have done’,” he laughs.
I was playing guitar and singing and I got a reaction out of people – and I was kind of wondering why. I had never really heard my voice until then.
With two stellar albums under their belt, Half The City from 2014 and the evocative Sea Of Noise from 2016, the road has been blessed, and some might point towards Janeway’s former training to become a preacher. The one thing he definitely picked up from that training is his stage persona, which genuinely has to be witnessed (can I have a witness?) to be believed – think Al Green meets Otis Redding coming from a guy who looks like (and once trained to be) an accountant. It is truly an amazing instrument, but how has it evolved?
“Well, it is actually the way I always kind of sounded,” Janeway says. “I think as time has gone on it has a little bit more heartbreak in it, and I think that’s kind of life, which is the best way I can put it. It is a little rough around the edges and I never really knew what to do with it.
“I know I had this thing but I was very comfortable and I grew up listening to gospel and a little bit of soul music so I was comfortable in that realm, and it was my bread and butter, and I knew I could do that,” Janeway says. “I just never thought of even the possibility of doing this band thing because it takes so many people to be involved and I was not exactly this big social butterfly that knew, you know what I mean, a lot of people.”
“I first sang in church when I was four years old, so I have been singing since I was little. Really, to me, the idea of performing the way we are now, the way I got here, was I first performed at an open mic night. I kind of fell in love with it and I was playing guitar and singing and I got a reaction out of people – and I was kind of wondering why. I had never really heard my voice until then.
“I knew I was not a good guitar player, yeah, I knew that,” Janeway chuckles. “I am a mediocre guitar player so I knew I was not blowing them away there. It was just one of those things that developed over time, and I kind of sound the way I sound. I can’t really say I was trying to do this or that, it’s just the way it comes out.”
I didn’t grow up listening to [The Rolling Stones], so it was not as if I dreamed about this my whole life – but the rest of the guys did
Sea Of Noise is a fabulous record and suffers no sophomore release failures after the glowing success of the more retro-soul influenced first album. The band ventured out of their Muscle Shoals comfort zone and headed to Nashville to record their follow-up.
“For the second record and recording in Nashville, it was a situation that I knew by the time the first record came out, as we had to sit on the first one for about a year, that the first record represented the past,” Janeway reveals. “I knew with the second one we were going to change. It was not like we lost ourselves, to me it was a progression and I was happy with that.”
“Recording in Nashville, everything is available. If you need a certain kind of mic, or a certain type of instrument, Nashville is such a music town you just say ‘let’s go get it’. You have all the toys and to me that is way more appealing than the first time we camped at home and did it in Muscle Shoals.
“All the artists that I love and the way that I view music is that you have to continuously evolve and you have to be true to you and not be something that you are not, but to evolve and that is the way it always will be”, he muses.
Garnering attention with their live shows and their sound, the band have some fans in extraordinary places. The Rolling Stones invited them to open for them on their tour and at least one famous musician is a big fan.
“It was a very surreal thing. It is bizarre because I didn’t grow up listening to [The Rolling Stones], so it was not as if I dreamed about this my whole life – but the rest of the guys did. My mentality was still, I am a competitive person, and when you choose us as an opener, we are going to bring it!
“I thought, we’re going to try our hardest to make sure you don’t want us to open for you again. That is the kind of mentality we have, but when you do that with The Rolling Stones, well…” Paul trails off.
“Elton John has been a fan of the band for a while and he has been super kind to us. He had this charity event in Los Angeles for this Oscars party and he really loved the song ‘I’ll Be Your Woman’ on the new record. He asked us if we minded that he sang and, well, we said of course! We emailed back and forth and it was very surreal. He has been so supportive of the band and it was a weird experience.
“There were so many really famous celebrities and we were like well, we are here. We did what we did, I picked up a chair off the floor and threw it on the stage, and they all loved it,” Janeway laughs.
St. Paul And The Broken Bones aren’t an act to change for anybody, or outside expectations – they’ve followed their own path for this long, and as long as the audience is with them, they’ll keep following their own path as far as it takes them.
You can catch St Paul and the Broken Bones when they arrive in Australia for Bluesfest from April 13-17, and they’ll be playing a run of shows at The Triffid in Brisbane on April 12, Sydney’s Metro Theatre on April 19, and Melbourne’s 170 Russell on April 20, with tickets on sale now.
