EP77 – Tom Doyle – White Label + Music Journalist – ”Tuesday’s slow, I just don’t know what’s happening here at all…” – Paul Weller Fan Podcast : Desperately Seeking Paul
Tom Doyle is an acclaimed music journalist, author, and long-standing contributor to music magazines Sound on Sound, Mojo and Q. Over the years, he has been responsible for key magazine profiles of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Yoko Ono, Keith Richards, U2, Madonna, Kate Bush, and R.E.M., among many other artists. As an author, he’s written a series of books, including Man On The Run: Paul McCartney In The 1970s.
As a musician, he’s one half of White Label, a writing/production duo who have collaborated with Paul on various special releases over the past 6 years.
(They were originally a trio with Steve Aungle and former On U Sound engineer Anth Brown – now a duo with Tom & Anth).
Listen to Episode 77 of The Paul Weller Fan Podcast as we dig in to lots of lovely Paul Weller connections and his own work too.
We hear about magazine interviews with Paul including a trip to New York in 2017, how handing him a vinyl copy of his album as part of Electric Music AKA (again with Anth Brown) led to a deeper connection with Paul.
You’ll hear the true story behind their audacious and much-acclaimed 2011 bootleg remix album Stolen Voices, which reimagined a different musical past by creating elaborate, full band arrangements around vocals from rare demos by the likes of David Bowie, John Lennon, Dennis Wilson and The Supremes.
Plays on daytime radio from Lauren Laverne, made them realise that their cheekily illegal experiment had maybe proved too successful. They were advised by lawyers to stop selling vinyl copies of Stolen Voices on their website, although the tracks from it are now inevitably floating around online.
As a result, though, they began to be approached by artists looking for official remixes, including Paul Weller , for an EP spin-off from the album Saturns Pattern with a reworking of Going My Way, and on their own first album of legitimate remixes, Borrowed Voices, which featured Paul Weller ( a remix of Phoenix ) along with tracks from Mark Eitzel, Emma Pollock, Erland Cooper & Hannah Peel (of The Magnetic North) and the late, great Associates singer Billy MacKenzie.
The remix skills continued to be used by Paul in 2017 with the release of A Kind Revolution, which came in a deluxe edition with a CD of instrumental versions and another full of remixes – including a White Label Remix of Hopper.
“It’s clever what they do. Really clever.” – Paul Weller
A first co-write with Paul followed for 2018’s True Meanings album with the stunning beauty of Movin’ On which featured Tom on drums, wurlitzer, mellotron and hammond (along with Anth Brown from White Label on bass and acoustic guitar).
2021 gave us more highlights from the team – not least with another co-write/production credit on the Weller single Glad Times taken from the magnificent album Fat Pop (Volume 1) – which featured Tom on wurlitzer, electric piano and drum programming with Anth on electric guitar, and Paul “Lefty” Wright on esraj – more on that in the podcast!
White Label also released a new EP last year called Other Voices. The track “Sleepwalking” features Jill Lorean and “Do You Believe?” offers one of the final vocal performances by the late Bim Sherman, recorded in 2000 by the Jamaican-born reggae singer at White Label’s North London studio, and now featured in a kaleidoscopic psychedelic soul production which is just brilliant.
“Eddy Street” and “Turn Down The Noise” are fronted by Syann, with the latter also featuring sampled backing vocals from Billy MacKenzie.
You can buy that EP at whitelabel1.bandcamp.com/album/other-voices-ep1
2015 – Paul Weller – Going My Way (Remixed by White Label) from Saturns Peaks EP
A spin off from 2015’s Saturns Pattern LP came in December of that year with an EP called Saturns Peaks which featured a new song called Crossing Over along with remixes of Pick It Up, Saturns Pattern, Phoenix and a beautiful new version of Going My Way from White Label…
2015 – White Label – Paul (AKA Phoenix – Remixed by White Label)
Six years after the release of their audacious and much-acclaimed bootleg remix album, Stolen Voices, White Label released their first album of legitimate remixes, Borrowed Voices, featuring Paul Weller, Mark Eitzel, Emma Pollock, Erland Cooper & Hannah Peel (of The Magnetic North) and the late, great Associates singer Billy MacKenzie.
You can find the full FREE release at whitelabel1.bandcamp.com/album/borrowed-voices
Here’s the White Label remix of Phoenix (which is called Paul on Borrowed Voices).
One thought on “Episode 77: Tom Doyle – White Label + Music Journalist”