‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) are both ex-Londoners, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and actor Paul Odiase and song lyricist Paul Robert Thomas.
Their main website is https://www.paullyrics.com/
‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) have just released their 19th album called Rise Up! at https://www.paullyrics.com/
Link to the latest music
https://www.paullyrics.com/album/rise-up
Where are you based?
We are both ex-Londoners and London UK is our registered location for our music, but Paul Odiase now lives just outside of Bern, Switzerland and I now live just outside of Tel Aviv
How long have you been making music?
We have both been making music for over 25 years and we have collaborated together since our 1st album called ‘Holy Land Revisited’ in 2014.
What genre would you consider your music to be?
Alternative
What inspired you to pursue a career in music?
I have always written poetry, in my teens I wrote poems for the girlfriends I had when a volunteer on the kibbutz in the late 70’s, and later in 1996 I answered an advert in the Dylan fanzine ‘Isis’ where a German composer called Stefan Pauleit was looking for a lyricist and we started writing songs together in a collaboration named The Grils, one song evoked a response from Robert Johnson’s grandson (https://www.paullyrics.com/letter-to-me-from-robert-johnsons-grandson), and through this musical collaboration I successfully adapted from writing poems to writing song lyrics. I was approached by musicians looking for lyricists after I had opened my My Space and Reverbnation sites and then I opened my own website at www.paullyrics.com and eventually hooked up with Paul Odiase who is an amazing musician, composer and vocalist who puts into music the meaning, feelings and sentiments that my lyrics attempt to convey ion our ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) songs.
What are your biggest musical influences?
I grew up in the 60’s and so my musical influences were the music of The Beatles (I went to school a stones throw from The Beatles Abbey Road studio), Buddy Holy and Bob Dylan as well as Leonard Cohen, T-Rex and Bob Marley, and I learnt my craft mostly from Dylan and am still learning from him.
Are you signed to a label or are you an independent artist?
I have my own web label called Swiss Cottage Recordz that I release our music through and have been signed to various labels for albums that my lyrics appear on, such as a German Folk band called Guitavio, but I consider myself to be an independent artist, and we consider ourselves lucky that Studio City’s Unlimited Sounds Publishing & Distribution in conjunction with the UK’s Budde Publishing takes care of the publishing for our releases.
What have been the biggest challenges in your music career?
As an independent artist, getting people to listen to our songs, for when they do listen they realize how good they are!
How many songs or albums have you released to date?
Rise Up is our 19th album since we started creating songs together in 2014
Can you tell us a few things about your latest release?
Rise Up! is our 19th album together as ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) and the 1st track ‘Rise Up’ is a song about standing up for your rights and standing up in the face of adversity and discrimination (My late father-in-law was a survivor of Auschwitz and I myself was subjected to discrimination by the London police that I worked for (https://www.paullyrics.com/164 ). Our 1st single from the album is ‘Holy Land Shuffle’ (https://soundcloud.com/paulrthomas/holy-land-shuffle?in=paulrthomas/sets/rise-up), is a Reggae flavored song from the Promised Land and is a song about desire for peace. The most poignant song is ‘On Days Like These’ the lyrics of which I wrote for my late Mother’s funeral in October 2022 and which Paul Odiase turned into a touching song.
Any plans for new music or upcoming projects we should know about?
Although there is a tinge of Reggae on some of the songs on Rise Up that rubs off from our previous album heavy with Bob Marley’s influence called ‘Reincarnation 420 (for Tuff Gong)’, our next album will be a Rock album, hence the last song on our current album ‘Rise Up’ is a Rock song called Patty Batty and it is purposefully pointing towards our next album’s Rock genre!
FOLLOW Paul Robert Thomas, Lyricist for ‘Les Paul’s’ (The Paul’s) ON: FACEBOOK 1 | FACEBOOK 2 | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | WEBSITE 1 | WEBSITE 2
