About PAUL
Paul Linn was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire (England), on July 29th 1965, and grew up in Beaconsfield, near there. He showed early signs of becoming a zookeeper, cartoonist, gymnast or tennis player. Despite always having a natural talent to sing, and being a lead member of the school choir, Paul didn’t consider really being a ‘proper’ singer until he was about 16, when friends asked him to sing in their school covers band for fun, which led to him auditioning for and joining well-established local group Last Word in 1982. During his two years with the band, Paul gained some initial and invaluable experience performing live gigs, but started to develop a keen interest in writing his own songs, borrowing the keyboard player’s synth, and started to teach himself chords and composition skills, purely by ear (not being able to read music). From a very early age, Paul was influenced by a great variety of pop music, by the likes of Abba, Cliff Richard, ELO, Mike Batt (Wombles), Beach Boys, 10cc, Duran Duran, Jean Michel Jarre, Human League, OMD & Ultravox, among many others, and was especially inspired by local-boy-turned-popstar, Howard Jones.
In 1983 Paul was taken to Howard's local pub gigs by school friends, and he instantly knew that this was exactly what he wanted to do – it was the big ‘eureka’ moment. But how to achieve it? Paul was also aware that there was a local figure, Bill Bryant, who had been Howard’s closest friend and lyricist, and had featured in the local press for having been scandalously ‘dumped’ when Howard signed with WEA. Two years later, fate lent a hand when Paul’s friends met Bill Bryant by chance in a High Wycombe pub, and Bill sensed that ‘one of their gang' was missing, which led to him hearing all about their friend and singer, Paul Linn, and an invitation followed to meet Bill at his house that Sunday. At the meeting Paul played Bill his best two recent compositions; Private Personality and Poetry in Motion. Bill adored the voice, the music and even the lyrics, and they instantly clicked and decided to work together writing songs.
Paul thus decided to leave Last Word to go solo, and the next 5 years saw an intense period of songwriting (some 100 songs and 6 albums), and a hectic gigging schedule (some 330 gigs) around High Wycombe, Slough, the M25 circuit and all over England and Wales. Although initially rather like a much younger Howard Jones, Paul soon developed his own unique style, and started to gain confidence in performance, and to capitalise on his own abilities and personality, making performances a more physical endeavour; jumping over synth stacks, introducing dance routines (either solo or with Juliette or Di - two girl dancers who would join him onstage or in amongst the crowd), and audience participation for special moments or entire songs, all of which went down a storm. He had a fresh sincerity about him, and seemingly little ego for a performer, which complemented the serious spiritual content of Bill’s lyrics rather well. The audience always seemed to inherently understand, respect and appreciate the extra level afforded the music by Bill’s lyrics, and Bill was treated with father-like respect at gigs and socially; the maestro, the svengali, the man behind those awesome and affecting words. Paul and Bill's partnership had an enigmatic quality, and people were fascinated by them – not to mention that they both wore orange and share same birthday, and same Chinese year (12 years apart).
Record company interest was often there, and Warner Bros and Sony Music both were agonisingly close to offering major deals, to name but two. Three album-length cassettes had so far been produced, and were sold at gigs in great numbers. But to shake things up a bit, from November 1986 to October 1987, Paul sang as a duo with local rock singer Biz Meir, gigging under the moniker Paul Linn & the Biz. The fourth album release, If You Like This Music… was billed as such, and Biz was given three lead vocal tracks to sink her lungs into. Endless rehearsals and an excess of lowly pub gigs took its toll on Biz, so they parted, and Paul carried on alone. Two more albums were produced, and the quality of songwriting continued to go from strength to strength, yet the record deals also continued to be annoying big and close, but still elusive.
After several years of ‘living on the breadline’, Bill started up his own business, naturally employing Paul, and chose to stop music, more or less entirely. Something seemed also to be at odds with their way, or their way seemed to be at odds with the music industry, and even the local music scene. Perhaps it was a mistake to stop, or maybe it ‘saved’ them from something unknown, who knows.
In 1993 Paul moved to London and chose to gain experience in the world of media, taking an exciting video-editing job. Occasional dabblings in terms of writing and performance were indulged in during the following years; Paul had a go at writing the music for an original musical, created some Jarre-esque instrumental pieces, and wrote a few tunes to words from Shakespeare - experimental times, all very laid back.
At the end of 2012, a fateful turn of events led to Paul facing redundancy after 19 years in diverse roles with the media company. This galvanised him into devoting his time once again to music, discovering in the process that, despite the lengthy hiatus, his 80s soul was still intact, the voice is stronger and the creative juices keep on flowing. Now embracing the digital era, the Linn/Bryant catalogue is growing anew with the writing of a brand new album Real People, and a new era of live shows is well under way., and are now making a serious bid to start again, albeit on a humble ‘self-satisfying’ level initially. Paul says, ‘My motives for making music and performing was always just about ‘the music’. I don’t think I ever did any of this to get laid, or to impress anybody. I just love music, and love to sing, whether to a paying audience, pub-goers, at home, or in a well reverbed car park stairwell....and anything good that comes is a bonus. I have been honoured and proud to work with Bill for so long, and to be championed by him, and have his continual belief in me, and I look forward to capturing some of that magic of old once again’.
