Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott will release their fifth studio album ‘N.K-Pop’ on EMI on 30th September 2022. ‘N.K-Pop’ adds another clutch of deliciously barbed pop songs to Heaton’s Ivor award winning song collection. Paul & Jacqui’s previous album ‘Manchester Calling’ went straight to No 1 on its release in March ’20. I know several people who’ve been radicalised by the right-wing press, against immigrants, against anybody on the left, against woke. It’s sad to see, because you can’t argue with them. That’s what the song’s about – if you go out looking for trouble, you’ll find it.” Paul, in the 1989 song Love Is … you estimated your life expectancy as 52. Given that you are still going strong, any reason why you envisaged such a short lifespan? BernardMunch Heaton I was about 30 and somebody passed a comment about my facial lines. I started writing about how each wrinkle was because of having fun, but then twisted it and made it about my mum and dad and their happiness as they aged together.

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Heaton seems remarkably unmoved by money and success: he lives a modest, neighbourly existence with his wife in a terraced house in Withington, Manchester. “I’m determined that money won’t rule my decisions. Because money is controlling, and it’s incredibly discomforting for some people. And it can be for me. So I try not to let it control me. So what probably comes across as socialist, is I actually get quite angry about how much I’m paid, and think I want to do something about it. And what I do is try to make other people happy with what I’ve received. It sounds a bit corny and cliched. But it’s a more positive thought about what you can do with your money.” I found a tiny little football ground and wrote the lyrics and some of the tunes outside the bar there,” he reveals. “I think the locals were really quite bemused about what I was doing.”

I’m really inspired by everyday people,” he says. “I know it sounds corny, but I’m just naturally inquisitive about people. I like stopping and talking, especially to older people, because they often won’t know who I am. I find it interesting sharing stories. Heaton has written in foreign climes ever since he became famous. “It’s part of the adventure, going away,” he says. “You’ve got your folder out with all of your half-written lyrics and you’re finishing your song in a place where nobody knows you. Paul and Jacqui Abbott’s fifth album as a duo, N.K-Pop, was released on 7 October and, a s usual, it’s another immaculate collection of instant pop gems, 12 could-be, should-be singles as dazzling as anything from best-selling Beautiful South comp Carry On Up The Charts. But, as Heaton says, we should have had this album much earlier.Well, we gave the label the LP and said we think this, this and this could be a single,” he explains. “I preferred I Drove Her Away With My Tears because it’s quite immediate and it’s always sounded good in my head. But also When The World Would Actually Listen. It’s a kind of handicap race.” Paul Heaton on putting everyday tales to song and the lyrical influence of Pete Shelley and Bill Withers.. Still, it was something of a belated correction for the way The Beautiful South – never a critics favourite – have been somewhat airbrushed out of the 90s music story. “It feels a little bit like history’s been rewritten,” Heaton says. “We’d never be in one of those 200 best albums of the 90s lists. But we didn’t particularly sound or look like bands that you associate with the 90s. And it can be quite helpful not to have a sound that dated. It can be limiting if you sound like a band from the 90s. It’s though you’re doing a permanent revival”. Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott perform at the Royal Albert Hall (Photo: Christie Goodwin/Redferns via Getty) It’s true that while there’s always been a political edge to his writing, you’d be wildly off-base to define Heaton’s work by it. Do you think your anti- royalist, anti-Tory credentials have cost you in terms of sales over the years? Hibernica

Heaton That was Womad in 1989. We were quite a weird set of people and that was the first gig we played where we didn’t smash our gear up, so three of us rolled an enormous, 10ft wheel on stage during Pere Ubu’s set. They were screaming: “What are you doing?” We went “It’s part of the show!” Then suddenly we were ushered off [laughter]. I hadn’t liked them when they supported the Clash in 1978, so it was silent revenge. Well, it's the first time I've been given any award for songwriting at all. My first words when I got up to accept it were ‘I could have died, it's so late!’ And it's sort of true – I'd just turned 60 – so it meant a lot and it was really nice to experience it with the people I'm close to. In my Beautiful South days I would probably have just taken it in with a pinch of salt and said, ‘Thanks a lot, ta,’ and walked off, so I'm glad they waited because I appreciated it more. Same as having a No.1 whenever it was, 2020? That felt special as well.” Paul Heaton sits comfortably in a roll call of literate pop writers to emerge in the 80s, alongside such articulate wordsmiths as Lloyd Cole, Roddy Frame and Paddy McAloon. What sets him apart from those contemporaries is prolonged commercial success: a remarkable run of 16 albums to make the Top 10, with The Housemartins, The Beautiful South and, since 2014, in tandem with Jacqui Abbott.Smith, Carl (14 October 2022). "Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott secure second Number 1 album as a duo with N.K-Pop". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 15 October 2022.

He’s owned a pub, The Kings Arms in Salford, and for his 50 th birthday underwent a pub tour, cycling 2,500 miles over 40 days. “I suppose it’s microcosm of society, isn’t it? A pub is a weird mix of characters that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. And people are quite frank in the pub. I like that.”

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I know it sounds funny to say but I didn’t have any problems with her passing,” he says, matter-of-factly. “She’d reached the age of 90 and she was still happily belligerent and argumentative and causing the nurses no end of bother in the hospital, which was fairly amusing.