Former Mansun frontman Paul Draper returns to Sheffield in March with his first album in five-years

It’s the first album Paul has released in half a decade, following his debut solo album Spooky Action which was released in 2017. But that wasn’t the plan, at least initially.

“Where do I start? Mansun ended in the early noughties and I started a recording studio, where I was writing and producing for other artists. I did that for about a decade and then some fans did a Mansun convention. They knew I had done a solo album, or at least part of one, and they did a petition for me to put it out… so I did.”

“It wasn’t meant to be a whole career but it just mushroomed from there. So, it’s got to here now where I’m doing an album proper. I’m not digging out any old material, I’m doing something proper.”

Cult Leader Tactics is a satirical aural affair, focused on the genre of self-help manuals. Think of it as a guide to achieve your dream profession, a means of getting by in life in general and dealing with the feelings in the heart.

In short, it’s a broad-ranging affair that sees the former Mansun frontman returning to the fray.

“We’d virtually finished it around two-years ago but because of the covid thing, we had to put it back and I had two tours cancelled. It’ll be a relief really to get back out on the road.”

“I’ve always loved playing at The Leadmill and the Octagon, for me it’s about picking up after two years have gone out of my career, like a lot of musicians.”

Like with all of his music projects, Paul played the majority of the instruments across the 11-track LP, including the guitars, drum machines and synthesisers. Producing the whole album with his long-time collaborator and acclaimed producer, Paul ‘P-Dub’ Walton at Loft Studios. Scott Knapper even stepped in to assist with additional sound engineering.

I was intrigued by the conceptual approach of the album, as well as the allusion to political themes that without being a focus appear to present themselves throughout. Paul expanded on his thoughts behind this.

“I’ve also got a song on the album called Internationalle, it’s about devious and Machiavellian ways to get ahead in your career. The idea of this song in particular is about Boris Johnson either agreeing with Brexit or not, but more that he picked it as a career move. However, post-covid the song takes on a whole other meaning.”

“It’s not really a political album. It’s about devious behaviour and life. It’s just one angle on it.

“The Boris Johnson thing, it it was just supposed to be a comical reference but it’s almost become a novelty part of the record and the record label said to me that it should be a single,”

“If I put it out as a single, it would really hit the zeitgeist for what’s going on politically. Even if I didn’t mean that to be the case, it seems to have been unwittingly pulled into the discourse.”

One of the singles from the album, Omega Man (featuring Steven Wilson), was filmed in Pripyat, Ukraine, the city abandoned due to the meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It’s an interesting choice of location, especially in light of recent events that are in the news. I was curious as to why Paul chose it.

“So, yeah. We went and filmed part of it in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The idea of that was more about how we could convey that desolate feeling around isolation. I know with all the political shenanigans going on at the minute, it brings it all back to you really.”

“We had to clear the video with the Ukrainian military and if you watch the video, we’re filming right next to a massive nuclear missile detector called the (Russian) Woodpecker. And obviously you can see me standing on a rooftop with the sarcophagus only a mile away. It was a frightening experience but one hell of an experience”

“Our first thought was to actually film in Brighton at six-o’clock in the morning… but it was actually cheaper to go to Chernobyl.”

Despite its attempts to be un-political, Omega Man (and Cult Leader Tactics as a whole retains those elements, more so as a backdrop to the satirical, almost wry take on the state of things, self-help or otherwise.

What was the idea behind getting the choir on Lyin Bout Who U Sleep With?

"Because of the lockdown, we couldn't actually get a Gospel choir as we planned. So we put a call out on social media, we just said ‘if you wanna do this, just email this address and we’ll send you the melody’. We had around 900 people respond, which we whittled down to around 350, asking them to record it on their iPhone and send it in. It was a really interesting way of doing it. Then we compiled the audio into the song, calling it the Lockdown Choir, we’ve credited everyone’s name on the album as well.”

“A lot of my album is necessity really, it’s just a product of the times.”

Paul Draper will be performing stripped back versions of songs from both of his albums - Cult Leader Tactics and Spooky Action - as well as Mansun classics & rarities at The Leadmill, Sheffield on March 11, 2022.

Cult Leader Tactics is out now.