Both Sides Of The Story

Wisconsin-born, Tupelo, Mississippi-raised, Paul Thorn had the elements for becoming a singing, songwriting storyteller in the grand tradition of the Deep South right there in the family gene pool.

While his father is a Church of God Pentecostal Minister, his paternal uncle spent time making a living as a pimp, so, influenced by both, Thorn had the whole “saints and sinners” thing playing out in front of him.

“If there was ever two people with silver tongues, it was them,” Thorn admits of his father and uncle, on the line from his home on the eve of his first visit to Australia. “So I literally spent a lot of time around pimps and preachers – I know it sounds crazy but it's the actual truth.”

That phrase, Pimps & Preachers, is the title of Thorn's most successful album to date – his seventh, released in 2010. Not that he's up there in the big league by any stretch – the album peaked at number 83 in the Billboard 200 chart – but he's happy with that. More on that later.

“Both of them have tremendous social skills and they always tell stories, so I think I got a lot of what I got from them. I started writin' songs when I was 12 years old; you know, just typical stuff – when you're 12 years old all you know to write about is whatever girl you like at school that didn't like you back.”

However typical or immature those early songs might have been, there was obviously something there because a few years on Thorn found himself a mentor that's been with him ever since.

“When I was about 17, I met a gentleman, his name was Billy Maddox, and at the time I met him he was a world-class, successful songwriter. He started meeting with me a couple of nights a week teaching me how to write songs, and I am 48 years old now and actually now, he's my manager, record producer, co-writer, tour manager – he'll be comin' to Australia with me. Billy Maddox – had he not come into my life, I'd probably still be workin' in a furniture factory.”

Between 17 and that furniture factory, Thorn took what might seem an unlikely sidetrack for a budding songwriter – boxing. He was a professional for a decade, the highlights being ranked ninth middle-weight boxer in the States and his loss – broadcast on national television in 1988 – to four-time world champion Roberto Durán, a fact that he's still proud of. In the end though, the real world demanded a real job, so that furniture factory beckoned. Then in 1997…

“At night I was playin' in this pizza restaurant in Tupelo two nights a week,” he remembers, “and [The Police manager] Miles Copeland came and heard me play there of all places and the next thing I know I got a record deal on A&M Records. Because my father was a minister, we weren't allowed to go to secular concerts, so the first time I ever attended a concert in my entire life, I was opening for Sting. Within two weeks of quittin' the furniture factory I was opening for Sting in front of 13,000 people.”

His years of often singing solo in church to large congregations meant that Thorn found he was perfectly comfortable in that stadium, which led to a national US tour opening for Jeff Beck. The A&M deal fell through not long after, when the label was bought out, but Thorn is happy to be independent and on his way here.

“The only thing that's gonna last in the future, in my opinion, is artists who put on a good show.”