Fans of the Style Council, the band he formed in the 80s, remain scarcely any less fanatical, and his reinvention as a solo artist in the 90s – first with Wild Wood, and then Stanley Road – recruited a fresh generation of followers to a sound that's been endlessly evolving, from soul to folk, R&B to house. To pretty much every man I know who was a teenager when the Jam released Eton Rifles in 1979, Weller represents something approaching a quasi-religious icon. I hadn't been too sure if it would go well either. 'Don't know if this interview's going to go very well.' They kind of sleep at the same time, and we're trying to get them to a pattern where they feed at the same time, cos it would be fucking mental otherwise.' He's so exhausted, he apologises, he's finding it hard to think straight. And like with newborns you're constantly knackered anyway, ain't ya? It's been pretty bonkers really. 'Proper knackered.' He is now a father of seven children, distributed between four different households, and this is making life quite complicated. His 11-year-old daughter came home from hospital earlier that morning, he explains, having just had her appendix removed, and his two-month-old twin boys are letting him get no more than five hours' sleep a night. The whole thing couldn't be more vintage rock star – until he starts talking about his day, when it all gets less backstage Wembley stadium, and surprisingly like the school gate. He is disarmingly courteous, and friendly – even intimate – in that way only the truly famous tend to be, and has just returned from promoting his new album in Milan when we meet in a Notting Hill private members' bar. He has the perfect elder rock star demeanour – a blend of watchfulness and worldliness, poised with prideful dignity – and the perfect rock star voice, all innits and ain'ts. P aul Weller resembles an elder statesman of rock so precisely, he looks almost too perfect to be true – like a flawlessly styled, slightly over-obsessive lead singer in a Paul Weller tribute band.

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