Alexxis: Yes, I'm the lead vocalist. Actually Mike & I were supposed to do a duet, since I sing Ann Wilson songs.
He said we have to get you up & do “ Almost Paradise” as a duet, but I know once again you're on tour with
Night Ranger, so it's not like your own show, so your time is limited, & he said, “ He didn't even get to his favor-
ite song “ When It's Over” last time, so are you guys going to be playing it this time?
Paul: I would imagine, we have 75 minutes, pretty much a whole 90 minute set, so we will be cutting a couple
small solos out, so trim it down to a 75. But yeah, I think we will be playing all of those.We played in Pucana last
weekend. Mike's girlfriend Cathy, she's a great singer, so we did “Almost Paradise “.
Alexxis: Oh that's cool, I never heard her.
Paul: I mean we got the perfect slot, it's not like we can't take out a ballad & slide that one in.
Alexxis: So you actually won a Juno award.
Paul: Yes we did, that was pretty cool, in ‘82 we had a couple in 3 years, we won 1 Juno in ‘82, but we won 6
Junos- that hadn't been matched before.. May I say so humbly. We were pretty stoked, but that's a pretty awesome
thing to do. It was funny, we were at #5 & we were getting ready to do some press in the other room, the produc-
er came by & said ‘ guys, you might want to set down again. Just don't go anywhere, give us another 5 minutes.’
We said oh ok I get It, that was totally unexpected but thank you very much.
Alexxis: So, you're the main composer for most of your work?
Paul: I am. I guess I'm 60% overall if you want to cut it down by so long, you know, generally. Mike & I, you
know a lot of times I will write a song, get a song pretty much done & then Mike will come along and say ‘why
don't we change Waiting for the Weekend to Working for the Weekend & I'll go oh yeah, that's cool. Sometimes
I'll say, hey Matt if we have a line duh to duh to duh & then the fourth line is blah blah blah, what do you think
the third line should be? Then he comes up with a line, then ok cool. Then he has credit for Working for the
Weekend for 1 line. It's just how we work. Alot of bands just split it up, like no matter who is in the room gets
equal cuts, I don't know. Whoever contributes gets the payback, you know.
Alexxis: Absolutely. So, in ‘89 you had your first solo debut album called Hardcore?
Paul: I did, yes.
Alexxis: You did that with Bryan Adams, & Paul Stanley? Was that the one?
Paul: Bryan Adams, they were involved strictly as songwriters. Paul Stanley, Desmond Child & Bruce Kulick,
they wrote “Sword & Stone” apparently & Bryan Adams & Jim Balance wrote “Draw The Line”. The deal with
“Sword & Stone”, I was in Jersey writing with Jon & Richie from Bon Jovi and we had just written most of the line
share of Notorious, we wrote it out & then added a couple more guys in on it. We wrote the genesis of the tune
& I think I was there for 4 days & the second day Desmond Child joined us & struggled with a couple things
but never had any complete songs, but at the session Desmond gave me “Sword & Stone”, this is cool, I love this
tune… this is a great song. I took it back & pitched it to Mike.I sounded like the record guy, I said I got this tune,
what do you think? Do you want to use this song as a Loverboy thing or not? He said, it's not really my thing, its
a little to metal, don't know what he was thinking. May not use metal actually, but it didn't hit him lyrically or
strategically, I said that's cool & the same thing with “Draw The Line”. I pitched it to Mike & said I think this is a
pretty cool tune, so what do you think? He said, well it's not really my thing, I don't really hear it. Maybe it was
the lyrics or maybe he knew Nugent already put it out. See, I didn't know that when Bryan gave me the song. But
then again, Bryan might've pitched it to Nugent on the same week or something for all I knew. Because I think
I was sitting on the song for a year or something & kept going back to it like, this is a really cool song & then in
the meantime Ted Nugent put it out & I didn't know. Not that it matters, do you know how many covers that
have been made on “Yesterday” by the Beatles? So to me, a good song is a good song, so I put it on my album
& when I was mixing the album with Bob Rock in Little Mount Studios in Vancouver, Bon Jovi was recording I
believe, Bad Medicine next door. It's In the same building just across the hall kind of thing. With its own double
doors, security & everything. But I knew Jon from before from writing & I had a tune, I asked if he would come
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