Paul Roberts (musician)

Paul Roberts
Paul Roberts on stage with The Stranglers at Nottingham in 2005
Background information
Birth name	Paul Roberts
Born	(1959-12-31) 31 December 1959
Origin	Chiswick, London England
Genres	Punk, pop punk, new wave
Occupation(s)	Musician and actor
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1980s–present
Labels	None
Associated acts	The Stranglers, Soulsec

Paul Roberts (born 31 December 1959 in Chiswick, London) is an English singer who was the lead singer of The Stranglers between 1990 and 2006.

Career

The Stranglers

He replaced Hugh Cornwell in The Stranglers in 1990 and appeared on and co-wrote their studio albums Stranglers In the Night, About Time, Written in Red, Coup de Grace, and Norfolk Coast.^[1]

He performed live as a non-playing frontman, as The Stranglers recruited separate guitarist John Ellis and later Baz Warne to co-replace Cornwell, who sang vocals and played guitar.^[2]

Paul left The Stranglers after almost 16 years (believed to be longer than his predecessor, according to press quotes from his former colleagues) in May 2006. The split was officially described as "amicable."^[3] The band reverted to a four-piece with Warne taking over lead vocals and Jean-Jacques Burnel returning to singing songs he originally provided lead vocals on.

Soulsec

Soulsec is the title of his current project, and to date he has written the albums "FAITH?" (under the name 'The Faithband'), "Self Discovery","The Pressure Sensitive" 2007's"End Games" and the current '5,4 now'. Also the singles God, When Reason Sleeps, 8 Days and Swim. There have also been several acoustic/electric live and studio CDs.

Soulsec was in existence as a side-project for some of the later years he was still with The Stranglers.

Other work

He played the role of Pop Larkin in the world premiere of The Darling Buds of May-Perfick.^[4] This was a musical based on H. E. Bates' novel The Darling Buds of May, written by David Burton, formerly a member of the cast of Only Fools & Horses. The show ran for a week in April 2008 at The Kings Theatre, Southsea in Southsea as a trial to see if the company could raise enough interest to finance a West End production. Its level of success is currently not known. Paul also played the Roman poet 'Ovid' in the play 'The Art of Love' alongside Adele Anderson of 'Fascinating Aida' in London 2008.....the lead role at Edinburgh fringe 2007 of Richard O'briens 'Mephistopheles Smith' the evangelist for hell...16 characters in a two-hour fringe workshop of 'The Unimportant History of Britain' in London 2008...was asked by Paul Nicholas to play John Barsad in the new musical of 'Tale of Two Cities' at the gate house theatre London 2008...also offered the lead in 'Gold' a fringe musical based on old school friends getting their school band back together after twenty five years apart. Appeared in 'Cranford' as a featured character alongside Dame Judy Dench and Eileen Aitkins amongst many others. He also will appear at the beginning of the new Harry Potter movie due in summer 2009. Paul is currently working with Stephen Donald from 'Blood Brothers' and 'Brookside' in the north of England. He also croons in a five-piece jazz/lounge outfit known as Manhattan Swing. They played at The Olde Bell in Hurley, UK for their 2008/09 New Year masked ball.^[5]

In 2009, he acted as an adjudicator for the Hastings Musical Festival.

In 2010, Paul has been singing as Frank Sinatra alongside Laura Nixon's Marilyn Monroe and Suspiciously Elvis at sell-out shows at the Brighton night Alive & Swinging.

Paul is currently preparing his next stage show, 'Let's Dance - Paul Roberts Sings David Bowie', presented by the British Theatre Playhouse in Singapore, 10-12 November 2016.^[6]

Personal life

In December 2005, he was involved in a dramatic car crash in which his car was thrown into the air and landed upside down, but he escaped without injury.

He is an avid fund-raiser for a prostate cancer charity.

References

External links

• Official Soulsec Website
• Soulsec on MySpace
• The Official Mephistopheles Smith Page