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PAUL BANKS

Paul Banks

Manchester Scene Stories Book 1: The Dance Years

A raw, intimate journey through Manchester’s dance music history — told by the people who lived it.

From breakdancers on lino floors to the birth of Acid House, from the Haçienda’s hedonistic nights to the underground parties that defined a generation, Manchester Scene Stories: The Dance Years captures the heartbeat of a city in motion.

Documentary storyteller Paul Banks has interviewed more than 100 DJs, dancers, ravers, promoters, and unsung legends. This book brings 30 of their most powerful stories together — unfiltered, emotional, funny, and full of the spirit that shaped Manchester’s nightlife.

Featuring first-hand accounts from the Haçienda, Paradise Factory, The Boardwalk, warehouse raves, breakdance crews, Canal Street pioneers and more — these are the memories that built a scene, changed lives, and still echo through the city today.

Paul Banks

Manchester Scene Stories Book 2: The Indie Years

This book is a collection of conversations about Manchester — told by the people who lived it.

Following on from Manchester Scene Stories: The Dance Years, this volume leans towards indie, but doesn’t stick to neat categories or timelines. Instead, it moves through the 1960s, 70s, 80s and beyond, guided by memory, chance meetings, and the way scenes actually form in real life.

The chapters are built around relaxed conversations rather than formal interviews. Some were recorded for my YouTube channel, others specifically for this book. They took place in pubs, living rooms, studios, and over Zoom. People talk openly — about music, clubs, bands, friendships, venues, and the strange routes that led them where they ended up.

The book begins with Johnny Roadhouse, a shop that quietly shaped generations of Manchester musicians, and ends in the present day with a new generation still finding its voice. Along the way, it captures moments that rarely make it into official histories — the small rooms, early gigs, chance encounters, and personal turning points that define a scene long before it becomes a headline.

This isn’t a definitive history of Manchester indie music.

It’s something closer to how it actually felt at the time.

Short, honest chapters you can dip into — built from memory, conversation, and lived experience.

Paul Banks

Gimme Danger / Sister Midnight

Paul Banks of Interpol offers his distinctive take on two Iggy Pop staples—'Sister Midnight' and 'Gimme Danger'— released via Partisan Records, drawn from the official soundtrack to the film Sister Midnight (dir. Karan Kandhari).

Originally co-written with David Bowie and The Stooges, these tracks are reimagined by Banks with a moody, atmospheric touch that honours the originals’ grit and menace while leaning into his own shadowy sensibility.

TRACK LISTING

1. Gimme Danger
2. Sister Midnight

Paul Banks

Banks

As Interpol’s front man, Paul Banks has largely been a cipher; while certainly not lacking in charisma, his sardonic manner and dry sense of humour often polarised and confounded listeners and critics alike.

Banks’ first solo album found him assuming the alter ego of Julian Plenti, but he’s now jettisoned this for ‘Banks’, credited to Paul Banks (as was its preceding EP).

Whereas 2009’s Julian Plenti ‘Is…Skyscraper’ album was culled largely from songs pre-dating Interpol, ‘Banks’ is a vivid documentation of Banks in the here and now, and may be his most personal work to date. “Yeah, I suppose I wanted to simplify things this time around,” he explains. “Julian Plenti was something that I had to do, but once it was done, I didn't need to hold on to it. I'm just making music and hoping to let it speak for itself.”

Here Paul delivers some of his most disarming and heartfelt lyrics to date, far removed from his often detached anomie with Interpol.

Produced by Paul Banks and Peter Katis (Interpol, Jónsi, The National).


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