Cult Leader Tactics Paul Draper

• 1 Cult Leader Tactics 04:07
• 2 Internationalle 03:23
• 3 Dirty Trix 03:48
• 4 Cult Leader Tactics in E-Flat Minor 01:32
• 5 You've Got No Life Skills, Baby! 03:57
• 6 U Killed My Fish 03:43
• 7 Everyone Becomes a Problem Eventually 03:30
• 8 Annie 04:23
• 9 Talkin Behind My Back 02:58
• 10 Omega Man (feat. Steven Wilson) 04:07
• 11 Lyin Bout Who U Sleep With 05:01
• Total Runtime 40:29

Info for Cult Leader Tactics

Cult Leader Tactics is a satire on the genre of self-help manuals. It details how to get to the top of your chosen profession, or how to get on in life in general and in affairs of the heart, by acting in a Machiavellian manner and employing dirty tricks or ‘Cult Leader Tactics’ to achieve your life goals.

Lyrically the album is made up of extracts from a fictitious self-help manual ‘Cult Leader Tactics’, a parody of the self-help manual genre. After experiencing these types of human behaviour and themes, the album arrives at the conclusion the only true answer in life is love.

These and other themes are subtly referenced in each song and explored on a collection of Paul’s best songwriting since Mansun’s imperial phase. Nowhere is this exemplified more than on the instantly catchy and destined to be classic, ‘You’ve Got No Life Skills, Baby!’, which is reminiscent of the best artrock-meets-pop moments of Mansun’s Attack Of The Grey Lantern.

Paul plays the majority of the instruments on Cult Leader Tactics 11-tracks, including guitars, drum machines and synthesisers, on an album produced with long-time collaborator, acclaimed producer Paul ‘P-Dub’ Walton at the latter’s Loft Studios, with additional engineering by Scott Knapper.

Cult Leader Tactics features guest appearances from revered musician and producer Steven Wilson, who co-wrote and plays on ‘Omega Man’ – a collaboration about his and Paul’s feelings of isolation during lockdown – Gamaliel ‘Gam’ Rendle Traynor from the band Sweat, who played, arranged and engineered all strings (recorded at Sweat Studios, Peckham, London), as well as a 288-person C.L.T. Lockdown Choir who sing on ‘Lyin’ Bout Who U Sleep With’.

"Cult Leader Tactics may have been over four years in the making, but it's a record with an overriding theme. It haunts and explores the worst of human behaviour whilst offering desperately needed green shoots of hope. Most importantly, Draper's sophomore solo effort brings an eclectic range of Mansun and his solo material into the zeitgeist whilst breaking free of the safety blanket of his past genius. Paul has demonstrated that he is no mere Jack of multiple diverse musical offerings; he is a master of all of them." (Michael Barron, xsnoize.com)

Paul Draper
Playing smart hard rock with an ambitious outlook that found room for prog and glam influences, Mansun were a surprise success story on the British rock scene of the '90s. Draper was born in Liverpool, England on September 26, 1970, and began playing guitar when he was 15. Draper was attending Thames Polytechnic when he met Steve Heaton and Carlton Hibbert. The three formed a band called Grind; they released a 12" single, "Thought" b/w "The Dying Man," in 1991, but it wasn't a hit and the group soon split up. However, Draper and Hibbert would cross paths again when they joined forces with Dominic Chad, Stove King, and Mark Swinnerton to form Grey Lantern in 1995. Within months, the group had changed its name to Manson, and they independently released a debut single, "Take It Easy Chicken," that had several major labels bidding for their services. After signing with Parlophone, Manson became Mansun, reportedly due to threatened legal action from Charles Manson.

In early 1997, Mansun released their debut album, Attack of the Grey Lantern, which quickly rose to number one on the U.K. album chart (knocking Brit-pop heroes Blur out of the top spot), and the cult heroes became bona fide rock stars, at least in England. After Mansun's eclectic and ambitious second album, Six (1999), was a commercial disappointment, the band streamlined its sound on 2000's Little Kix. While working on their fourth album, Draper was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as bowenoid malignancy. Draper responded well to chemotherapy, but by the time he was healthy enough to return to work on the project, Mansun had broken up and the album was scrapped. (With Draper's participation, some of the tracks from the unfinished fourth album appeared on the 2004 box set Kleptomania.)

After Mansun announced their breakup in 2003, Draper initially maintained a low profile in the music business. He co-wrote and co-produced a 2006 single for Skin, vocalist with Skunk Anansie, and returned to the producer's chair for "Greyhounds in the Slips," a digital single released by The Joy Formidable. Draper also spent several years working with singer and composer Catherine A.D. on a project called The Anchoress, with their first single appearing in 2014. In 2013, during a radio interview, Draper announced he had recorded demos for a possible solo album and that he might make them available to fans if they were interested. The response was strong, and several fans went so far as to create social media pages lobbying for the release of Draper's recordings. In 2014, Draper appeared at a Mansun fan convention, and those in attendance heard a new track from him, "Feeling My Heart Run Slow." Two years later, Draper announced that he had signed with Kscope Records, and that he would be bringing out his first solo release, EP One, in June 2016. He returned in the summer of 2017 with his first full-length effort, Spooky Action, recorded with Catherine AD (The Anchoress) and longtime Mansun collaborator P-Dub. Draper embarked on a nationwide tour in support of the album, featuring Catherine AD as part of the live ensemble.

This album contains no booklet.