He’s an acclaimed actor and director, but Paddy Considine’s first and enduring passion is music – and on his band’s new album he’s confronting the ghosts of his childhood
Were you to pass a small house on an estate in Burton upon Trent some time in the early 80s, you may have seen a young boy standing at the top right-hand window, singing and dancing with all he had. “I’d put Adam and the Ants on a record player,” remembers Paddy Considine, “and perform Stand and Deliver.” Occasionally, someone passing would look up and acknowledge him. “That’s all I wanted. Some sort of validation. I wanted to be seen.” Considine smiles. “I wasn’t a showoff – it sounds contradictory, but I just wanted to be seen, you know.” Years later, he would become an acclaimed actor, but music is where it all started.
Considine’s band, Riding the Low, are about to release their third album. Even some 16 years and numerous pub gigs in, Considine is still wary of it being perceived as the vanity project of an actor known for indie greats such as Dead Man’s Shoes, a few Hollywood films, the lead in the TV drama The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, and the show that should surpass them all, in terms of mainstream attention, the forthcoming Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. “I knew that there’d be a sort of cynicism around it.” But he doesn’t care, and he doesn’t need anyone’s permission, he says. “I’m doing it because I love it.”
