Gigshack interviews Dan Jennings author of the new book - Paul Weller Dancing Through the Fire
Story by Matthew Murray
19 Sep 2025
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing broadcaster, podcaster and author Dan Jennings following the release of his first book. Celebrating the life and career of Paul Weller the book is inspired by Dans’ hit podcast, ‘Paul Weller Fan Podcast’.
The book, launched at a packed London event, weaves together stories from Weller’s family, bandmates and collaborators to create an oral history of the music legend.
Dan, who seemed genuinely delighted to find himself an author, told me how stormy weather and a tube strike on the day of the launch failed to dampen proceedings admitting that he was stunned by the turnout.
Describing the event he told me:-
“It was packed, John Wilson from BBC Radio 4 interviewed me, we had this amazing panel with Andy MacDonald from Go Discs, Malcolm Gerrie from The Tube, sax and flute player in the Weller band, Jacko Peake, Weller’s manager Claire Moon, and Nigel ‘Spanner’ Sweeney who plugged The Jam and Style Council. Contributors from across Weller’s career came along too. It was an adrenaline rush.”
Jennings has transformed years of interviews into what he described to me as “a massive jigsaw puzzle” — an oral history told by those closest to Weller, from family and bandmates to industry insiders. The idea for the book, he revealed, came directly from the Modfather himself (more about that later)
Dan explained to me how his journey to this moment began in 1992, when, still at school, he first saw Weller perform his single ‘Uh Huh Oh Yeh’ on Top of the Pops:
“I thought I’d discovered a brand new artist,” he laughed. “It was only when the builders at our house told me to check out The Jam and handed me a cassette of Snap! that I realised there was a lot more to it. Then later on also discovered that there was this other band, the Style Council. So it's amazing you've got this whole experience of kind of diving in and just all this incredible back catalogue, which is mad, you know”.
So starting from the first Paul Weller album going backwards and then he’s been able to go forwards with him.
I asked Dan about his favourite albums from Weller, The Jam or The Style Council:-
“I bounce around a lot because I've kind of listened to everything and it does depend on the mood a lot. I think probably the album I play most is Setting Sons and I've always loved that. I don't think there's a bad track on it. Sons would have been the fourth album, so it would have been after All Mod Cons where you've kind of had that period where they rejected Weller's album or rejected Weller's songs, told him he had to go back and do better.”
“I do like All Mod Cons. I think that's a great album, but Setting Sons for me is just brilliant. Style council though, I really love all of it actually and I really like the Orange album which is quite controversial. Nobody does. I guess I the one I play a lot is Confessions. I think Confessions of Pop group is really great. I love that.”
“And then solo, I do bounce all over the place because there's so much of it. I listen to Wildwood a lot because I really loved that album when it came out and I've always listened to that a lot. But I go through periods where I cane 22 dreams, Wake up the nation, and Sonic kicks as a kind of trilogy because I like that real kind of chaos. And what's the word? Esoteric, I guess. It's so intense and sprawling, and I love all that”
I asked him about what made him start the podcast:-
“It was a mixture of things really. So I was a radio broadcaster for a long period of time, probably about 17 years. Basically all I ever did as a kid was listen to music and or played a bit of football. But listen to music and listen to the radio and just fell in love with the format and what the guys were doing on radio.”
“What was that show? Round at Chris's. That's right. And it was just, again, so anarchic and brilliant. And I don't know what music he played. I don't even know that Chris Evans is that interested in music really properly. But he was like, it was just really funny and it just felt like the best job ever. So I wanted to do that. I knew I wanted to do that.”
“I started hospital radio when I was 15 in Somerset in Taunton. I got work experience at the BBC in Somerset and I worked my way up, got a full-time job at the BBC in Bristol and then they trained me up to be a journalist and a producer and a presenter.”
“I then made a bit of a detour and went to commercial radio and I did breakfast shows for a time as well, so I just loved it. It was brilliant but then it got to the point at the end where I just fell out of love with it because the programme directors were kind of saying you need to talk about reality TV. Big Brother had just started. You have to talk about reality TV every morning.”
“They wanted ‘more music, less talk’. There was a link that was 10 seconds, a speed link they call it. And I did 13 seconds and the programme director had a go at me for it. I was too long and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. This is crap.”
So after a detour into other radio roles aways from presenting for a number of years, and being frustrated that Paul was rarely interviewed by anyone with any real insight (Gary Crowley and Jo Wiley aside) he returned to presenting ,this time as a podcaster.
He launched The Paul Weller Fan Podcast in 2020 during lockdown. What began as a fan project grew into 180 episodes and an international following, culminating in an interview with Weller himself for the Christmas 2023 finale.
When I asked him how the book came about, Jennings happily recalled a chance meeting with Weller. It was at a Hannah Peel gig where Weller, who was aware of the popular podcast, urged Jennings to turn the archive into a book.
In the beer garden outside at the back of the venue Paul approached Dan:-
“Oh, hi, it's Dan, isn't it? And he knew who I was, which was mental. We started talking, and he talks about the podcast. He's like, yeah, it's incredible what you're doing. I can't believe like, you've done this many episodes and who you've spoken to. And he's like, it's amazing. You've got to turn into a book”
Dan managed to convince Weller to join him for the Christmas Special podcast and following that episode publishers quickly came calling. With the help of agent Tim Bates, Jennings explained to me how he shaped the material into a narrative that begins with Weller’s childhood in Woking and runs right through to the present day.
I asked Dan what his favorite bits from the book were, some of those included tales from his earlier years:-
“Hearing about the sacrifices his parents made, like pawning things so Paul could get a guitar, or putting the family’s home phone number in the NME so fans could ring up. It’s those little details that show the human side of the journey.”
The book is already topping Amazon’s music charts, with Jennings admitting the reaction has been overwhelming:
“When you create something, you hope people like it — but you don’t know until it’s out there. Seeing photos of people holding it, independent shops stocking it… it’s been amazing and, honestly, emotional.”
Alongside celebrating Weller, Jennings remains passionate about music more broadly. He credits Weller with introducing him to artists like Gwenno and Kathryn Williams, but his tastes range from reggae and dub producers like Lee “Scratch” Perry and Adrian Sherwood to rock acts such as Stereophonics and Squeeze, whom he recently saw at the Royal Albert Hall.
I enjoyed chatting to Dan and we were laughing how, with a bit more musical talent, we would both have liked to have been up on stage. Dan told me about buying an electric guitar in lockdown but never having the time to learn properly. He, however, has no plans to stop exploring music through stories. With talk of a potential book tour next year, the project that started under lockdown shows no signs of slowing down.