WHO/WHAT ARE/IS SPACEHOTEL? Paul Timson was born in the mid 1970s in the city of Coventry, England. His love of music started around the age of 5, listening to his parent’s records such as The Bee Gees, ELO, T-Rex, Queen and The Police. In the early 1980’s he became a fan of Duran Duran, a band who were born just a few miles away from Paul’s home town in the Midlands. They have remained one of his biggest influences, especially their earlier music between 1981 and 1985 (from ’Planet Earth’ to Arcadia!). Paul first started playing keyboards and Piano around the age of 11 inspired mainly by Nick Rhodes and this led to a series of ’instrumental synth albums’ with handmade covers. Though they still exist they are best left unheard! :) Paul started writing songs with lyrics around the age of 16 but it was his first serious attempts under the name “Outsider” in his early 20’s where he started creating songs he hoped others would enjoy too. In 1995 Paul had been greatly motivated by an aftershow meeting at the Sheffield Leadmill with one of his favourite musicians, Damon Albarn of Blur. During a long conversation, Paul asked Damon if he had any songwriting tips, Damon, serious but with a smile, simply said: “yeah, write songs!”. Obvious but inspirational advice. Paul started using guitars around 1996 Inspired by bands like Mansun, Blur and Supergrass, having previously created mostly synthesizer based songs. Mansun had a big influence on the sound of Paul’s music from 1997 onwards.