“Hello? It’s The Music Magazine here… we had an interview scheduled for this morning?”

“Oh… I forgot. I’m still in bed. Can I phone you back later?”

Welcome to the chaotic lifestyle of the Paddingtons. Shaggy haired, predominantly unshaven and with the occasional missing tooth, the rough and ready punk rockers from Hull live up to every aspect of the grot and role scene. They’ve had whirlwind highs (dalliances with supermodels) and down-spiralling lows (guitarist Marv suffered from a gruesome hand injury and eventually left the band for good earlier this year) – and emanate a ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude throughout. The Paddingtons bask in a glorious lack of routine, but like their good friend Peter Doherty – a serial no-show when it comes to interviews – their elusiveness only makes them more intriguing. And they’re really quite nice boys, as TMM found out when we finally sat down for a proper chat a few hours later than scheduled…

Are you feeling a bit worse for wear today, Tom?
No – last night was the first night of the UK tour but it was quite civilised! We’re still catching up on rest after the European tour. We went mad over there and it was non-stop: just staying up to early hours of the morning, drinking and partying with friends around the world – the usual.

Any on-tour anecdotes you’d care to share?
I’ve got quite a few stories but I can’t tell them… Let’s just say we all drank a LOT of Jagermeister and things happened which aren’t suitable for the press. There is one tame story which is quite funny… We got stopped by the police in Germany. I was in the passenger seat, texting on my phone, and our tour manager was driving. The police had gone by and thought I was driving while using the phone, because we were in an English van and over there the steering wheel is on the other side of the vehicle. Even when they came to the window they didn’t notice they’d made a mistake – they were still telling me off and I was like, “Mate, there’s no fucking steering wheel in front of me”. We all laughed at them and I think it made the guy feel a bit small, because he then got his colleagues to search our van. He wasted a lot of our time and in the end just made himself look like a tit.

If we were to gain a sneak peak into the Paddingtons’ tour van, what would we find?
Utter squalor. It’s actually quite tidy right now because our tour manager cleaned it before we set off on tour, but it’s gonna be filthy before too long.

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The Paddingtons: Stand Down

How do you keep yourselves entertained on tour?
The band watch a lot of movies. Our bass player is really into Star Wars. I prefer to listen to music: I’ve just got the new Cribs album and the Julian Cassablancas record, and both are brilliant. I love Weezer too and have been listening to a lot of their stuff recently. We’ve also been playing this new card game someone taught us called Shithead. It’s quite fun – a good way to pass the time on long journeys.

The Paddingtons have a very loyal fan base – how do you handle groupies?
We’re just friendly guys from the North of England. We take it pretty well… (laughs)

Tell us about the newly released single; Shame About Elle.
It’s about a goldfish. Josh and I used to live in a flat together and we had this fish which we took pictures of all the time. It’s kind of weird but we were in a weird place in our lives at the time. Josh wrote about it and we released the single as a free download because we’re generous guys.

Peter Doherty name-checked the Paddingtons as his favourite band – what do you think of him?
Peter is a massive influence on all of us. He’s been a good mate for years. We actually bumped into him in Munich recently so we had a bit of a party in his hotel room and played him some new songs.

What’s coming up for the Paddingtons in 2010?
The songs we were playing to Peter are on our five track EP which is out in February. The main track is a duet with Adam Green (of the Moldy Peaches) called Ladyboy. We were partying with him in London and we were all pretty wasted, but we came up with this song and it sounded really good. We’re releasing it with four other new tracks, then after that there’ll be an album out. Recently we’ve just been rehearsing so 2009 has been a quiet year, but 2010 is going to be a riot.

For tour dates and to download the new single, visit www.thepaddingtons.net.