Paul Banks (musician, born 1973)

Paul Banks
Paul Banks performing with Shed Seven at the V Festival, Weston Park, 2008
Background information
Born	(1973-07-06) 6 July 1973 (age 44) York, England
Genres	Alternative rock Britpop Indie rock
Instruments	Guitar
Years active	1986–Present
Labels	Polydor (1993–1999)
Associated acts	Shed Seven The Rising Albion

Paul Banks (born 6 July 1973 in York, England) is an English musician, songwriter and lead guitarist with the rock band, Shed Seven.

Paul Banks formed his first band with schoolfriend Rick Witter in 1986, while still in his teens, and went on to play in other local bands, including Brockley Haven, with Witter, Tom Gladwin and John Leach.

Banks joined Witter, Gladwin and John's brother, drummer Alan Leach in Shed Seven just before they gained their first record deal with Polydor Records in 1993, replacing Joe Johnson as their lead guitarist. He spent the next six years recording and touring with the band. Banks became known for his distinctive, dramatic riffs and catchy tunes, and from 1993–1999 he co-wrote many of the band's most popular songs, with fourteen consecutive hits in the UK including "Chasing Rainbows", "Going for Gold" and “She Left Me on Friday”. The band's third album Let It Ride with all music composed by Banks to Witter's lyrics, spawned four singles which all reached the Top 40 of the UK Singles Chart.

In 1999 the record company asked Banks to write a new lead single for Shed Seven's "Greatest Hits" album, Going For Gold. The song, "Disco Down", later became a Top 20 hit, but Banks was becoming increasingly unhappy with the lack of originality in the music he was expected to write and perform. In an interview in 2002, he said:

I spent about two weeks, and I wrote a song called "Disco Down", that was just complete to a formula. "Right, that'll do, there's your single." And the record company creamed themselves when they heard it. It was like, "I can't do this any more." I was writing it, and I could see the video, and I could see the front cover of the single, and it was just complete formula. There was no soul in it...

Going For Gold – The Greatest Hits reached number 7 in the UK Albums Chart, but by the time Shed Seven finally left Polydor in 1999, Banks had already decided to leave the band.

The last straw was the Greatest Hits album….I can honestly say that I sold myself short for the last six months...I thought it was better to just stop it and move on.