YESTERDAY

Parents  - Dad - John Joseph; a Member of the Guild of Sommeliers  - Mam  - Ronnie Sloane (stage name) accordianist, Drummer and Sax player in Archie's Juvenille Band. In the early 1940's was lead tenor sax player in the Ivy Benson All Girls Band, and later on third of the Sloan Sisters  - with her two sisters. Grandmother Beatrice, was a comedienne and singer, Grandad was comic Tom E.Sloane - individually and as a family they toured the provincial theatres with some of the greats of variety.

The picture shows the Ivy Benson All Girls Band - Ronnie is on Ivy's left (5th from right - front row) 

Paul has two sisters - Leeanne O'Neill, a TV actress and writer, and Carol O'Neill - a comedienne (as was her Grandmother), so all in all a 'showbiz' start with a musical/variety family.
This carries on with Paul's own children Matt, Rachael and Victoria.

Both girls and Paul play in their own band "The O'Neills", Rachael on lead and backing vocals, drums and keyboard, Victoria on Lead and backing vocals, flute, sax and keyboards, Paul on drums, guitar, vocals and keyboards. Matt has played percussion on some of Paul's early recordings and fancies himself as a bit of a Sax player, though he never plays in public!, and Pauls neice, Claire Benjamin -  is currently playing theatres all over the capital with her amazing comic act.

Paul's career in music began when he started writing songs at the tender age of 8 banging away on the old Crane & Sons piano in Kent Street Bolton (he still has the song drafts). He first joined a band at 12 with some old gits who played at the Rock Hotel on Duke Street, and became their drummer - some 30 years between him and the youngest members of the band. Then a stint with a band called Reaction - fronted by a school friend - Mick Marco. Paul was (unjustly) sacked from Reaction, and then went on the hunt for people to form a band. After meeting Derek Austin and Ian Boulton Smith in 1968 - he  found his soul mates. The trio had various additional members and various names but in 1970 settled on the name 'Iron Maiden' (see www.theboltonironmaiden.com for more historical (or hysterical) details. Alongside Iron Maiden in 1974, (for a bit of a laugh) they created a 1950's Rock and Roll band called "Teenagers in Love". Teenagers actually did rather well and cut a single - "Teenager In Love" c/w "20 Flight Rock"

After Ian's untimely death from testicular cancer in 1976 - Paul and his family moved into Cambridgeshire where they remain to this day.

In the late 70's - Paul joined up with old "Teenagers" singer Paul Neon, and formed "Red Hot", featuring Dave Taylor on Piano, Brian & Sara Sage and Trevor Dutton.

Paul and Paul Neon then met ex DC 5 guitarist Lenny Davidson and formed a really great Rock and Roll band  called Paul Neon and The Highlights, adding Chris Ingham on bass. 'The Blackjacks' followed - a 1950's Doo Wop outfit who made some recordings in the early 80's and an acetate single of "Hey Good Lookin" and "Mona Lisa" on Dingle Records. (try and find that one!)   A pop band followed called "AIRPORT" featured guitarists Paul Browse and Martin Lewis

The guys met composer Mike Maxwell in 1981 and recorded 3 songs for release as a single - sadly - Mike never got the deal he deserved. Later they teamed up with Lenny Davidson again and Paul's  brother-in-law - singer Steve Mathews and bassist Jay Hartop, and formed a number of bands who played pubs and clubs in the Home Counties area - "Good Little Boys" (well...they were all under 5'8") and "It's a Secret"  - the secret being no one knew who Len was - including the band!

During all this time, Paul has constantly been composing his own music, trying to get a deal. On advice from Mark Rowles at Chappell Music - he started to write for other people. Some chances came so close to a deal he could taste them - but twice the deal was cancelled at the last minute. So Paul stuck to his guns and wrote his own music. He always felt it was a shame when you wrote a song, but it just was not good enough to make a chart song - so he got the idea to write whole albums of stuff, and in some instances, make them into a "concept" - and a natural progression was to start writing musicals - a great way of using songs that were odd or strange - but gave them an outlet. To date - Paul has well over 150 songs - not including the musicals.