Paul William Shears was born April 22, 1944 in Liverpool to a mother whose husband would be shipped into the Royal Army only a few months later. He was among the many Britons to be killed in the first wave of D-Day in June.
Paul grew up in a middle class flat in Liverpool with his mother and a myriad of different suitors. In school, he didn’t necessarily fit into the rigid structure and was often caught making trouble and acting out. He ended up barely passing high school and getting a job at the docks after graduation. At nights, however…
Throughout school, Paul had developed a deep interest in music. He would sneak away from home at night to go to the various clubs and see the Mersey Sound take shape before him. By 1961, the time he was 17, Paul was starting to write his own songs.
In 1966, at the age of 22, Paul met Larry Harris, Peter Ross, and Timothy Waters one night at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It was there that The Lonely Club, which would eventually become one of the world’s most popular bands, was formed.
The band played publicly together for the first time in 1967, putting out their first eponymous album in 1968, and popularity took off. The mixture of Larry’s guitar and Paul’s haunting lyrics made them a smash hit on both sides of the pond. It was at the advice of their producer, Harold Gilson, that Paul took up a stage name—the band was drawing comparisons with the Beatles, and Paul needed to separate himself from the famous Paul McCartney. Hence, the famous “Billy” Shears was born.
Billy Shears and the Lonely Club shot to the top. Their second album, Peppers, was a critical and commercial success. The band started to live the good life—cocaine, LSD, lots and lots of girls…it didn’t exactly have the best effect.
In 1970, while recording their third album (A Hole in the Roof), Billy became more and more erratic. On April 24th of that year, while in the middle of recording one of the tracks, Billy started to act erratically and burst of the studio. He never returned.
For the rest of his adult life, Billy (or, as he called himself again, Paul) became a hermit. He moved back to his Liverpool home and wrote pages and pages of music that no one would hear. As the Lonely Club moved onto fame and fortune, Paul remained…alone. His only contact for several years was his cousin, Margaret, who lived close by.
In early 2006, however, Margaret passed away and Paul was forced to fend on his own. For the first time in over 30 years, he wandered away from his home and started to spend time outside England, holing up in various private suites across Europe and then across Asia—dragging most of his unshared music with him.
In April 2007, Paul boarded a cheap cargo vessel to cross the Pacific...when it was suddenly and tragically lost at sea. The music community mourned the loss of one of its most brilliant songwriters and his brief yet bright career.
In reality, however...
Name: Paul William Shears
Found in oceans and seas around the world, Humpback Whales spend the summer months feeding in polar waters before migrating to warmer waters to breed in the winter. They are regularly sought out by whale-watchers on various parts of the coastline of Australia and the United States. Like other large whales, the Humpback has been a target for the whaling industry and it is estimated that its population was reduced by up to 90% due to hunting that continued until a moratorium was introduced in 1966.
