Paul Thorn: preacher’s son, former professional middleweight boxer, and commentator on life.
Most people probably haven’t heard him on the radio stations-yet.
A Tupelo native, Thorn has made a name for himself in North Mississippi and Tennessee by, what one friend said, being totally honest.
In conversations, Thorn is laid back and comical. He talks with a North Mississippi trailer park dialect in which words can take minutes. When he sings, he has more soul than a jar of pickled pig’s feet.
Thorn said he was influenced as a child by Pentecostal tent revivals led by his father.
“One thing good about growing up in a Pentecostal church is they mix rock and gospel into really good music and the whole experience of the service has a lot of soul to it,” thorn said. “Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America, but we used to visit black churches.”
He said, however, that he gradually began to drift away from show and spectacle of the revivals.
After taking a longer look at the world, he said he began to disagree with the philosophy of, what he calls, “big business religion.”
“Preachers talk about tolerance, but they have the mindset of inviting people in and making them into what they want them to be,” Thorn said.
“I always heard that homosexuality was a sin, an ugly thing,” Thorn added. “But now, I think people are born that way. I had a friend who wanted to play beauty pageant instead of cowboys and Indians if you know what I mean. He and I are still friends, just not like that.”
Thorn mixes serious topics with comical ones in his song. Although he sings some heartfelt ballads, others like “Joanie the Jehovah’s Witness Stripper,” and “Burn Down the Trailer Park,” are a bit more on the comical side.
Thorn said he tries to write his songs so that everyone can understand them.
“I try to make it where everyone gets it, like my song, “Burn Down The Trailer Park”(about a promiscuous wife),” thorn said. “Everyone has been in a bad mood, but not mad enough to do that.”
Longtime friend Charlie Confer said he thinks Thorn is genuine.
“He didn’t create his character, it’s just naturally who he is,” Confer said.
Before Thorn took up music, he tried his hand as a professional boxer. A middleweight, he fought four-time middleweight champion Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran in 1987.
“I didn’t win the fight, but few that entered the ring with Duran did,” Thorn said on his Web site.
Thorn also paints from time to time, using his art to speak out against social injustices.
One of Thorn’s paintings features intolerant toy rabbits shouting insults and slurs at homosexual aliens.
Thorn plays often in North Mississippi, having played Columbus and the Elvis Presley Festival in Tupelo in May.