We talk with the Squeeze co-founder as the group prepares to go full circle headlining a festival in Blackheath – the place where it all began
BY BEN WEST
If there’s one band that fits headlining the ONBlackheath Festival more than any other, it’s Squeeze. An advert in a Blackheath sweet shop got them together, they grew up in and around Blackheath, hung out, wrote songs and rehearsed there, and the neighbourhood even features in some of their songs.
Founding members Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook – who as a songwriting team have been compared to Lennon and McCartney – first met in 1973. Over the following 45 years they have played everywhere from Madison Square Garden to the Glastonbury main stage, and have released 15 studio albums (as well as numerous solo ones) that spawned some of the most enduring and best-loved songs of our time such as Up The Junction, Tempted, Cool For Cats and Labelled With Love. At their peak they were selling 30,000 records a week.
I caught up with Grammy-nominated and double Ivor Novello award-winning Difford as his 2017 autobiography Some Fantastic Place: My Life In and Out of Squeeze, is published in paperback this summer.
It takes him from childhood in Combe Avenue, Blackheath, forming one of Britain’s most loved bands and then travelling the world, help from Elton John with his addictions, ending up as Bryan Ferry’s chauffeur, and much more. The immensely readable and very honest book is, for a local, especially enjoyable due to its many references to southeast London.
“One of my all time favourite memories of Blackheath was wandering around it as a young teenager, pretending to be in a band, and humming songs that I had made up as I walked across the heath, in a dream-like state,” he says during a sushi lunch in Brighton, close to his home in the Sussex countryside. “I have very happy memories of just being on my own, fuelled by my imagination.
“Those memories eventually led me to be in a band, and so all that daydreaming became a reality and I’ve spent the last couple of years reflecting on what happened. Writing the book helped me realise what those dreams were and what they became. I think I’m very fortunate to have had the experience to write a book, to open up the pores of my imagination to find out about what it was about that young person who wanted to be in rock and roll band, and what that journey was like. But I’m not too dissimilar to anybody else who’s fooling around like that. I used to think I was special and unique but I’m not, everybody who has been in a band has experienced similar things to myself.”
When he put that 50p advertisement in a newsagent’s window in Blackheath Village that caused Glenn to respond, Difford lied that he had a record deal and tour lined up. Does he ever feel guilty about lying in the ad?
“No, I don’t regret it, because it resulted in my meeting Glenn. Ultimately, my life has been defined by that one meeting. Meeting Glenn and meeting Jools Holland, and forming a band. It has been the story of my life and why I’m sitting in a sushi bar in Brighton having lunch today. God knows what I would have been doing instead. I had to lie to kind of make sense of what I was doing.”
I tell him that the story goes that Tom Robinson did exactly the same thing, saying he had a tour and deal lined up in an ad, to lure a decent band.
“Really? I never knew that.”
Over the years Chris has co-written with a number of musicians and performers, including Lamont Dozier, Elton John, Trilok Gurtu, Marti Pellow, Bryan Ferry and past Squeeze members Jools Holland and Paul Carrack. He talks in the book about a period where he managed other acts, such as Bryan Ferry and The Strypes.
“I really enjoyed it. At that point Squeeze had gone in two different directions. I had spare time on my hands and the opportunity fell into my lap. I didn’t receive commission, I never take a commission when I manage, I took a wage. I was just there for them, like a brother. Like someone they could call, or hang out with. It may sound simple but it was hugely complicated, you’ve got to deal with peoples’ egos, their needs, and sometimes those requirements can be enormous.
“I always believed in giving back something. I also give songwriting workshops, teaching and mentoring. It’s about giving back the information I’ve been given in my life to people who want to write songs. I can’t teach people how to write a song but I can say this is what it was like for me.”
Doe he prefer writing or playing music?
“If I had the money I would write all the time. If I could afford to stand still I would just write. Just write at home, with my laptop, write lyrics, short stories. And just be that guy I still dream about really, that guy who just sits at his desk every morning and writes songs. But that’s not going to happen. Not for a while yet.
“I used to not like performing, but now I love it. I used to find it quite a struggle. I just didn’t have the confidence, and I was overshadowed by the confidence of everybody else. You know, Glenn, Jools, Paul Carrack. They were like the lead players in the band for me and I was just the guy who wrote the lyrics and played rhythm guitar. I stood at the back but now I’m at the front.”
How do fans interact with you?
“People can be very curious. I did a house concert recently, and I went to this couple’s house and they actually had cushions made with images of my face on them. And they had posters, and they had imagery on the television. There were about a dozen people there, their friends, and I sat there and played my songs. They were all really curious to discuss my life and what it was like for me to be in a band. I felt so grateful to have been asked to do something so special and so simple as sit in someone’s living room and tell them what I do. It’s just as important doing that as playing the Albert Hall.”
Do you think people have no idea of the reality of being a musician, that it’s not all five star hotels and limousines?
“Yes, for the most part people think you arrive in a spaceship, you slide down a chute into a beautiful backstage area with lovely sofas and flowers and champagne and sushi, and then you mince around onstage and are then sucked up back into the spaceship at the end of the night and then you go off to your planet that is like a desert island surrounded by mints and fresh fish and dandelions. That’s what I like to think when I see bands. But I know it’s not true, because every dressing room I’ve been in in the last five years has been absolute shit. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.”
Difford’s book gives a good indication of how the music industry has changed over the years.
“I remember a joyous time when I was young getting a 53 bus from Blackheath to London to queue up to get the latest Allman Brothers album and then I’d go all the way home, go up the stairs to my little room, turn the record player on and play the whole album. And that build up was everything really, it was so exciting. That’s now gone, everything’s so instant now, and music probably suffers for it. And that shared discussion over the latest releases has all gone now too.
“I’ve just been doing a book tour and people just don’t buy CDs any more. You almost have to go on the road with souvenirs, become like a museum or something. Now you have to work twice as hard just to stand still. The royalty cheques used to be enormous. Now you have to work twice as hard. I don’t mind that, I enjoy the work, but…
“I’m not moaning about it [how streamed music royalties have greatly reduced income compared to the old record and CD sales], I accept it. Life changes and I go with the change.
“The audiences I’ve been playing to, they love a story and so for me whenever I tour on my own it has to be story-based, almost like a musical out on the road. I tell my life and play a few songs, tell more stories than play songs. In the future I can’t imagine going on the road without having a story to tell, whether it’s mine or someone else’s.”
What things is he most proud of?
“So many things, from having children to touring the world. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved as a band. It was a dream to play on Blackheath and that’s come true a couple of times now. That makes me proud being on the stage there because I can be on stage overlooking Greenwich, and Greenwich Park, where I grew up, and imagine what my parents would have felt if they had been alive to see me play. It would have been extraordinary for them. I’m also proud of how many songs we’ve written and how good they are, and the quality of the songwriting. Largely Glenn has to take credit for that because he has either produced them or pushed the band’s boundaries to make Squeeze what it is. He is much more focused on how the song should be recorded and completed, and he makes a good job of it. We’ve reached a level that would be difficult to rise above.”
As Chris gets up to leave, he reflects on his past again: “Blackheath was a great area to grow up in. I’m so lucky to have lived there. We had some open space but essentially it was the city. You couldn’t see Canary Wharf in those days, the Isle of Dogs really was like an island. I romanticise about it a bit, but the fact that Squeeze grew out of that environment is a great thing, very lucky for that to happen. I think I had the best years in the 1970s in Greenwich and Blackheath.”
This article appeared in the Autumn 2018 issue of Black + Green
