Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sitts Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Chris Clipper Squeeze. Chris Well. So
Speaker 1: wonderful to be here. Okay, So where are you right
Speaker 1: this very second? I'm in my garden shed and and
Speaker 1: it's just blissed to be here. It's it's a kind
Speaker 1: of spiritual place for me to be. Okay, So your shed,
Speaker 1: which I can see, But this is an audio podcast.
Speaker 1: To what degreek can you do recording there? Well? I
Speaker 1: don't because as primarily as a lyricist, I leave all
Speaker 1: the recording to the clever people. Um, so I sit
Speaker 1: here and do what I can do. So I've been
Speaker 1: doing in lockdown zoom concerts and I've been doing um
Speaker 1: songwriting tutorials. Today I had sixteen people on my screen. Um.
Speaker 1: We were working on different songs together. It was it
Speaker 1: was kind of weird but fun. Okay, how did you
Speaker 1: decide to do the tutorials? Well, I've been running songwriting
Speaker 1: camps for twenty six years. I first started Miles Copeland's
Speaker 1: Castle in ninety one I think it was, and when
Speaker 1: I drove home from France having been at his retreat,
Speaker 1: which I loved it was fun. I just thought it
Speaker 1: was a bit bit sort of type. You know, everybody
Speaker 1: had to be involved in his company. So I came
Speaker 1: home and I found a really big house in the country.
Speaker 1: I rented it with E. M. I Publishing, and we
Speaker 1: got Lamont Dozier and we got Kirsty McCool and we
Speaker 1: got sugs and Grand Gordman in the house along with
Speaker 1: lots of other great people and we just sat and
Speaker 1: wrote songs. And I've been doing it ever ever since.
Speaker 1: Is it lucrative. No, I never get paid for it.
Speaker 1: I just did it because I love it, and I
Speaker 1: love putting people together, and I love hearing the songs.
Speaker 1: And have any successful financially commercially songs emerged from any
Speaker 1: of these camps, well, not so much that, but more
Speaker 1: the sort of friendships. Like Kathy Dennis was one of
Speaker 1: the first people to come, and she ended up writing
Speaker 1: with Kylie Minogan. She's got a multimillion pound publishing deal
Speaker 1: and I don't, so she probably she probably write the
Speaker 1: right songs and I didn't. But it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's about friendships and about people that you meet and
Speaker 1: about the songs that you write. After the week you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of just like being in re rehab. And
Speaker 1: to what degree can you teach songwriting? You can't. You
Speaker 1: can't at all. That's what I found out. But but
Speaker 1: what but what you can do is just put people
Speaker 1: in a room and say to them, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: the project, and you know, make make cups of tea
Speaker 1: and just hope that people can cross polony. I think
Speaker 1: that's the word that I would use, and they they do.
Speaker 1: So the people that I've been working with this week
Speaker 1: are all sponsored by Help Musicians, which is a charity.
Speaker 1: So these they're all musicians that are out of work.
Speaker 1: These are people that are struggling and they're eager to
Speaker 1: do something different because they've been locked down for three months.
Speaker 1: So they come on the screen and I give them
Speaker 1: various projects, and I put them in groups and they
Speaker 1: go off and write songs and it's just amazing to
Speaker 1: hear what they come back with. You know, it's just brilliant.
Speaker 1: And what might the assignment be? Well, the assignment? The
Speaker 1: first one that I do is I asked them to
Speaker 1: get a photograph from their house, choose a photograph, bring
Speaker 1: it to the screen, show me the photograph, and then
Speaker 1: I asked them to look at the photograph and take
Speaker 1: it as inspiration for a lyric, and then they go
Speaker 1: off for the day and then they come back with
Speaker 1: a completed lyric based around the photograph that they've seen.
Speaker 1: And I only know that it works because when I
Speaker 1: wrote a song called label would Love for the East
Speaker 1: Side Story album, it was inspired by Cartier Bresson autograph
Speaker 1: that I saw in a book around that apparent one,
Speaker 1: I think. And so these what about the music side
Speaker 1: of it? Well, the music side is really up to them,
Speaker 1: what what they bring to the table. Some people are
Speaker 1: very basic in the way that they recalled and that's great.
Speaker 1: And yet there are a couple of producers that have
Speaker 1: been online today and they come back with almost the
Speaker 1: finished product. And I'm sitting here with my chin on
Speaker 1: the floor thinking, how do these guys do it? It's
Speaker 1: just amazing. I just feel like a lazy sod, you know,
Speaker 1: But it's just brilliant the way they do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: and you have done how many since covid era? I'm
Speaker 1: on my fifth week? Wow? Wow? So now you're located
Speaker 1: near Brighton? Yeah, I'm about ten miles east of Brighton
Speaker 1: in the South Downs. Next to right next to a
Speaker 1: place called Charleston, and did you end up in that area? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a bit of a tale. I
Speaker 1: was in a deep dark place and I read a
Speaker 1: book this was how long ago were you in this
Speaker 1: dark place? Ten years ago? And it's one of my
Speaker 1: many dark holes that I've been in, but this one
Speaker 1: was pretty dark. And I had read a book by
Speaker 1: a vicar called Peter Owen Jones, and I went to
Speaker 1: Brighton to hear him read from his book at the
Speaker 1: bookshop and I queued up with the book to get
Speaker 1: him to sign it. It was a very inspirational read
Speaker 1: and when I met him, I said, I'd really like
Speaker 1: to have one to one council with you. So he
Speaker 1: invited me to the village that I now live in,
Speaker 1: and I sat with him for forty five minutes and
Speaker 1: just spoke about how I felt, and he didn't say
Speaker 1: a word. He just had a little cigarette on the go.
Speaker 1: And then he turned to me and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: well I think you need. It's community and what I
Speaker 1: think he needed somewhere to live. And we walked outside
Speaker 1: of his house just down the road and we walked
Speaker 1: into a house and he said you will live here,
Speaker 1: and is that the house you're in exactly? So that
Speaker 1: begs the question, to what degree are you integrated in
Speaker 1: the community. Well, I've done lots of shows to raise
Speaker 1: money for the roof of the church. I love the
Speaker 1: community community here. It's a really special place. It's been
Speaker 1: here since Henry the eighth time. This this particular village.
Speaker 1: It's got the lord of the manor, but it's also
Speaker 1: got the baker, you know, and it's also got the
Speaker 1: pub and the post office. It's very gentle and it's
Speaker 1: kind of completely different from being on a tour bus.
Speaker 1: And that's why I like it. I think let's go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning, speaking of the church, or you
Speaker 1: will believer? Am I a believer like the monkeys? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I suppose I am a believer in something. I'm a
Speaker 1: believer in fate and unbeliever in in love, and I'm
Speaker 1: a believer of commitment, I guess. But it's taken a
Speaker 1: long time for that to happen. So I must admit
Speaker 1: I don't find that much fulfillment from a lot of interactions.
Speaker 1: Do you find yourself getting fulfilled by talking to the banker,
Speaker 1: baker in the other shop? People and do you see
Speaker 1: any of these people outside of their work context. Not really.
Speaker 1: I mean I sort of come and go to the
Speaker 1: village because I'm up. Until just recently, obviously I was
Speaker 1: on the road all the time, so for instance, this year,
Speaker 1: I would have been away for five or six months.
Speaker 1: So to actually be at home in the village and
Speaker 1: to get to know each other, there is a kind
Speaker 1: of new experience for us all, and we all cover
Speaker 1: for each other. It's kind of a lockdown village, and
Speaker 1: I have to say it's like being what I would
Speaker 1: imagine it would have been like in the set and
Speaker 1: World War. One of the things at the beginning of
Speaker 1: Lockdown that was quite odd was there was no sound
Speaker 1: of airplanes in the sky because they stopped flying off obviously,
Speaker 1: and whenever there was a plane, people would run into
Speaker 1: the garden to see what it was. It was like,
Speaker 1: So I can imagine that must have been like that
Speaker 1: in the Second World War. You see a plane, you
Speaker 1: run outside, you think, what is that? Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to the deep dark spaces. It's just something that
Speaker 1: you've noticed throughout your lifetime. Yeah, I've been I tripped
Speaker 1: myself up from time to time. It's been my own
Speaker 1: for my own journey, and I wouldn't have it any
Speaker 1: other way, I guess, you know. The thing that I
Speaker 1: wanted most when I was a teenager was to be
Speaker 1: in a band. My parents didn't want me to be
Speaker 1: in a band. They said that I would end up
Speaker 1: a drug addict and alcoholic and skin and they were
Speaker 1: absolutely right. But I guess what I'm asking you know, depression.
Speaker 1: A lot of artists, successful artists, suffer from depression. And
Speaker 1: you seem to go on that, but by the same talking,
Speaker 1: you're open to ideas. Have you been in therapy or
Speaker 1: taking any medication for this depression? Yeah, twenty eight years
Speaker 1: ago I went into rehab for the first time, and
Speaker 1: it was an experience that I wasn't expecting. A good
Speaker 1: friend picked me up literally from the street and took
Speaker 1: me in, and I have to say it was a
Speaker 1: big turning point in my in my career and in
Speaker 1: my life. I've neglected a lot of relationships, the most
Speaker 1: important ones, and I learned how to kind of stand
Speaker 1: on my own two feet a little bit more and
Speaker 1: actually know who I was for the first time. I guess, um, So,
Speaker 1: twenty eight years ago I started that and it's there's
Speaker 1: been therapy ever since here and here and there, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not an easy ride having depression in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind, but you know, day by day it
Speaker 1: gets easier, I think. And the only person who's going
Speaker 1: to make it more confusing is me. Well, getting older
Speaker 1: someone people become happier, which is one of the good
Speaker 1: advantages of getting older. But do you feel that your
Speaker 1: depression aligns with alienation and to what degree is that
Speaker 1: an inspiration for your work? Well, I'm good at isolating, um,
Speaker 1: so it's not alienation is isolation from my point of view.
Speaker 1: And you know, there I wasn't a very successful band
Speaker 1: up on stage Madison Square Garden and having a great
Speaker 1: time playing stadiums with David Bowie and what I have
Speaker 1: have you in you you too? And all I really
Speaker 1: wanted to do is go back to my hotel room
Speaker 1: and be on my own, which is kind of oh
Speaker 1: do you know every other person in the band where
Speaker 1: I was out drinking having a great time dancing, and
Speaker 1: I was kind of just like, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. I just want to go back to
Speaker 1: my room. So, um, you know, those those are the
Speaker 1: golden days. Let's face it, you know, you had to
Speaker 1: go there to understand what it was all about. In
Speaker 1: the first place. We we just played Modison Square Garden
Speaker 1: and in February, and apparently we played it twice before,
Speaker 1: but I didn't remember that. Wow, okay, when you wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to your room, when you were at
Speaker 1: the peak of the commercial success, what was going through
Speaker 1: your brain? Why did you want to be in your room.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in the room so that I could,
Speaker 1: I suppose, UM, enjoy the drink and the drugs without
Speaker 1: anybody else around. I didn't want to share what I had.
Speaker 1: I had friends that would maybe put by it. And
Speaker 1: the other thing was that no one in the band
Speaker 1: really twigged what was going on apart from our drama.
Speaker 1: Gilson he got sober before I did, and he became
Speaker 1: a big inspiration for me. Um. But when I went
Speaker 1: into rehab, I think everybody was really surprised. They thought, well,
Speaker 1: why is this guy going in? He seems quite normal
Speaker 1: to us, and I can kind of get it. You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like I was Keith Mern or you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sort of staggering around driving cars into swimming pools.
Speaker 1: I was kind of trying to keep an even keel,
Speaker 1: and frequently people are reluctant to go to rehab. Had
Speaker 1: people tried previously or why were you open to it
Speaker 1: at that particular moment. Well, um, my drug dealer came
Speaker 1: back from America and he had sobered up, and that
Speaker 1: really confused me and upset me. And he said you
Speaker 1: should try this, and he'd lost weight and he looked brilliant,
Speaker 1: and I thought, I don't want to do that, so
Speaker 1: I'm not ready for this. And then one day I
Speaker 1: was about to go on a plane on another American
Speaker 1: tour with Squeeze, and I went to say goodbye to
Speaker 1: my children who were living in London, and I broke
Speaker 1: down and I and this guy he came to pick
Speaker 1: me up, and he didn't really give me many options.
Speaker 1: He just said, look, you know, I think this is
Speaker 1: this is the time for you to sort your life out.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, what about Squeeze? They weight don
Speaker 1: at the airport. He said that will be fine, and
Speaker 1: it was and they all, um, they all carried on
Speaker 1: the tour and sent lovely letters to me and supported me.
Speaker 1: That begs a question, have you been cleaned since that time? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: absolutely twenty eight years. And so when you play a
Speaker 1: gig like you said you played Madison Square Gordon recently,
Speaker 1: do you still want to go back to your room alone.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Um No. I mean I like
Speaker 1: my own regime. I like the back of the bus.
Speaker 1: I like my own space, and I think everybody in
Speaker 1: the band does. As you get older and you're in
Speaker 1: a band, you want your own space. You know, when
Speaker 1: you're first on a on an American tour, or you're
Speaker 1: first on a tour, you know, in a minibus like
Speaker 1: we were in we couldn't, you know. We just wanted
Speaker 1: to be close to each other all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: we were like stuck together like glue, going around America
Speaker 1: having great, a great time. And then as you get older,
Speaker 1: you want hold on a minute, I want my space.
Speaker 1: That also begs the question of a lot of acts
Speaker 1: are on the road classic or heritage access, they say,
Speaker 1: and they're on the road primarily for the money, and
Speaker 1: they hate each other. If you had any of that
Speaker 1: experience where I'll see you on stage, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to see anywhere else. No, good lord, I could
Speaker 1: not do that for a moment. I've seen it another band. Actually,
Speaker 1: I've seen it and I've heard about it, read about it,
Speaker 1: but that wouldn't work with Squeeze. We're very much a
Speaker 1: musical unit. We may have our differences from time to time,
Speaker 1: but our similarities are great, and the similarities of the
Speaker 1: songs really and you know, Glenn and I have grown
Speaker 1: up together for forty eight years writing fantastic songs, I think,
Speaker 1: and you know, now we need our space. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: only a year younger than me at this late date.
Speaker 1: Are you happy with what you have achieved or do
Speaker 1: you still feel there's a grail you want to reach towards.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on that. I've been thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about that recently. There are lots of goals I
Speaker 1: believe to head form, you know. And I think I'm
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be healthy and I seem to still
Speaker 1: be creative. My imagination still seems to be in the place,
Speaker 1: so I'm eager to write new records. M learning all
Speaker 1: the time about musical theater, which is something that I've
Speaker 1: had a passion for for many years. Um and I
Speaker 1: may not ever write a musical, but it's something that
Speaker 1: I feel very strongly that I need to learn and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's always something new to do. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a nostalgia ban where we just go
Speaker 1: up and do the hits. I don't think that would
Speaker 1: wear very well with our fans. But to what degree
Speaker 1: is it inhibiting? You know, when you started out, it
Speaker 1: was the pre internet era, and certainly anybody who had
Speaker 1: to deal with a major label, the audience was aware
Speaker 1: of them. Whereas today, even if you're a new act,
Speaker 1: but certainly someone who's already had success, you can make
Speaker 1: new material and almost no one can hear it, and
Speaker 1: even fans will come to the show and a great
Speaker 1: number won't listen. To what degree does that make it
Speaker 1: so you don't want to create at all? Um? I
Speaker 1: don't really have any connection with that feeling. I mean,
Speaker 1: if somebody comes to the gig because they want to
Speaker 1: hear black coffee in bed or pull him muscles some
Speaker 1: Michelle because it reminds them of being in college or
Speaker 1: the first girlfriend that they had or something like that,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. That's a that's a respect. Um. If they
Speaker 1: hear a new song and they just their mind drifts,
Speaker 1: I understand that totally. I mean, I've been to see
Speaker 1: bands you know, like a couple of years ago. I
Speaker 1: love Elvis Costello is a dear friend, and I go
Speaker 1: and I listened to the new songs, and it takes
Speaker 1: me a while to take it on board. You know,
Speaker 1: I kind of hold on a minute, you know, I've
Speaker 1: got to I'm waiting for Oliver's Army, please, and then
Speaker 1: you can give me some new songs. And then it
Speaker 1: gives me the new songs and I'm diving into the
Speaker 1: lyrics and I'm thinking, Wow, what an incredible writer. But
Speaker 1: I want Oliver's Army. Okay, So you don't like from motivation.
Speaker 1: I don't like for motive patient, and I think that's
Speaker 1: maybe that's true of the whole of Squeeze. You know,
Speaker 1: when we're working together as a unit, which is which
Speaker 1: is a wonderful thing, we all have motivation. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a time when you shifted, and you went
Speaker 1: into this in a book you recently wrote. You shifted
Speaker 1: from being a performer to being a more behind the
Speaker 1: scenes person, first as a songwriter with other people and
Speaker 1: then as a manager. What was the what were your
Speaker 1: thoughts did you feel you were giving something up? What
Speaker 1: was that change like for you? A mentor of my
Speaker 1: like a manager called David Nhoven who used to manage
Speaker 1: Roxy Music and he managed King Crimson Um and he
Speaker 1: managed Squeeze actually for a year. He was the mentor
Speaker 1: of mine and when I was in rehab, he was
Speaker 1: the most supportive person I could ever have had. I
Speaker 1: loved him dear, dearly and still do. And he called
Speaker 1: me out of the blue one day and he said,
Speaker 1: Brian Ferries is looking for somebody to help him write
Speaker 1: lyrics for his new album. Would you like to come
Speaker 1: and meet him? And of course I had all the
Speaker 1: Roxy Music records and Brian Ferry records and I couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to get in the car to meet him. But
Speaker 1: I was petrified because it felt like I was going
Speaker 1: to meet Prince Charles or something. It was somebody in
Speaker 1: a different level to me. So I sat with Brian
Speaker 1: and with David, and Brian took me into his room
Speaker 1: and he gave me books and books and books and
Speaker 1: books of one liners, just one liners written down on
Speaker 1: pads and he said, I want you to sort them
Speaker 1: all out into songs. And so that was the beginning
Speaker 1: of my relationship with him, and then it transformed into
Speaker 1: becoming his personal manager. Because he didn't have a personal manager,
Speaker 1: and he'd like to go to dinner with me for
Speaker 1: some reason, and we like to go to the country
Speaker 1: together for some reason. We hung out, We like cars,
Speaker 1: We drove around a lot, and we became friends when
Speaker 1: it was when it was cool for him, and I
Speaker 1: have to say the hugest respect for him, although I
Speaker 1: found it difficult emotionally sometimes to work for him, and
Speaker 1: so therefore I was transformed into a sort of managerial person.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't in Squeeze Squeeze were asleep, so I
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to do that, and I loved it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Brian for a second. When you
Speaker 1: started to work for him, how are you doing financially? Um,
Speaker 1: I was coasting. I was living in the country with
Speaker 1: my my partner and my two new children, and we
Speaker 1: were living on a farm. I had a recording studio
Speaker 1: which everybody used to come and record about. Wayne Shorter
Speaker 1: came to record there, for instance, Paul Weather, Oasis, Brian Ferry.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on this huge list, and
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed being a proprietor of that and seeing
Speaker 1: my kids grow up. And I was peddling. It was.
Speaker 1: It was peddling time. It was fine. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And then Brian gave me a monthly wage, which was terrific.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just lovely to have a wage
Speaker 1: packer and to be at work. And because I lived
Speaker 1: in the country and he wanted me to be close by,
Speaker 1: he put me in a hotel. So I stayed in
Speaker 1: a really nice hotel just around the corner from his
Speaker 1: house for six months. And when we got the bill,
Speaker 1: I could have bought a flat for the price for
Speaker 1: the for the hotel, but it was a lovely experience
Speaker 1: experience for me. And yeah, well if you were in
Speaker 1: the hotel for six months, were you separated from your
Speaker 1: family for six months? Yeah. I used to go home
Speaker 1: at the weekend, apart from when Brian needed me to
Speaker 1: go to the country with him to his country house,
Speaker 1: or we would go and do a show somewhere. So
Speaker 1: I was always on twenty four our call um. That
Speaker 1: was my That was my my job, I guess. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he had in a circle of private friends that I
Speaker 1: was not. I was not in the inner court, if
Speaker 1: you like. I was not in the inner court of
Speaker 1: the Crimson King. I was on the outside of the
Speaker 1: Crimson King and as far as bigger decisions like when
Speaker 1: to go on tour putting out albums, were you involved
Speaker 1: that or there was someone who was a manager who's
Speaker 1: taking care of that. No, for a while, it was
Speaker 1: it was it was David and myself and Brian making
Speaker 1: the decisions. And he just wanted to work. You know,
Speaker 1: he'd gone through a very difficult divorce which was painful
Speaker 1: for him, and I could see that and I felt
Speaker 1: dearly for him, you know, and he just wanted to work,
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted to earn some money and just
Speaker 1: have his mind taken off what was going on for him.
Speaker 1: So we used to get lots of corporate work, you know,
Speaker 1: we do private shows. And then I get a phone
Speaker 1: call from the record company and they say, Chris, you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing we would like you to achieve is
Speaker 1: to get Roxy Music back together again. And I said,
Speaker 1: you want me to get Roxy music? How the hell
Speaker 1: am I going to do that? Anyway? The next phone
Speaker 1: call was from the head of a massive bank that
Speaker 1: he's got tons of money. He wants Roxy Music to
Speaker 1: do a private gig for his forty So I call
Speaker 1: all the members of the band apart from Brian, you know,
Speaker 1: and they all agree to do the show. So without rehearsals,
Speaker 1: we turn up at this club and then I think,
Speaker 1: this is my big minute. I've got them all in
Speaker 1: the dressing room. I'm going to get them to talk
Speaker 1: about reforming and Phil Man scenario, who was the it's
Speaker 1: a catalyst in a way of trying to make it work.
Speaker 1: I stood them in the dressing him to try and
Speaker 1: get the conversation going, and it was like they'd all
Speaker 1: just was that their first day of school. They didn't
Speaker 1: know what to say each other. It was just weird,
Speaker 1: and so it didn't happen. Okay, And to what degree
Speaker 1: did you end up creating artistically with Brian Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if I did. I think
Speaker 1: I kind of was there as a listening post. Sometimes
Speaker 1: he'd have lots of different musicians in and lots of
Speaker 1: different producers. We got Dave Stewart, and Dave produced the
Speaker 1: album that I worked on, and Dave, being the genius
Speaker 1: that he was, he would only kind of come in
Speaker 1: for like an hour a week, but that would be
Speaker 1: enough to kind of put the match to the fireworks
Speaker 1: and set things off and Brian. You know, Brian was
Speaker 1: very particular about his music, of course, and his whole image.
Speaker 1: And I learned a lot from from his his kind
Speaker 1: of style, if you like. But what did you learn?
Speaker 1: I learned that just wasn't good enough to pick any
Speaker 1: old tie out when you were going out for dinner,
Speaker 1: that you had to really give it a whole day's
Speaker 1: thought and just drilling a little bit further so emotionally
Speaker 1: shifting from being on stage behind the scenes that was
Speaker 1: rather smooth, or the break before this made it so
Speaker 1: it was rather smooth. What was it difficult not to
Speaker 1: work with Brian? It wasn't difficult. It was kind of smooth.
Speaker 1: I didn't miss squeeze at that point, Okay, And then
Speaker 1: how did it end with Brian? Oh? Um, Well, it
Speaker 1: ended in exhaustion. I think really I was exhausted. He
Speaker 1: was exhausted. He needed a proper manager to take him
Speaker 1: to where he needed to go. I don't think I
Speaker 1: was that guy. I definitely wasn't that guy. Um. I've
Speaker 1: been through lots of tiring days with him. And I
Speaker 1: sat in my car outside the office one day and
Speaker 1: I found his p A and I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: coming in. I really don't think I can do this anymore.
Speaker 1: And the next thing, I get a letter from Brian
Speaker 1: and I've got it in my desk and I've never
Speaker 1: opened it. But it was basically a farewell leader, and
Speaker 1: you've never opened it because because I didn't need to
Speaker 1: read what he would say kind of you know, he
Speaker 1: was a very giving kind of guy, and I just
Speaker 1: thought it would let the magic out of the bag,
Speaker 1: whatever magic there was between us in that short space
Speaker 1: of time, and I didn't want it to come out.
Speaker 1: I wanted it to remain in the past. But that
Speaker 1: begs a question, assuming you get mailed, do you open
Speaker 1: your mail the day it comes? Oh? God? Yeah, But
Speaker 1: this was from Brian Ferry and I knew it was
Speaker 1: from him because I recognized the handwriting of his p A.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of obvious. Okay, So that's approximately
Speaker 1: six months working with him. Yes, there were two different times.
Speaker 1: There was There was a six month period and then
Speaker 1: there was a year. Yeah, And what was between those two, Um,
Speaker 1: there was about two weeks of uh, not knowing what
Speaker 1: I was required to do. M he was in a
Speaker 1: bad mood. I got sent back to the hotel. The
Speaker 1: phone didn't ring and I just sat there and I
Speaker 1: sat there, and I sat there, and then he found
Speaker 1: up and I came back in. Okay. So when that ended,
Speaker 1: you went on to be a me and Drew menage
Speaker 1: another bit. Well, yeah, I managed a band called the Stripes,
Speaker 1: if that's who you're talking about. The Stripes. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: were fifteen years old and they're from Ireland, from Cavern
Speaker 1: in Ireland, and they came over and asked me to
Speaker 1: produce them, and I pressed playing and record on the
Speaker 1: two ins tape machine. They recorded about fifteen songs in
Speaker 1: one take and it was like listening to the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones for the first time. They were just out of
Speaker 1: this world. They were young, correct, they'd learn everything off
Speaker 1: their iPads I think, and by just dedicating themselves to
Speaker 1: the instruments that they that they were playing. So I
Speaker 1: was completely smitten by them. But they didn't have a manager,
Speaker 1: and I was giving them advice. I guess I was
Speaker 1: just trying to help them out. And then I get
Speaker 1: a phone call from Elton John and Elton John here's
Speaker 1: that I've been working with them, and he says to me,
Speaker 1: I really want that band on my label. So I said, great,
Speaker 1: you know that sounds like amazing. He said, bring them
Speaker 1: around for Sunday lunch. So I get the whole band
Speaker 1: in my car. We drive around to Elton's house, which
Speaker 1: is for them, you know, I am for me. I guess.
Speaker 1: It's like this house with fantastic gardens, electric gates, statues everywhere,
Speaker 1: candles in every room, flowers everywhere, just like the nicest thing,
Speaker 1: you know. So we go in and he gives us
Speaker 1: Sunday lunch. He tells us what he's going to do
Speaker 1: for the band, and then afterwards, I get the band
Speaker 1: in the car and I'm really excited about it. And
Speaker 1: I turned to them and I say, what did you
Speaker 1: make of that? And they said to me, they're the
Speaker 1: best roast potatoes we have had. So it was like
Speaker 1: that's all that mattered to them, was the food. But
Speaker 1: the band certainly did not reach the acclaim or success
Speaker 1: of Elton never mind squee these How did you deal
Speaker 1: with that? Um? Well, they toured the world and put
Speaker 1: on live shows everywhere that were brilliant. You know, they
Speaker 1: were very exciting to watch. I stood at the side
Speaker 1: of the stage loads of times watching them play. Um
Speaker 1: they they were like any band at that age. They
Speaker 1: were kind of oscillating together. Um, But there was a
Speaker 1: kind of inner confusion about who did what I guess,
Speaker 1: and you know that often happens with a young, young band.
Speaker 1: You're waiting to see who's going to be like the
Speaker 1: main writer or who's going to do the talking when
Speaker 1: you do the press, you know, So it had to
Speaker 1: evolve over time. The record company, you know, they gave
Speaker 1: them three albums and then they were kicked out the door.
Speaker 1: And did that break up the band? It was about
Speaker 1: to implode anyway, because there were two separate writing camps.
Speaker 1: There was the guitarist wrote most of the original songs,
Speaker 1: and then the bass player and the druma wrote the
Speaker 1: most of the songs for the third album and equally
Speaker 1: as great as Josh's songs the guitarist, but coming from
Speaker 1: a different point of view. And I think their influences
Speaker 1: as human beings had started to change. And are any
Speaker 1: of these people still in music professionally? Yeah? The guitarist,
Speaker 1: Josh is floating around. I think he's recorded a couple
Speaker 1: of records. I'm not sure where there. He plays with
Speaker 1: Paul Weller every now and again. Is an amazing guitar player.
Speaker 1: The drummer and the bass player I'm in touch with
Speaker 1: and they have a band that they that they play.
Speaker 1: But you know, the music industry is so difficult for
Speaker 1: them as a young young as young men. It's not
Speaker 1: like it was when I started out, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Also in this era, you do some songwriting with other people,
Speaker 1: how does that come together into what degree is that fulfilling? Well?
Speaker 1: For most of my life obviously writing with Glenn, He's
Speaker 1: like the main guy in my life, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've had an incredible journey. And then when it came
Speaker 1: along for me to write with other people like Elton John,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was sleeping outside of the marriage.
Speaker 1: It was difficult. I found it hard. Um. But and
Speaker 1: then started co writing when I started doing the songwriting
Speaker 1: camps twenty six years ago, and and I've been doing
Speaker 1: that ever since. And now it's like falling off a log.
Speaker 1: I really love her. And this afternoon I was writing
Speaker 1: with Kimmi Rhodes in Austin, Texas, UM and we're working
Speaker 1: on some songs. So you know, I'm enthusiastic about songwriting
Speaker 1: writing and I write at a different speed from Glenn,
Speaker 1: and I think that's that's well respect respected between the
Speaker 1: two of us, I e. You ride faster. Yeah, Cleans
Speaker 1: much more careful about what he does, and that's what
Speaker 1: makes him the genius that he is. I guess I
Speaker 1: kind of. I just want to get on with it,
Speaker 1: whether it's right or wrong. Okay, just staying in brighting
Speaker 1: or the general area that would beg the question. Were
Speaker 1: you a modern or rocker or was that something that
Speaker 1: didn't apply. I was a skinhead when I was great.
Speaker 1: I lived it really Yeah. I lived on a council
Speaker 1: estate and I was a skinhead and we used to
Speaker 1: beat people up. But you know, I was at the
Speaker 1: back of the crowd because I didn't really like that
Speaker 1: very much. And in fact, one of my skinhead friends
Speaker 1: came to one of my gigs recently and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, it was odd about you. He said, We'll
Speaker 1: be having a great, big fight and you'd be sitting
Speaker 1: there with a pencil writing poetry. So if you grew
Speaker 1: up in a council estate, that was weird. That was
Speaker 1: in Greenwich in London, and yeah, it was full of skinheads,
Speaker 1: and so I had no choice. I just joined the band,
Speaker 1: I suppose, But all the while, in the back of
Speaker 1: my mind I wanted to be in a rock and
Speaker 1: roll band, and I loved music. I was tuned into
Speaker 1: the who and the small, small faces, and just the
Speaker 1: idea of being in a band. The camaraderie just looked amazing.
Speaker 1: Interesting you talk about the camaraderie and then certain aspects
Speaker 1: of your personality. You're a loner. But let's also go
Speaker 1: back to the council state. So what did your parents
Speaker 1: do for a living. Yeah, my dad worked at the
Speaker 1: gas works when he came down from the Second World Well,
Speaker 1: he got a job at the gas works and he
Speaker 1: was there to the day diet, and he he loved
Speaker 1: it down there, and I loved being down there with
Speaker 1: him and my mom. She was mom to three boys,
Speaker 1: and then towards the latter part of her life she
Speaker 1: got a job in a canteen. Okay, so there are
Speaker 1: three boys. Where are you in the hierarchy. I'm the youngest.
Speaker 1: I came ten years after the one before, so I
Speaker 1: was a bit of her. I was just the last
Speaker 1: one on the rack. Well, usually the baby, whether it's
Speaker 1: a couple of years or ten, is coddled and is treated,
Speaker 1: you know, like fine china by the parents. They couldn't
Speaker 1: afford fine china. My parents. What I mean is that
Speaker 1: they're forgiving in a way that they might not be
Speaker 1: for the older children. Um. Yeah, they were kind of
Speaker 1: tired by then, I guess. But my brothers looked after me,
Speaker 1: and thank thank God that they did. You know, they
Speaker 1: looked out for me. My dad was constantly working, so
Speaker 1: I hardly saw him, and my mom just kept herself
Speaker 1: to herself. We lived in a tiny house and there
Speaker 1: was music, there was food on the table, there was love,
Speaker 1: you know. So it wasn't disruptive in that kind of
Speaker 1: way until I became a young teenager and started playing music.
Speaker 1: Now Council states from a US viewpoint, is the lower
Speaker 1: economic end of the scale and its post war To
Speaker 1: what degree was it impoverished under privilege or not a
Speaker 1: factor it was. It was built by the local council
Speaker 1: to house people that were in temporary accommodation after the
Speaker 1: Second World War. So, for instance, before we moved in
Speaker 1: to the house we had on the estate, we were
Speaker 1: living in a prefab which was built specifically for people
Speaker 1: who didn't have homes after the Second World War. So
Speaker 1: that was my first home, and a prefabs like a
Speaker 1: flat building now stairs, and you know, we were all
Speaker 1: sort of crammed in and there was like four prefabs
Speaker 1: in a row. But they weren't very healthy places to live.
Speaker 1: They had a lot of damp and it wasn't very
Speaker 1: It wasn't great. So we moved on to this council
Speaker 1: estate with lots of other people and and it quickly
Speaker 1: became um sort of the nest from where the birds
Speaker 1: began to lay their eggs. Now, as I say, we're
Speaker 1: coming from across the park, what do we know about
Speaker 1: the UK and that era? There's limited radio, records are expensive.
Speaker 1: What was it like growing up before you actually got
Speaker 1: into a band. Yeah, records were expensive, but and you
Speaker 1: had to go miles to get them, you know. That
Speaker 1: was the great thing. You know, if like the Allman
Speaker 1: Brothers brought out a live album and have to get
Speaker 1: on a bus go all the way into London, that
Speaker 1: would take an hour and a half. I'd queue up,
Speaker 1: get a copy of the Allman Brothers, put it in
Speaker 1: the bag on the bus, come all the way back
Speaker 1: and then put it on the record player. So music
Speaker 1: was so important. It meant so much more because you've
Speaker 1: gone out of your way to get it, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's what my record collection was it was a
Speaker 1: dedication of love, really, And whenever somebody like Todd Rudgreen
Speaker 1: or Frank's Upper or someone like that would bring out
Speaker 1: a record record, you know, I would be on the
Speaker 1: bus up to London to get the first copy of it.
Speaker 1: But those were the days where people would judge you
Speaker 1: based on your record collection. So what kind of kid
Speaker 1: were you growing up? We were a member of the
Speaker 1: group We're good in school? What was that like? I
Speaker 1: wasn't good at school now, I was kind of what
Speaker 1: we were looking at my school report the other day
Speaker 1: and it said I was backward. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just let what you called today dyslexic. So I
Speaker 1: was put in a special class with other kids that
Speaker 1: were backward. Um. This guy that I used to sit
Speaker 1: next to, Derek Shot, he had crayons, you know, and
Speaker 1: he was kind of more backward than me. But we
Speaker 1: were just there, you know. And that's why I just
Speaker 1: used to get a pencil and write down poetry. And
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I think it became a way
Speaker 1: of isolating from the rest of the class. And um,
Speaker 1: it became like a a safe place to be amongst
Speaker 1: all these words and the teachers didn't seem to mind
Speaker 1: what I was doing, so I felt like I was
Speaker 1: doing the right thing. But you that's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting connection. Poetry and look slexia. Those don't tend not
Speaker 1: to go together. Maybe I'm not the selestic and I
Speaker 1: don't understand, well they don't. But there's just words, and
Speaker 1: you know they in those days they were very floral
Speaker 1: or very kind of had no meaning. They were just
Speaker 1: fun words. It was just the words were just a
Speaker 1: place to sort of exist outside of the rest of
Speaker 1: the school, I guess. But I was constantly listening to music,
Speaker 1: and that was what was influencing me. You know, I'd
Speaker 1: listened to King Crimson record and I think, Wow, the
Speaker 1: lyrics this are amazing. You know, I want to be
Speaker 1: Pete Simfield. I want to write lyrics like like this,
Speaker 1: And so I would go off and try and copy him.
Speaker 1: So in America we had the folk scene, and then
Speaker 1: the Beatles came on the scene at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixt Were they broke in the UK? Sixty
Speaker 1: two sixty three? To what degree were the Beatles impactful
Speaker 1: on your sensibility and career and desires? Ordered to come
Speaker 1: sooner was an influenced by something later. My elder brother
Speaker 1: was a massive Beatles fan, and they were an institution
Speaker 1: in our house. They were almost like religious figures. Whenever
Speaker 1: a record came out, it constantly got a spin, and
Speaker 1: at Christmas they were always on television. They were kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, the Boys, two men of their time,
Speaker 1: I guess, and they were just like constantly respect you know,
Speaker 1: you respected them all. They didn't seem to put a
Speaker 1: foot wrong everything that, you know. I joined the fan club.
Speaker 1: The fan card records were amazing, the books, the magazines
Speaker 1: that used to come, they were so clean cut, you know,
Speaker 1: they were the boy next door. And so my parents
Speaker 1: accepted that that was the music that I might want
Speaker 1: to get into because it was a respectable player. But
Speaker 1: I didn't want to get into that place. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd already at this point anyway, discovered the m C
Speaker 1: five and the Stooges and you know, rock and roll
Speaker 1: and stuff that was filthy. And that was because my
Speaker 1: other brother didn't like the Beatles and like rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: and so down his tree came bow Deadly how the
Speaker 1: Stooges m C five, So you know, there was those
Speaker 1: two branches of the family tree. That were rocking in
Speaker 1: different direct direct directions, yeah had in one house. Usually
Speaker 1: you didn't get that opposition in one house. So what
Speaker 1: point do you pick up an instrument and say this
Speaker 1: is my destiny. I think when I was about fourteen,
Speaker 1: I picked up an instrument started writing songs and before
Speaker 1: I met Glenn, i'd written probably forty or fifty that
Speaker 1: was quite pleased with. It was quite fluent, but not
Speaker 1: very good. But it didn't matter, you know, the the ambition.
Speaker 1: The ambition was every think that they needed. And the
Speaker 1: ambition came from two very important gigs that I saw.
Speaker 1: The first one was The Who Who played at Chilton.
Speaker 1: I went to see them. I managed to get backstage,
Speaker 1: and to be backstage to watch The Who play in
Speaker 1: front of a hundred thousand people in a football ground
Speaker 1: was extraordinary. It was the most exciting thing. And the
Speaker 1: camaraderie between them being in a band, it was like
Speaker 1: being in a gang being and going a skinnets. You know,
Speaker 1: they're all getting on, dancing around, having fun. So I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, that's the job for me. And then
Speaker 1: a little bit before that, I had seen David Bowie
Speaker 1: this is pre Ziggy and he was playing in a
Speaker 1: local college. All the audiences in those days sat cross
Speaker 1: legged on the floor and David Bowie walks on and
Speaker 1: plays all these amazing songs and the lyrics just hit
Speaker 1: me and I think, wow, I wish I could write
Speaker 1: lyrics like like that. You know that? And I sort
Speaker 1: of moved away from King Crimson and from the kind
Speaker 1: of fantasy lyricism to the more sort of structured lyric Okay,
Speaker 1: so when do you stop going to school? I stopped
Speaker 1: going to school in my head that there I went. Really,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't very good. It didn't get any results. Um,
Speaker 1: I was always looking out the window. I wasn't bothered
Speaker 1: with it all. You know. It was the only class
Speaker 1: that I took to was the art class. And that's
Speaker 1: because we had a really beautiful art teacher called Gail.
Speaker 1: And Gail was a real sweetheart, and she was a
Speaker 1: young teacher from a local college. And she used to
Speaker 1: say to us, bring your records in and we will
Speaker 1: play them while we're painting and drawing and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, a teacher actually has got
Speaker 1: a record collection. And after school one day she invited
Speaker 1: me around to her house to listen to the new
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Mac album. And then she tried to seduce me.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I was terrified. So what happened? You run
Speaker 1: out the door? I ran out the dog on the
Speaker 1: bus and went home and the next day, the next day,
Speaker 1: I went back to school and nothing was said. How
Speaker 1: much older than you was? She? She was older than me? Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: do you ever have a straight gig? Or you pretty
Speaker 1: much made your living as a musician? Might a few
Speaker 1: jobs when I left school. I worked down the docks
Speaker 1: with my brother for a bit. Um, nothing really to
Speaker 1: write home about. I mean, the ambition was always to
Speaker 1: try and write songs and try and being a band.
Speaker 1: And so you say your parents disapproved of that. They
Speaker 1: did until they saw me on Telly, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: the penny dropped and it was like, ah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: a great boy. You are fantastic, well done. So okay,
Speaker 1: you you're writing songs? How do you start forming bands?
Speaker 1: I put an advert in a sweet shop window in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three for a guitarist to join a band,
Speaker 1: and the only person to ring was a guy called
Speaker 1: Glen Hillbrook. It was April nine three, and I was
Speaker 1: quite nervous about meeting him. For the first time. I
Speaker 1: didn't know where it was going to lead. And I
Speaker 1: met him outside a pub, him and his girlfriend Maxine.
Speaker 1: I'd recognize them from being people that had seen locally,
Speaker 1: so I kind of was aware of both of them
Speaker 1: because they stood out from the crowd. They were very different.
Speaker 1: They were hippie hippie kids, if you like. He had
Speaker 1: bare feet, she had bare feet. He had a mandolin,
Speaker 1: they had long hair, and they looked beautiful and angelic together,
Speaker 1: and there was something about it that was so beautiful
Speaker 1: that I thought, I've got to give this a go.
Speaker 1: And I went to their house, listened to some songs.
Speaker 1: We listened to some Jimmy Hendricks, which Glenn was really
Speaker 1: into at that point, and then he came to my house.
Speaker 1: I played some songs, some that I'd written before we
Speaker 1: knew where we were. By the summer of that year,
Speaker 1: we'd written about fifty songs. I guess why the Sweet Shop.
Speaker 1: Why the Sweet Shop? Well, because because I just thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's local, you know, And I thought, well it was.
Speaker 1: The advert was above bunk bed for sale, freezer for sale,
Speaker 1: you know, second hand budgery, garcage for sale, and then
Speaker 1: guy looking for guitarist. It was kind of surreal, and
Speaker 1: I suppose I didn't know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I could have put an advert in the Melody Maker,
Speaker 1: which everybody did, but I didn't. Right, Okay, So when
Speaker 1: it comes to your house and you're writing songs or
Speaker 1: there's the division of duties happened pretty quickly where you're
Speaker 1: the lyricist and he's an musical end of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it did really. Glenn recognized, I guess a
Speaker 1: skill I had been working on, which is the lyrical
Speaker 1: side of music music, and I realized that musically likewise,
Speaker 1: he was really good at putting songs together. So we
Speaker 1: were in a we're in a van going to a gig,
Speaker 1: and he asked me for a lyric and I had
Speaker 1: a whole load of lyrics and I gave him one.
Speaker 1: He wrote a tune, and to that day, to this
Speaker 1: I've never written another tune. And where was that in
Speaker 1: Squeeze his career. That was before Squeeze. That was just
Speaker 1: the beginning. So he had been at school with Jules Holland,
Speaker 1: and so he introduced me to Jules and that was
Speaker 1: really the nucleus of the early part of squeeze, and
Speaker 1: how does it become squeeze? And how do you get
Speaker 1: a manager in a record deal? And well, a lot
Speaker 1: of rehearsing, a lot of playing in the local pubs,
Speaker 1: a lot of writing songs, playing teammates. That was the
Speaker 1: most important thing. Um. And then there was a band
Speaker 1: called the Own Only Ones. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember them, and Glenn had been hanging out with one
Speaker 1: of them, and they had this guy called Lawrence, and
Speaker 1: Lawrence was a manager, and Lawrence had been at school
Speaker 1: with Stewart Copeland. And Lawrence said, you know, I'd been
Speaker 1: a manager, but I think you need someone who really
Speaker 1: knows what they're doing because you're such a great band.
Speaker 1: And that was a really nice thing for him to say.
Speaker 1: So he looked after us for a little bit finance
Speaker 1: some of her early work, and then he introduced us
Speaker 1: to It's Larger than a life character. Myles Copeland and
Speaker 1: Miles came to our rehearsal room. We played him fifteen
Speaker 1: songs and he just wanted to sign us there and then,
Speaker 1: and so what to inspire, Well, we signed a massive
Speaker 1: document that was like five ft tall. It was a
Speaker 1: publishing agreement, an agency agreement, and a record and a
Speaker 1: record company agree agreement. They were all cross collateralized, but
Speaker 1: it meant that we got fifty in quid a week.
Speaker 1: So we said, yeah, we'll sign this. Fifteen quid a
Speaker 1: week sounds amazing. So well, and he said to us,
Speaker 1: a look, if you don't, if you haven't got a lawyer,
Speaker 1: just show it to your dad. So I showed it.
Speaker 1: I showed it to my dad, who worked in the
Speaker 1: gas works, and he said how much are you going
Speaker 1: to get? And I said fifteen quickly said sign it?
Speaker 1: And to what degree do you regret signing that today? Well,
Speaker 1: fifty percent of all of the songs that I wrote
Speaker 1: with Glenn up until I don't own and I don't
Speaker 1: get the publishing four they go. They used to be
Speaker 1: owned by Miles he sold the company. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's part of the past of the hundred percent of
Speaker 1: your interest. How much do you not get because there's
Speaker 1: a publishing of the Raidar side. Well, um, he was
Speaker 1: the publisher, so he got fifty okay, So we took
Speaker 1: all of the publishing, yes, and then Glenn and I
Speaker 1: will get right okay, So now what happens with making
Speaker 1: a record? Um? Well, he we punk new wave just
Speaker 1: started to come to London and we were going around
Speaker 1: looking at other bands like The Clash, people like that
Speaker 1: in clubs and wondering what the hell was going on.
Speaker 1: And Miles had a friendship with John Kale from the
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground and he suggested that we did some work
Speaker 1: with John. So our first meeting with John was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: We went to a rehearsal and we played him twenty
Speaker 1: songs that we've been working on and he fell asleep.
Speaker 1: So we wrote I am a c U n T
Speaker 1: on his forehead in delible link and we sent him
Speaker 1: back to his hotel and the next day came back
Speaker 1: and it was still on his foot, theol But it
Speaker 1: didn't matter because you know, he kind of said to us.
Speaker 1: He said to me, in particular, I think your lyrics
Speaker 1: are too sweet. I want you. I think if we're
Speaker 1: going to work together, you've got a shop in your
Speaker 1: pencil and do something different. And he was kind of right,
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're young, you think you're right,
Speaker 1: you know, So it was a bit of a clash.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, you named the band after the
Speaker 1: last Velvet Underground album, Squeeze, which really is a Doug
Speaker 1: Yule incremation as opposed to reading John Kle in creation.
Speaker 1: Then you work with John Kyle, what's that about? I
Speaker 1: know what that was? That was fate. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had lots of names that went in a hat, and
Speaker 1: Squeeze was the one that came out. Bass player put
Speaker 1: the name in that. But yeah, I mean that's kind
Speaker 1: of weird that both of them sort of linked together,
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, I look him back thankfully.
Speaker 1: That stuff with John was was really what made us
Speaker 1: individual as a as a band. We could have been
Speaker 1: a sweet pop band. You know, there's other record labels
Speaker 1: that wanted us to be like the Rubettes or the
Speaker 1: Basity Rollers. You know, they they wanted to mold us
Speaker 1: in that kind of way. But luckily John Klee wanted
Speaker 1: us to be different and he was absolutely right. How
Speaker 1: do you end up with A and m um? Well,
Speaker 1: various labels came along. I mean I remember Maurice Oberstein
Speaker 1: coming to see us in London the Hundred Club and
Speaker 1: he said, I think I'm going to pass on you guys.
Speaker 1: He was very honest and I thought that was great.
Speaker 1: It was very honest with him. He gave us the
Speaker 1: reasons why and then the next pub we played in,
Speaker 1: Derek Green from A and M came down and they
Speaker 1: signed us. And well, I loved about A and M
Speaker 1: and A record companies in general in those days is
Speaker 1: they would stick with you. So if you had a
Speaker 1: tough record the first one out, they'd stick with you
Speaker 1: for two or three more, just to see if you
Speaker 1: had any gas in the tank. And we certainly did so.
Speaker 1: You know, after the first album didn't really sell that many,
Speaker 1: they allowed us to record the second album with John
Speaker 1: Kale's engineer guy called John Wood, and the third album
Speaker 1: with John Wood, and they were successful. Okay, yes you
Speaker 1: have cool for catch, you have other hit certainly in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Those are records that were played on K Rock,
Speaker 1: which dominated the airwaves in Los Angeles, and the programmers
Speaker 1: they ended up at MTV, which helped you. What was
Speaker 1: the experience on your end? I mean we're I'm on
Speaker 1: the listening and you're on the manufacturing and touring end. Well,
Speaker 1: I felt like my feet weren't touching the ground. You know,
Speaker 1: we were in and out of the studio. You know,
Speaker 1: we get to the end of one record than the
Speaker 1: record and he would say we want another record. Um,
Speaker 1: like quick. Um So, me and Glenn would have to
Speaker 1: work double e quick when we got back from touring.
Speaker 1: And we love touring, so we were always on the
Speaker 1: road in America or in Europe, and then we'd be
Speaker 1: back in the studio again. And luckily Glenn forged a
Speaker 1: fantastic relationship with John Wood um so that when the
Speaker 1: songs were being produced, Glenn was very much at the
Speaker 1: at the helm with John m putting together the melodies
Speaker 1: and the structure, if you like. Um So, it was
Speaker 1: a very productive five years. I guess it was just
Speaker 1: the constant roller coaster of motels, two buses, studios, hangovers
Speaker 1: and all the bad things. Well, you know you're saying
Speaker 1: you love touring, what do people say? You know, it's
Speaker 1: twenty three hours of hell from one hour of Evan
Speaker 1: on stage. Well did you partake of the lifestyle on
Speaker 1: the road, the wine, women, etcetera. But of course, you
Speaker 1: know when you're young, you know, coming to America for
Speaker 1: the first time, I remember extremely well, we got off
Speaker 1: the plane in New York. It was just amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: we're getting a minibus. Miles Copeland, our manager provided a minibus.
Speaker 1: We got in it and we drove around America for
Speaker 1: two months. We played absolutely everywhere that we could possibly play,
Speaker 1: and while we were there, Miles would go and knock
Speaker 1: on radio stations doors and say, you've got to play
Speaker 1: these guys. But they were reluctant. They were playing zz
Speaker 1: Top and um Sticks and you know r e O Speedwagon.
Speaker 1: They weren't interested in young bands from Britain at that point.
Speaker 1: So it was an uphill struggle at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: but it was a struggle that we were prepared to
Speaker 1: take on board. And we like to have a great time,
Speaker 1: and we did. We certainly did have a great time.
Speaker 1: And then pulling Muscles from Michelle becomes a big radio
Speaker 1: success amongst those radio stations that will play it, as
Speaker 1: radio was transitioning from you know, meat and potatoes right
Speaker 1: to the British sound. Yeah, and then I reft to
Speaker 1: say that college radio saved our lives really because everywhere
Speaker 1: we went, we played colleges and the college radio would
Speaker 1: be open to us playing for them. They would play
Speaker 1: our music music, the kids in the college would enjoy it.
Speaker 1: They come to the gig, and then when they got
Speaker 1: older and they had families, they come and see us again.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of like the breeding ground for Squeeze.
Speaker 1: And how does Jewels decide to leave the band? Well, um,
Speaker 1: I guess he got offered some TV work out of
Speaker 1: the Blue, and Miles Copeland offered him a TV in
Speaker 1: the UK called The Tube. He got an audition and
Speaker 1: he passed, and he decided to take that and to
Speaker 1: form his own band and go off and do his
Speaker 1: own thing. And I remember meeting with him and Glenn
Speaker 1: in a cafe in black Heath and he told us
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, and I went home and cried.
Speaker 1: I was that sad. I thought this was you know,
Speaker 1: like one of the main members of the band had left,
Speaker 1: and I sort of was upset with Miles for not
Speaker 1: kind of keeping everything together. And then a few months
Speaker 1: later we met a new manager and we met a
Speaker 1: new keyboard player and everything was rosy again. And the
Speaker 1: new manager was Jake Rivieria. And Jake, well, you know
Speaker 1: Stiff Records, that's a that's a world and to itself,
Speaker 1: well it is and Jake was creative, exciting, every completely
Speaker 1: different from Miles and fun to be around again. It
Speaker 1: was like being in a gang, you know, you had
Speaker 1: Elvis Costello, Dave Edmonds, mc loebe or Cara. You had
Speaker 1: this great fraternity of musicians who all wanted the same
Speaker 1: thing and wanted to do it with joy and happiness
Speaker 1: and great artistry. I suppose even though we were pissed
Speaker 1: most of the time, it didn't seem to matter. And
Speaker 1: he came up with some great ideas, like a you know,
Speaker 1: the East Side Story album was going to be a
Speaker 1: four sided record. Dave Edmonds was going to produce one side,
Speaker 1: the Nick one side obviously still a one side, and
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney was gonna record side four. We went in
Speaker 1: the studio with Nick low Um, which was great fun,
Speaker 1: but we ended up in the pub mostly so that
Speaker 1: never saw the light of day. Dave Edmonds did the
Speaker 1: original version of Tempted, but it didn't sound like Squeeze,
Speaker 1: and then we went in with El Elvis and it
Speaker 1: just made complete sense. How does Paul Curic get into bed, Well,
Speaker 1: we didn't never keep board player, and there he was,
Speaker 1: and well, certainly he's had a parapatetic career after but
Speaker 1: he starts in ace. He does how long I have
Speaker 1: that album? I like it, but nothing really happens. And
Speaker 1: then he's in your band. He's playing in Mike and
Speaker 1: the Mechanics. You know, he's cutting solo. He never seems
Speaker 1: to stay anywhere he's with Eric Clapton. Um, Yeah he doesn't.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that keeps him healthy, you know.
Speaker 1: And he's a talent. He can sing so beautifully and
Speaker 1: emotionally that when I'm writing songs with him, I find
Speaker 1: it really hard to contain my feelings because he's such
Speaker 1: an incredibly emotional singer. So to have him in Squeeze,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that at the time, but to have
Speaker 1: him in Squeeze was just genius. And what were the
Speaker 1: circumstances and how did you feel when he left? Well,
Speaker 1: that's when I started to think that the chain was
Speaker 1: beginning to snap and started. Glenn, we were tired. We
Speaker 1: toured constantly, recorded constantly, UM and we were doing an
Speaker 1: album with a I called Ian McDonald who was an engineer,
Speaker 1: and we went into Sweet Side Story with him in
Speaker 1: Roger Adultery's studio in Batassy, and yeah, I was tired,
Speaker 1: Glenn was tired, and we were on a train together
Speaker 1: and we both said the same thing at the same time,
Speaker 1: I think we should rest the band, and we broke
Speaker 1: the band up. Which was upsetting for everybody, including us,
Speaker 1: and we recorded Suits from a Stranger and that was that. Okay,
Speaker 1: But Black Coffee in Bed is a big radio success,
Speaker 1: at least in the US. It was a huge radio
Speaker 1: success for us. But it was very long as a song,
Speaker 1: and I was surprised. That's what I liked about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked it to and when you come and see
Speaker 1: us played live, it is the longest song of the night.
Speaker 1: It's like the second set and just in that one song. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, Glenn was his genius point at that, you know.
Speaker 1: He we'd written When the Hangover of the Strikes and
Speaker 1: then the music to that and the music to Black
Speaker 1: Coffee and Bed were like the highlights of that part
Speaker 1: of our career. And lyrically, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: beginning to fade. The lights were beginning to get dim
Speaker 1: in my head, and so it was a good time
Speaker 1: to say good night. So we said good night. In Jamaica.
Speaker 1: That was our last gig. We were on stage with
Speaker 1: the wreath of Franklin there Grateful Dead, the Clash. It
Speaker 1: was a festival and yeah, it was kind of like
Speaker 1: a great way to go out, okay, but you go
Speaker 1: out that must have been emotionally very difficult. You come home,
Speaker 1: what's the player and there wasn't one. There was no
Speaker 1: plan until about two months later, a guy from a
Speaker 1: local theater presents Glenn and I with a script for
Speaker 1: a musical called Label Would Love. Glenn and I read it,
Speaker 1: we liked it, We were used the band and it
Speaker 1: ran for three months. The needer Land of family from
Speaker 1: America came to see it. They wanted us to tour
Speaker 1: in America, but we didn't want to do that. UM,
Speaker 1: so we went off and recorded an album on our
Speaker 1: own called Diffident Tilbrook. We changed managers again and who
Speaker 1: was the new manager? Chef Gordon right, and that was
Speaker 1: Chep very well. I forgot that point of this h
Speaker 1: managerial career. So yes, you have the new manager, and
Speaker 1: what does Chef tell you to do? Because Sheep is
Speaker 1: not short of ideas. He he had some ideas about
Speaker 1: us working with Grandmaster Flesh, which was surreal, and we
Speaker 1: did some tracks with them in New Jersey. UM, but
Speaker 1: the coming together was strange. It didn't really work. It
Speaker 1: was like it could have worked with a bit more
Speaker 1: input from myself and Glenn possibly, but it didn't really
Speaker 1: want it didn't really seem like it was going to fit.
Speaker 1: So we went off and recorded the Different Tilbrook album
Speaker 1: with Eric thorn Gren, and Eric thorn Gren was their
Speaker 1: engineer and he'd never been out of that studio with
Speaker 1: a grandmaster flesh, so it was like a new beginning
Speaker 1: for him too. He went on to record with the
Speaker 1: Talking Heads and stuff, so he came to London and
Speaker 1: help us finish that that album. And so how do
Speaker 1: you decide to become Squeeze again? It was very easy.
Speaker 1: The Different Tilbrook album was a masterpiece on reflection, but
Speaker 1: not at the time a Glen Again. Glenn's genius was
Speaker 1: at the forefront musically, I think um and we he
Speaker 1: was co He was working on it with Tony viscon Visconti,
Speaker 1: and we took it to the record company and they
Speaker 1: turned it down. They didn't like what Tony had done.
Speaker 1: And that's the only time Tony Visconti has been turned
Speaker 1: down by a record label after that, you know. So
Speaker 1: that was kind of sad. Um. So then we get
Speaker 1: that somebody approaches Glen about doing a charity gig locally
Speaker 1: for and so we get Jewels, Gilson, everybody back in
Speaker 1: the band, and we go in the pub, we play
Speaker 1: the electricity is reformed, we're oscillating as a band again,
Speaker 1: and then we're off. We're off to the races. But
Speaker 1: what do we do? We call Miles Copeland and Miles
Speaker 1: comes back to manage us again. And why do we
Speaker 1: do that? Because he's got such a great relationship with
Speaker 1: A and M. Because of the police that we figure
Speaker 1: that we can get as many doors open for us
Speaker 1: as possible. And to some degree that did work. You know,
Speaker 1: Miles had a lot of weight to throw around and
Speaker 1: that helped us record the next few albums. But ultimately
Speaker 1: A and then rejects you when you jump to reprieve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was weird. They we got to the stage where
Speaker 1: we dumped my hours again and they phoned us up
Speaker 1: and they just said, I'm sorry, you come to the
Speaker 1: end of the road. And then we Glenn and I
Speaker 1: were like, oh my god, what we're gonna do now?
Speaker 1: Another hurdle to jump over. And then the next day
Speaker 1: we get a phone call from Lenny one Oker and
Speaker 1: he says to us, I want to I want you
Speaker 1: guys on Warner Brothers come to Los Angeles and record
Speaker 1: an album with Tony Berg. So we go to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and that's where I hit my darkest point in my life,
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of the recording of that record.
Speaker 1: What Why Um. I think I've kind of taken to
Speaker 1: many drugs, drunk too much, isolated too much. I've lost
Speaker 1: any communication skills I had with the band, particularly with Glenn,
Speaker 1: and I regret that. And Glenn had this great vision
Speaker 1: that we would all be in like a house in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, like when the band got together to record,
Speaker 1: But as soon as we got to Los Angeles, I
Speaker 1: checked out of the house and got myself in the
Speaker 1: apartment on Venice Beach and drew the curtains and isolated
Speaker 1: from everybody and left Glen really to sort of hold
Speaker 1: court and he and Tony did all the work on
Speaker 1: that record, but emotionally I kind of was dried up,
Speaker 1: I guess well. On that album, which many people consider
Speaker 1: to be uh not, one of the beings high points
Speaker 1: is Satisfied, which is one of my favorite Squeezed tubes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely it's one of mine too, and it's a terrific
Speaker 1: song that we never play life but wish it that
Speaker 1: we did. And I think the production of that was
Speaker 1: recorded in Tony's garden shed. It's amazing. It's just an
Speaker 1: amazing thing. And then you go back to and him,
Speaker 1: how does that happen? We've had a checkered past um
Speaker 1: you know. Well they had a change of heart at
Speaker 1: the top of the label and they decided that, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got their back catalog, how can we
Speaker 1: enhance the new cat catalog. We gave them some new songs.
Speaker 1: Some Fantastic Place came along. I've been in rehab, I
Speaker 1: was on a pink cloud. Some Fantastic Place was a
Speaker 1: great record. We have Pete Thomas in the band playing drums.
Speaker 1: We had Poor Carrot back in the band, and for
Speaker 1: me that was that was like a genius time. You know,
Speaker 1: we were really back, really back in the saddle there.
Speaker 1: I think, yes. But needless to say, while you were
Speaker 1: doing all this, musical trends were changing. Were the fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So certainly your sound can be in and can be out.
Speaker 1: What was that like in terms of making music? Certainly
Speaker 1: in that era the Seattle sound was becoming very big. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was you know, the A and R guys were saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you should you know, you should sound a bit more
Speaker 1: like Blur, or you should sound a bit more like,
Speaker 1: you know, they were trying to sort of guide us,
Speaker 1: and we're saying, well, no, we're going to sound like squeeze,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. And then secretly they would send
Speaker 1: their songs off to be mixed by people in Sweden
Speaker 1: and it was like, what the hell are you doing
Speaker 1: that for? You know, it's like stupid, and so it
Speaker 1: started to peter out again, you know, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's extraordinary. We've we've been extraordinarily lucky to to bump
Speaker 1: along the rock and roll road. And about the same
Speaker 1: time Jewels starts his road to real stardom on the
Speaker 1: Tube in the UK. What are your thoughts there? Um, Well,
Speaker 1: I've always remained great friends with Jules, and I sing
Speaker 1: in his orchestra every now and again as a tour
Speaker 1: at the end of this year that I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be on singing with him. I write with Jules. I've
Speaker 1: never been far from his side, and I really enjoy
Speaker 1: our friendship. It goes back many years after all, and
Speaker 1: I really was not jealous of what he did. I
Speaker 1: was in in awe and it was great to hang
Speaker 1: out with him. But did you foresee this giant success? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't, but it seems now natural. You know, he's
Speaker 1: on television all the time, and thankfully he is introducing
Speaker 1: fantastic music to a younger crowd. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: we're there's very little music on television as as you
Speaker 1: well know, so to have something like Jules's show is
Speaker 1: just a tiny bit of fresh air for people to
Speaker 1: tune into. So one must ask, over this long career,
Speaker 1: with no absolute staples, how this worked out financially for
Speaker 1: you over all these FI decades almost Um, well, there
Speaker 1: were times when royaltism prs would come through the door
Speaker 1: and I would go and buy a Maserati or fly
Speaker 1: concord every other weekum. Consequently I ran out of all
Speaker 1: the money, you know, or went And now we're at
Speaker 1: the other end of the ark where royalties don't mean
Speaker 1: very much. You don't get people don't buy records obviously,
Speaker 1: so the Spotify don't pay you particularly well. So the
Speaker 1: royalties have died out, and it's all about being on
Speaker 1: the road as Squeeze, and about about trying to reinvent
Speaker 1: who we are in a digit in a digital world.
Speaker 1: If you like, let's just assume you never toured again.
Speaker 1: Do you have enough money to get to the end. No,
Speaker 1: I definitely don't, you know, I know him. As Nickolos says,
Speaker 1: we're in the last we're in the final third. I
Speaker 1: think that's a lovely quote. And yeah, we're in the
Speaker 1: final third, and I wouldn't want to stop anyway. I've
Speaker 1: only just in the last ten years begin began to
Speaker 1: own the fact that I am one half of Squeeze,
Speaker 1: and I do enjoy who I am, and I like
Speaker 1: to sing the songs. And that's taken a lot of therapy,
Speaker 1: a lot of time, a lot of understanding, and a
Speaker 1: lot of respect for the people that I work with,
Speaker 1: particularly Glenn. It's taken a long time for me too
Speaker 1: to hold his hand. Oh what did you believe previously?
Speaker 1: I don't know what I believed, but it always seemed
Speaker 1: to me like the competition was fruitless, really, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in competition the whole time. I
Speaker 1: couldn't sing like Glenn, obviously, I can't sing like Paul Carrot,
Speaker 1: but I learned to sing like me, and so when
Speaker 1: I do black coffee in bed myself, it sounds like me,
Speaker 1: and I think that's absolutely fine. And when I go
Speaker 1: out and do my solo stand up show, which is
Speaker 1: like an hour long. It's like tell tales, to tell jokes,
Speaker 1: and I play a couple of songs. It's kind of
Speaker 1: that's all I all. I really really need. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I enjoy that. I enjoyed the camaraderie of Squeeze again,
Speaker 1: and I'm really missing not being onto, not just for
Speaker 1: the band, but for the crew, for the audience, for
Speaker 1: the whole chemistry of what being a human being is
Speaker 1: all about. Let's go back to prior to that. Prior
Speaker 1: to that realization, So you felt like less than half
Speaker 1: I did because I was I just couldn't handle. I
Speaker 1: suppose the fact that I found it difficult to play
Speaker 1: the guitar. I found it difficult to sing that kind
Speaker 1: of guy. That was the dyslexic, backward kid who is
Speaker 1: in the special needs class. That was always me and
Speaker 1: Squeeze in my head, and I couldn't express that to
Speaker 1: other people in the band. So I used to just
Speaker 1: dwell on it and be isolated. But I don't have
Speaker 1: to be that person anymore. I am much more confident,
Speaker 1: and UM, I really have our audience to thank for that,
Speaker 1: and I have the people that are around squeeze to
Speaker 1: thank for that too, and my and my my wife Louise,
Speaker 1: who constantly holds my my hand. Well, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: let me put it this way, other than squeeze. When
Speaker 1: you look at the world at large prior to this realization,
Speaker 1: did you feel less there or did you put other
Speaker 1: people on a pedestal? Yeah? I did feel less than
Speaker 1: and I did put You know, when when you're in
Speaker 1: a band and the lead singer is also the lead
Speaker 1: guitarist and he writes all the melodies and he's the
Speaker 1: one all the girls look at, you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of step backwards towards your amplifier just a little quicker
Speaker 1: because you don't feel like you can be that guy.
Speaker 1: But that's okay. It's like, not everybody can be Pete
Speaker 1: Townsend and not everybody can be Roger Adultery. So if
Speaker 1: I was one of them, I was probably Roger. Well.
Speaker 1: I guess that the reason I go deeper here is,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm stunned at these people who were big
Speaker 1: successes in their twenties and thirties. I was brought up
Speaker 1: in a family where they always said somebody else can
Speaker 1: do better, and it was It has him into like
Speaker 1: the last year that I've had this realization like you have. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm on the landscape. I'm equal. But I
Speaker 1: know people would verbalize that before, but I never believed.
Speaker 1: I never believe that either. And you know that's that's
Speaker 1: accept acceptance and it comes with age. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm very fortunate to be in the
Speaker 1: place that I'm at. There's no rush anymore to do anything, particularly,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no rush to make a new album,
Speaker 1: although I would love to make a new album. I
Speaker 1: think this being in lockdown is like being in three
Speaker 1: It's kind of like there's nothing to do. You kind
Speaker 1: of sit around. And I've just been starting writing songs again,
Speaker 1: so I'm in a good frame of mind. And um yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the day when we get back
Speaker 1: out there. So what is your personal songwriting process? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I sit at my desk where I am now, and
Speaker 1: I wait for lyrics to arrive. I don't go chasing them.
Speaker 1: I might get an idea. I like today, I had
Speaker 1: an idea and it came to me. I put down
Speaker 1: the idea on my computer screen and it just poured out.
Speaker 1: It just came straight out, and I sent it to
Speaker 1: a friend of mine in Austin and she just wrote
Speaker 1: the music for it. Well, I guess what I'm asking.
Speaker 1: Are you the type of person? Well, you know it's
Speaker 1: ten am. I have to go to the shed and
Speaker 1: right or you're waiting for inspiration. No, I am fortunate
Speaker 1: insofar as um, whenever the news takes me, I will
Speaker 1: sit in the shed for as long as it takes
Speaker 1: to write whatever I need to write. Um. You know
Speaker 1: the Randy Newmans school of going in in the morning
Speaker 1: from ten o'clock till five suits me. Fine, that sounds great.
Speaker 1: That's what I love to do. So for instance, if
Speaker 1: we were going to make a new Squeeze record, that's
Speaker 1: why I would do it. Cut myself off from ten
Speaker 1: to five every day. Okay? Are your best songs written
Speaker 1: when you say I have to work or when lightning strikes?
Speaker 1: The best songs I've ever written from the subconscious mind?
Speaker 1: They just appear. I don't know what they're about or
Speaker 1: where they come from. Um. People, and then you go
Speaker 1: out on the road and people interview and they say
Speaker 1: what's that song about? And you go, actually, I have
Speaker 1: to think about that, you know, because sometimes it comes
Speaker 1: from the from the back part of the brain which
Speaker 1: is kind of floating around black, you know, in the
Speaker 1: in sunlight, and it takes a while for it to
Speaker 1: see through into the lower valleys of the front of
Speaker 1: the mind. Well, like today, you say this poured out
Speaker 1: of you. Once it pours out of you, is that
Speaker 1: it or do you change it into? What degree do
Speaker 1: you change it? Um? Well, it depends. So I'm working
Speaker 1: with writing for Glenn. I have Glenn right in the
Speaker 1: middle of my mind, and I think about Glenn constantly
Speaker 1: while I'm writing, because he's the guy who's going to
Speaker 1: be singing it. So and I've got to think about
Speaker 1: his personality, what he feels, what he believes, and try
Speaker 1: and get into what he would like to sing. If
Speaker 1: I'm writing with Paul Carrot, I try and think about
Speaker 1: what Paul would like to sing. So I'd rather like
Speaker 1: being a tailor, you know, lyrically, I've got to kind
Speaker 1: of dress the person in something that would suit them best. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess let's just assume you don't have a raw inspiration,
Speaker 1: but you want to write. You go out to the shed.
Speaker 1: Are you a procrastinator? Do you have to serve the
Speaker 1: web sharpen your pencils or do you go right into it. Oh, no,
Speaker 1: I don't do it. I just I just get there.
Speaker 1: I used this software called I a Writer, and I
Speaker 1: A Writer is just the black screen with white typing
Speaker 1: on it. There's no nothing around the outside of the screen,
Speaker 1: so you only see the words. And I just sit
Speaker 1: here and I tie up and imagine. I don't stress,
Speaker 1: and I just let it come, and then I'll come
Speaker 1: back the following day and read it. And if it's rubbish,
Speaker 1: I just don't bother finishing it. If it's good, then
Speaker 1: I've finished it. Is it sometimes hard to get into
Speaker 1: the same mood from what you've done before and to
Speaker 1: finish the song. Not really, No, I'm kind of once
Speaker 1: I'm in the in the groove to write, it comes
Speaker 1: thick and fast. And you know, that's what I try
Speaker 1: and get across to the writers that I'm teaching that
Speaker 1: they have to go with their instinct and not and
Speaker 1: not really challenge themselves or make it difficult for themselves,
Speaker 1: but just go with how you feel within. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's it's a gift after all, having
Speaker 1: the ability to write lyrics, I feel, so you know,
Speaker 1: you have to nurture the gift and be with it.
Speaker 1: So let's just assume you finish the song. Would you
Speaker 1: change it or it's done? It's done. Um. Well, again,
Speaker 1: it's who I'm working with, and I'm working with Glen.
Speaker 1: We normally tweak the songs lyrically. We might change the
Speaker 1: world or two. Um. And on the last two albums
Speaker 1: of Squeeze, Glenn has contributed quite a lot lyric lyrically
Speaker 1: him himself. UM. So that's been a different dynamic for
Speaker 1: both of us. And that's been that's been fun and
Speaker 1: different for us. And then if I'm working with somebody else,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't tweak it quite as much. I don't
Speaker 1: think now when you say Glenn writes lyrics that after
Speaker 1: you've established something he then changes it or he comes
Speaker 1: with his own lyrics. No, he predominantly on the last
Speaker 1: couple of records he's come he's changed some of the
Speaker 1: influences of the lyrics, kept what he feels are the
Speaker 1: best lines, I guess, and then embellishes it with his
Speaker 1: own structure, in his own ideas. And I suppose that's
Speaker 1: what co writing is about. It's about being able to
Speaker 1: share that. It's never happened until recently, I have to say. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we've for a long time had the Bernie
Speaker 1: Telpen Elton John relationship, but without the money, where you know,
Speaker 1: I would deliver the lyrics walk away, and then the
Speaker 1: next thing I would be on stage playing this, this, this,
Speaker 1: these songs. But that dynamic has changed. And what lyrics
Speaker 1: are you most proud of? Um, jeez, I'm proud of
Speaker 1: a lot of the earlier stuff, particularly the East Side
Speaker 1: Story album. I was talking about this the other day
Speaker 1: that it's the most complete album from a lyrical point
Speaker 1: of view that I feel very proud of every track.
Speaker 1: And I think that's because Elvis Costello was producing it.
Speaker 1: And Elvis is a dear friend and and a dear
Speaker 1: friend because I respect him so much as a writer.
Speaker 1: So when we're in the studio together, he would be
Speaker 1: like the teacher that I would be trying to impress.
Speaker 1: So I'd come in with a lyric and I'd read
Speaker 1: it to him, or Glen would sing him a song
Speaker 1: and I'd be looking at him for a reaction. And
Speaker 1: that's what made that record special. So sometimes having a
Speaker 1: producer come in from the outside can really enhance your songwriting.
Speaker 1: Skills and it makes it less less kind of, um,
Speaker 1: it gives it more oxygen, I think. And let's assume
Speaker 1: you're not on a project. Are you writing anyway? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to. I'm trying to write short story, short stories,
Speaker 1: which I'm learning a lot about. I'm constantly writing down
Speaker 1: notes about lyrics. Or I'm working on the next Zoom concert.
Speaker 1: I've got nil Nil Rodgers is joining me on the
Speaker 1: next one, which I'm looking forward to. And then if
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that and I'm teaching or you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of focusing on staying in the day. Okay,
Speaker 1: So who do you respect lyrically? Well, it's got to
Speaker 1: be people like Johnie Mitchell, um, Pete Townsend. Um, it's
Speaker 1: people from the past. In many ways. Alex Turner is
Speaker 1: a lyricist of most recent years that I love. I
Speaker 1: think he's just a complete genius, genius. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: lyricist called Chris Wood who's a folk singer who I
Speaker 1: really like. Um. Other than that, it's few and far between.
Speaker 1: I guess can you name any specific Johnny Mitchell or
Speaker 1: Pete Townsends Lost? Um? What uh you know? When I
Speaker 1: listened to the Blue album. I mean, it's an obvious
Speaker 1: album to take but lyrically it's a very moving record.
Speaker 1: Um and you know, when I listened to that record,
Speaker 1: it takes me to a very soft and feminine place.
Speaker 1: I'm like the new Bob Dylan record, which doesn't take
Speaker 1: me to a feminine past, but it takes me to
Speaker 1: a place of inspiration. So there are still genius, it's
Speaker 1: still people from the generation before the impressed, like Dylan,
Speaker 1: Neil Neil Young's new album, well, Neil's Neil Young's new
Speaker 1: album Homegrown is certainly and it's very good recorded from
Speaker 1: a previous era. It's certainly Bob. Certainly Bob Dylan has
Speaker 1: been through a lot of changes, and I'm a big
Speaker 1: Dylan fan. But I thought the two previous records, uh,
Speaker 1: we're overrated, and that seems to be the word now
Speaker 1: in terms of the new record. It's something I can respect,
Speaker 1: but I don't find that easy to listen to. What
Speaker 1: has your experience been? Exactly that? Exactly that? But but
Speaker 1: that's the challenge for me. You know, it's on repeat
Speaker 1: in the car because I find it sometimes difficult to
Speaker 1: listen to and I'm not sure what that is, So
Speaker 1: I to get to the bottom of it by constantly
Speaker 1: listening to it. But it's the lyrical challenge that he
Speaker 1: throws up that is the most important thing. He's portraying
Speaker 1: such beautiful imagery, um that I could only dream of writing.
Speaker 1: And that's what I I indulge in that kind of lyric. Okay,
Speaker 1: So needless to say, you started your career in the
Speaker 1: pre internet era. What do you think about business and
Speaker 1: music today? Well, I don't know anything about business and
Speaker 1: music today. It doesn't exist for me. We're on the
Speaker 1: outskirts of that. We used to be very heavily in
Speaker 1: the middle with A and M and Warner Brothers and
Speaker 1: Universal and people like that. But that's not out. You
Speaker 1: know that we were in the department store, I guess,
Speaker 1: in the shopping mault of music and industry in those days.
Speaker 1: Now with the corner shop, you know, we've just got
Speaker 1: a few things that we sell, but they're fresh, um,
Speaker 1: you know, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables and stuff, and
Speaker 1: and that's really actually I remember Pete Townshend saying to me,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to stop thinking of squeezes as like,
Speaker 1: you know, the big shop that you're working in, you're
Speaker 1: working in a corner shop now, you know. And that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it's like. And I love that. I think
Speaker 1: it's great. And we have more fans now than I
Speaker 1: think we've ever had. We played in the Atlanta in September,
Speaker 1: and our audience was so young. When we came on stage,
Speaker 1: I looked at Glennie looked at me, and we went
Speaker 1: and we at the right gig, you know. And this
Speaker 1: is an audience that had found us, I guess via Spotify,
Speaker 1: you know, and via the internet. So we are a
Speaker 1: new band just broadening our rises, leaving Squeeze out of it.
Speaker 1: Do you pay attention to what's popular on the charts,
Speaker 1: what is being released or you say I'm in Squeeze world. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I take on board what's going on in the industry,
Speaker 1: you know. I listened to things that I think are great,
Speaker 1: like Laura Marlin. I'd love to listen to things that
Speaker 1: come along and stroke my imagination lyrically. But other than that,
Speaker 1: not really that fast. It's not for me. It's for
Speaker 1: a different generation, which begs the question of hip hop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not really my thing. I don't think lyrically. I
Speaker 1: love Storm C, I love Dave, I think they're both
Speaker 1: incredible lyricists. They're like, you know, they're like the Dickens
Speaker 1: of their day, um, and you know, um, people like
Speaker 1: that are extraordinary storytellers. UM. And that's what I find
Speaker 1: very appealing about that kind of music. Music when it's
Speaker 1: done right well, Chris, I think people have really gotten
Speaker 1: an idea of who you are. You certainly become more
Speaker 1: three D than what I've known previous Slee, even being
Speaker 1: on one of your webcasts. Thanks so much for doing this.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been annment. Until next time. This is
Speaker 1: Bob left Send