Chris Difford has heaps to sit up for as he delves again into his previous | Music | Leisure

“We’d simply stepped off the airplane on the finish of an American tour, and I instructed the Scottish viewers how good it was to be again in England,” Chris, 69, recollects with a smile. “I’ve apologised…”

Simply again from the band’s newest six-week US tour 4 a long time later, Difford is preoccupied with the much more distant previous – his days as a teenage tearaway in southeast London.

“I’ve been up within the loft, digging out footage for my new tour,” the guitarist and singer tells me. “I discovered pictures of me and my skinhead mates…”

The late 60s Combe Avenue council property gang.

“I’m making an attempt to assemble recollections of these occasions to make use of within the present,” he says, referring to Not Solely However Additionally, his “stand-up, sit-down tour” which begins this month and sees Difford delve again into his chequered previous.

Chris grew up on King George Avenue, Charlton. It was a poor, close-knit neighborhood – terraced homes and prefabs, with one church, one college, three pubs and a single telephone field. “When it rang, everybody got here out to see who it was for…

“For the humorous tales you’ll have to return to the present,” he tells me sternly. “You may hear a tune 150 occasions and never tire of it however jokes and anecdotes don’t bear being retold too usually.”

Chris is humorous sufficient simply chatting, and positively unguarded. By his personal admission, the co-writer of unforgettable hits like Labelled With Love, Cool For Cats and musical cleaning soap opera Up The Junction was fairly a handful in his youth.

“My dad was a wages clerk on the gasworks, mum labored within the canteen within the native police station. That got here in helpful as a result of typically, once I obtained arrested, they’d recognise me as her son and I’d get away with it.”

After leaving West Greenwich Complete Faculty, all he needed was to be in a band. “However my mother and father decided I ought to have a correct job, so I labored as a solicitors’ clerk, however I wasn’t very reliable. I labored there for 15 months they usually trusted me with the important thing to the secure.

“A silly factor to do….”

He spent every week flattening packing containers in a cardboard manufacturing facility, edited soft-porn movies on reels of Tremendous eight and labored at a “dodgy native warehouse – on my first day the opposite employees dragged me to the Rose & Crown, it was the primary time I noticed a stripper. Weirdly she was dancing to Gilbert O’Sullivan. I used to be 17 and terrified.”

That yr, Chris pinched 50p from his mom’s purse, and put an advert within the window of an area candy store studying, ‘Lead guitarist needed for a band. Recording quickly.’

“No person replied for 3 weeks. I used to be beginning to lose hope, then Glenn answered and saved me from the biscuit manufacturing facility.

Glenn Tilbrook, then a 15-year-old school-leaver, met him in Blackheath pub The Three Tuns in April 1973.

“I owned up – there was no band and no recording contract. I’d had college bands, however all I had was a load of songs and no person to play them with…”

He launched twelve of these 1972 demos – recorded on reel-to-reel by his buddy and neighbour Bob Blatchford, as Let’s Be Combe Avenue in 2017.

Recruiting Jools Holland (keyboards), Harry Kakouli (bass) and Paul Gunn (drums), Squeeze had been initially often known as Skyco (quick for Captain Trundlow’s Sky Firm) and performed their first gig at Catford Ladies’ Faculty.

“A wierd alternative. They had been a bit bemused by all of it; I do know we had been.”

Greenwich pubs had been extra welcoming. “We lower our enamel within the Bricklayers Arms – a tiny place, run by Harry’s dad. We had been paid in crates of beer. And the Oxford Arms was fantastic. We by no means dreamed that six years later we’d be enjoying to 20,000 folks in Madison Sq. Backyard.

“I didn’t really feel my toes on the stage as soon as that day. It was electrical. A number of trousers had been flapping…

“We performed there once more after lockdown, I used to be very proud, very grateful. I don’t keep in mind the occasions in-between; I used to be too drunk.”

Squeeze launched their first ep, Packet Of Three, on the indie label Deptford Enjoyable Metropolis, in 1977. That they had their first hit, Take Me I’m Yours in ’78, and went Prime three twice in 1979 – which is once I first interviewed Chris, in his native, the Rose & Crown (often known as “the awful brown”).

In his personal phrases “a severe drinker”, he’d written Cool For Cats in that very Minder-esque pub, taking inspiration from passing duckers, divers, and native hoodlums.

Again then, Chris was planning his first wedding ceremony – the wedding lasted 9 years, his liver held out just a little longer. A recovering alcoholic, he swore off the demon drink in 1992.

His thirsty behavior fuelled Squeeze’s first break-up in 1983. Booze numbed his feelings, conquering his shyness. He likens it to carrying a diving swimsuit – “you are feeling secure inside it, nevertheless it’s essentially the most harmful factor you are able to do.”

Solo, Chris wrote or co-wrote songs for Sarah Brightman, Lisa Stansfield, and outdated bandmate Jools Holland; songs co-written with Glenn had been lined by Elaine Paige, Joe Cocker and extra.

Songwriting revenue saved them afloat. Their authentic contract drawn up by their first supervisor signed away all their songs, masters, and copyright.

In 1986 they took him to court docket however settled exterior. “It’s unhappy as a result of my youngsters won’t ever profit from these hits,” he says.

Father-of-four Chris moved to a farm in Rye, Sussex, with the mom of his two youngest youngsters in 1990. He at present lives in a village exterior Brighton with spouse Louise, who he met whereas enjoying on a Radio four comedy present and married in 2013.

“I just like the countryside and rural dwelling, however even now, once I drive throughout Blackheath or I’m by the river, I really feel a way of belonging.”

Chris has had a profitable solo profession, managed varied stars, together with Bryan Ferry, and in 2015 he and Glenn wrote the theme tune to the BBC sitcom Cradle To Grave, starring Peter Kay and written by Danny Baker – Chris’s buddy from college.

“Peter makes me giggle. He’s a little bit of a mate. I’ve seen him a number of occasions, he’s excellent, a very prime bloke.”

Difford says he inherited his dad’s work ethic and his Northern Irish mom’s free-spending – in the course of the band’s golden years he over-spent “like a lottery winner”.

He’s nonetheless busy. In addition to excursions and songwriting, Chris is a trustee for Music Help, a charity that helps musicians affected by psychological ill-health and/or habit. He additionally has a Assist Musicians podcast, I By no means Thought It Would Occur, the place he chats to musical visitors concerning the highs and lows of their careers.

A double Novello award winner, Difford has had loads of each. “Glastonbury is all the time a excessive. The Pyramid stage, I got here off in tears, such a wonderful expertise. It’s one of the crucial real festivals.

“My first thrill was being reviewed in Sounds and NME as a result of I’d collected them rising up.”

Chris’s witty lyrics and Glenn’s intelligent, catchy tunes have seen the duo likened to Lennon & McCartney and Bacharach & David.

Songs like Pulling Mussels (From A Shell) and Tempted – their solely US Prime Ten – dwell on in movie and TV.

Though he’s left and rejoined Squeeze twice, Difford’s partnership with Tilbrook has survived for half a century.

“It’s the 50 anniversary this yr,” he says. “And we’ll be doing a full UK tour from October.

“Earlier than that, we’ve two profit gigs for Teenage Most cancers Belief on the Albert Corridor with The Who.

“There’s heaps to sit up for.”

Chris is a Trustee of Music Help, the UK charity that gives assist and help to anybody who works in music and dwell occasions affected by psychological ill-health and/or habit. Based in 2016, the charity’s staff is made up of people that have been personally affected by these points and seen buddies, colleagues and heroes lose their careers, households and even their lives. Their core companies embrace a confidential Helpline, managed by music trade friends with lived expertise, coaching in Psychological Well being First Support and Dependancy and Restoration Consciousness to empower people to take care of the wellbeing of their colleagues (and themselves), advert ‘Secure Hubs’ backstage at festivals.

Because of a partnership with the Christopher Meredith Basis, Music Help is creating a complete new programme of help for the household and buddies of these battling ingesting, drug-use or different addictions, an enormous profit to many who are sometimes ignored when contemplating the influence of those issues. For additional data on their work, go to www.musicsupport.org