Music > Interviews
Interview with Squeeze
04/12/12
Think of lyrics like, “The squaw is with the Corporal, she is tied against the tree. She doesn't mind the language, it's the beating she don't need” and “Amusing belly dancers distract me from my wine, across Tibetan mountains are memories of mine”. They are the most subversive lyrics to be ever given the pop treatment. The stories that Chris Difford spun though, would have been redundant without the playful interpretations of Glenn Tilbrook’s music. The partnership gave us the most unassuming pop hits of the last 40 years, which we still cherish and can sing word perfect today. They lost each other for a while, but we’re delighted they’re back together, and will play for us this December, as we found out from Glenn…
It’s a real honour to be talking to you Glenn…Thanks very much. It’s good to be talking to you too! Whereabouts are you?
Norwich, a not-so sunny Norwich. And we found out this morning that the Norwich date has been moved and it’ll now be the last date of your tour.Yes, the 16th I think.
That’s really cool; I imagine there’ll be a bit of a last night party feel to it then, do you think?I think there will be a bit of last night party, definitely.
Good! Do you keep a little bit left in the tank for the end of the tour?[LAUGHS] …There’s always a little bit left in the tank with me! [LAUGHS]
To get a minor topic out of the way, I saw you on BBC Breakfast recently and you were cleanly shaven. You’d had a fantastic beard for a good while though, and I wondered if this was the start of your entry into Movember?No, it’s a very worthy thing, but I’m not joining in. I support everyone who does, of course, but I had a personal beard mission from last year and I very much enjoyed having it. I’m not obsessed with the way I look, or what people think of it, but I think it’s true that 99 out of 100 people absolutely hated me with a beard! And for some reason, they didn’t feel any kind of compunction in telling me that’s how they felt! If people don’t like your suit, or your shoes, they’ll kind of hold back telling you, but with a beard, people tend to spur all their hatred onto it, and tell you straight away what an idiot you look with it.
I actually offered my boss double his money to stop doing Movember last year because he looked so sinister…[LAUGHS] That’s brilliant!
I liked your beard though Glenn, I really did.Oh thank you, well I enjoyed it while it lasted. I broke my fifth metatarsal in my left foot and I was on crutches for a bit; I was intending to keep the beard ‘til the end of the year, but I found the combination of beard and crutches wasn’t something that sat well with my ego and one had to go and that was the beard!
To go back to the beginning of Squeeze: when you first answered Chris’ [Difford] advert for band members, you were already at a point of really great musical proficiency. It was an interesting time for music, but I was wondering where you were pulling your influences from…I was pulling my influences really from the stuff I grew up with in the sixties, plus some earlier rock ‘n’ roll, you know, boogie woogie when I met Jools – he introduced me to a lot of that stuff I’d not heard before – then by the time I met Chris I was listening to The Kinks and The Velvet Underground. So really, we were pulling from a lot of different placed and somehow it all made sense to us.
You both had older brothers, and I think older siblings can often help develop a musical maturity, can’t they…Absolutely, totally, yeah; my brother was seven years older than me and he bought the first Beatles EP and I remember he had, like, The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and some Georgie Fame songs and all that stuff and I was 6, 7, 8 and at that age, it just sort of seeps into you.
There’s so many questions I could ask you about the period in which you released your debut, but what I think is most amazing is that you had John Cale on production duties predominantly, but the biggest hits on the album were produced by you. You were so young and inexperienced at the time, it must’ve taken balls to have your voice heard in a studio with Cale…Yeah, but I think that in a way, when you’re young and cocky, it’s almost easier than when you’re older sometimes, you know; I had no fear. It was lovely to have that feeling at that time. We just couldn’t wait to get into the studio.
Another notable producer you worked with was Elvis Costello, on ‘East Side Story’. In a recent BBC documentary, he talked about the rumour of that being a double album, with each side produced by a different person, him one and Paul McCartney another of them. I thought I’d ask you about the validity of the rumour…Well that was the original idea; we’d started working with Dave Edmonds, then we worked with Elvis and there were rumours that McCartney was interesting in doing it, but I don’t know how substantiated that ever were. In the end though, by the time we got on with Elvis, we got onto a really good roll, so we decided to stick with that.
Again from the documentary, there was footage of Chris talking about receiving your demo tapes, and he describes you like Santa sending him those gifts. But by the same token, with his songwriting, Chris gave you gifts too, didn’t he?Oh absolutely, yeah. To get a bunch of lyrics from Chris was always a really exciting time, and still is. I just couldn’t wait to get started, and get in there and find out what’s what. One thing that’s always been true is that I never look at the lyrics until I’m sat down and ready to go with my guitar and piano.
I think the story of ‘Some Fantastic Place’ [the song Chris wrote about the loss of Glenn’s former girlfriend to Leukemia] was one of those occasions where Chris was able to give you a gift of those lyrics, to manifest those words of expression.Yeah, totally; Chris has a very special gift, lyrically, and when he wrote that song I knew it was about Maxine and it was one of those things where it’s a very chordy, tuney sort of song but I just sat down and it sort of tumbled out. It was right; I didn’t even think about it and it just worked, from the word go.
I had heard you say before that you work better when you work instinctively, and we’re delighted that you’ve written some new material. Do you still rely on those razor-sharp instincts nowadays?Yeah, I’m really happy and proud that we’ve written some great new songs – some songs that I’m really proud of. I was beginning to write them at the end of last year and I found it very, very difficult; it wasn’t easy to get going and then I wrote one song instinctively and that was the one that we’d been waiting for, the one that opened the floodgates and since then we’ve been doing a lot of writing and I’m really happy with it.
For the two of you, you’ll recognise it in your own music, are they full of that unique chemistry that we know you for?I don’t know; I can’t really answer that question but what I can say is there’s always a point in which you feel a buzz about what you’re doing and I’ve always – well certainly in the beginning I felt like that and now I feel very, very much in touch with that again, and feel a buzz about what we’re doing. I mean, today we’re doing a video for one of the new songs and we’re just buzzing about what we’re doing; there’s this excitement…! I’ve been there when it’s been like a job, you know, and you hated it getting to that stage but it did, and it wasn’t buzzing and sparking and it just felt a bit tired. I don’t know why that was, but what I know is that now we’re really keeping our eye on it and making sure it’s fresh all the time.
You’ve had a good period of time to stretch your solo legs, and you had your own other band, The Fluffers – is it good to exorcise all those personal ideas to then come back to Squeeze?Totally, yeah; The Fluffers certainly rejuvanted me and I felt a kind of excitement that I haven’t felt since, say, the first five years of Squeeze. It showed me that it was possible to do that and what was possible is actually to bond and to properly approach making music, rather than feel like you’ve been and done it all, and seen it all before.
And you got to work with the inhumanly beautiful former couple, Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, didn’t you?Oh yeah, yeah! They came to see Squeeze play in Los Angeles and they were really nice; they came backstage and chatted with us afterwards. Then after, they got in contact with us and it just so happened that I was coming back to L.A. a week after to mix my Fluffers record with Bob Clearmountain, so I was gonna be around there for a bit. They suggested we get together, which we did and I asked them if they’d do some stuff for my record, and they did – it was just a nice time, you know. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have that measure of success, but the unique thing is they’ve managed to hold – I know they’re not together now – but they’ve both held on to themselves as people, and that’s great. They’re nice, down to earth people and that’s a brilliant thing.
Absolutely, and pop fact – Johnny Depp has a house in Norfolk somewhere.Does he?! [LAUGHS] Brilliant!
I would consider you and Chris as one of the greatest songwriting partnerships the country has ever produced. I was born in ’84, so I’ve never known a time where I haven’t just intrinsically known your music. To me, you have the magic chemistry of Bacarach and David – like them, have you ever thought about writing for other people?That’s really nice of you, thankyou. I’d like it if people covered our songs, and Chris has done a lot more of that than me, but I find that the older I get, the less universal I want to be; I almost want to run away from… One of the things I did love about Squeeze is that not many people could cover our songs because they were so ‘us’. That was one of the things, and I like that about us, so I’d like people to cover our stuff, but I wouldn’t want to start writing generic songs. I like the very specific sort of subject matters that we approach.
You’re bringing the Pop Up Shop Tour to Norwich, which I’m personally very excited about because it’s being recorded on the night, isn’t it?Yes, it is.
So I get the opportunity to shout “Hello Mum”, or something in the middle and it’ll be recorded for posterity![LAUGHS] Yeah, exactly! [LAUGHS] I’ll be listening out for you shouting, “hello mum!”
But it’s a really exciting prospect though that every gig will be cherished for its differences and will be recorded –- To me, it’s a bit of where the business is at today, you know, records weren’t as important as they once were and the new stuff is important to us. As well as the live show, we’re gonna be giving away an EP with between 4 and 6 new songs on it. So some of the new songs we’re playing, there’ll be studio versions out and then sometime next year there’ll be an album. But that’ll be the follow up to the tour, not the reason for it. It’s still important to me to have an album as a line in the sand for our songwriting at this point. Even though albums don’t really sell and we’re not in that kind of business, nor is the record industry a large scale business any more.
With the new material though, it must mean you’re doing a lot of rehearsal, because the old ones you know like the back of your hand…Oh yeah, definitely; it’s a show, you know what I mean. We’re putting a lot of work in and part of the work we’re doing today is for the tour. We’ve been working on it for a month and we’ll be working on it ‘til we go out on the road, so we’re on the road as much as we are off the road, if not longer, preparing for the tour. I remember Squeeze of old would rehearse for two days maximum, so it’s very different!
Well I’m very pleased to hear you’ve been putting some hard graft in – that’s what I like to hear!Yeah… [LAUGHS] Cool!
Finally, I like to ask bands that are coming to Norwich what would make their perfect audience for the gig – what can we do for you?You can say, ‘wow, that’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen! Whatever I’ve been told by Emma is true, and more so! Times ten! It was amazing. I think I’d better go and show my appreciation by saying hello at the Pop Up Shop afterwards… and perhaps purchasing a copy of that recording of the evening’s entertainment!’
Emma Garwood
Squeeze come to the UEA on December 16th and will be bringing ex-Housemartin, Beautiful South founder, Paul Heaton in support. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk. Read the uncut version of this interview at Outlineonline.co.uk