Why music is still Difford’s main Squeeze
IT’S hard to believe that Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have been staring into the same size of dressing rooms for 45 years now. ‘We are constantly on tour it seems these days,’ Difford says of his latest outing with Squeeze. And he reckons being on the road never gets any easier, despite the fact that he’s written some of the world’s greatest pop songs.
‘Our dressing rooms are still as bad as they ever were,’ Difford says drolly. ‘When people put on gigs they still think “We’ll just stick you in a cupboard, you will be fine.” It’s not much fun being in a cupboard but apart from that, everything is great.’
Hopefully next week the dressing rooms will be a bit more luxurious as Difford and Tilbrook will be performing in Cork Opera House on October 14 and Vicar Street in Dublin on October 15.
The basis is to delve into some of the lesser known Squeeze tracks and perform a few of their own favourites, alongside the hits, of course, including some material from their last two albums Cradle to the Grave and The Knowledge.
‘We thought it might be a good idea to do something different and we decided to delve into our songbook and play things that we hadn’t done for many years,’ Difford says.
‘I am pleased to say we now have some great old songs that haven’t seen the light of day for some time so it’s been amazing.’
Such is their songwriting prowess that Difford and Tilbrook have been compared to Lennon and Mc Cartney, with a canon that contains the likes of Pulling Mussels From A Shell, Cool For Cats, Up The J unction and Labour of Love. But for all their hits, neither are showy.
‘I think we are as recognised as we should be,’ Difford says. ‘We have never been a band that sought the limelight particularly. We enjoy playing songs and being on stage but we aren’t people that swan around on yachts or anything.’
the relationship between Difford and Tilbrook has lasted a long time, even though Difford has difficulty putting into words what their friendship is now.
‘We were very close in the beginning when we first met,’ he says. ‘Like any relationship you have when you come together there’s a lot of heavy petting and you can’t leave each other’s sides and then as you get on you tend to go in different directions. That’s true of most relationships and it’s not unusual. However we have a family of songs that we need to look after and that’s something that we do when we go out on the road.’
Difford is also a successful solo artist and has written songs for other greats including Elton John. But he has also managed a number of acts like Bryan Ferry and Cavan’s now sadly defunct teen rhythm and blues combo The Strypes.
‘They asked me to produce a couple of songs for them and I decided I wasn’t really the right guy to produce them because they could kind of do that themselves,’ he says of his tenure. ‘They were also looking for management and I honed them into Rocket which is Elton John’s company and it became a partnership.’
Does he think, then, that the band split before they had reached their peak?
‘Like all bands there are a lot of complications in relationships,’ Difford says. ‘Every band should have a counsellor to try and get through what they are doing because when you are young you are enthusiastic, you want to go out and play rock and roll music but there are lots of other bits in the relationship that you need to consider too — friendships, directions music too. There are a lot of things to take on board and a lot of bands don’t have the wherewithal to cope with that kind of change.
‘But the members of The Strypes are all great musicians - they all deserve to be in other bands and do other things. They all have a great future if they get it right.’
For Squeeze fans though, these are gigs not to be missed as the songs will be different every night — and Difford is giving nothing away.
‘I think it will change from night to night so people need to come to the show and discover what we are going to do for themselves.’
Difford says he is still learning how to perform what he’s written at the age of 65 and there are still plenty more songs he wants to write. ‘I am always writing — I wish I had more time to write but for now I am playing shows with Squeeze and being the guy who sings Cool For Cats.
‘I’m only getting to learn how to do that at 65 but we have a really good band and coming out to play those songs is what we want to do.’