As Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford discussed how to mark the 50th anniversary of Squeeze, the British rock band they formed as teenagers in 1974, they considered two different paths.
They were in the recording studio working on songs from “Trixie’s,” an album of material they’d written but never recorded 50 years ago when they were at the start of their career. The other album was of new songs freshly composed.
“Originally, Chris had wanted to do ‘Trixie’s’,” Tilbrook says about which album to make. “I wanted to do that too, but I thought for Squeeze to come back after seven years with just an album of old songs felt a bit odd to me.
“We needed the context of looking at those songs and then saying, ‘All right, we could do that then, what can we do now?’” he says. “That’s a really great challenge, because we were very energized, and both things kept bumping into each other in terms of how we’d look at stuff and how we approach stuff.”
The British band Squeeze comes to Southern California on its 50th anniversary tour for three shows in Aug.. Seen here are cofounders Glenn Tilbrook, second from right, and Chris Difford, center. (Photo by Danny Clifford)
The British band Squeeze comes to Southern California on its 50th anniversary tour for three shows in Aug.. Seen here are cofounders Glenn Tilbrook, second from left, and Chris Difford, second from right. (Photo by Danny Clifford)
The British band Squeeze comes to Southern California on its 50th anniversary tour for three shows in Aug.. Seen here are cofounders Glenn Tilbrook, second from left, and Chris Difford, center. (Photo by Danny Clifford)
1 of 3
The British band Squeeze comes to Southern California on its 50th anniversary tour for three shows in Aug.. Seen here are cofounders Glenn Tilbrook, second from right, and Chris Difford, center. (Photo by Danny Clifford)
Expand
In the end, they did both, recording two full albums though neither is out yet. “Trixie’s” and one of new material will both be released in 2025.
“In the first year that Chris and I met, we just started writing a load of stuff,” Tilbrook says on a recent video call from England. “We basically had no gigs and we wrote this set of songs called ‘Trixie’s’. And we thought, ‘We’ve always liked it; why don’t we do it?’ If there’s ever going to be a reason to do it, it’s now, because that’s how old it is.
“What’s amazing about it is that I can see what happened to us now,” he says. “When we got together, there wasn’t any punk, you know, that I knew of anyway. I mean, there was the Stooges and stuff, which was on my radar. But really, that wasn’t the dominant thing.
“What I like about these 50-year-old songs is that they were listening to what was happening then, and punk wasn’t on the radar,” Tilbrook says. “We were sophisticated musically as writers. Chris was sophisticated lyrically.
“And the stuff we wrote then, I think, firstly, is way better than our first album, and there’s a softness to it that is never present in Squeeze for a long while. Where the punk sensibility toughened us, which made us slightly less nice, you know.”
Tilbrook called shortly before Squeeze was to leave for the United States and a 50th anniversary tour that includes shows in Pioneertown on Monday, Aug. 19 and co-headlining dates with Boy George of Culture Club in Costa Mesa on Wednesday, Aug. 21, and Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 22.
In an interview edited for length and clarity, he talked about the inspirations for those early songs, how he and Difford have stayed together for 50 years without being the closest of friends, and his memories of Squeeze’s first trip to Los Angeles when he was 20.
Q: You and Chris were very young when you met through an ad he posted in a shop.
A: I was 15 or 16. I think 15.
Q: And what made you answer his ad?
A: Well, what I know about myself now, that I didn’t really know at the time, is I was obsessed with music. I didn’t have any sort of musical education. I couldn’t articulate much except music. But I was really good at it. Not playing, but writing.
The stuff that we started writing then astounds me. I’m proud of it now, and I’m particularly proud that it was young us that did that. I’m really proud that we have these things that we can bring alive and say, ‘Look, we could do this then.’
Q: What was the setting and process in which you and Chris would write songs that first year or two?
A: My girlfriend at the time, I was sort of living with her more, and they had a piano upstairs. So Chris and I spent an awful lot of time at her house, writing. That’s all we had to do, really. There were bits of work, but the rest of the time we just wrote and wrote and wrote. I think we developed really early.
If I look back on what people thought of us, I think our writing far outstripped our ability to play what we’d written in a lot of instances. It’s not like anyone in the band was a great player for stuff that had, you know, chords flying at them all the time. We were better as a sort of rock and roll band. That was sort of our comfort zone. But the songs, we can play them now, and it’s a joy to play.
Q: These ‘Trixie’s’ songs, what kinds of stories do they tell?
A: Chris has said he was reading Damon Runyon stories. In the ’70s, there was a sort of nostalgic throwback to the ’20s, so that was in the air as well. Like the Marx Brothers had become popular again with kids. So all this old stuff was coming back and seeping into what we were doing, influencing us.
It’s really great now, the prism of looking back 50 years ago. What we made as teenagers is really quite sort of cute and endearing and insightful. I wish it was out now. It’s so frustrating. As far as our touring’s concerned, we’re going to be playing a few songs from it anyway.
Q: I read that Chris came across the ‘Trixie’s’ demo tape somewhere in his house.
A: You know, Chris says a lot of stuff. That’s why he’s a lyricist. It’s a better story, but it’s not the truth. We’ve always known they were there. I keep all the song books and we’ve been aware of them. Not paying attention to them. That first thought of getting them out was, well, they’re coming up on 50 years old, we can do something with that.
Q: What was it like working on both the old songs and new ones in the studio this year?
A: There’s a lot of zipping in the early songs, and there’s a lot of zip now in the songs we’ve just written. The 50 years that have happened are in what we are doing now as well. And the 50-year-old songs sound like a really great band recorded an album and sort of forgot about it for 50 years.
What we’ve tried to do is stick to the principle of how the songs are written and what the influences are. You know, the influences were Stevie Wonder, Wings, Sparks, stuff that was around then. Stay really true to that, but it just sound sounds so fresh. So new stuff had to sound fresh as well, and that was a good incentive to keep on working.
Q: Listening to the two albums, can someone tell the old songs from the new?
A: Definitely in half the cases. One of the things that intrigues me about any sort of creative thing is that you are the product of whatever time you’re in, and if you’re attuned to things you pick up what’s happening. I’m 66, nearly 67, now; my interests are very different to how they were when I was 16, but there’s a thread.
And for Chris, also a thread that runs through all that and that is what informs how you are. So yes, the songs are different but they’ve got us stamped right through it like a stick of rock.
Q: Most bands don’t stick together for 10 years much less 50. How have you and Chris kept Squeeze together for 50 years?
A: That’s a tough question to answer because our communication is not great. I think we have a friendship that comes on what we’ve done rather than, I think, a real friendship. And that makes it hard to communicate. But I think that honestly we both recognize the worth of our relationship and it’s deeper and more important than how we feel about each other, you know?
So we are not going to be spending holidays together. We exist in quite separate worlds. But what we can do together is quite amazing.
Q: And when you’re together on stage again, what’s that like?
A: It feels absolutely amazing. I think we’re working harder now than we ever have worked. The thing that propelled really early Squeeze was that we had our songs, which have stood the test of time, and played about 300 miles an hour mostly. And they worked then. When you’re that age and you’re playing like that, everyone is in that moment.
I love that about us. We were sophisticated but not sophisticated. It was a great mixture. Now we’re completely different but the difference is good because it’s more informed about our whole history and it’s informed by a desire to keep on doing better. To strive for that anyway.
Q: Do you remember much about the first time you played in Southern California?
A: Oh yeah, vividly. Bear in mind I had a fixation with coming to America, and I never traveled anywhere. I think I’d been to Holland a couple of times. So by the time I came to America, and so much inspiration had come out of America for me as a teenager, it was everything I hoped it would be. All the great music that came out there that helped shape us was great.
Los Angeles, you know, I couldn’t quite comprehend it. It was so weird. [he laughs] When your world is very small, you go somewhere like Los Angeles … I felt like I recognized New York more. It was more similar to London, although being different.
But it was absolutely wonderful playing at the Whisky, maybe, the first time we were here. We did a few gigs. We did some stuff for Rodney Bingenheimer. We played his club. It was such a great experience. I was 20 when I first came. It was fantastic.
Originally Published:
