The year that Slade took the country by storm was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in British history. As London was rocked by IRA bomb attacks, millions went on strike in protest over government pay restraints. The oil crisis saw motorway speed limits reduced from 50mph and, by the end of 1973, coal shortages resulted in power cuts and the implementation of the Three-Day Week.<\/p>\n
Yet blaring out from every battery-operated radio and every teenager\u2019s bedroom was the sound of Slade. Cum on Feel the Noize and Sqweeze Me Pleeze Me both topped the charts, as did their best-selling Christmas hit Merry Xmas Everybody. The joyous glam rock sound, with their quirkily misspelt song titles, was quite the contrast to the chaos unfolding across the nation, but flamboyant guitarist Dave Hill is convinced that\u2019s exactly why they captured the public\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n
\u201c1973 was one heck of a year,\u201d he reflects. \u201cThe mood of the country was low, amidst strikes, lack of money and three-day weeks. But all through that there was joy in the music we were doing. We raised a nation. I think people thought, \u2018To hell with all of this, we\u2019ve had a rough year, we\u2019ve had a lot of problems, look at this\u2019. We brought fun and colour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incredibly, today, 52 years on, the group is still touring to packed audiences of thousands of excited fans. Dave, who has been with the group since the start, has no doubt as to why they are still pulling in the crowds all these decades later. \u201cThere is something reassuring about Slade\u2019s music,\u201d he says. \u201cEveryone wants to have that feeling of returning to their happiest times. It doesn\u2019t mean to say they\u2019re not happy now, but they\u2019ll never be the same as they were when they were young and the world was in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1973 Slade consisted of lead guitarist Dave, lead singer Noddy Holder, drummer Don Powell and bass guitarist Jim Lea. But it was Dave, in his trademark gigantic platform boots and with a huge grin across his glitter-painted face that always caught the camera on their frequent Top of the Pops appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to say to Nod and Jim, \u2018You write \u2018em and I\u2019ll sell \u2018em\u2019.\u201d he recalls with a smile. \u201cAnd I\u2019d come with the magnificent crazy costumes \u2013 I was having the time of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sadly, all good things eventually come to an end and 62 years on from their 1963 formation in Wolverhampton, the band are about to embark on their final tour. The shows kick off in Hastings and Margate next month, followed by further dates around the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not stop doing gigs or festivals, I\u2019m just stopping touring,\u201d Dave explains. \u201cThe joy hasn\u2019t gone. But I\u2019m approaching 80 and while I don\u2019t feel at all old, realistically, when I\u2019m on stage, it is quite physical, so I don\u2019t want to do back-to-back shows anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
As nostalgic as the concerts will be, the final tour sadly isn\u2019t enough to bring the four original bandmates back together. Dave is still good friends with Noddy, who was the first to quit Slade in 1992, but he is no longer in touch with Don and Jim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no chance of the four of us getting back together to perform,\u201d he says frankly. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t possible years ago; it certainly isn\u2019t now. I don\u2019t really want to get into any reasons why people are not with me. There are a lot of reasons. Everybody\u2019s changed, everybody\u2019s doing something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see Jim and Don. Jim lives quite close to me and he\u2019s doing his own music. Don married a Danish girl and has a couple of bands and he\u2019s doing his own thing. But Nod and I have always been extremely close \u2013 we\u2019re buddies for life. When he retired from music, I understood. But I was only 40 and I had to continue. I was still young and I had three kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dave is chatting via zoom from his music room, with an impressive number of guitars displayed on the walls behind him \u2013 15 at the last count, including the original electric guitar that created the unmistakable Slade sound.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 1967 and our manager told me to get a better guitar. He said I wouldn\u2019t get anywhere with the guitar I had,\u201d Dave recalls. \u201cI went down to London on the train and saw this guitar in the window of a shop on Shaftesbury Avenue. I told them I was going to go home and ask my dad for the money. They put it away for me and my dad drove me down the next day and parked outside the shop and bought it for me. And that guitar sound is Slade. I have a very strong, loud style in the Slade songs \u2013 it has a lot to do with the guts of the music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dave still lives in Wolverhampton with Jan, his wife of more than 50 years, who he met before the band found fame. The couple have three children and six grandchildren, who all appreciate Slade\u2019s music. \u201cMy nine-year-old grandson tells Alexa: \u2018Play Granddad\u2019s Christmas song\u2019, Dave laughs. \u201cAnd Alexa says, \u2018Excuse me? What do you mean?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
While the band have amassed an incredible 21 Top 20 records, including the hits My Friend Stan, Mama Weer All Crazee Now and Far Far Away, it\u2019s Merry Xmas Everybody that is still the most played of all their songs. But Dave says that it was only thanks to John Lennon that it was recorded in the first place. In the summer of 1973, Slade found themselves in New York with a few days off.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe record company wanted us to release a Christmas song. Noddy and Jim had written it, but I hadn\u2019t even heard it at this stage,\u201d he says. \u201cOur manager said he would speak to John Lennon who was in a studio. John said, \u2018You can have the studio time, I\u2019ll leave my album for now, I can come back to it\u2019. We went into the studio, learnt the song and recorded it in a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Released in December of that year, it became their sixth number one, remaining in the top spot until January and staying in the Top 50 for nine weeks. The song charted every year in the early half of the 1980s, again in 1998 and every year since 2006. \u201cThe impact of that record really threw me,\u201d Dave says. \u201cWe once played Reading Festival in the middle of the summer. We hadn\u2019t planned to sing it, but 40,000 started shouting for it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Life hasn\u2019t always been easy for Dave. He has suffered bouts of depression and in 2010 had to take three months off work after having a stroke on stage in Germany in front of 8,000 people.<\/p>\n
But at 79 he is still as exuberant and happy as the young guitarist stomping around the Top of the Pops stage and he is still breaking new ground; next year he releases his first ever solo album, poignantly produced by Noddy Holder\u2019s son Django. Meanwhile, when he walks out on stage next month during his farewell tour, alongside new Slade bandmates John Berry, Russell Keefe and Alex Bines, he will allow himself a small moment of reflection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll stand on stage and think to myself, \u2018Here\u2019s a boy that was really bad at school and a bit of a loner; here\u2019s a boy that didn\u2019t get girlfriends. I had buck teeth and big ears, I was conscious of that and I wondered what I would do in life\u2019,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cYet here I am at 79 still performing. And in those moments of fun on stage, I become very young in my head. Not many people in their lives will stand in front of 80,000 people and know that the majority of that audience are affected by your music. People come up to me and say, \u2018Thank you for making my youth great\u2019. That is a legacy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Slade\u2019s final tour starts November 28 in Hastings. For tickets and dates, visit davehillslade.com\/tour-dates\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The year that Slade took the country by storm was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[130049,130047,49,48,10446,130050,75,130051,341,5475,130048],"class_list":{"0":"post-286588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1973-british-history","9":"tag-brilliantly-british","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-christmas","13":"tag-dave-hill","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-glam-rock","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-rock-music","18":"tag-slade"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}