Poisonous feud behind the merriest Christmas hit of all: It still earns a fortune for two of Slade's stars. But the others get ZILCH By Richard Price for the Daily Mail Published: 00:05, 26 December 2015 | Updated: 11:58, 26 December 2015 (The full article can be seen online here) There are certain things you can always rely on at Christmas: family fallouts, a Bond film on TV and Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody playing on a loop on the radio and filling the dancefloor at the office party. More than 40 years since its release, it’s still the number one festive feelgood song. How ironic, then, that relations between the band members who recorded it are so bad that they are no longer on speaking terms. Needless to say, the thorny issue of money lies at the root of their spat, not least the fact that while lead singer Noddy Holder and bassist Jim Lea (who jointly wrote Merry Xmas Everybody) net an average £250,000 each in annual royalties from their most famous song, the two other members don’t earn a bean from it. This week, Holder revealed: ‘It really saddens me that the four guys who were in Slade [himself, lead guitarist Dave Hill, Jim Lea and drummer Don Powell] can’t get together and sit round the dinner table. ‘Five years ago I got the four of us together so we could air our grievances face to face, but it was so painful I’d never want to repeat it. I was shocked.’ Not as shocked, perhaps, as the millions who loved Slade’s brand of feelgood pop so much that the band sold more singles in the UK than any other act in the Seventies. In their pomp, Slade were a pop phenomenon. The first group to have three singles enter the charts at Number One, they amassed a total of 23 hits in the Top 30. Though they complained that most of their earnings disappeared in tax — then levied at up to 90 per cent — all the members initially enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. Guitarist Hill bought a gold and cream Silver Cloud Rolls-Royce, with the tasteful personalised number plate ‘YOB 1’. Today, however, it is Holder and Lea who are cushioned by the royalties that amount to the kind of salary a City banker might expect. While Holder is worth somewhere in the region of £20 million, with Lea not far behind, in comparison Hill and Powell are left scratching around to make a living. During the winter months they can be found playing at Butlins and on cruise ships, and during the summer they are slogging out their old hits on the festival circuit. Holder, meanwhile, has no intention of pursuing pop stardom again and lives in state in a sprawling £3 million house in Cheshire. Contrast that with Hill, who was reduced to selling his Rolls just to meet the household bills, and you can perhaps understand the animosity. It is a far cry from the team spirit that saw the band come together in the Black Country in the late Sixties, took them to their peak and would pull them through leaner years in the late Seventies and Eighties until the band imploded in 1991. Certainly, it was always Holder — with his powerful, rasping voice and mirror-covered top hat — and Lea who cashed in most. They formed an inspired writing partnership, churning out raucous songs with gleefully misspelt titles — Coz I Luv You; Mama Weer All Crazee Now — that drew outraged complaints from Britain’s teachers, but lucrative royalties. During the years of plenty, this unequal distribution of the spoils was offset by the band’s earnings from touring and the endless public appearances for which Slade were in constant demand. Buck-toothed Hill, a natural showman, was crucial to the band’s image and took huge pleasure from his leading role, resplendent in pudding bowl fringe, platform heels and futuristic jumpsuits. As Holder recalls, there was a recurring moment for the band where they would fall about laughing at Hill’s latest outrageous outfit (which he would squeeze into in the dressing room toilet, just to add to the suspense). ‘Jim Lea, the “serious” member of the band, would have his head in his hands and say: “I’m not going on television with you dressed like that.” ‘Dave’s classic reply to that was: “You write ’em, I’ll sell em!” ’ It was fair comment. Ask the average older pop fan what they remember of Slade and, almost without fail, it will be Noddy Holder and Dave Hill. This duo were, as the cliche has it, box office. The other two constitute little more than a shadowy memory in the public consciousness of long curly dark hair, scowls and not much else. Cutting a dash, however, does not pay the bills. When Holder, struggling to deal with his wife filing for divorce, decided to step off the bandwagon and quit, his songwriting partner Lea felt there was no point in continuing without their talisman, and followed suit. But as Hill and drummer Powell would point out, it’s easy to walk away from your job when your wages are being paid in the form of royalties. Needing revenue from touring the country, and still very much in love with performing, they set up Slade II, with the name soon reverting to the original (despite half the band being newcomers). In Holder’s words: ‘It’s well known in the music industry that many groups carry on working together for financial reward, even though they don’t get on with one another at all. Sorry, but that wouldn’t be for me. ‘What made Slade special was that the teamwork was real. We were at our best when we were working together and heading in the same direction, offstage as well as on.’ He lays the blame at the door of what he euphemistically calls ‘complications’. In any male rock group, these issues tend to involve egos, money, women, drink and drugs — and the perennial ‘musical differences’. ‘Yes, and sometimes all of the above,’ says Holder. Insulated by his ‘pension’ (as he refers to Merry Xmas Everybody), Holder has happily turned down lucrative offers to appear on Celebrity Big Brother, I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! and Strictly Come Dancing, among many others. Instead, he has enjoyed the luxury of picking and choosing his work, from starring in the comedy series The Grimleys to a cameo in Coronation Street, a guest slot on Have I Got News For You and stints as a radio DJ. Once an unashamedly intimidating figure in his mutton-chop whiskers, he now more closely resembles a Victorian alderman and boasts an MBE — not to mention the freedom of his native Walsall. His fellow songwriter, Lea, studied psychotherapy after the break-up of the band and dabbles contentedly in solo music. For both men, it is a more comfortable life than that enjoyed by Hill and Powell, who have been on the road with the new incarnation of Slade ever since 1992. Powell, in particular, has had difficult times. Shattered by a near-fatal car accident at the peak of their fame, in which his fiancee Angela Morris was killed, the drummer went on to become a chronic alcoholic with a series of failed relationships. Today, he has finally found some peace away from his old West Midlands haunts and lives in Denmark with his partner Hanne. Hill still lives in Wolverhampton, but has a quieter life (he is a parish councillor and his favourite outing these days is for lunch at a garden centre in nearby Kingswinford). However, Slade is what helps him pay the bills. Even a stroke, which he suffered while on tour with the band in 2012, did not derail Hill’s passion for performing. Don Powell, who keeps (and publishes online) a daily diary to help him deal with lingering memory issues from that horrendous car crash, still describes Noddy Holder and Jim Lea as ‘dear friends’. And Dave Hill speaks candidly about how much he missed Noddy when Slade began playing without him. But as Holder has acknowledged, there is no escaping the money factor. ‘Money, rather than fame, brings freedom — being able to say no to things you don’t want to do, not being subject to the whims of others and to choose how you live your life are all easier if you have money,’ he says. ‘If the bubble bursts once you have achieved a level of fame and the work dries up, it can be very hard. How do you go from being on a big TV show or in a popular band to trying to get a “proper job” to make ends meet?’ It is a question only half the members of Slade have ever had to ask themselves. And it has opened wounds that may never heal, as Holder found when he called together his old bandmates five years ago. ‘At the back of my mind was the thought that it would be worth seeing if there was any spark left and the slightest chance we could get back on stage together for one last tour,’ he says. ‘For my own peace of mind, I wanted to be sure. ‘The meetings were not an experience I want to repeat. It was like being back in the school playground, going over things that had allegedly been said over the years, much of which I knew nothing about. ‘So the answer to the question “Will you ever get back with Slade?” is still a resounding: “No!” ‘Maybe I’ll put it down to us all being grumpy old f***s. It makes it funnier and easier to accept.’ All of which sounds a long way from the summer of 1973, when Noddy and Co were recording Happy Xmas Everybody in a hot New York studio, using melodies from songs they had discarded years before. Holder recalls, with justifiable pride, that he wrote lyrics that were ‘upbeat and optimistic’ to counter the general gloom of those days, with Britain gripped by strikes and working a three-day week. The record went straight to Number One in the charts on the first day of its release and stayed there for five weeks. No other Christmas song in modern history has come close to emulating its success as the tune that brings the nation together in the festive season. How sad that for the four people who brought it to life, the end result has been the exact opposite.
That was my Christmas present circa. 1973 I guess. I managed to find it badly hidden in my mum and dad's bedroom in a paper Debenhams bag (Debenhams used to have a record floor back in the day). I adored that collection--would have been about 11. Must have re-read the booklet and studied the pictures hundreds of times! Pure joy!
The above article mentions Slade Alive! Being recorded over three nights. Have other takes from these sessions ever been released? Were there other songs attempted that didn’t make the LP?
I have the enjoyable but not-so-definitive Slade Alive 2CD collection, which includes Slade Alive Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 on the first disc, but only Vol. 1 is from these original UK sessions and Vol. 2 is from some later American sessions which were used to fill that album. We definitely need a complete/expanded version of the UK sessions, as those recordings have stood the test of time.
Nothing else from the three nights has been released and it's unlikely that we will ever hear it. Noddy Holder has grave reservations about amending the catalogue - getting bonus tracks on the albums as a selling point was said to be an interesting set of conversations. He doesn't want any new live stuff out there - so various BBC radio broadcasts are not going to come out. At one point, their 1982 Glasgow Apollo show was up for release, but their management put a stop to it. Jim Lea believes the tapes from the rest of the Slade Alive sessions 'may still exist', but he has no idea where they would be, or what condition they would be in now. The problem with multi-track tapes from that period was that they tended to get re-used by the studio, if the material wasn't released, to save money... The Slade Live at the BBC 2CD set contains a longer live show from the period. Disc Two - Live At The Paris Theatre, London, 17 August 1972 1. Introduction - 0:41 2. Hear Me Calling (Alvin Lee) - 5:39 3. In Like a Shot (From My Gun) (Holder, Lea, Powell) - 3:46 4. Look Wot You Dun (Holder, Lea, Powell) - 3:38 5. Keep on Rockin' (Holder, Lea, Hill, Powell) - 3:44 6. Move Over - 5:19 7. Mama Weer All Crazee Now (Holder, Lea) - 3:58 8. Lady Be Good (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) - 1:28 9. Coz I Luv You (Holder, Lea) - 5:09 10. Take Me Bak 'Ome (Holder, Lea) - 4:50 11. Get Down and Get With It - 6:51 12. Good Golly Miss Molly (John Marascalco, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell) - 4:00 Slade - Live at the BBC
I'm sure I've mentioned this elsewhere, but Don's contributions as a lyricist are quite underrated. I don't know the circumstances, but I guess once they hit the magic songwriting combination of Holder/Lea, he got frozen out. Odd, because he co-wrote every original song bar one on the first two albums, and most of the B-sides too. After that, as far as I know, he didn't write for Slade again.
Maybe Noddy has the right idea, especially when you see the scraping of the barrel that goes on with some artists. I am thinking especially of T.Rex and the hundreds of different CDs released since Marc’s death containing previously unreleased songs, most of which are dreadful. Mind you, Slade must be one of the only big bands to not have invluded extra unreleased tracks on new editions of their albums and box set...
The only unreleased tracks that were included on their reissues were: The 'Hot Mix' of 'Slam the hammer down' from a US 12" promo single on 'Kamikaze' (The Hotter mix still remains unreleased). 'Hear me calling' (studio version) on the more recent Salvo edition of 'Sladest'. Two of us (Chris Selby and myself) submitted this recording to Salvo for consideration. It came from an acetate given by Don Powell to a friend, back in the day. Again, the track had to get past Noddy Holder to be included. Fortunately, he gave it the thumbs up. In some interviews, he made it sound like he had pulled it out of his own archive. Nope. In others he credits fans. A review: 1974 UK Version Of Sladest Compilation Gets New Remastered Reissue BBC Radio 6 Music - Radcliffe and Maconie, Friday - with Noddy Holder, Noddy Holder - Interview with Radcliffe and Maconie
When Jim Lea can put something like this out (released today), it's by no means over for him, musically...
I’ve been buying their early catalog for the last few weeks now, and I can’t beli it’s taken me this long. These guys are really great writers and performers. The BBC set is amazing, and they had great taste in covers as well. The mind-blower for me is their 40 song B sides collection. These cuts are as good or better than the tracks that made the albums. I can’t get past disc 1. Love it.
They chose the wrong singles a lot - especially later on. I was talking to their chief roadie (Hayden Donovan) at a rugby club in Salford while they sound checked one sunny afternoon (28th May 1978) and he said "Oh, this is the new single" and muttered some lyrics at me. The band were just playing the backing track to 'It's allright buy me'. They never played it on stage. It became the b-side to the truly awful 'Rock and roll bolero'.
Noddy was a heck of a screamer. Slade had some great songs. idk if anyone posted it yet, but this is a great version.
