The Catalyst interview: Chris Difford of Squeeze

One of the most creative bands to come out of England in the post-punk explosion of the late 1970s, Squeeze’s quirky and propulsive pop music was equal parts insightful (and often humorous) lyrics and Beatle-esque melodicism.

In the United States, Squeeze was inevitably tagged “new wave” – a label slapped-on when DJs, critics and journalists used when they didn’t know how to describe something. Because of the band’s enormous cult of followers, they sold a few albums over here (Cool For Cats, Argy Bargy and East Side Story) but never got as big as many suspected they would.

Squeeze, however, continues to this day (despite a few dust-ups and break-ups over the years), still fronted by guitarists Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, who since the earliest days have co-written each and every Squeeze song. Difford is the lyricist, Tilbrook the melodist.

Tilbrook is the lead singer for most of the material, although Difford’s octave-lower unison singing voice is another Squeeze hallmark.

Squeeze’s co-headlining tour with Boy George brings the band to Clearwater’s Baycare Sound amphitheater Friday, Sept. 20.

St. Pete Catalyst: I’ve wondered for years about the way you and Glenn collaborate. Is it a real collaboration in a room? Or Is it like Elton and Bernie, you send him a fax and say “What can you do with this?” How does it work?

Chris Difford: Well, I send Glenn lyrics, sometimes far too many, and he goes off and writes the music. And then, in the past we wouldn’t have conversations about them, we’d just record them. And they’d be part of the set before you knew where you were.

It’s different now, the songs are more educated and more structured, more thought-through. I think it’s a very different animal to what it used to be, but that’s because with the passing of time and as you get older, things change. Opinions change. And the way that you work is obviously going to change.

So what if he comes up with a melody you don’t like? “That’s not what I was thinking”? Can you talk about it?

There’s been a few occasions on records where I’ve listened to things and thought “Well, actually, that’s not really my cup of tea.” And then eventually they kind of pour over you, and you feel more comfortable with them. That’s not always the case, but it’s largely the case.

I think our partnership has been generally born out of a non-communicative relationship. That has kind of worked, because in an odd way it’s let the song evolve naturally. And I think those are the best songs. The songs that have feeling to them, the “Some Fantastic Place,” “Up the Junction” kind of song. Songs that were written from a place of not knowing, an adventurous imagination, and I think that it shows.

Let’s say you’ve just sent Glenn a lyric called “Labeled With Love.” Do you say “It’s a country song”?

No. It was a real surprise when I heard it as a country song. It was when we’d just met Elvis Costello, and he turned me on to country music in a huge way. And I think Glenn, too. And it nearly didn’t get recorded – we just thought well, it’s not really our thing. But Elvis Costello listened to it and he said “It really is your thing.”

The Guardian in England calls your lyrics “The unconscious poetry of everyday life.” Songs like “Labeled With Love,” “Up the Junction,” “Vicky Verky,” “Separate Beds” and “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” those are first-person narratives, the minutia from the lives of regular British working-class people. Do you have any idea why you started writing like that – was it conscious?

It was definitely not conscious. I’ve always been semi-conscious as a writer! I don’t really know. It’s just the nature of my characteristics as a human being, I suppose. I’m kind of complicated, like a lot of people, and I suppose it comes out in some of the lyrics.

It baffles me, but I enjoy not knowing where some of the ideas come from. I think it’s really important, for me anyway, not to over-complicate a lyrical image. I think when you write a song it becomes very much its own life. And you kind of tag along to it for the rest of your life.

Playing “Pulling Mussels” every night of the week on this tour – through gritted teeth, sometimes – is kind of like “here we go again,” but the audience lift you and you kind of jump on board.

You and Glenn have been making music together for 50 years. How does that feel – is it “Wow, a great accomplishment” or “I can’t believe I’m still here”?

It’s a great accomplishment, of course it is. I’m very proud of our journey. With its ups and its many downs. But I think the thing that surprises me out of everything is that we go onstage, we play our songs, people love them, and that is the fuel that keeps this fire burning, really.

It’s not the band. It’s not being in the band. It’s having the communication with the audience. Having them enjoy what you do as a writer.

With the exception of “Tempted,” which reached the Top 40, in the States Squeeze never had a big hit. It you had, how would that have changed things for you?

We’d be playing at the Sphere in Las Vegas, I think, if we’d had hits! A residency in Las Vegas!

I think, when I look back at our career, a lot of the songs that didn’t get away, they didn’t get away for various reasons. Because of style, or because of what was going on in pop music at that time. But I’ve never gone home after a record release and thought “Well, that’s really sad that didn’t happen.”

One of my favorite albums is the Play album that we recorded in Los Angeles with (producer) Tony Berg. It’s a very deep record, it sounds beautiful. And it didn’t sell or get on the radio, but to me it’s equally as important as “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” if not more.

In other words, it doesn’t keep you up at night.

Nothing keeps me up at night.

You have a new record coming out called Trixie’s. These are songs you wrote many years ago but never properly recorded?

We wrote like 13 songs when we were kids. Glenn was 17 at the time – extraordinary. We put them in front of the band at the time, it wasn’t really for us. We were playing rock ‘n’ roll, and [this] was kind of something a bit more extraordinary. So we ditched them and put them on a cassette. And last year, Glenn and I got them down, listened to them and thought “Well, it’s 50 years, so we may as well give them a clean-up and see what they sound like.”

Our bass player, Owen Biddle, produced the record. And I have to say it’s a very emotional journey. It’s really brilliant.

Why did none of those songs end up on Squeeze records?

That’s a really good question. We’ve got lots of songs from that period that never made any Squeeze albums. There’s probably at least another album’s worth of songs that we never cut. Because in those days there was nothing else to do but write songs. It was kind of what we did. And as you get older there are more distractions and less time, in some ways.

Find tickets for the Sept. 20 Clearwater concert here.