Goin' Crazee with Noddy Holder (Part 3)
The man in the mirrored top hat holds forth on "My Friend Stan," "Merry Xmas Everybody" and other Slade classics
Greetings, Jagged Time Lapsers!
A few quick things before we dive back into my epic interview with Slade frontman Noddy Holder:
1) Thanks mucho (and welcome aboard!) to all my new subscribers — and to all the folks who have recommended this newsletter via their own Substacks. I am, as always, immensely grateful for your support. Given that the current barren (and AI-scorched) media landscape makes it more difficult than ever for professional writers and journalists to ply their trade, it’s especially important to support those who bring some enjoyment and edification to your existence… and I’m very glad that I am able to be one of those who does so for ya.
2) As many of you know, there will be many hundreds of rallies this coming Saturday (April 5) all across the good ol’ USA to peacefully protest the current administration’s authoritarian assaults on our democracy, our economy, our civil rights, our courts, our public lands, our federal agencies, our healthcare, our social programs, our poor and marginalized citizens, our veterans, our longstanding international alliances and even our museums. (If the recent executive order targeting the freaking Smithsonian for “improper ideology” doesn’t ring any fascist regime bells for you, then you definitely need to read some history books.) But since many folks are seemingly still unaware that this is happening and/or unsure of how they can get involved, I wanted to help amplify the signal however much I can: Go to THIS LINK to find a protest in your area…
3) Christian Adams interviewed me this week for his Black Sunshine Media site about Now You’re One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross, with an emphasis on the writing process and how the project came to life in the first place. Christian says he loved our book almost as much as David Lee Roth’s autobiography, which is high praise indeed! You can read the interview here.
And now, back to the Land of Nod!
In Part 1 of our interview, which was done back in 2003 for the liner notes of the Shout! Factory CD compilation Get Yer Boots On: The Best of Slade, the esteemed Mr. Holder and I discussed Slade’s first four hit singles (“Get Down and Get With It” through “Take Me Bak ‘Ome”), while Part 2 covered the incredible run of rockers (from “Mama Were All Crazy Now” through “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me”) which made Slade the biggest band in Britain in 1972 and 1973. Our conversation picks up here with “My Friend Stan,” which peaked at #2 on the UK charts in the autumn of ‘73.
Oh yeah — if you’re a paid subscriber, don’t forget to check out the latest episode of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast, in which
and I discuss the many joys of Slade…
Of course, “My Friend Stan” was one of the few Slade hits where the title wasn’t spelled out incorrectly. It’s also much poppier than the four or five singles that immediately preceded it. Tell me about that one…
Well, we’d had a string of what we called “Slade rockers” out, with “Mama Weer All Crazee” and “Gudbuy T’ Jane” and “Cum On Feel the Noize” and “Skweeze Me PLeeze Me,” and we wanted to get back to showing that we could do other stuff. Because we had all different sorts of songs on our albums. We could do the quirky pop songs, we could do the rock songs, we could do the ballads. But too many people tended to have got brainwashed with the fact that all we should do with these heavyweight, raucous rock records. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there was a lot more to the band than that, and people who bought our albums knew that.
And so with “My Friend Stan,” it was just a quirky little song that we had that we always liked, and which Chas very much liked. It wasn't really guitar based; it was more piano based. It was a quirky little pop song, and we thought it would make a nice change after that string of all those rock records. We really wanted to take people by surprise and have people sit up and take notice — “Coo, what’re they up to now?” [laughs] It was a mile away from “Cum On Feel the Noize” and “Skweeze Me Pleeze Me,” but we liked that. It was all part of what we were about.
It always reminded me of some of those late-sixties Kinks and Small Faces records.
Yes! A very, very English quirkiness to it, yes. You hit the nail on the head there, really. It was just showing another side to the band, really. I mean, it probably wasn’t suited to what we normally played onstage, but we did play “My Friend Stan” onstage. It was a lot heavier onstage, though; we used to put these heavy chords and accents in it, like “Bam! Bam!” It did actually work well onstage, though the version we played onstage was nothing like the record.