SQUEEZE WERE CHART MAINSTAYS FROM THE LATE SEVENTIES TO THE MID-EIGHTIES, WHEN THEY WERE HAILED AS THE NEW WAVE BEATLES. HOWEVER, GLENN TILBROOK AND CHRIS DIFFORD – THE LENNON & MCCARTNEY OF THE PIECE – WERE BESET BY PERSONAL DIFFICULTIES AND THEY CALLED IT A DAY. NOW THEY’RE BACK WITH A HIGHLY ACCLAIMED NEW ALBUM, AND ARE PREPARED TO REVEAL ALL – WELL, ALMOST ALL…

PAUL LESTER

Pics: ROB O’CONNOR

Tibrook and Difford: “You can’t go on being your own tribute band. So we wrote some new songs”

Glenn Tilbrook, the music-writing half of Squeeze – his partner Chris Difford pens the words – is in a state of shock. We’re hanging around in a café backstage at a venue in Milton Keynes, waiting for the band to soundcheck, when news comes in of a recent Guardian live review. In it, the journalist, somewhat taken aback, reported that a member of the audience was heard shouting “PLAY MORE NEW SONGS!” This rarely, if ever, happens. On the road, bands of Squeeze’s vintage usually meet the needs of their nostalgia-loving public by regaling them with the finest moments from their back catalogue. Demands from the audience for tracks from the latest record are few and far between, if not nonexistent.

But then Squeeze are no ordinary comeback kids, and their new album is well worth shouting for. Called Cradle To The Grave, its title track provides the theme song for the BBC2 sitcom of (nearly) the same name, while the other tracks crop up throughout the series, which loosely charts the adolescence of journalist and broadcaster Danny Baker in sunny South London, where Tilbrook and Difford also grew up. “It’s nice to have the attention we’re getting with this album,” says Tilbrook. “Suddenly, we’re Radio 2-friendly.”

Squeeze are that rarity: the singles band who had highly acclaimed albums. For every Cool For Cats and Up The Junction, there was an East Side Story, their 1981 long-player, produced by Elvis Costello, which saw the songwriters christened the Lennon and McCartney of the new wave era. And after several years in the wilderness, critics and public seem to have woken up to the greatness of Squeeze’s music.