THE MOJO INTERVIEW
Squeeze’s songwriting duo are back in harness, toting a rock opera they wrote in the ’70s with an all-new album to come. Given their near-constant strife, it’s a miracle. But as they insist, “the thing that always brings us together is the songs…”
Interview by PAT GILBERT
West End boys: Squeeze’s Chris Difford (left) and Glenn Tilbrook, Soho, London, 2025.
Portrait by DEAN CHALKLEY
“LOOK, THERE’S A BANK CARD READER,” chirps Chris Difford, rummaging among the debris in the bijou storeroom of The Sound Lounge café in Sutton, Surrey, where he’s prepping for a solo show. “Hmm, I think I’ll have that. Never leave a dressing room empty-handed is my advice.” The lyrics half of Squeeze’s songwriting partnership is joking – MOJO thinks – having earlier opened up about his teenage bent for light pilfering and worse. Such as: once stealing the staff ’s weekly wages from the safe at the office where he worked, a crime for which he miraculously escaped prosecution.
Difford’s portrayal of earthy south London life was one of the tangy joys of Squeeze’s early hits – for instance: Cool For Cats, with its Jack-the-Lad pulls at the disco storyline, and Up The Junction, where an unplanned teen pregnancy triggers a downward spiral into misery and grot. His real-life proximity to tough luck, villainy and violence has lent Squeeze’s songs an alluring truthfulness throughout the last 50 years or so – something abundantly evident on their new album, Trixies, a rock musical set in an imaginary 1960s Soho club, where, he says, “you could imagine the Krays hanging out and Judy Garland going to get her drugs”.
Incredibly, Trixies – an immediately loveable mash-up of Broadway, Hunky Dory, Sparks and more – dates back to 1974, when Squeeze were just a year old. It was ‘parked’ as the group embarked on their tumultuous journey to late-’70s success, followed in subsequent decades by toxic splits, enthusiastic reunions, weary truces and a total of 17 studio albums.
While the mischievous glint in Difford’s eyes belies an emotional interior – tears will well up behind his heavy-framed Harry Palmer specs when we discuss Squeeze’s singular songwriting magic – Glenn Tilbrook, whom MOJO meets at his HQ near Greenwich a week later, is chatty, easy-going and open. He speaks animatedly while running his fingers through grey but still-lustrous hair. His musicianly, studio-savvy yin to Difford’s droll, careworn wordsmith yang has resulted in some of the finest music ever made by a British pop act but comes at a price. In an extraordinary outburst, Tilbrook tells us that the two men haven’t been friends since 1976 and that Difford’s 2017 memoir Some Fantastic Place, which the guitarist felt was unfair (and at times untrue), almost ended their relationship for good. Yet, as has been the case for half a century, the self-proclaimed ‘At Odds Couple’ – long the only original members of Squeeze – unbelievably still function as a creative unit. Here’s their story…
Your
Trixies
rock musical dates way back to 1974, within a year of you meeting. What memories has it brought back?
Chris Difford: I find it very emotional to listen to because what it reveals is two young guys that have just met and have written loads of songs, and their ambition. It’s almost like Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy. I found the original lyrics in my files, the earliest from 1972. I recently met a guy who lived on my council estate. I said, What do you remember about that time? He said, “All you talked about was writing a rock opera.” This is before I met Glenn.
Glenn Tilbrook: The songs stand up incredibly well. And I think about us at that age, when the gene pool of influence was so much smaller. You can hear Bowie, Paul McCartney & Wings, Roxy Music. And I love the immediacy of those influences, because you’ll never be 16 or 17 again and doing that. We tried to record it but Squeeze hadn’t much experience in those days. The versions were like… you know when five-year-olds play football and everyone runs after the ball? It was like that but musically.