Slade's Noddy Holder talks his love of the Black Country, playing in weird places and that Christmas tune

He’s a bit chesty. Noddy Holder’s just been on a flight and has caught some bug. Imagine being the person who was sitting beside him. “Are you. . .? You’re not that bloke from Slade. You look just like him?” Though the mirrored top hat and platform boots might just give it away.

He tells me not to worry if he starts coughing, though he barely pauses for breath. Once Noddy gets going there’s no stopping him. Our allotted time runs over into 45-minutes of rambunctious chat about drink, drugs and debauchery, about the blessing/curse that is Merry Xmas Everybody and the totemic rock album that is Slade Alive.

He got take to the stage right here, right now and blast C’Mon Feel The Noize for England. The Freeman of Walsall, The Lord Nod of Holdershire, the curly-haired, bespectacled rock God that is 71-year-old Neville John Holder is just getting warmed up.

It’s the 45th anniversary of their seminal live album, Slade Alive, which was their breakthrough hit. It went to number two on the UK chart – their first record to enter the top 40 – and stayed there for more than a year. It’s being re-released to coincide with its anniversary as part of a record company series of Classic Album promotions.

The record cost £600 to make and was recorded over three nights at London’s Command Theatre Studio in front of an invited audience. It was a hit around the world and in Australia it was the biggest selling album since The Beatles 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Noddy has fond memories. The record was the idea of their manager, Chas Chandler, who also produced it. It followed the single Get Down and Get With It, which had given the Black Country quartet their first hit – a number 16 placing on the Top 40.

Noddy says: “Chas wanted something to keep the fans interested so we went along with it. He booked us into a studio on Piccadilly in London for three nights on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“On the Wednesday we were called into Top Of The Pops with Coz I Luv You, which was our next single. It was selling like hot cakes and looking like going to number one.

“So we went straight from TOTP to Command Studios after the recording. We’d done TOTP and had a few drinks. We were buzzing. We walked on stage and the atmosphere was brilliant. In the end, we scrapped the recordings from Tuesday and Thursday and just used the gig from Wednesday because it was so good.

“We captured the raucousness of our live shows on that record. We’d been trying to capture it on record before because that’s what Slade was all about. It was all about that spontaneous, raucous guitars – we were a real rock’n’roll band.

“Before then, every time we’d been in the studio the engineers would be telling us to turn the amps down because we were always too loud for everyone. But we played at full poke on Slade Alive.”

The record was recorded in late November 1971 and came out in early spring 1972. It changed the game and earned them the acclaim they’d sought. No longer were they viewed as a happy-go-lucky pop band from the Black Country. Suddenly they were being taken seriously. A month after the record’s release, Slade played Lincoln festival alongside bigger acts and stormed it. They took the front pages of the music press and became the hottest band since The Beatles.

And yet, remarkably, they had yet to enjoy the fruits of their success. Noddy says: “At the time of recording we were all still living with our parents, although we were hardly ever there because we were touring that much or recording in London.

“But the Midlands was still our base because we couldn’t afford to move anywhere. We hadn’t started making any money at that point.”

Slade Alive opened the floodgates and they were sent off to Europe to tour. In Australia, the record went to number one and stayed there for six months. “It was only knocked off the week we arrived and released our next album, Slayed? We had the number one and number two album and three singles in the chart. It was the same in Canada.

“But we were never an overnight success. That was the culmination of five years of hard slog and trying to break down doors.”

Slade experienced something akin to Beatlemania during the early 1970s. From 1971 to 1973 they enjoyed six number one hits, two number two hits and a single, Look Wot You Dun, that made it to number four. They breached the USA chart and enjoyed success in Europe. When they got off the plane in Australia, there were crowds at the airports. The band were so big they had to play racecourses in every big city, where 40,000 to 50,000 would gather every night. It was the same round Europe. But none of that happened by accident. They’d spent five years honing their act, becoming the tightest band on the road.

Their live shows were the foundation for that. Noddy was the first frontman to encourage audience participation. And though people mocked him for encouraging audience sing-a-longs, soon everyone was doing it. “So many bands nicked our act and everybody started doing it. We got so much flak because it weren’t cool. But we weren’t cool. That was the point.

“We went to America and nobody could follow us on stage. Bands were all scared of us because we were tearing it up and the audiences loved us. They loved the sound and they loved the look.”

Slade had met their manager at a disco, of all places. Chas had played bass with The Animals before managing Jimi Hendrix and becoming a talent scout, producer and studio owner.

Chas saw the band play in a small venue in the heart of the West End. The owners put on bands in between the DJ’s set. Slade were halfway through their first set when he walked in and the audience had started a riot. They were on stage with the band, rocking the joint for all it was worth.

“Chas couldn’t believe it. Back then, bands in London were there for the audience to dance to and we were still unknown at the time. But the next day Chas signed us. He said we were like a real rock’n’roll band should be. He’d had Hendrix, who’d been a phenomenon all around the world. And he wanted a raucous rock’n’roll band who could tear a place apart. He found that in us. As soon as he started managing us, that was it. It didn’t happen overnight. It took us a year-and-a-half. But he never lost faith. Everyone was telling him we wouldn’t break through. But he knew it. I got to give it him.”

The early 1970s were mayhem. Slade was living in a bubble. They hit the road with their mates working as roadies and didn’t look back. It was first class flights, first class hotels and as much drink, drugs and women as they could manage.

“We wuz four blokes from the Black Country playing in all these weird places, like Japan. It was all on top of us in one fell swoop. We didn’t have time to catch our breath. We didn’t realise what was happening. We could only gauge it by going to number one or getting in and out of gigs in the back of police vans. Kids would jump on the top of our cars and bend the cars in to get at us. One night in Glasgow we sat on the side of the river, the Clyde, eating fish and chips with the coppers because we couldn’t get into our hotel. They had to protect us. That was our life.”

And then they’d come home to Wolverhampton, Walsall, Selly Oak and Solihull and see their pals for a pint. Their feet would be back on the ground in an instant. “I was living near Brum but used to come to my local haunts in Wolverhampton to have a drink. At the time we were home for a few days off and we’d feel comfortable when we came back. We were in a whirlwind. It didn’t let up for six years. We were on a merry-go-round non-stop.”

They’d play 200-250 shows a year. Then they’d release an album every year. Occasionally, they’d moan at Chas for a day off. But Chas would tell them it was the partying that was wearing them out, not the touring. “We were four Black Country blokes having a bloody good time.”

Their biggest hit was Merry Xmas Everybody, which is one of the UK’s favourite festive song and was recorded in New York, next to a studio being used by John Lennon for his album, Mind Games. Slade used Lennon’s harmonium on the disc.

“It was late August, early September and it was clammy and hot. We’d booked this studio time and Chas didn’t know what we were coming up with. Don had had his car crash and was in a bad way – to be honest, we didn’t know if he’d survive. The record company wanted a record out at Christmas so we come up with Merry Xmas Everybody. We played it to Chas and he flipped. I don’t think even Dave and Don had heard it at that point. Chas said the record company would go mad over it and he was right.

“At the time, Don’s memory was shot to pieces because he’d banged his head when he had the car crash. We’d be on stage and he couldn’t remember the intros to the songs. While I was talking to the audience, Jim would whisper in his ear how the next song should start. Physically he was in a bad way. But we booked the studio and recorded it.

“Don couldn’t remember it from start to finish and I’d be starting talking in his headphones saying ‘the drum roll comes here’. We made that record like painting by numbers, everyone put a bit on separately.”

Slade had already enjoyed a slew of number one hits, with Coz I Luv You, Take Me Bak Ome, Mama Weer All Crazy Now, Cum On Feel The Noize and Skweeze Me Please Me. Merry Xmas followed the gold rush.

The pre-orders built to 100,000 then 200,000. Before its release, the record had sold 500,000 copies and the record company was having to press it across Europe because the British pressing plants were all full. After two days of release, the record had sold 800,000 – topping a million before Xmas.

“My God, that song’s had a life of its own. People come up to me and think I go into shops and ask them to play it in October. You can’t go anywhere at Christmas without hearing it. Last year I was walking round Manchester, I saw a whole display of 50 toy penguins dancing in and singing to Merry Xmas. It was bizarre. But I’m proud of it. It’s great when a young kid of five or six comes up and they love it. On the other side, people think it’s the only thing we’ve done.”

We chat some more, about the spirit of rock’n’roll, about the lack of great bands, about the lifestyle he led and more. One of the few bands Noddy felt a kinship with, post-Slade, was Oasis. “They were a rock’n’roll band. After a while, they brought in better musicians but although they could play better they didn’t make them a better band. They had that rock’n’roll spirit at the start.

“The same thing happened with us. You know, we weren’t all playing on our record in the late 1980s. I don’t think I picked up a guitar on Rogues Gallery. Rock’n’roll is not about playing the right notes in the right order, believe me. It’s a feel a style a lifestyle. It’s four guys playing together. It’s magic when you get it right. That happened with us and Oasis.

“With Slade Alive, the record company came to us with the idea – it wasn’t our idea – because they were doing something called The Art of the Album. It’s exactly as it was. I haven’t remixed it or anything. Because when we did that it was magic. And it was rock’n’roll. So why f*** about with that?”