noddy holder on tour

An Evening with NODDY HOLDER In conversation with MARK RADCLIFFE Genuine National Treasure, Godfather of Glam and thinking grandmother’s crumpet Noddy Holder looks back over a lifetime of towering achievements. Re-live the heady days of the pop-tastic seventies, eighties and nineties as Sir Nodward recalls all-conquering Top of the Pops appearances, endless world tours, epoch defining anthems, thespian triumphs, and glue-ing some mirrors onto a top hat to change the face of fashion forever. From his early days on the West Midlands beat scene, including a stint as a roadie for Robert Plant, Nod charts his rise from shouty skinhead stomper to international pop-star, statesman, playboy, male model and philosopher. The proud recipient of an M.B.E., a knighthood is surely an inevitability for the Father Christmas even adults can believe in. Coaxing the anecdotal nuggets from the great man will be his close friend, confidante and personal dresser Mark Radcliffe. With a career spanning five decades the still astonishingly youthful Boltonion has written four books, released six albums, presented many TV programmes, most notably the BBC’s coverage of the Glastonbury Festival, and has presented shows on BBC Radios 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7. He remains optimistic of a call from 1xtra and the Asian Network so he’ll have ‘got the set’. So, forget about Noddy goes to Toytown….now Noddy comes to your town for a fun-packed evening packed with fun and lasting all evening.  

An Evening with NODDY HOLDER

In conversation with mark radcliffe, date - venue - box office details, may-09 telford oakengates theatre, 01952 382 382 - visit website to buy tickets, may-10 buxton pavilion arts centre, 0845 127 2190 - visit website to buy tickets, may-11 durham gala theatre, 0191 332 4041 - visit website to buy tickets, may-12 bolton albert halls, 01204 334 400 - visit website to buy tickets, may-16 leeds city varieties music hall, 0113 243 0808 - visit website to buy tickets, may-17 redditch palace theatre, 01527 652 03 - visit website to buy tickets, may-18 preston charter theatre, 0844 844 7710 - visit the website to buy tickets, may-19 harrogate theatre, 01423 502 116 - visit website to buy tickets.

Noddy Holder

Former frontman with Slade, nowadays making appearances as a regular speaker and radio DJ, and of course not forgetting being the face of the Nobby's more...

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One of Black Country’s finest (besides Lenny Henry), glam rock band Slade from Walsalll, England brought us the 1973 Christmas classic “Merry Xmas Everybody” which certified platinum, becoming their biggest selling single to date.

Initially known as Ambrose Slade, the band formed in 1966 with the original line up comprising of vocalist Noddy Holder, guitarist Dave Hill, Jim Lea on bass and Don Powell on percussion. Releasing their debut album “Beginnings” in 1969 although with little chart success, it demonstrated the band’s diversity with the inclusion of covers by Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Steppenwolf and Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes.

The seventies saw Slade dominate the UK chart with a string of number one singles including: “Coz I Luv You”, “Take Me Bak ‘Ome” and “Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me”. Slade’s success continued with the 1972 album “Slayed” and “Old New Borrowed and Blue” (1974) which also saw them clinch the number one spot in the UK charts.

On an incredible high, in the mid-seventies Slade made another attempt to crack the USA touring relentlessly for two years sharing the stage with the likes of Black Sabbath, Aerosmith and ZZ Top. In 1977 the band were invited to perform the track “Gyspy Roadhog” on an episode of Blue Peter, instead it resulted in a flurry of complaints due to the song’s reference to drug and alcohol abuse which subsequently led to the song being banned from the BBC altogether. Struggling to maintain precedence in the charts left Slade back at square one during the late seventies.

Thanks to a spot of luck in 1980, Slade re-entered the spotlight when they replaced Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osborne at Reading Rock Festival which steered them back onto the road of success, releasing the albums “We’ll Bring the House Down” (1981) and “The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome” (1985).

Aside from providing the eternal Christmas classic and a string of hit singles, Slade will forever be one of those band’s whose influence is everlasting, with tracks that soundtrack scores of generations who have inspired instrumental contemporary rock bands such as: Smashing Pumpkins, Motley Crue, Cheap Trick and The Sex Pistols.

Live reviews

Sometimes, you just need a good, old-fashioned dose of glam rock. The thing you have to recognize when watching an “older” act in concert is that you’re not really there for the performance, you’re there for the nostalgia. And while Slade may have abandoned a lot of that glam rock couture that marked its heyday, the attitude is still all there.

You see it on the stage. This British rock band has aged well, and in a strange twist of time, you can hear the people they influenced in the music. Your mom, your dad? They were right when they said that the old songs were better. Perhaps the best part of concerts like these is the audience. They, like you, hopefully, are there for the artist. They’re there for the experience and the nostalgia too. So they’re into it, they’re grooving, in a way that a more halting, timid audience seeing a newer act for the first time just can’t manage.

There’s a certain swell of belonging, a nice feeling of coming home after a long trip gone that newer acts can’t manage either. It’s a combination of an act that knows what they’re doing and an audience that’s getting off on it. It’s the best kind of feedback loop.

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For the fair-weather music fan, Wolverhampton rock outfit Slade are nothing more than the Noddy Holder fronted band famed for their festive hit 'Merry Xmas Everybody'. For everybody else they are considered one of the Midlands most celebrated and iconic exports who have gone on to diversely influence the likes of Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Kiss and The Sex Pistols to name a few.

Now performing without Noddy, the current quartet is headed up by Dave Hill. They remain regulars on the live circuit, having performed over a thousand times since their incarnation in the late 60s. The fans have not come to hear new material which is handy as the band has not released an original album in over 25 years, they are here for the classics including 'Cum On Feel the Noize' and 'Mama Were All Crazee Now'. Despite the grammatical inaccuracy of the titles, there was no denying these tracks were some of the biggest rock singles of the 70s and they are still held fondly by the fans. It is a brief gig yet it is one of great skill, nostalgia and music overall.

A rip roaring hang on to your pants A-Z trip of the greatest hits of Slade. No pretentiousness just a rockin good time. By the way, Dave and his pals can really play and do so with energy, passion and fun. A must see gig stil up there with the current crop of new British bands. They stand the test of time, sounding as fresh and energetic as the days when we were dreamers, schemers and wannabees. ROCK ON SLADE!

great night having been to many Slade gigs over the years this was one of the best great line up I did think that Don Powell would have been back behind the drums after his year off but the stand in drummer was as good hope to see them again next year keep on rocking

Excellent band, they really know how to Rock. 2nd time I’ve seen them in the last four years, would definitely recommend getting to a gig to see them. Took my son both times, he also enjoys the concerts.

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O2 Academy2 Birmingham

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Hall by the Sea, Dreamland Margate

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Slade: Noddy Holder's personal guide to five albums of beautiful noise

With the release of a new box set of Slade live albums, Noddy Holder looks back over the band’s glittering career and recalls the shows that delivered the magic

By Noddy Holder’s own admission, Slade were “a bunch of show-offs”. But boy could they write a hit tune. Between 1971 and ’76 alone, the four-piece from the Black Country notched 17 consecutive UK Top 20 smashes, including six number ones. 

Just as importantly, they knew that live performance is what separates the men from the boys, and the women from the girls. Now, a newly compiled boxed set, All The World Is A Stage , which adds three never officially released performances – including a now-legendary rebirth at the 1980 Reading Festival – to a pair of existing live albums – reminds us of Slade’s peerless capacity to excite a live audience. 

“Fans have been badgering us for years for things they hadn’t heard, and I’m really thrilled by the three tapes that were found, because not only is their quality great, they also sum up the various eras of Slade,” Slade’s former frontman Holder says. “For people that don’t know what we were about, here’s the place to start.” 

If the exclusion from the box set of the band’s second live album, 1978’s Slade Alive, Vol 2 , is confusing, then Holder is quick to explain: “We’ve already had a package that was a part of, and we could only include five discs. You know, some people have claimed that Volume 2 was done in a studio. Which is complete rubbish.” 

With the discovery and release of those ‘lost’ tapes, might there exist other gems somewhere in the vaults? 

“No,” Holder says immediately, then with a laugh: “Mind you, I didn’t think there were any before. So obviously I was wrong about that.” 

Classic Rock joined the still whiskered Holder to look back at the early days of Slade and at those still electrifying live recordings.

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Slade Alive!

Recorded at Command Studios, London, October 1971

As future generations of musicians will probably realise only with hindsight, there’s really only one way to become a good live band, and that’s by getting out there and playing live. There’s no substitute for getting in a van, playing gigs no matter what size and to whom, and learning how to make them better. 

“Jim [Lea, bass and violin] came to us straight out of school,” Holder recalls. “But even before the line-up that people know us for, Dave [Hill, guitar] and Don [Powell, drums] had been in bands before, and so had I. I’d been playing live for three years. In the late 1960s, as the ‘N Betweens we played solidly for five years, and we would take any gig we could get, often for terrible money. 

"We’d play ballrooms, pubs, universities and Working Men’s Clubs – anything. We went up to Scotland once every month – so often that it was sometimes assumed we were a Scottish band. One of the main reasons was they paid us in cash. Occasionally there were two gigs a night, sleeping in the van. But that’s how we learned our chops." 

“I was an audience participation merchant from the start, even in groups at school,” Holder remembers. “I learned how to ‘suck in’ an audience and make them part of the show when my mum and dad took me to pantomimes. We would play Land Of 1000 Dances by Wilson Pickett, and quite often a dozen people came up on to the stage to dance. Slowly we found the things that worked.” 

Holder’s foghorn voice and magnetic stage presence would develop into priceless twin attributes for Slade, but before that the ‘N Betweens began as a five-piece until original frontman Johnny Howells stepped aside. 

“There was another lead singer, but he was on six months’ notice to leave,” Holder recalls fondly. “This guy wouldn’t travel to a gig in Plymouth, as he was ‘seeing a bird’. So we did it without him and tore the place apart. That was the start of it all.”

As a four-piece with Holder at the mic, Slade’s prowess as a live band soon developed. 

“If you can play Saturday night in a pub in the Black Country, you can take flak from any audience,” he states. “There was a pub called Wren’s Nest, in Dudley, where at ten o’clock on any given Saturday night a fight would break out after drinks had been taken. Every band we knew was afraid of playing there. It had a cage around the stage like in those cowboy movies. Chairs, bottles and tables would fly, but you’d have to carry on. That’s how you learned to cope with all that audiences could throw at you – quite literally.” 

In terms of their style of music, Slade owe a debt to a particular single that moved them, and also to the DJ who gave them a copy. “At a pub we did regularly in Wolverhampton, a guy played records between the bands,” Holder recalls. “When I heard this bloody great song, I asked: ‘Is this the Little Richard version of Get Down And Get With It ?’ He replied that it was. And when I asked where I could get hold of it, he gave me his own. For donkey’s years, right until the end of our career, that’s the song we closed the set with before the encores.” 

Get Down was thus in Slade’s set when they first decided to capture their live performance on record. They had already scored a couple of hit singles with Coz I Love You and Look Wot You Dun , but with the ensuing live album, comprised of more covers than originals, the Slade you hear on Alive! was very much a work in progress. 

“Yes, definitely,” Holder agrees. “It was our live set at that time. We played lots of covers, including songs by the Moody Blues , Frank Zappa and the Idle Race, even Ted Nugent. But when Chas Chandler [the band’s manager and producer, a former member of The Animals] found us he encouraged us to write our own. So Slade Alive! was very, very raw. And [although three nights were recorded] we took it all from one gig. It’s the sound of a rock’n’roll band in full force.” 

Slade’s irreverence shines through when Holder lets rip with a loud and fruity belch during their sensitive cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s Darling Be Home Soon . 

“That was a total accident,” Holder says with a laugh. “But after that album came out and was so successful, I had to do the same thing every night. If I didn’t then the fans would go berserk.” 

By then Slade’s unique, attention-grabbing and wonderfully over-the-top image was firmly in place. 

“Right from the off, Dave and I developed a cutthroat idea that every time we went on stage we would look colourful,” Holder says. “It was all about shock tactics. We wanted people to sit up and go: ‘What the fuck is this?’ Whether or not they liked us was irrelevant, because we knew that the following day everyone would be talking about us in the pubs. Everything we did was about that, including the volume we played at. Even before becoming famous, we were always deafening."

Live At The New Victoria

Recorded at the New Victoria Theatre, London, April 24, 1975  

This previously unreleased show captures Slade at a time when Holder and Lea’s songwriting had started to take a more mature turn, via songs like How Does It Feel and Everyday . 

“The fans have been on at us for years to release that one,” Holder says. “It’s got tracks such as Thanks For The Memory (Wham Bam Thank You Mam) and How Does It Feel that we never performed live on any other album. This was the time of the [Slade’s] In Flame movie, so it has Them Kinda Monkeys Can’t Swing , the type of songs were doing when we went to America.” 

The show at the New Victoria was among the last the band would play in Britain before basing themselves in the US from mid-1975 to early ’77. Slade tried hard to carve a slice of the US market – a move that would cause many of their British fans to feel neglected. On such grounds the switch is now regarded as ill-advised, but Holder says he’d love to be able to go back to those times. 

“Oh, most definitely,” he insists cheerily. “Some say that moving to the States killed us off, and maybe it did, but there was no choice. We’d been over several times before for short periods of time, and the only way to crack the place was by staying there. By 1975 we decided to have a go at the golden goose. 

“It was such a great experience,” he continues nostalgically. “I had some of the most brilliant moments of my life. Things like going into a bar in New Orleans and seeing ZZ Top during their blues era. There’s no way I could ever regret that. When we had Thin Lizzy playing with us, if I hadn’t pulled, me and Brian Robertson would go out after the show to find a bar band to play with. One night we did half an hour with a Mariachi band, him playing bluesy licks over their Mexican music. That would never have happened in Britain, I was just too famous. 

“Just because it didn’t work out the way we had planned, well… I don’t recall anyone [from within Slade] complaining at the time. And when we came back to the UK, musically speaking we were a band revitalised, we were playing shit-hot.”

Alive At Reading! 

Recorded at the Reading Festival, August 24, 1980

By the summer of 1980, three years after returning to Britain from the US, Holder admits that Slade were “pretty much on the skids”. Dave Hill had decided to leave the band. Even when the lastminute offer of a spot on the Reading Festival bill as replacement for Ozzy Osbourne ’s new group Blizzard Of Ozz came in, Holder couldn’t convince the guitarist. 

“We’d tried to get on to Reading for the previousfew years, but we just weren’t cool enough. When the call came, Dave’s mind was made up – he didn’t want to do it,” Holder remembers. “Luckily, Chas was able to persuade him that this was a good place to finish the band: to go out with a bang.” 

Three days later, Slade arrived at the festival site. They hadn’t played for months. Only a few people knew that they had been added to the line-up. Before they were due to go on stage, the mood in their dressing room was sombre.

“Everyone thought it was the last show,” Holder says. “Then Tommy Vance from The Friday Rock Show, who was acting as compere, walked in and predicted we were going to go down a storm. We weren’t so sure; Reading had turned into a metal festival, and that wasn’t us. But Tommy was insistent.” 

There was to be one further twist. 

“ Def Leppard refused to go on before us – they wouldn’t open for a bunch of has-beens,” Holder says with a chuckle. “So we agreed to swap over. We really didn’t give a toss.”

What followed was the most unexpected resurrection since Lazarus. With a set that mixed harder-edged new songs such as When I’m Dancin’ I Ain’t Fightin’ and Wheels Ain’t Coming Down with a clutch of well-known hits ( Take Me Bak ’Ome, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Cum On Feel The Noize and Get Down And Get With It ), Slade slayed in the late-afternoon sunlight, peaking with Holder conducting 80,000 denim-clad herberts in a singalong of Merry Xmas Everybody – in August. 

“In front of the stage there was a pit for the media, which was empty when we went on, but the noise of the crowd was so loud that it filled up right away,” Holders marvels. “The audience was perfect for us; a lot of them were kids who had been too young to see us first time around. Def Leppard went on afterwards and they had a hard job following us – they just couldn’t.” 

Slade’s set from that fateful day has been bootlegged in the past, but the new boxed set includes the most complete version released officially to date. “It’s not the full show from Reading, because we don’t have the complete set, but we’ve put out all that we’ve got."

Hearing them again all these years later, these shows made me realise what a fucking good band we were,” Holder says proudly. “I even freaked out at my own vocal prowess on all three of the new recordings. ‘Fucking hell, how did I sing like that for two hours?’”

Live At The Hucknall Miners’ Welfare Club

Recorded at Hucknall Miners’ Welfare Club, Nottingham, December 10, 1980  

A little under four months after their unlikely triumph at Reading, Slade’s bus pulled up at a familiar location. Madison Square Garden this was not. 

“We used to really love that place; we played it several times, actually,” Holder remembers. “It made a really warm-up for our tours because it always had a great atmosphere.” 

All the same, it’s tough to imagine what goes through the mind of a musician when, having performed on the world’s biggest stages, they arrive at what’s marginally bigger than a pub gig. 

“To Slade, throughout our career, the size of the audience never mattered,” Holder says. “We always gave one hundred per cent, whenever and wherever. I remember playing a club in Bristol back in the sixties on a rainy Tuesday night and eight people turned up. We got all of them up on stage, they did the gig with us, and it was a great night. My ideal capacity is a two-to-three-thousand-seater. Any bigger than that and eye contact becomes impossible. 

“It’s the atmosphere, and not the size of a show, that’s important,” he continues. “We always made the night into a party. It’s showing off, isn’t it? 

“Slade was a band of show-offs, basically. It was for me and Dave, anyway. Jim used to tear his hair out over our antics. The punters came along to see how far we’d go; quite often I’d show my arse on stage. Anything to win them over. After a Slade show, people left knowing they’d had a good time.” 

The turnaround thanks to Reading led to a new record deal, and at the Hucknall gig Slade played several songs – including Night Starvation, I’m A Rocker, When I’m Dancin’ I Ain’t Fightin’ and Wheels Ain’t Coming Down – that would all appear the following year on an album called We’ll Bring The House Down . 

The following year, Slade were invited to play at Monsters Of Rock at Donington Park, on a bill headlined by AC/DC that also included Whitesnake and Blue Öyster Cult .

So how comfortable did the band feel in their new wardrobe of leather and studs?

“I just don’t think we thought of it that way,” Holder says. “I certainly don’t remember being un-comfortable.”

After a moment’s thought he adds: “I don’t think we ever really had a pop audience. There were always a lot more blokes and girls, and in the eighties I suppose there were a lot more blokes, but there was never a conscious desire to change. And when we got to America [second time around] there were a lot of bands doing exactly what we’d done in the previous decade, especially in LA.”

Slade On Stage

Recorded at Newcastle City Hall, December 11, 1981

Slade documented their second spell of popularity with 10 live songs, including a thunderously loud farewell with a cover of You’ll Never Walk Alone sung by the Newcastle City Hall audience on the tour for their tenth studio album, Till Deaf Do Us Part. Its sense of communion is palpable. 

“Even from way, way back, Newcastle was always amazing for us – it was Chas’s home town, remember – so we did the City Hall on every tour,” Holder says, smiling. “We had first appeared there in 1969 as the warm-up act for Amen Corner and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. It was an audience of screaming girls, which we’d never seen before. From then on, our tours often opened at the City Hall. Not just for Slade, there’s something magical about that place. When we had Thin Lizzy and Suzi Quatro open on a tour for us there, they couldn’t believe the hullabaloo. So when we made a third album, Newcastle City Hall was one of the first names on the list.” 

Within two years, belatedly in the United States Slade’s star was rising. 

“Back in the seventies it had been impossible for us to break through, but by the early eighties, thanks to MTV, that situation had started to change,” Holder explains. After the American band Quiet Riot scored a hit with their cover of Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize , Sharon Osbourne took on the band’s management, and Run Runaway made it into the Billboard Top 40. Unfortunately, after playing just the opening night of a vital support tour with Ozzy the band were forced to head home due to Jim Lea having developed hepatitis C. 

The 1987 album You Boyz Make Big Noize would be their swansong, although a further hit single, 1991’s Radio Wall Of Sound , kept the name alive. 

Today, having been cited as an influence by artists as diverse as Kiss , Twisted Sister, Oasis, Nirvana, the Ramones , Def Leppard and The Clash , Slade’s legacy lives on. As does a desire to see the band perform again. But with all of them in their seventies, each member now acknowledges how remote a possibility that has become. There are also personal issues to consider. A little under two years ago, Holder told Classic Rock : “When bands break up it’s usually to do with five reasons: egos, money, drink and drugs, women or musical differences. In Slade’s case it was all of the above.” Which sounds pretty damned final. 

“It is final. And since I said that, Don and Dave have fallen out,” Holder sighs. “At the moment there’s no love lost between those two, but that’s how it goes with bands; things get said and people are blamed. Tales get distorted.” 

At the start of 2022, national headlines were made when The Sun printed an ‘interview’ with Holder during which he addressed the possibility of Slade reuniting for the ‘legends’ spot at Glastonbury. He was quoted as saying: “Maybe we’d have to have glass barriers between us on stage so that there would be no fisticuffs on stage.” His manager Colin Newman dismissed the story as a gross distortion. 

“Everyone went mad, but it was a total and utter lie,” Holder clarifies. All the same, there were attempts to put the band back together. 

“The last time the four members were in a room together was many years ago for a business meeting,” says Holder. “It was like we had split up the day before, not twenty years earlier. Big money was on offer for an eighteen-month world tour, but nobody was willing to compromise. I would never, ever go through that again.” 

In a pleasing footnote, a month after The Sun debacle, Holder’s wife Suzan posted a photo of Holder and Hill together with huge smiles. 

“I went to his house and we mended our bridges – not that Dave and I really had bridges to fix,” Holder says. “I accepted his eccentricity and he accepted my own. There had been some business hassles, but we picked up the phone and discussed them. Dave’s a funny bugger, still as daft as he was when I first met him in the mid-sixties.” 

All The World Is A Stage is available now via BMG.

Dave Ling was a co-founder of Classic Rock magazine. His words have appeared in a variety of music publications, including RAW, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Prog, Rock Candy, Fireworks and Sounds. Dave’s life was shaped in 1974 through the purchase of a copy of Sweet’s album ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’, along with early gig experiences from Status Quo, Rush, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Yes and Queen. As a lifelong season ticket holder of Crystal Palace FC, he is completely incapable of uttering the word ‘Br***ton’.

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‘Everybody wants to know how much I make’: Noddy Holder on Merry Xmas Everybody

With the 1973 No 1 back in the charts, Slade’s original frontman chats sideburns, custard pies and royalties

I ’m about halfway through my interview with Noddy Holder – as in Slade’s “It’s Chrissstmass” Noddy Holder – and I really need to ask him that question. Except, isn’t it a bit rude? A man’s finances are his own personal kingdom …

“I bet I know what you’re going to ask,” laughs Holder. “You’re going to ask me … how much money do I make each year? Everybody wants to know how much money we make!”

A day doesn’t go by without someone shouting ‘It’s Chrisssstmass!’ at me at the top of their voice

It’s certainly a valid question. Merry Xmas Everybody was released in 1973 (Slade’s third No 1 of the year after Cum On Feel The Noize and Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me) and has charted eight times in the 80s, twice in the 90s and every year since 2006.

It’s currently number 30 in the charts, has been streamed 88m times on Spotify and has been released for the first time this year with a video, an animation that has had more than 150,000 views and counting. Surely the royalties must keep Holder rolling in top hats, platform shoes and luxury sideburn shampoo?

“Well, I can’t put a figure on, because it’s just different every year,” says Holder, cryptically. “Some years it’s used in an advert or movie. There’s been all sorts of cover versions, from the Spice Girls, Tony Christie and Oasis” – Noel Gallagher recorded an acoustic version for The Royle Family’s 2000 Christmas special. “I’ll get my annual PRS [Performing Right Society] statement and the cross-section of artists who perform it on their Christmas tours is amazing. All four of the original Slade share performing rights but it just happens that Jim [Lea] and me were the main writers, so we earn more.”

Oh, go on, give me a figure, I plead. “It’s like having a hit record every year. So it’s a nice pension plan, I’ll say that,” Holder smiles. The PRS has quoted £512,000 annually, but the Daily Mail reckons it’s more like a cool £1m.

Merry Xmas Everybody came about after a challenge from one of Jim Lea’s elderly relatives, and was written in one sitting after a night down the pub.

“Jim’s mother-in-law said: ‘How come that you’ve never written a song that could played every year for a birthday, Christmas or Valentine’s Day?’ The first song I’d ever written, in 1967, was this hippy, psychedelic song called Buy Me a Rocking Chair to Watch the World Go By, but the rest of the band said it was rubbish. Jim had this melody knocking around, so he put my hook and chorus into his verse and played it to me round his house. That night, I was drinking with the locals and my best mate, our tour manager, Graham Swinnerton – Swinny – at this jazz pub called the Trumpet in Wolverhampton. I went back to my old bedroom at my mum and dad’s, rather merry, and wrote the lyrics in one go.”

Slade had just finished a big European tour in July 1973; the first ever band to play Earl’s Court. Four days later, Slade’s drummer, Don Powell, was in a car crash, killing his girlfriend and putting him on life support for six weeks.

“The doctors said if he’s ever going to play the drums again, he needs to get behind a drumkit as soon as possible,” says Holder. “Our manager, Chas Chandler, decided we should head to New York, out of the limelight, to record Merry Xmas Everybody. The studio was within an office complex, so we went out on to the staircases to add echo to the choruses. People were going about their business with these four mad Englishmen screaming at the top of our voices about Christmas. It was a boiling hot New York summer in August, so hardly Christmassy. Plus Don couldn’t remember the drum part, so we had to record it in tiny pieces.”

With pre-orders of 600,000, Merry Xmas Everyone went straight to No 1 for six weeks, selling over a million all over Europe.

“So we did TV shows in Scandinavia, Germany, France and Belgium,” continues Holder. “The big one was Christmas Day Top Of The Pops 1973. We beat Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday to Christmas No 1 – fellow Brummies and good mates – so they snuck into the audience and pelted me with custard pies. So that’s the performance I remember.”

So is Holder surprised that Merry Xmas Everybody is still as loved nearly 50 years later?

“We never dreamt that it would still be so popular. I came up with the line ‘Look to the future now, it’s only just begun,’ because the country at the time was in a terrible state with electricians, bakers, miners and gravediggers all on strike. It’s just as valid today because of the state the country. Look the future, it really has only just begun.

“People associate me with Christmas, like I’m Santa’s little helper. I’m sure they half expect to see me walking down the street in platform shoes and a top hat shouting “It’s Chrissstmass!” They forget we had about 40 other hit singles. A day doesn’t go by without someone shouting “It’s Chrissstmass!” at me at the top of their voice. When I’m doing my Christmas shopping, I probably get it 40 times a day. But after 50 years, it still makes me smile.”

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Noddy Holder on possible Slade reunion and defying cancer: 'I'm still alive, thank god'

The former Slade singer and voice of Christmas is playing shows again, five years after being told his had six months to live

Noddy Holder in 2011

Neville John ‘Noddy’ Holder was born in June 1946 in Walsall. He formed his first band, The Rockin’ Phantoms, at the age of 13 and left school after O levels to take a job in a car parts firm while pursuing a music career. The band became The Memphis Cut-Outs, who became popular enough on the local scene for Holder to quit the day job. He went on to join The Mavericks, who were signed by Columbia in 1965, and were signed to the same management company as The N’ Betweens, who included future Slade members guitarist Dave Hill and drummer Don Powell. The two bands shared bills and bonded, laying the foundations for Holder’s next move.

In 1966, Powell and Hill convinced Holder to join their new group, along with multi-instrumentalist Jim Lea, which they named Ambrose Slade. After their debut album, 1969’s Beginnings, flopped, they changed their name to Slade and adopted a skinhead image for the following year’s Play It Loud. When that failed to catch the public’s imagination, the band turned to glam rock and swiftly became one of Britain’s biggest bands, with Slayed? (1972) reaching No 1 after their breakthrough single Get Down And Get With It. The next few years saw Slademania take Britain by storm with a run of classic, hit singles (mostly chart-toppers) that gave English teachers the nation over sleepless nights including Coz I Luv You, Take Me Bak ’Ome, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Gudbuy T’Jane, Cum On Feel The Noize, Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me and Merry Xmas Everybody.

Noddy Holder left Slade in 1992 but remained a familiar figure on our TV screens, most notably as a team captain on BBC1’s music series A Question Of Pop and playing the music teacher Neville Holder in the ITV comedy drama The Grimleys. In 2000, Holder was awarded the MBE for his services to showbusiness. In October this year, Holder revealed to The Big Issue that he’d been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2018 and had been given six months to live, after which he underwent experimental chemotherapy treatment. Holder said, “I kept it very low key because I didn’t want people to just think of me as a cancer victim – though I don’t call it a victim because that’s the wrong word.”

Speaking to The Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self , Noddy Holder reflected on his determination to make it as a musician and revealed that he’d been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2018 and had been given six months to live, after which he underwent experimental chemotherapy treatment.

At 16 I was just about to leave school. I’d done pretty well, I’d got six O levels. And all the teachers were pushing me to stay at school. But by the time I was 16 I’d already formed a semi-professional amateur band at school, and I’d been gigging constantly on weekends around working men’s clubs, youth clubs, weddings, anywhere we could get a gig really. So my heart was set on becoming a professional musician. Now back in 1961, 62, if you chose that as a profession, you were a black sheep, wasting your time, throwing it all away. Especially in the working-class area where I come from. Being a professional musician was not looked on as a bona fide job. People thought you were a bit of a beatnik.  

My dad used to sing around the working men’s clubs. He was a great singer but he never had any aspirations. When I was seven, I was sitting with my mum in the audience one Sunday night and he called me up to sing. He called out, “come on Neville”, and I sang a song by a country and western artist called Frankie Laine in my little soprano voice. It was the first time I’d ever sang into a microphone and it brought the place down. That was my first taste of applause. After that I used to get up every week. Then I founded a very basic little rock’n’roll band at school. So when I got to 16 I said to my mum and dad, “I want to leave school. I want to go out and try to make a success as a musician.” And they didn’t try to stop me. They said, “give it a couple of years, he’ll get it out of his system then he’ll get back to his studies.” The teachers were mad at me. They said, “You’ll never do anything as a musician.” And for years I was just scrambling around trying to make a living – until I got my first hit record. And then I was sending my mum and dad postcards from Tokyo and New York.   

In 1966 I joined a band called The ’N Betweens, who eventually became Slade. I knew Don [Powell] the drummer, from the clubs in Wolverhampton but I didn’t really know [guitarist] Dave [Hill] at all. They were looking for a new singer and Don knew I could sing. He asked me if I’d join. I turned him down a couple of times because I was still with my band, working in Germany, earning really good money, £25 a week. A hell of a lot of money. But eventually they talked me into it, and we had a couple of rehearsals. One afternoon we went in and played a couple of numbers together, and we knew we’d got something going. It all seemed to slot into place magically.  

Chas Chandler was the guy who discovered us and gave us a proper record contract. He’d looked after Jimi Hendrix until he went back to America, and he was looking for a new band. He loved us because we were different to anybody else. He signed us up, but it took him two years before he got a hit. We had a hit with a cover version, a Little Richard number. It got us on Top of the Pops and people started to take notice of us. Chas said he wanted the next release to be our own song. He said, come back to me with a catchy, catchy three-minute song. So Jim [bass player and co-songwriter Jim Lea] came over to mine with his violin and we messed about with a rhythm and a very simple chord progression. I ad-libbed a melody over the top. And within 20 minutes, we’d written a song called Coz I Luv You . We played it to Chas and he said, I think you’ve written your first number one. We didn’t think for a minute it was number one material. But within two weeks of release, it was number one on the charts. We just couldn’t believe it.  

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The early ’90s was a weird period for me. We’d had 25 years together as a band. I had things going on in my personal life – I’d just got divorced. My dad was very ill; he was dying. I’d been on the road for 30 years. It’s a long time and I just felt I was getting stale. It seemed to be getting repetitious. And I never was into that. I’m a positive thinker and I always have been, even from when I was a kid. I don’t hanker in nostalgia. Not my bag. I always want to look to the future. And I just felt at the end of the ’80s we had pretty much achieved everything that we set out to do. We’d lost momentum in America – it didn’t work out. The band weren’t getting on; we’d had so much time together living in one another’s pockets. I had to face up to the fact that this was not working the same way. We weren’t that gang any more. I thought I’d leave and maybe in a couple of years’ time we’d reconvene and get back to where we were, but it didn’t work out that way.  

Slade were offered a lot of money several times to get back together. We didn’t have any major fall-outs or anything like that. We’re still on te speaking terms. I mean, there’s a lot of business hassles between the four of us – it’s always difficult where money involved. But when we had business meetings, within half an hour we argued about the same things we’d argued about the day we split. So the thought of being at least two years on the road – which is what it would take to make real big money – I thought, well, we’re never going to last that long. We could have all travelled separately and stayed in separate hotels, as many bands do, but I didn’t want to live like that. I remember when we were four guys having a laugh together, going out drinking together. But obviously it was never going to be like that again.  

The reason I’ve just been on the road doing shows with [boogie woogie pianist and singer] Tom Seals and his band is that, five years ago, I was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. And I was only given six months to live. I kept it very low key because I didn’t want people to just think of me as a cancer victim. Though I don’t call it ‘victim’ because that’s the wrong word. But at the Christie Hospital in Manchester I was offered a trial of a new drug. I was a sort of guinea pig for this drug that was four times stronger than normal chemotherapy. The consultant said, we’ve never given this to anybody your age, but we are getting some success with younger people. So, I thought, what do I have to lose? I only had six months left anyway. And I’ve always had this positive mental attitude, and he said that could be a big bonus. So I’m still alive, thank god. They never tell you you’re cured. You’re never cured, you just carry on being checked on. But then I thought, I’m still around after five years, why don’t I go and do some shows? So people can see that I’m still standing and I can still sing a few tunes and tell a few stories. I didn’t do a full two hours as I would have in the old days. But I think people were surprised at how well I could still belt out a tune.  

If I could re-live one time in my life I’d have to say it would be when I had my first number one record. That feeling, after waiting so long and thinking you’d never achieve it, it was a hell of a feeling. Being on Top of the Pops ! After that I knew anything was possible. I was a scraggy-arsed kid from a Black Country housing estate. Nobody ever thought I would make anything of myself. In 1996 they did my This is Your Life . Until then, my mum had still been asking me, when are you going to get a proper job? But then she met Michael Aspel, which was the highlight of her life. Then about four years later, I got the MBE. I think that rang a bell in her head, that I hadn’t been messing about my whole life. 

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Christmas Number 1: Slade's Noddy Holder on 50 years of Merry Xmas Everybody

IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAAAASSSSSS!!!

Anyone, anywhere, of any age in the UK will hear that opening line and think of one thing and one thing only  - Noddy Holder. 

The start to Slade's festive glam-rock masterpiece Merry Xmas Everybody is as recognisable as any piece of art that has become part of the British cultural institution. 

Originally released in 1973, Merry Xmas Everybody is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year...and what a legacy the song carries. Debuting at Number 1 in its original release, it became Slade's sixth (and final) UK Number 1 single, and is now ranked as one of the best-selling songs of all time in the UK . 

Merry Xmas Everybody has already seen so much success on the Official Charts - becoming the Official Christmas Number 1 single of 1973  - but in its anniversary year, could we see Slade reach the top once again?

As one of the official contenders for Christmas Number 1 2023, we rang up Slade frontman Noddy Holder to chat about the legacy Merry Xmas Everybody, famous cover versions of the song and what it's like to create a piece of art that is embraced by everyone in the country.

MORE: See all the contenders of the 2023 Official Christmas Number 1

Hi Noddy! How does it feel to still be talking about Merry Xmas Everybody, 50 years on from its release?

It's good! I mean, it's a feel-good record. It's very very simple; [the song tells the story of] a family Christmas for everybody. When we wrote it in 1973, that was the intention, to make it a happy go lucky record.

Really, there's nothing Christmassy about it, except the lyrics. There's no sleigh bells! But it sums up a very traditional family Christmas, which is still valued today. The lyrics say "look to the future now, it's only just begun," and that's as valid today as it was in 1973. Nothing's changed. We have to look forward, it's no good looking back. 

Is it right you wrote the lyrics in one draft, in one night?

The song was based originally in something my co-writer James [Jim Lea, from Slade] who'd been challenged by his mother-in-law about a year before the song about, she challenged him to write a Christmas song. He came up with the verse melody in the shower, but he was stuck for a chorus. Six years previously, I'd written a song called Buy Me A Rocking Chair, that had gone in the bin, but like everything, we recycled it. 

So, I went away and had a few drinks in my local in Walsall, my home town. I went back to sleep at my Mum and Dad's, got a bottle of whiskey and went to my old childhood bedroom. I got it done in two or three hours; I just thought about everything that was do with Christmas, a family Christmas. That brought back all the memories I had when I was a kid. All the lyrics were done in that one night, the middle eight and everything!

Be honest, how often do people scream 'it's Christmas!' at you?

Oh, if I'm out and about, at least once a day. This time of year, it probably goes to 20 or 30 times a day! But that's because it's got a place in people's hearts, you see. It's become my calling card, if you like. Parents will normally stop their children in the street and say 'look, it's Mr Christmas!' The song just brings back happy memories, and it's taken on a life of its own, which is beyond anything I had in my wildest dreams.

A lot of bands have covered Merry Xmas Everybody over the years too...

Yes! Various American bands have covered our songs. Oasis have. Girls Aloud have covered Merry Xmas Everybody!

I'm so glad you brought that up, the Girls Aloud version is great

I love Girls Aloud! I think they've made some amazing pop music. I heard their cover on the TV the other day. 

There's also a chance this year that Merry Xmas Everybody could return as Christmas Number 1 this year...

There's a lot of competition this year! There are a lot of Christmas records out there now. I'm not really expecting it, to be honest, but it would be lovely if it did! It would be the icing on the cake. I  would  be very surprised because there are a lot of good records out there. Now, don't forget, [the song] is 50 years old, so I think a good percentage of the population have got the record already!

Talking of your competition, a lot of people are commemorating Shane MacGowan's death by trying to get the Pogues to Christmas Number 1 with Fairytale of New York

Yes, people are going to celebrate and commemorate Shane, and Fairytale of New York is a great record. A great record. 

Do you any favourites for Christmas Number 1? Apart from yourself, obviously

I have to say Mariah Carey, All I Want For Christmas Is You. I do love that record. I think that's a great record, it always reminds me of Motown and Phil Spector, his Christmas record [A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector], Mariah's song is very much in that vein. I still live John Lennon's Christmas song [Happy Xmas (War Is Over)] and of course Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.

Have you got any memorable favourites from the modern day?

Sam Ryder's new song [You're Christmas To Me]. I heard that on the radio other day. I really liked that, that's a good record.

If you do reach Christmas Number 1 this year, Noddy, how would you celebrate?

Oh, that's a hard one. I would have a wee dram, of course! But it would really be the icing on top of the cake. It would be an incredible bonus for the history of Merry Xmas Everybody. I mean, we as a band cannot control the history of that record now. It's taken on a life of its own. 

Follow the Official Christmas Number 1 race:

The Official Christmas Number 1 race 2023 kicks off Friday December 15 with sales and streams counting up until midnight (11.59pm) on Thursday, December 21.

Tune in to The Official Chart on BBC Radio 1 on Friday December 22 from 4pm to hear the Christmas Top 40 countdown and the exclusive reveal of the Official Christmas Number 1 2023.

The full  Top 100 Official Christmas Singles Chart  and  Albums Chart  will be published on OfficialCharts.com from 5.45pm.

Join the conversation now using the hashtag #XmasNo1. Follow @OfficialCharts on  TikTok ,  Instagram ,  Twitter  and  Facebook . For all the latest race updates join  the Official Charts mailing list  for Breaking News on this year’s race and beyond.

Slade images: Barry Plummer/Michael Putland/Getty

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Always down to earth is Noddy especially at this time of the year..No one says "IT'S CHRISTMAS!!"" like him. Long may Merry Xmas Everybody continue to sell every Christmas.

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Noddy Holder wants original Slade line-up to reunite for Glastonbury

"I think we’d probably all have to go in on a coach each"

Noddy Holder has expressed his hopes of Slade reuniting to take on Glastonbury ‘s coveted Legends Slot.

Guitarist Dave Hill is now the only remaining original member of the band, with drummer Don Powell announcing last year that he’d been fired over email after over 50 years with the group.

• READ MORE: Slade’s Noddy Holder – What rock ‘n’ roll has taught me

Hill is joined in the current version of Slade by bassist John Berry (who joined in 2003), vocalist and keyboard player Russell Keefe (who joined in 2019) and drummer Alex Bines (who joined in 2020).

Speaking in a recent interview with The Sun , former lead singer Holder – who departed the band in 1992 – revealed that he hopes the original line-up can make amends and appear at Glastonbury Festival in the future.

The newspaper claims that Holder wants to play once again with Jim Lea, Don Powell and Dave Hill for the Legends Slot, which is this year being filled by Diana Ross . Previous artists to have performed the must-see Sunday teatime set include Kylie Minogue , Lionel Richie and Dolly Parton .

“It would be amazing if we could work out our differences,” Holder said. “I think we’d probably all have to go [to Glastonbury] in on a coach each. Or we’d all have to have a changing room or caravan each.”

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He continued: “And maybe we’d have to have glass barriers between us on stage so that there would be no fisticuffs on stage.”

Powell expressed his “great sadness and regret” over his departure in an official statement in February 2020. “Dave has sent Don a cold email to inform him that his services are no longer required, after working together and being friends since 1963,” the message read.

Meanwhile, it has so far been confirmed that Billie Eilish will headline Glastonbury 2022 . There is also speculation over whether Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar could fill the remaining two bill-topping slots ( both artists were due to headline in 2020 ).

Other rumoured acts include Queens Of The Stone Age and Jack White , the latter of whom is set to perform in London the Monday after Glasto 2022 ends .

Taking to social media, the event’s co-organiser Emily Eavis recently brought in the New Year by promising fans “ festival news soon to kick off the build up” .

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Slade's Noddy Holder opens up being given just six months to live after cancer diagnosis

29 December 2023, 13:35 | Updated: 29 December 2023, 13:54

By Giorgina Hamilton

The Slade frontman has had treatment to battle oesophagus cancer.

Listen to this article

Noddy Holder has opened up about his 2018 battle with cancer and his doctor's prediction that he only had a maximum of six months to live .

The 77-year-old was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent a series of harrowing treatments after being told his life expectancy was in the balance.

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Appearing on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time , Noddy has opened up about his thoughts when given the news, and the mindset that got him through.

"I'm a sort of happy-go-lucky sort and I thought, if it's six months, it's six months," Noddy said.

"I've had a great life and I've had a lot of fun in my life."

The Slade frontman was sent to the Christie Hospital in Manchester and underwent a new treatment to target oesophagus cancer.

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"I tried it out, and that was five years ago, and I'm still here, so it's worked so far," the singer said.

The admission comes just two months after his wife broke the news that Holder had been secretly battling cancer for the past five years.

Suzan, 57, wrote a touching article for Great British Life in October 2023 and spoke of the groundbreaking trial of chemotherapy that helped him survive.

She wrote: "Five years ago we were given the devastating news that he had oesophageal cancer and only had six months to live.

"I’m sorry if that comes as a bit of a shock; it came as a total bombshell to us too. We coped with it the only way we could, by hunkering down, sticking together and doing everything we could to survive it.

"We told only immediate close family and friends and I will never apologise to those we did not confide in, only to those who were forced to suffer pain and anguish alongside us as we attempted to navigate our way through this new and horrifying world."

She went on to explain that The Christie Hospital's treatment worked wonders for her husband.

Suzan wrote: "There were no guarantees, no one knew if it would have any effect, let alone work miracles, but he responded well. As anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis will know, the experts never like to use the word "cure", but here we are five years later and he’s feeling good and looking great."

Noddy Holder recalls friendship with Freddie Mercury

Noddy has been in good spirits and even performed on stage this summer after being invited by Cheshire musician Tom Seals.

Slade had a successful career with six UK Number One singles, including ' Merry Xmas Everybody ', 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' and 'Cum on Feel the Noise'.

The band was formed in Wolverhampton in 1966 with Dave Hill, Don Powell and Jim Lea joining Noddy. Holder and Lea left the band in 1992, while Hill and Powell continued as Slade with different singers and musicians.

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Review: Noddy Holder was in his element during joyous Walsall homecoming gig

Noddy Holder was on sparkling form at his joyous homecoming gig in Walsall last night.

The former Slade front man performed alongside piano master Tom Seals and his band in front of a sell-out 600 crowd at the Walsall Arena in Bloxwich.

Fans travelled from across the country, as well as Europe and Caldmore, to attend the gig which was full of Noddy's old school friends, bandmates and family. And Slade fans delighted to be in the presence of Noddyness again.

The 77-year-old, who is celebrating 60 years as a professional musician, told countless stories from his time growing up in Caldmore and the Beechdale estate and his rise to stardom.

He also chose songs which were seminal in his life which Tom Seals and his band performed with a helping hand from Noddy on the microphone. The first song was the Al Jolson number his window cleaner father used to sing to his mother in local pubs to get out of the doghouse.

He said: "My father had a great voice, but he never wanted to sing professional, everyone knew him in Walsall. He would barter a lot, he would clean the butchers windows to get some meat and the barbers so me and him could have a hair cut."

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• Entertainment

Review: Noddy Holder was in his element during joyous Walsall homecoming gig

Noddy Holder was on sparkling form at his joyous homecoming gig in Walsall last night.

The former Slade front man performed alongside piano master Tom Seals and his band in front of a sell-out 600 crowd at the Walsall Arena in Bloxwich.

Fans travelled from across the country, as well as Europe and Caldmore, to attend the gig which was full of Noddy's old school friends, bandmates and family. And Slade fans delighted to be in the presence of Noddyness again.

The 77-year-old, who is celebrating 60 years as a professional musician, told countless stories from his time growing up in Caldmore and the Beechdale estate and his rise to stardom.

He also chose songs which were seminal in his life which Tom Seals and his band performed with a helping hand from Noddy on the microphone. The first song was the Al Jolson number his window cleaner father used to sing to his mother in local pubs to get out of the doghouse.

He said: "My father had a great voice, but he never wanted to sing professional, everyone knew him in Walsall. He would barter a lot, he would clean the butchers windows to get some meat and the barbers so me and him could have a hair cut."

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