You cannot talk about the history of rock & roll without talking about Chris Slade. Beginning with his work with Tom Jones in 1965, Chris Slade’s drums can be heard on hits by Manfred Mann, The Firm, AC/DC, and many more. His band The Chris Slade Timeline is about to release a new double album called Timescape on July 19 featuring one record of new material and one that covers some of the songs Chris has been involved with throughout his career. Chris recently took a few minutes to talk about The Chris Slade Timeline and take a walk through his career.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Chris Slade interview –
On how he put The Chris Slade Timeline together – I wanted to be able to play my career, really, not just AC/DC, which we do a lot of, by the way. I’d seen these guys play in a pub, and I knew they were absolutely fantastic. I knew them vaguely before that, knew their faces. I used to see them then I used to see them quite regularly and they used to do things like Genesis covers and Kansas and stuff like that, absolutely perfectly. So I know they’d be absolutely fine to switch from AC/DC to all the other sort of music, David Gilmour, everything, so they agreed. That was 10 years ago and they’re only 35 now. So I mean, and that’s true. They are most of them.
On the history of the songs on disc 1 of Timescape – Well, some of them I wrote with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. There’s a song in there called “Questions”. I wrote the lyrics and I think Schubert wrote the melody. But Manfred had found it and it fitted the lyrics absolutely perfectly. Manfred saw the lyrics and he came in after the weekend and went, “I think I found the perfect melody for you”. So that was one of them. So there’s what is it? The other one that I did with Earth Band. Oh, it was “Joybringer”, a song called “Joybringer”, which was a top 10 song in UK, actually. It came before “Blinded by the Light”. But the rest I’ve written and the guys wrote one song on that side. On the second CD is the covers of records that we play on our live set, such as AC/DC, such as Asia, and other favorites of ours actually. So, I think it’s a very balanced CD, and I’m very proud of it. I’m proud of the band, always have been because they’re such great musicians. They deserve people to know them.
On how he picked the songs for the second CD – Oh, we’ve got others, but we figured these might be the best ones at the time that were mixed properly. Sometimes, you record things and you haven’t mixed them yet because you think, “Oh, we’ll do that next week”, and next week becomes next year and then you go next decade. So that’s how things go. I think you know that. So we picked the ones that were mixed properly and that we thought would make an impact.
“Big Gun” for instance, is on there. That came from a movie soundtrack (“Last Action Hero”) as a lot of people will know but it’s only on that soundtrack. It’s not on any other recording by AC/DC and I think it’s a great song. It’s a tremendous riff. One of the best riffs I’ve ever heard. For me, it’s a bit like “Peter Gunn”, if you remember that far back. That was stupendous when it came out.
On how he first hooked up with Tom Jones – We’re both from the same village actually, but I didn’t know him. My brother went to school with him, but it wasn’t through that either. My older brother, of course, I’ll say that. I was working in a shoe shop, like “We haven’t got that size. I’m sorry, sir”. Believe it or not, I’d heard, it’s a bit convoluted, I’d heard the, that the night before Tom Jones and sorry, Tommy Scott, as he was then, and the Senators had sacked a drummer the night before. That was on the Thursday, and on the Friday, I know this day specifically on the Friday, lo and behold, the guitarist of the Senators walked into my shoe shop to buy some shoes. So, I was shaking cause I was 16 years old and he was like 20 odd, a huge difference, especially back then. I’d never been in a band except for youth club or something, but I practiced every day.
After walking up and down about 27 times in the back room, I decided I would talk to Mike. So I walked up and said very quickly, “I heard you sack a drummer last night. I hear you want a drummer. I’m a drummer and I live by Tom”, which is true. He only lived about half a mile away from me. My father knew him, actually, because they worked in the same, what we used to call back then, “concert party”, which was entertaining the miners and steelworkers in the area that is South Wales, or what was South Wales, I should say. So, Mike said to me, and it’s very difficult because there were no mobile phones in those days, none. You had to go to the bottom of the road and put your pennies in the slot in your case, ten cents maybe to make a phone call. So anyway, we arranged for them to come to My house where I had my drum kit permanently set up in one of the living rooms, not the one we used to live in, but it was set up permanently. The guys, all the guys came, all the band came and the bass player said, I remember it was basically said, “can you play the start to “Walk Don’t Run””, which was very, very difficult in those days. So I played it and at the end of me playing the intro, just the intro, they went, “Okay, let’s go to the pub and rehearse”.
That’s true story. So they all get this, they all grabbed, including Tom, grabbed a drum or a stand or something each and we walked to the bus stop about a quarter of a mile, got on the bus, change buses, the drums went under the stairs, by the way, because it was a double-decker bus. Changed buses and went to rehearsal. On the way, Tom said to me, he knew I was 16 and he said, “Hey, we’re going to be rehearsing in a pub. Can you drink?” And I said, “Honestly, yes”, which is a terrible thing. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody, anybody at all. But I’ve been drinking since I was very young, unfortunately as kids try to do if they can. So I was used to having a pint. I used to go into our local pub in full school uniform, carry my satchel, just like Angus (Young) used to, carry my satchel and say, “Pint please mate”, and he’d give me a pint, a school boy in uniform, tie and everything it was different back then. That’s for sure. Different world, different world. I wouldn’t recommend it kids. I would not recommend it.
On how Manfred Mann’s Earth Band decided to cover “Blinded By The Light” – It was Manfred’s idea. He came to us one day and said,” I got this idea”. Manfred and I were given copies of Greetings From Asbury Park, but it had bombed completely when it came out, bombed, completely gone down the tubes. I thought he was a great writer. Honestly, I did. I was telling everybody I knew like DJs in Britain, whoever, “You’ve got to listen to this guy. He’s a great writer”, and I still think that, of course, but back then, nobody would believe you, of course. So Manfred took that that song, because when Springsteen does it, it’s like a shuffle, “Blinded by the light”, and we made it Manfred made it, and with our input into the pop song that it is. I don’t think Springsteen likes it at all, to be honest. I’m sure he doesn’t. But I spoke to the drummer, Max Weinberg. I said, “Oh, by the way”, I was meeting him when I was in The Firm with Jimmy Page. I said, “Oh, by the way, I was the drummer on “Blinded by the Light””. He said, “Wow, that kept us going for a few years”, because of course, Bruce got royalties straight away. I don’t know if the, I don’t think the band were involved at all, but he could fund the band from our recording. It was multi-million sales all over the world. Number one, all over the world. So and they, as you said, they play it when I go to the States, I hear it all the time on the radio. How many, 50 years? I don’t know how long it is. Almost. So, it’s close to 50. I can’t believe it.
On touring with David Gilmour in 1984 – It was amazing. He is such a genuine, fantastic guy. He really is. What you see in him doing interviews and what you see is what you get. He’s exactly like that. There’s no pretensions with him. He’s just basic and very generous with his time and with his money, actually which is unusual in a musician. But yeah, he’s a great guy. I did a full year with him on a bus all over the world. So got to know him quite well, but he really is genuine.
On teaming up with Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers in The Firm – Oh, there’s a story there, too. I got a call one day one just before lunch. Ring ring. “Hello?” Of course, no mobiles. Just ordinary house phones. “Hello, Chris Slade? It’s David Gilmour here”. “Oh come on, Fred. I know it’s you winding me up. Come on”. “No, no, no. It’s really David Gilmour”. I’ve met him once before. With Mick Ralphs, because I was in Mick Ralphs’s band at that time Mick Ralphs from Bad Company of course. So I said, “Well, you know, that’s great, how long is the tour for?” “Oh about three months”. “Okay, fantastic. Send me the details, blah, blah, blah”, put the phone down, right, let’s go down to the pub with my missus and celebrate, I’m going on the road with Gilmour. That is, especially back then, that was massive.
So then came back from the pub after lunch and phone rings, pick the phone up. “Hello?” “Hi, it’s Jimmy Page here”. “Well, Fred, now I know it’s you winding me up. Stop it, will you?” “No, no, no, no, no. It really is Jimmy Page. It’s because me and Paul Rogers, we’re putting a pen together and we’d like you to play drums.” Silence from me. Wow, I thought honesty is the best policy. “Jim I don’t know what to say. Of course I want to do it, but I’ve just an hour ago committed to David Gilmour”. I thought, “Oh, well, that’s the end of that”. And he said, “Oh, that’s okay. We’ll wait”. Took the phone away and looked at it. Put it back to my ear. “How long are you away for?” “I think it’s three months.” Well, in the end, they waited for nine months for the Gilmore tour to end. That wasn’t the end either, but it was. So that’s how long Pagey and Paul waited. And he said, “We’re not in a hurry. Just keep me appraised of what’s going on”. “All right, Jim. Thanks very much”. This is unbelievable. Unbelievable on the same day. That’s crazy. And you know, within lunchtime, they called me, both of them. Between 12 and two, they called me and it’s like, yeah, I’ve got a bit in our calendar somewhere. Probably in storage somewhere, but written in red, Gilmour and Jimmy Page calls virtually same time. My stars were aligned, obviously.
On if The Firm ever discussed getting back together and his feelings about the band – Yeah, we were going to and then this little band decided to get together again. They were called, let me think Led something or other. So it didn’t happen. So we never got back together. Yeah. I would have loved to have done that. It was a good band. A lot of people still come up to me for me to sign The Firm album in vinyl and they say, “This is my favorite album”, which is usually the first one, not the second one, Mean Business. The press went to town on us on that, saying, “They’re called The Firm because they’re on about the money and they’re chasing the money and it’s called Mean Business because they think it as a business. Paul came up with that name and I thought it was fantastic actually because Mean Business, it can mean three things at least, which is, it’s a mean business, we mean business in our music, that is, but the press didn’t take it that way. They took it that we were a business and they called The Firm.
Now we called it The Firm because there’s were notorious gangsters in the East end of London and they call themselves The Firm and they were called the Kray Brothers and they called themselves The Firm. In fact, I came up with that name, and Pagey was right on it, right straight away. He said, “That’s it, that’s it”. I said, “You sure?” He said, “Yeah, that’ll be it.” We were all there in the meeting, shall I say. It was in the recording studio, actually and nobody objected, so we used that name and it in Britain, at least it’s known as a heavy thing, The Firm, because it came from gangsters, not from any other sort of business.
This is a mean business, by the way, it’s a mean business and nasty business. Backstabbing, terrible, terrible, terrible stuff sometimes. The public don’t see half of it. They think everybody’s a rock star. Every musician is a rock star, which is not true. As you know, no matter who you’ve worked with or what band you’ve been in, doesn’t mean you’re a rock star. People sometimes in press call me a rock star. I’d rather be known as a rock musician. Thank you very much.
On his initial stint with AC/DC -It was, it was fantastic. They were all good guys. I got on with Malcolm you know, straight away. He was a really good guy, well, they all were, they were all just ordinary fellows. I liked some of the songs and I didn’t like others, but, no names. But just did as best that I possibly could knowing what they wanted, which was a boom, bap, boom, bap, really, which was Phil Rudd playing or Angus or Malcolm because they both drummers, by the way, Malcolm was a drummer, you know can play drums. Angus still does. If they do their demos, it’s Angus playing drums. Yeah. The drummer plays what Angus plays. It’s as simple as that. That’s the brief, and that’s the gig. I’m lucky that I can play AC/DC, and also jazz from Tom Jones, if you like to call it jazz. Some of the things. Some of them were jazz, so I’m blessed with the fact my technique allows me to play both styles, all styles which some people I realize can’t do, you know, but the really good ones do. I’ve met most of them, so I’m very pleased about that.
On returning to AC/DC many years later – It was well, this before Axl came in, of course. We got on the same actually. Guys had things going on that I was not part of of course, because this was, what, 40 years on or something. I don’t know. You can do the math. I can’t. So it was different. Whereas before we were all on a bus or buses. This was all private planes. They wouldn’t like me saying that by the way, but I’ve said it now. So they don’t like to display any sort of wealth or anything like that. That’s, I think that’s part of their appeal actually. They keep their image up as being street guys and they are, they really are. But Angus has never drunk alcohol in his life. Or done any drugs, neither of I, by the way, I’ve never done drugs.
It was that different. We were staying in fantastic hotels, people, myself included, can only dream about. They were amazing, just amazing hotels, the best hotels in the world. They wouldn’t like me saying that either, the guys, the management at least. They even tried to hide the fact that we use private planes. Of course, the fans always found out where we were landing and what was going on and what time we were going to land. There was always a police escort there to take us to the hotel in convoy. You can’t hide a thing like that when it’s a big deal, you know, and we were playing to 80, 000 people every single night. Sometimes 120, 150, depends on the stadium, of course. But it was a fantastic time, what can I say? Both times.
On if AC/DC reached out to him for this tour and if he would return – Yes, I would. I used to know (current drummer) Matt Laug. I lived in California for a while and I knew Matt then when he used to play with some friends of mine in Manhattan Beach in California and I used to go and see these guys, they were a great band. All professional players, who when they didn’t have a gig on Friday, they would go to Manhattan Beach and play. They probably still do, but because they loved playing. Todd Sucherman is one of those guys, the drummer with the band Styx. If we say “The drummer with Styx”, would we go, “Don’t they all use sticks?”. But I got to know Todd very well, we became friends, he’s the greatest, one of the greatest drummers I’ve ever seen in my life, honestly, and I’ve seen Buddy Rich play. He plays great with Styx, but he’s playing to a script, which he writes, he writes the script, but he’s playing to a script. When you see him in the bar, there’s no script, he’s off the wall, and he plays six things at the same time. So, great, good friend and a fantastic drummer. No (they did not reach out to me for this tour), not at all. Not at all. Probably thought he was a bit old now. I’m the same age as Brian, by the way.
On if he plans to tour with The Chris Slade Timeline – I hope so. There’s not plans at the moment, but we haven’t stopped working for 10 years. We work all over Europe, because we can’t get into the States, of course, because of visas and stuff. I’m okay. I’ve got a green card, but the guys can’t work. And I don’t want to work with anybody else except for them because they’re great musicians.
So no, AC/DC did not approach me. But it’s funny, it’s strange that I knew Matt Laug because he was with Alanis Morissette as well. He turned down her tour, by the way, she said he did it. He did the album. Then he said she asked him to do the tour, he told me this, she asked him to do the tour, he said, “No, I want to study, I want to get on with my studio career”, which he did. He regrets that, of course he does. Not going on the road with Alanis Morissette, it was huge. But of course, he helped other people as well, of course, but there you go. So that’s how the cookie crumbles.
