As sure as bacon follows graypays and the Man comes with the ‘Oss, Christmas will always be synonymous with one musician around these parts.
Dave Hill. The legendary Slade guitarist who’s been pumping on your stereos every single Yuletide since *that* song captured the imagination back in 1973.
In time honoured fashion, Merry Xmas Everybody allows a nation to rejoice and reminisce in a festive-affirming manner that separates it from virtually every other seasonal track in history.
Objects in the Glam Rock mirrorball may appear closer than they are, and all that.
The only travesty is that it comprises just one sequin in a career of epic jumpsuit proportions, which is still shining bright today.
Dave is planning a solo album for 2025 – 60 years since rocking venues like Venturers Youth Club off the Warstones Road with the N’ Betweens – to remind us of a career that could never be defined in one song.
Does it irk him that an incredible body of work, admired by the likes of Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, is so often condensed into three minutes of frivolity?
“Not at all,” said Dave with a smile. “That track is part of history and captured a special part of our lives. I still love to hear it as it takes me back to a time of great enjoyment. The irony of Merry Xmas Everybody was the fact we recorded it in the Record Plant Studio in New York in the height of summer, when it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside! The studio was actually booked for John Lennon, but he wasn’t ready to record so Chas, our manager, got us in there instead!”
As humble as ever, Dave omitted an observation from the iconic Beatle at that time, whose immortal stature towers only marginally higher than the platform boots he once made famous.
“I like him,” said Lennon. “He sounds like me.”
It’s the 78-year-old’s musical nous and inimitable sound, crafted on a ‘bitsa guitar’ (‘bits of this and bits of that’ including a Gibson 345 neck) that might just make him the most underappreciated artist of our time.
Noel Gallagher, who also knows a bit about lead guitarists, recently stopped him to say that without Hill and best mate Noddy Holder (who he first met outside Beatties by chance in 1966) there would be no Oasis.
Beneath the jumpsuits made of the foil that could baste a Christmas turkey, there’s more flavour to the Lower Penn legend than meets the eye, with an intuitive, artistic flair that puts him alongside the very best. His influences were as broad as they were beautiful, befitting a man with more substance than many will truly appreciate.
“My Grandad was a classical pianist and I grew up listening to my old man playing Chopin, so you could say that I’ve come across a lot of different genres from a little boy.
“In the early days of Slade, we’d soak up as much advice as we could. I loved what Hank Marvin was doing in the Shadows back then. Hank was melodic, but I also remember sitting in his house talking about religion. He was a very spiritual guy and that really resonated with me. He’d say that God was woven into every particle of life. I liked this.
“I also loved Doris Day, who was one of my favourite actresses. She said that she had a ‘worry chair’ which she’d sit on to clear her mind in times of trouble. It made me think that we all own a worry chair, but we never seem to have time to sit on it, do we?”
With such rich fabric stitched into Hill, would he like to be remembered with more gravitas, not least with a solo album in the pipeline?
“I wouldn’t change a thing. I would leave everything exactly the same,” he said. “The life I’ve had has given me so many experiences that I’m lucky to have lived through.”
Typical of the man we’ll all be hearing more of this Christmas, he’s intent on looking to the future.
It’s only just begun.
