////// First as the lead singer of one of the UK's greatest bands, Slade, and more recently as a broadcaster, actor and now author with Who's Crazee Now?, a personal overview of the highs and lows of the Black Country Hero. ////// The son of a window cleaner, Neville(as he was then known) was born in Newhall St, Walsall in 1946. By the time he'd formed his first band, aged twelve, he was already a showbiz veteran having made his debut at an early age singing Frankie Lane's I Believe to an emotional audience at Walsall Labour Club. //////"I started singing in working men's clubs when I was 7 years old and so I grew up on stage," says Noddy. "When I was about 9, I knew I wanted to be a musician and in a band. I got my first guitar when I was 10 or 11 and formed my first band at school when I was 12."

//////"A lot of the book is based around that. I didn't want it to be just Slade's story because that's been well chronicled. I wanted to do my own story, why I love music so much, why I wanted to be in a band so much and be on stage." //////Inspired by the early US rockers, he rleased his first single in 1965 with Midland heroes Steve Bret & The Mavericks before cutting his teeth on the German club circuit and drifting into the N'Betweens. Under the guidence of former Animal and Hendrix manager Chas Chandler, the quartet transformed themselves into arguably the biggest British band of the 70's, the mighty Slade. //////Littered with characters as diverse as Phil Lynott and Joe Meek, Who's Crazee Now? is Noddy's personal account of his life in and out of the band. //////"It was good looking back and putting everything in chronological order," he says, adding that some of the 70's were a bit hazy. "I went around me mates to jog me memory on various things and I think it all fell into place timing wise." //////In a career spanning four decades, there are understandably many high points. But one Tuesday in late 1971 sticks in Noddy's mind. //////"I remember getting a call at 10 o'clock in the morning to say that Coz I Luv You was number one. That was the reason I was in a band - so I could be top of the pops. Even though we had six number one records, the first one is always special because it's the first time you got there and you think 'waaay-hey!' That's the reason you stand in front of your bedroom mirror playing on a pretend guitar.

//////"After we'd had our first big hit in 1971 with Get Down And Get With It our manager and producer Chas Chandler said he wanted the next single to be one of our songs. We'd already written songs and had them on albums at that point, but we'd never sat down to write a song aimed at being a single and he said he wanted a HIT single - which is easier said than done! If anyone can say they can write a hit single - that's just not the way it works. But we did it!" //////"It was based on a thing we used to do in the dressing room featuring Jim on the violin. When we were tuning up I used to play guitar and we'd play this little ditty to make sure all the guitars and violin were in tune. We'd sort of written and completed it in half an hour and we took it to Chas and played it on the acoustic guitar and he was really bowled over by it. He said: 'I don't think you've written a hit record, you've written your first number one.' And we said 'Naaah - gettaway with yer.'

//////"When we took it into the studio to record it with the band we didn't think it sounded very much like Slade so we took the sort of sound we'd had on Get Down - with the handclaps and bootstomping - and we added that sort of Slade-ify it to give it another dimension." //////"The reason the misspelling came about was because the title didn't look heavy enough. Because I Love You - we thought that that was a bit of a wet sort of title. So we thought, how can we make it more visual? Make it more heavier looking? When I first jot the lyrics down really fast, I write them phonetically - the sort of dialect you write on the toilet walls in the Black Country. That looks a more nitty-gritty way of spelling things. So I said why don't we spell it like we speak?" //////Such was the band's success, with such grammatically incorrect hits as Gudbuy T'Jane, Cum On Feel The Noize and Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, that critics deemed Noddy and writing partner Jim Lea the new Lennon & McCartney. //////"People did describe us as that - we never thought of ourselves in that way - but it was a great compliment. When anybody used to say, oh you're the new Lennon & McCartney or the new Beatles, we used to say 'No - we're the first Slade and the first Holder/Lea'." //////Of all the hits, 1974's Far Far Away is Noddy's personal favourite. //////"It just holds some good memories. I remember when the idea of the track first came to me. We'd been away for a very very long time touring solidly in America. There was me, my manager and my tour manager sitting on a balcony looking out onto the Mississippi River and one of these great big paddle steamers came down all lit up, and I thought, here we are, four yobbos from Wolverhampton on the banks of the Mississippi River watching this paddle steamer and how lucky we'd been. We'd been away from home so long, over a year, and we were getting so homesick waiting to get back and see how things had changed. It was about the feelings of that night." //////"I just think that the songs were really good. We were a great live band and I think people look back on us with a lot of affection. We were always a good time band and put a smile on people's faces whenever we came on stage and when we came on TV we always made an effort to look outrageous or daft or whatever. We took every part of being in a band seriously from the music to the way we looked to the way we presented everything. We were always very focused and professional in our approach, always looking one step ahead in our career and I think it paid off for us." //////Such was the status of the band in the early '70s that they made an appearance on the big screen with a cult rock movie, Slade In Flame. //////"People have asked us over the years when Slade In Flame will be released on video and it looks like it's going to happen in the next few months," Noddy reports of the now rarely shown film.

//////"I saw it late last year when I was asked to go along to the Nation Film Theatre (NFT) to do a lecture alongside the film and they put it on a huge cinema and the place was sold out. I hadn't seen it on a big screen for over twenty years and I hadn't seen it at all for over ten years. But seeing it again, I really thought it had stood the test of time - it was a really nitty-gritty film. There was a proper storyline about what goes on in the rock business based around a fictional band called Flame. But each scene in the film is a true story taken from some band's career, bands we have known or talked to. Those things actually happened to some band or another! It's not the Slade story at all, but the amalgamation of loads of bands stories and just good entertainment.

//////I forgot how heavy the film was. We had to chop a lot of things out - like the violence - because we wanted to get a certificate so nearly everyone could see it. They (the film censors) originally wanted to give it an X certificate, which would have meant only over 18's could see it. But with a nice fine bit of editing we got it down to an A certificate. I think it was good that we didn't chop it too far to make it a U certificate. An A certificate - the equivalent of a PG - is about right. The music was great and the actual look of it was very atmospheric. So I was really proud of seeing it again. It's definitely worth seeing. People who haven't seen it before or haven't seen it for a long time will be pleasantly surprised. It went down a storm at the NFT. When people compile lists of rock movies, Flame is almost always in the top five." //////In 1976, the band moved to America and although they never cracked the States in the same way as the rest of the world, Noddy has no regrets. //////"It was something we had to do in our career. We'd conquered the rest of the world, we'd released records in every territory, released the film, the only territory we hadn't really conquered as big was the States and the only way to conquer the States in those days was to tour tour tour. There was no MTV then. You had to go on the road and promote the records. We'd already done several short tours in America in the early '70s, and in the mid-'70s we made the conscious decision to go there as it was another challenge to try'n break America. It didn't really break though as the rest of the world but there were places where we had hit records and could top 20,000 seater venues on our own - which was some feat. There were bands with hit records in the charts then that couldn't fill those sort of places - but we had such a good live reputation." ////// "Anyone who ever saw us live, knew we were a live act and the Yanks used to love us. A lot of people did think it was a big mistake for us to be away for so long, but we'd reached a pinnacle and we had to find a challenge...from the point of view of keeping the band going, it certainly did the band a lot of good." The band finally dissolved in the early 1990s(although Dave Hill & Don Powell continue as Slade II), yet their legacy has continued to inspire acts as diverse as Quiet Riot, Nirvana and Oasis.

//////"I do miss performing sometimes - I miss the actual time on stage. I don't miss touring...the hanging around at airports, hotels, dressing rooms and all that sort of stuff. I do have a tingle now and again when I go and see a band on stage and think, 'should I go back and do it?' But I just got fed up with touring and was being offered so much other stuff outside the band that I had to call it a day so I could go and try other things." //////Today Noddy is firmly established as a TV and radio presenter(including soul and '70s shows on Manchester's Radio Piccadilly), writer, voice-over artist and actor(expect a new 10 episode series of Black Country comedy, The Grimleys next year). //////"Everyday is different which I'm really enjoying at the moment. No two days are the same. It's good for me experiencing all these things after being in a band for so long as I had been - the same four guys for 25 years, you get to a point to where you can't see where you can go."

//////"We were together as a band for 25 years and for 20 of those we were having hits. We had our first in 1971 and our last in 1991. We were dead lucky and all the 25 years we were together it was the same line up. I don't think there's any group going who can say that!" //////And what about all those ancedotes he couldn't fit into Who's Crazee? There's certainly enough stuff for another book," he chortles. "So maybe there will be another - we'll have to see."

Text by Dave Freak - Go2Birmingham Copyright Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd 1999. No reproduction without permission.http://www.go2birmingham.co.uk/