Slade have some good news and bad news for fans. The good news is Slade will release their first studio album in 27 years in 2014. The band news … Noddy Holder won’t be the singer.
These days Slade still features original members Dave Hill (lead guitar) and Don Powell (drums) with John Berry (bass) and Mal McNulty (vocals, guitar). Berry joined in 2003, McNulty in 2005.
Original singer Noddy Holder and bass player Jim Lea left Slade in 1992. Hill and Powell have kept Slade alive as a live act since then but have not released any new music.
In an interview with Metal Express Radio, Powell announced, “In the New Year we’re going to take some time out, will get some songs together between the four of us and expect to have a new studio album. And we’ll go out on tour with it.”
Powell also said that there was next to no chance that Noddy Holder would ever sing again. “I’ve got to be honest, Nod will never sing again,” he said. “He’s had a think, and he’s had enough and doesn’t want it. I would love to be proved wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Neville John ‘Noddy’ Holder MBE is now 67-years old. He originally formed a band with Dave Hill and Don Powell adding Jim Lea and became known as ‘N Betweeners. They changed their name to Ambrose Slade in 1969. After meeting Animals bass player Chas Chandler, who agreed to manage them, they shortened their name to Slade.
The breakthrough album ‘Slade Alive’ reached no 1 in Australia and no. 2 in the UK. Then the hits happened. They had 17 Top 20 hits in a row including six UK number one hits ‘Coz I Luv You’, ‘Take Me Back ‘Ome’, ‘Mama Were All Crazee Now’, ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’, ‘Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me’ and ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’.
Slade Cum On Feel The Noize
Slade’s last studio album was ‘You Boyz Make Big Noise’ in 1987. It stalled at no. 98 on the UK chart and the band never recorded again.
Holder was awarded the MBE in 2000. He was a radio contributor on the BBC 2 program The Radcliffe and Maconie Show for eight years, he was featured on ‘This Is Your Life’ and has had a cameo role in Coronation Street.
Slade Merry Xmas Everybody
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