Chris Difford is peering into a laptop camera from the cramped, utilitarian confines of a tour bus, the universal mobile office for the working rock 'n' roll survivor. He looks relaxed, which is a feat considering Squeeze is currently navigating the logistical nightmare of a post-pandemic North American circuit. For a band that essentially defined the clever, kitchen-sink realism of UK New Wave, their endurance in the Canadian consciousness is no fluke. We first caught the fever when “Cool for Cats” slashed through the charts in 1979, and while many of their peers faded into nostalgia-circuit obscurity, Difford and his creative foil, Glenn Tilbrook, kept the engine running through the 80s and early 90s with a relentless string of hits.
But the road hasn't been easy. After the forced hibernation of their 2019 tour, the band finally clawed their way back onto the stage this summer. It’s a different world out there—masked roadies, PCR tests and the constant threat of a cancelled date—yet the demand for Squeeze’s particular brand of lyrical sophistication remains high. I ask Difford how it feels to be back in the thick of it, playing to rooms full of people who have spent two years starved of live vibration.
“Very emotional,” Difford says. “Our first show was in Nashville, and I have to say, the audience and the band were very moved by the response, it felt very, very genuine, and I felt lifted by the audience, they kind of held us in the palm of their hand. And it was a really lovely thing. I found that everywhere that we’ve played, people have been responding like, it’s the first time they’ve been to a gig, which is nice.”
There is a specific kind of energy that comes from a legacy act that refuses to just go through the motions. Squeeze has seen a revolving door of members over the decades—Jools Holland’s boogie-woogie piano and Paul Carrack’s blue-eyed soul are part of the DNA—but the 2024 iteration feels like a revitalized unit. The addition of Nashville’s own Owen Biddle on bass has injected a certain muscularity into the setlist.
“Well, the current lineup is the strongest lineup we’ve had, and it seems to go from strength to strength,” Difford notes. “Our new bass player, Owen Biddle, who’s actually from Nashville, is a terrific bass player. It seems like some get more energy, the older that we get. And I don’t know why that is, I guess, because we’re understanding the journey a little bit more.”
And that journey took a sharp, solitary turn when the world locked down. While some artists spiralled into creative paralysis, Difford retreated to a backyard structure that became his sanctuary and his broadcast studio. Watching him on Zoom, you can see the humble origins of his pandemic productivity.
“Well, in that shed that you can see on my screen, I spent 18 months, probably a year and a bit in the shed,” he explains. “And what I did was every other week, I did a live stream show to raise money for different charities, and we raised over $60,000, from me being in that shed.”
But it wasn’t just about the money. It was about the preservation of the craft. Difford recognized that the middle-class musician—the session players and the touring vets—were being decimated by the lack of work. He turned his shed into a digital hub for mentorship.
“Then I started to help musicians who were out of work and had nowhere to go by running songwriting workshops online,” he says. “And that brought lots of people together who never met, and it was a great joy for me to meet all these wonderful writers.”
This philanthropic streak isn't a new pose for Squeeze. They’ve long used their platform to highlight the systemic failures of the UK’s social safety net. On their last domestic run, they turned their merchandise stalls and entry points into hubs for food banks, a move that felt both radical and deeply depressing for a wealthy nation.
“Well, on the last UK tour Squeeze opened its doors to the Food Banks of the UK, which is ridiculous when you think about it, that people have to go to a church or a social centre to get food to feed their family,” Difford says. “And we’re not just talking about people that aren’t around the world. We’re talking about nurses and doctors and all sorts of people. So that was something that was just refreshing to do.”
He’s also heavily involved with Help Musicians, a charity that provides a lifeline for those whose livelihoods vanished when the house lights went down across the globe.
“Help Musicians is a charity that I specifically work for, and we just raise money and awareness for musicians who are out of work,” he says. “I haven’t got anywhere to go at the moment, because there’s been so many dark stages.”
The frustration in his voice sharpens when the conversation shifts to the politics of the industry. When Squeeze played The O2 arena last year, they were vocal about the "dark stages" and the perceived abandonment of the arts by the British government. In Canada, we’ve seen similar gripes—the industry is often the last to be considered and the first to be shuttered.
“Yeah, it’s tragic, in particular in the UK with Brexit as well,” Difford says, leaning into the critique. “It seems like songwriters and musicians are not invited to the table when there are negotiations, whether it’s with Spotify, or in the European Union to get visas to work. It’s like, we don’t really matter. And I find that disgusting considering that we bring in. I mean, the music industry brings in billions of pounds into the UK Economy.”
And he’s got the receipts to back up the economic argument. It’s not just about "art"; it’s about massive revenue that the state seems happy to collect but loath to protect.
I spent 18 months, probably a year and a bit in the shed. ...Every other week, I did a live stream show to raise money for different charities, and we raised over $60,000, from me being in that shed. Then I started to help musicians who were out of work and had nowhere to go by running songwriting workshops online.
“I heard once that Paul McCartney earned more money than British Steel every year,” he adds. “So why wouldn’t they look after the people that are bringing that much income and presumably paying lots of tax?”
Despite the heavy political weather, the band still finds moments of pure, unadulterated rock 'n' roll serendipity. One such moment occurred in 2019 when Dave Grohl—the nicest man in rock and a fanboy of the highest order—decided to crash their set.
“We played a festival and the night before the Foo Fighters were on, we didn’t get there in time to see them. But I’d met them before a couple of times,” Difford recalls. “Rather than to fly off in their jet after the show, they decided to stay an extra night to see Squeeze. So they we were on, I didn’t know that was happening. We went on stage. And then I turned around at one point and Dave was playing the drums. It was extraordinary, because he didn’t miss a beat. It just sounded like he was meant to be there.”
That "meant to be there" feeling is the hallmark of the Difford-Tilbrook partnership. Often called the Lennon-McCartney of their generation, their process is famously segregated: Difford provides the lyrical blueprints, and Tilbrook builds the melodic house. It’s a division of labour that has remained largely unchanged since the early 70s.
“It’s always been like that since 1973,” Difford says. “When we first met, it’s changed more recently, because Glenn has things to say and is a lyricist himself. So, why wouldn’t he contribute lyrically to Squeeze? He is a very different lyricist to myself and that brings a bit of change, a bit of swerve to what Squeeze does.”
But even after five decades, the reveal still carries a spark of mystery for Difford. He hands over a sheet of lyrics and waits to see what kind of sonic alchemy Tilbrook will perform.
“Every time. It’s just like that, I can never tell what’s going to happen and in a way, that’s the beauty of the relationship is I never know what’s gonna happen. And it’s kind of like Christmas day when I listened to the demos.”
And does the music ever fundamentally alter the intent of his words?
“Yeah, very much so. And it must be hard for, Glenn to write too things that I feel, at least in the past anyway,” he admits. “Stories that I tell in my lyrics is quite a challenge, I think for him. But he does a brilliant job of it. And that’s what makes us unique.”
Squeeze’s return to the studio in the 2010s wasn't born out of a desperate need to reclaim the spotlight, but rather a specific creative prompt. It started with a television script.
“Well, a friend of ours wrote a script for a TV show. And he asked us if we would write the music and the songs for the TV show, which we did. That brought us together to make the record,” he says. That project evolved into *Cradle to the Grave*, followed by *The Knowledge*.
“Then the knowledge which followed quite quickly afterwards, was just that we had to pick between our teeth to make another record. So we just went in and made another record. It wasn’t for any reason, in particular.”
These later albums saw a shift in scale. The early records were the sound of a scrappy five-piece band in a room. *The Knowledge* sounds like a panoramic production, layered with specialty musicians and a broader sonic palette.
“It is the production, you know, Glenn produced? Well, Glenn has been involved in production from the very beginning in one way or another,” Difford says. “But I guess with ‘Cradle to the Grave’ and in ‘The Knowledge’, we’ve got to know a lot more musicians over the years, and why not add people if it’s going to enhance your song. I think that kind of works, we’re not a five piece band anymore. But we could be, that would be a lot of fun to go in the studio and say we’re going to make a record in a week with just five guys, it would be quite loud.”
For the Canadian fans, the Squeeze story is punctuated by five specific hits that dominated the airwaves. It started with the cockney-inflected rap of “Cool for Cats,” a song that stood out as something genuinely "other" on Toronto’s *The New Music*.
“Well, it was a song that didn’t have a lyric, it just had a backing track and we were due to go into record it,” Difford says of their breakthrough. “I needed to work fast to find a lyric and it just came to me like all the best lyrics just come to you really, they don’t mess about, they just fall in your lap. If I ever spend more than a day on a lyric then I know that I’m barking up the wrong tree.”
Then there was “Another Nail in My Heart,” a masterwork of pop economy that found a massive audience in the Great White North.
“I always associate that song with Canada funnily enough because it did chart that much higher than it did in the UK,” Difford notes. “The genius bit about that record is the guitar solo I think, it’s the most thought out and well crafted guitar solo than any other records apart from maybe Some Fantastic Place. So yeah, I adore it.”
And we can’t talk about Squeeze without “Tempted,” the song that everyone knows even if they don’t know the band. It’s a blue-eyed soul classic that underwent a few iterations before finding its final, perfect form.
“‘Tempted’ was a song that we recorded originally with Dave Edmunds and then Elvis Costello produced it and Paul Carrack sang it. I’ve never looked back. I think it’s a terrific song. I’m still learning about it.”
“Hourglass,” with its frantic, tongue-twister delivery, represented a rare moment of proximity in their writing process.
“‘Hourglass’ was probably one of the very early songs that Glenn and I wrote in the same room, in his house, and it was a bit awkward being in the same room with Glenn writing a song. But we came up with ‘Hourglass’ and thankfully, it’s been a good friend.”
But not every hit is a favourite. Difford is refreshingly blunt about “853-5937,” a song that has largely been excised from their live repertoire.
“This song is less of a friend, it’s been a bit of a, we’ve never had it in the set. There’s a lyric that is not one that I would take to my grave to protect particularly, but it’s a beautiful melody.”
On the flip side, “Satisfied” remains a high-water mark for him, a track he feels has a certain sophisticated DNA that could have worked in other genres.
“Now ‘Satisfied’ is one of my favorite Squeeze songs. I loved recording it. I think it’s a terrific song. The transitional of the chord sequence is brilliant. And I always thought that George Michael could do a very good job of it.”
As for the future, don't expect a new Squeeze record to drop next week. The economics of the modern music industry have made the full-length album an endangered species for legacy acts without major label backing.
“Not for a while, I don’t think,” Difford says, his tone turning pragmatic. “It’s difficult to know who really wants a Squeeze album and what it actually means. It’s an awful lot of work. Costs are an awful lot of money and we don’t have that money to make records. We don’t have a record company that would give us the money to do it either. So as a lyricist, I’m writing pretty much as much as I normally write, but Squeeze is not the outlet for those lyrics.”
It’s a sobering end to the conversation—a reminder that even the architects of some of the most enduring pop songs in the English language are subject to the cold, hard realities of the streaming age. But for now, Squeeze is on the road, the "shed" is in the rearview mirror and the audience is holding them in the palm of their hand. That, for Chris Difford, seems to be enough.
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