SLADE’S BOYZ FEEL THE NOIZE

"You tell us we don't look any older, and we'll tell you, you don't look any older," offers Slade's bass guitarist, Jimmy Lea, flashing a wide, toothy grin. "And then we'd all be liars," I reply, with an equally boisterous gleam, just so damn happy to see these four guys alive, well, and sitting around a New York Hotel room—12 years on. To be honest, ask me to think of the most unlikely candidates for a revival of interest, long after they'd passed the "whatever happened to?" stage, and the winner would be—Iron Butterfly, hohoho, but the brash Wolverhampton quartet called Slade would've been way up there. Come to think of it—revival? Uh uh. With Slade, it had been an uphill battle all the way.

Back in the dark ages, when Duran Duran were growing out of diapers and Boy George was really a boy, Slade rooled much of the Western World as the piledriving knaves of glitter rock. England, Europe, Australia and much of the Far East fell like dominoes before their onslaught of hits, written by Lea and gravel-voiced singer Neville (Noddy) Holder: "Take Me Bak 'Ome," "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Gudbuy T'Jane," oh yes, and some anthem called "Cum On Feel The Noize" (ever heard of it?). Managed by Chas Chandler, who took them on following his years with Jimi Hendrix, dressed in towering platform boots and resplendent lame suits—except for Noddy's cutoff plaid trousers and top hat—Slade accumulated chart hits (31 at iast count) everywhere, with one exception: the U.S.A. "We'd go and do a lovely show," remembers Lea, "and comeoffstage feeling we'd done a good qiq, and qet pinned to the wall by the press. That hurt, really."