Gary James' Interview With Drummer
Chris Slade



He's played drums for some of the very best and well-known musicians in the Rock world. And that includes Jimmy Page (The Firm), David Gilmour, Paul Rodgers, Denny Laine, Manfred Mann, Uriah Heep and AC/DC. He started his career by playing drums for Tom Jones. And now he's released his own album titled "Timescape" (Brave Words Records). The gentleman we're speaking of is Mr. Chris Slade, and his band on "Timescape", The Chris Slade Timeline.

Q - Chris, I'm surprised there are still record labels out there. The people that put out your album, Brave Words Records, must be an exceptional company to survive in these times.

A - There's still quite a few around, I'm sure, independents as well as the big ones. I don't know much about that to be honest. (laughs)

Q - So many people I interview will say record companies are dead. So, Brave Words Records must be an independent label?

A - Yeah, they are. They started out as a magazine in Canada. I think it's BraveWordsRecords.com. Actually, they've been going for a number of years successfully and they decided to try a record company. I was looking for world-wide distribution. I wanted it out everywhere, South America, India even, but we don't go for that. (laughs) They told me before they did, but it looks like they don't. But anyway, I wanted to get it out.

Q - Maybe in the future they will get distribution in South America.

A - Yeah. I hope so.

Q - Is this "Timescape" album the first time you've released your own product?

A - Yes. That's why I wanted to do it. People would say, "You're an AC/DC tribute band," and we're not an AC/DC tribute band. So, I wanted to show we did other stuff. The idea was to play the songs I was associated with over my career, which is now sixty years. That was the idea of the band ten years ago at least. So, I put this band together and I knew they were capable of playing. I wanted people who could not only play things like Manfred Mann's Earth Band and Uriah Heep and AC/DC. There's not a hell of a lot of musicians who are competent enough to play those things. I mean, not only able to play that, but want to play that. It's like I've got to play that old stuff, but if you're a musician you have to play everything and these guys are like that. They play everything.

Q - Where is the marketplace for The Chris Slade Timeline? How do you go about getting your music on the radio?

A - I really don't know. If I did, I'd be on the radio. I've done at least one hundred interviews over the past few months with radio stations, and they play it. I thought this album would be a creeper, that it would creep in. Some people would like it. Some people wouldn't like it. It's the same with everything. I just wanted to get a physical project that you could send out and say, "Look, we've got an album here!" I wanted to get out of that AC/DC tribute band thing. We play AC/DC and we like playing it. We're not a tribute band. Nobody wears shorts. They're just exceptional musicians. So, it's a fantastic band, one of the best bands I've ever been in, and I'm not just saying that. I mean that. It reminds me of Manfred Mann's Earth Band in the '70s, because we're very diverse in choosing music and just try experimenting with different things. It's the same with this band, with "Timeline".

Q - Have you been on tour with "Timeline"?

A - We've been working in Europe the last ten years.

Q - I should rephrase the question then to ask if you've touring behind "Timeline".

A - We're just about to this year (2025) for about three months, or something like that. But, it's not like we've got a tour planned. We play songs from it already and have been playing it for about a year at least. So, we're just going into rehearsal to remind ourselves of the stuff that's on the album and to play that for the audiences.

Q - What type of venues have you been playing in? Theatres with 3,000 seats?

A - Yes. Some of 'em have been Festivals mainly. We play anything from clubs, pubs, bars, that sort of thing. We play big festivals. We did the Hill Fest a few years back in France, which is like 50,000 people. It's such a tremendous band, it can adapt to any stage, big or small.

Q - Let's go back to 1963. Were you aware of what was going on in England at that time?

A - Yes, I was very much aware of it. I was a big Beatles fan. I was in a Beatles fan club.

Q - Did you see them on a TV show? Did you ever catch them at The Cavern Club?

A - Well, I was with Tom Jones in those days. We were on the same stage as them and The Rolling Stones, along with many, many other people from the '60s era. Once we moved to London from South Wales we became very involved in that scene, if you like, if that's the right word. If it's not too old fashion.

Q - When you played on the same stage as The Beatles and The Stones, does that mean Tom Jones opened the show, followed by The Stones, and The Beatles were the headliners?

A - Well, we were somewhat in the middle. There were probably a hundred acts that whole day. It was a huge thing at a stadium, Wembley Stadium in London. It was the winners of a newspaper called The New Musical Express. It was every year and it was hugely popular. Every year they did a poll and asked people who their favorite artist was. People like Gerry And The Pacemakers, Dusty Springfield, all sorts of people like that were on the bill. There must have been a hundred artists. Everyone did about ten, fifteen minutes maximum. Maybe even one song. So, it was a quick turnover. But everybody who was anybody was on it, including The Beatles and The Stones.

Q - I know you were from the same village as Tom Jones, but how did you meet Tom Jones? Did he see you play somewhere?

A - No. To make a long story short, I got a chance to audition. They were a big band in South Wales. They were called Tommy Scott And The Senators. He wasn't Tom Jones yet. Jones is a very common name in Wales. Everybody is called Jones. It's like being Smith or something. So, Tom Jones wasn't such an exciting name. When we went to London he changed his name to Tom Jones. There was a movie out called Tom Jones also, which is about a 16th century guy going around England, how can I put it? Raking. (laughs) He was a rake. And it fit Tom Jones' image really well, so he became Tom Jones. They came to our house. We were called The Senators. My drums were permanently set up in our spare room. The audition consisted of, "Can you play the intro to 'Walk, Don't Run' by The Ventures?", which was very difficult in those days. So, I did it perfectly and they said, "Okay. Let's rehearse." They all grabbed a drum and we got on the bus and went to their place.

Q - You were what, sixteen or seventeen when you joined that group?

A - I was sixteen. I was just short of being seventeen.

Q - Did you drop out of school then? How did that work if he was playing bars? Or did he play bars at that point?

A - I already had dropped out of school. I didn't see any point to it then. I went to a good school. In this country it's called a grammar school. Your grammar schools are different. They're for younger people. But, I went to a really good school. It taught me to think for myself. So, I thought to myself, I didn't like being there. So, I didn't go there. (laughs)

Q - Why did you leave Tom Jones? Was it getting boring for you?

A - No, not at all. I was with Tom for seven years. I went from being in a Rock 'n' Roll band with jeans and leather jackets to wearing gold ties onstage with a Big Band. I loved that transition because I loved Big Bands. I loved Big Bands and Jazz at that time. So, I left because he wasn't paying me enough. Simple as that. I talked to him and he said, "See the manager." I tried that already, so I just left after seven years.

Q - The manager you talked to would have been Gordon Mills then?

A - Yeah. He was a bit of a bastard, to be honest.

Q - I've read that he liked to gamble.

A - I had a huge argument with Tom years before I left actually, about exactly that. I knew he was a gambler. He always played poker, even in London before Tom became big. He would brag about his winnings. "I won fifty grand tonight!" He didn't tell us about his losses. (laughs) Of course, fifty grand back then was like, I don't know, half a million or something.

Q - It was a lot of money.

A - It was a hell of a lot of money.

Q - I would guess that in the beginning, Tom Jones had the band on salary?

A - Yeah. We started when we went to London. We couldn't get any work anywhere for a long time. Maybe a year or more. We recorded "It's Not Unusual" and it just went from there.

Q - There's a photo of you, Tom Jones and Elvis. What did you think of Elvis?

A - He was great. He was a very ordinary sort of guy when I knew him. Quite humble. He always called people Ma'am and Sir. He was a very nice guy. That photograph was taken at a party when I was twenty-one years old, in Las Vegas. He'd come to see Tom perform. He'd been there many times before, maybe three or four at least. We always did a yearly residency at The Flamingo in Vegas. Not like it is now, but the old-fashioned sort of motel-type Flamingo. But it was still popular with Tom playing it.

Q - After you left Tom Jones you got into a band with Olivia Newton-John. What'd you think of her when you met her?

A - She was a very pretty lady and she was a good singer.

Q - Yes, she was.

A - (laughs) She was destined for bigger things. I was only in that band for six months or a year maximum. We didn't do any gigs. We rehearsed. It was a movie project, run by Broccoli, who does the James Bond movies. It was okay. It was great. It kept the wolf from the door. They paid really well. That's why I did it.

Q - When you were with Manfred Mann, did you ever do "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" onstage.

A - No, never. We never did any of those old Pop hits. We wanted to stay away from the Pop band of the '60s. This was the '70s, The Earth Band. We were a Rock band. Before then, all bands, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles included were called Pop groups. The Beatles were a Pop group. The Rolling Stones were a Pop group. We became bands in the '70s. (laughs) That's how society changes.

Q - Chris, if you really think about it, Pop is short for popular. So, you could refer to any style of musical group as a Pop group, because it's what's popular with the public.

A - That is true.

Q - Since you came up around the same time as Jimmy Page or David Gilmour and got to work with them, you're not in awe of them. They're just people to you, correct?

A - Yeah. I used to be in awe, but now they're just people. Jimmy Page had a huge name as a session guitarist.

Q - And he didn't do too badly after that either.

A - No. (laughs) I did a Tom Jones album called "13 Smash Hits" and the bass player was John Paul Jones, on the whole album. They were just guys before they became Rock Gods. (laughs) People are people.

Q - But there's something different about someone whose records are on the radio, who's on TV, who's on the cover of a magazine. You're different from most people.

A - Journalists make it that way, I think. I think it's journalists that hype people up, to be honest. People are people. But of course we're the type of people that perform onstage. So, we're all all attention seekers. All of us. We want to stand onstage and say, "Look at me! Look at me!" That's what we do for a living and the people who are not musicians love it. There's a certain type of person who's a musician. It starts by, you want to be in a band.

Q - It's more than just wanting to be onstage. You have to have a certain something and talent is at the top of the list, which is what Jimmy Page has and Chris Slade has.

A - Well, thank you for that. Other drummers might disagree. (laughs) To last you have to have the tenacity and you've got to have the need and talent. It's like being an athlete. An athlete's career is short because you can't keep up with running the fastest 600 yards. Even in basketball there's a time. They get paid well, don't they? Being onstage I would say is the same as being on a basketball court or a football field and we put those people in special categories. People are people, as I've said all along. They're just people who certainly have talent.

Q - When I look at your career, you not only had the talent, but you were in the right place at the right time with the right stuff. You would agree with that, wouldn't you?

A - Yes. That's what you have to do if you want to succeed, whether you're working in a band; you've got to turn up. You've got to be sober. And you've got to have the ability to do your job. Luckily, I was given the gift, if you like.

Official Website: ChrisSlade.com

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