Did you mean this article? It does mention about a book but don't say anything about a title or when it'll be out:
http://www.yourcanterbury.co.uk/leisure/drummer_chris_slade_shows_he_s_still_keeping_good_time_1_3700918
Drummer Chris Slade shows he’s still keeping good time
http://www.yourcanterbury.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.3700917.1406306987!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg
Chris Slade, centre, with Elvis Presley and Tom Jones
Dave Mairs
Friday, July 25, 2014
5:49 PM
Former AC/DC rocker has performed with some of the best in the business... next month he plays his local beer festival in Ashford
Sometimes it surprises you, the talented folk who live in your midst. Particularly those who have plied their trade at the highest tables of entertainment and, dare we say it, stardom.
Take Chris Slade, a man who lives in Ashford and who from 1989-94 was drummer with AC/DC, one of the biggest rock bands the world has known. He also played with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Uriah Heep, Asia, Gary Moore, Michael Schenker Group, Gary Numan and The Firm. Oh, and with Tom Jones... and Olivia Newton-John, too.
Speaking to him, it’s not rocket science to deduce from his soft, lilting accent that Slade is from South Wales. Pontypridd, to be precise. But he’s a local (to us) boy, really.
“I’ve been moving around Kent and East Sussex half my life, I think. I was in the Hastings area, then the Ashford area – I left Pontypridd when I was 17 or 18. I used to go back to see the family, of course, but my life is up here. I lived in Sunbury in a boat on the Thames in the mid-1960s.”
As evidence of his Kent grounding, Slade will be headlining next month’s Ashford Rugby Club Beer Festival with his touring band THE CHRIS SLADE TIMELINE.
Talking with someone who has led as diverse a life in the world of rock as one might imagine, the inevitable first question is what were the highlights.
“They were all highlights, to be honest. I suppose it’s got to be AC/DC – they were arguably the biggest band in the world.”
“Pink Floyd?” I venture.
“Won’t tour.”
“We sold more than the Stones and if you combine touring and albums we were at least as big as The Beatles.”
And then, with due recognition of this writer’s self-indulgence, there’s Rush, a band who are almost so uncool they’re cool… and who also are hugely popular across the world.
“I know the guys – they actually do better touring than they do selling records.
“I first met Neil [Rush drummer Peart] when he had been in the band just two weeks – they were supporting the Earth Band.
“I remember talking to him and we were discussing drummers’ roles as lyricists – he’s very philosophical, very intelligent.”
It’s a point worth making as Slade himself points out that drummers do not always receive the respect they might deserve, especially as it’s their role to keep the band in time.
“Drumming is a much-maligned occupation,” he said. “It’s a bit like being a goalkeeper in football – if a goal goes in, it’s his fault. It’s the drummer’s job to keep time – if that isn’t there, then you have a problem.
“Some drummers just won’t learn their lessons… maybe they can’t.
“I never used a click track [think of it as an electronic metronome to set the beat] with AC/DC. A lot of people give drummers a click track in their headphones, which should keep everybody in time.
“The rest of the band listen to the drummer – at least that’s what has been happening in the last 15 or 20 years. You’re calling the shots. If you’re confident in your timekeeping you can rein in those people who are straying. With a lot of people you’ve got to be really stern – tell them I’m sitting right here where it started and where it’s going to finish.”
If AC/DC, for whom he played on the 1990 album The Razors Edge, was just about the highlight of a career spent among the stars, Slade’s time with fellow Pontypridd boy Tom Jones, whom he joined as one of his Squires at the age of 16 in the 1960s, clearly made almost as big an impression.
“Tom was bigger than Sinatra and Elvis put together and I’m not exaggerating – he was huge in America. We did Madison Square Garden in 1966 with the Count Basie Orchestra, who I played with as well. They were booked back to back and they had a 35-piece orchestra, who did their set and then Tom did his bit.”
It seems there’s no one in the world of rock that Slade doesn’t know or about whom he hasn’t got a story.
Like the time journalist Jon Landau gave the album Greetings From Asbury Park N.J. from “unknown singer-songwriter” Bruce Springsteen to Manfred Mann, who “took one of the songs and rearranged it completely” before releasing it as a single… “Blinded By The Light is still Springsteen’s only No 1,” said Slade, with just the tiniest hint of irony.
Perhaps the biggest story for Slade, though, is what didn’t happen.
While drumming for Tom Jones, he was asked to play for Elvis Presley… but it was an offer he had to refuse.
“It’s the biggest regret of my career,” he said. “I was contracted to Tom and his manager Gordon Miles wouldn’t let me out of it, so I couldn’t make the rehearsals for Elvis.
“I met him a few times – he came to a few of our shows, saw us perform and liked what he saw. He said ‘You know what, we could use you and [another drummer] Ronnie Tutt.
“I was 21 or 22 at the time and perhaps didn’t have the confidence, but I should have just walked.”
An understandable sentiment on reflection maybe, but, given that Slade recalls Jones as a bigger draw than Presley anyway, perhaps it’s also a little puzzling.
“They were certainly of the same status,” he said. “Tom had a weekly TV show in the States – as I said, he was huge.
“That was the consolation – playing with Tom was good, but to play for the iconic Elvis as a British drummer was on a different level. I would have been playing for the most iconic figure ever in rock’n’roll and it was going to be for an Elvis movie.”
Despite the regret, Slade is “very proud” of having been asked to play for Elvis. “I must have been doing something right,” he said.
The experiences of the great and the good in the world of rock just kept on coming.
Although he never met Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, he did play with band guitarist David Gilmour “between the two Floyds” and “met the others guys just two years ago”.
He played with Floyd drummer Nick Mason at Rock’n’Roll Fantasy Camp.
With the drummer setting the time for a band, how does it work when you have two playing together?
“You follow each other, you blend, which is what you try to do in a band anyway. I like Nick’s laid-back snare, while I drive a band.
“Nick’s got a great sense of time and is also one of nicest people you could meet. I worked with him for a full year when most of our time was spent on buses, so we know each other pretty well.”
It might surprise some that drummers – some of them anyway – have a well-developed sensitive side and this can find expression through the writing of lyrics.
Slade wrote while with the Earth Band and has co-written pieces when on the road. Fans might get to hear some of these at the beer festival, where his band will be playing some two hours on the Friday evening, when the party should be in full swing.
It’s been a career worthy of a book, and indeed one should soon be on its way, but – missing out on Elvis aside – there were low points and some tough decisions.
For example, how did the move away from Tom Jones come about?
“I’d been with Tom 10 years and it was time to move on. We’d started together and literally used to eat every other day – we lived in a basement flat in London with [bass player] Vernon Mills and if it wasn’t for food parcels from home we would have really struggled.”
Does he still see the now Sir Tom?
“Five years ago I was in Las Vegas, where he was playing to packed audiences every night. I told him I’d enjoyed the show and said goodbye. Then, purely by chance, I walked in to a bar at about 4am and he was there and we had a beer.”
For all the names, all the bands and all the stories, you still get the idea that Slade is defined by his five years with AC/DC, that perhaps he most defines himself by that period. Sadly, it was one that ended abruptly when the band’s legendary rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young called him to say that the band were considering getting back together with former drummer Phil Rudd.
To say Slade took the news badly would be a striking understatement.
“It absolutely devastated me,” he said. “I didn’t touch a drumstick for three years. We’d done two months of demos and it came as a bolt out of the blue.
“I’m very philosophical and Malcolm said it’s nothing you’re not doing or doing wrong – we’re just trying Phil out. I resigned on the spot.
“I did meet Phil and the guys later and we went for a beer.
“After that, I went to art college and thought ‘Put your heart and soul into this’.”
Heart and soul… the phrase rings true as there’s an honesty that shines from Chris Slade when you speak to him. His book will assuredly be worth reading, as much as his music will be worth listening to at Ashford’s beer festival in August. Fellow rockers, be there!
■ Ashford Rugby Club Beer Festival (Canterbury Road, Ashford) runs from Friday to Sunday, August 29-31.
THE CHRIS SLADE TIMELINE are playing on the Friday, when the gates open at 4pm, with music beginning at 6pm. Slade’s band take to the stage at 10pm.
On the Saturday, gates open at 10am, rugby starts at 10.30am and music begins at 1pm.
On Sunday, the festival is open from 10.30am-5pm.
Tickets for each day are priced at £7.50, except for Sunday, which has free entry.
