Noddy Holder reveals the real reason he quit Slade and hasn't returned

29 November 2023, 14:34

Noddy Holder of Slade hits the red carpet at photocall

By Mayer Nissim

Noddy Holder (and Jim Lea) haven't performed with Slade since 1992.

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It's (almost) Christmas, which means that Slade are out on the road once more on their annual jaunt, rolling out their massive hits, including 1973 seasonal chart-topper 'Merry Xmas Everybody'.

But the current lineup of Slade only features Dave Hill from its founding lineup. Don Powell was dropped a couple of years ago, and key original members Noddy Holder and Jim Lea haven't played with the band since way back in 1992.

Noddy has actually returned to performing, joining Tom Seals and his band on the road, after it recently emerged that he successfully battled oesophageal cancer in 2018 after initially being given six months to live.

But despite repeated rumours of a full original band reunion over the last couple of years, nothing has come to pass, and Noddy has now explained why he quit the band in 1992 and why he won't return.

"The early '90s was a weird period for me," Noddy told The Big Issue.

Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (Official Top Of The Pops Video)

"We'd had 25 years together as a band. I had things going on in my personal life – I'd just got divorced. My dad was very ill; he was dying. I'd been on the road for 30 years.

"It's a long time and I just felt I was getting stale. It seemed to be getting repetitious. And I never was into that. I'm a positive thinker and I always have been, even from when I was a kid.

"I don't hanker in nostalgia. Not my bag. I always want to look to the future. And I just felt at the end of the '80s we had pretty much achieved everything that we set out to do."

Slade together in 1974. Picture: Getty Images

He added: "We'd lost momentum in America – it didn't work out. The band weren't getting on; we'd had so much time together living in one another's pockets.

"I had to face up to the fact that this was not working the same way. We weren’t that gang any more. I thought I'd leave and maybe in a couple of years' time we'd reconvene and get back to where we were, but it didn't work out that way."

Noddy confirmed that the group were "offered a lot of a money" to reform, but said that while they're still on speaking terms and haven't had a major fallings out, they still wouldn't get back together.

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He added that they've had squabbles during business meetings about the very same things they argued about on the day they split, which underlined why a reunion wouldn't work.

"The thought of being at least two years on the road – which is what it would take to make real big money – I thought, well, we're never going to last that long," Noddy said.

"We could have all travelled separately and stayed in separate hotels, as many bands do, but I didn't want to live like that."