Englishmen Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have been making music together since their teenage years in the ’70s, which is when they first wrote and humbly recorded a concept album set in an American club called Trixies. Difford said they were proud of this music but “it didn’t really work, it was a bit ahead of its time.” So the project was shelved and Squeeze took off as a band with a different sonic style.

Now, decades later, Trixies is the newest Squeeze record, the songs revived and re-recorded and produced with integrity and intention. The band starts their American tour, playing these new/old songs and other favorites, at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on August 16 with opener Adam Ant.

Hear the full conversation with Difford here or wherever you stream your podcasts via the WNXP Podcasts feed. Snippets of our conversation are found below.

Timing it right

Celia Gregory: Your 2026 release Trixies is actually old material. I don’t wanna set it up. I want you to set up how this came to be this many years later and why you decided to share this work now.

Chris Difford: This is a bunch of songs that Glenn and I wrote in 1973, ‘74. And the band that we had at the time rehearsed it and it didn’t really work. It was a bit ahead of its time. We wanted to play rock and roll songs and it wasn’t really, it just wasn’t gelling, so we shelved the whole thing. It went on a cassette, the cassette went in the loft. We didn’t listen to it for many years. And Owen Biddle, our producer who lives in Nashville, said he listened to it on the bus one day when we were traveling and he said, “This should be your new album.” And so I trusted that and Glenn trusted that and he’s done a fantastic job and now we have the album Trixies.

CG: Well, when you say you were doing rock music, was it that it was sort of high art as a concept record that felt like it didn’t fit into the moment…was there some restraint there, like people wouldn’t get it, it was too early in your career for people to latch on to something like that?

CD: We didn’t have a career. We were just playing in a pub at the time. And so we were just like, you know, with Jools [Holland] in the band, we’re playing boogie woogie. We’re paying Todd Rudgren songs and Beatles songs. And this sophisticated set of music and lyrics just didn’t fit. You know, it’s not any fault of the musicians or the band, it just didn’t seem like the right thing. And I’m glad that it didn’t happen because it happens now and it’s a fantastic way of having like a mirror to your past. I’m looking at the reflection of myself. I’m look at the reflection of our relationship when we first met and I’m respecting that.

Songwriting and production inspirations

CG: It feels both vintage because I know they’re from a time, but also it fits right in with anything else you’d hear. So I wondered how you balanced that, right? The charm of when it was written, when that ideation came together initially when you were younger and using all the modern tools now. In producing it how did you keep that sort of vintage charm, but also make it sound like you wanted to in 2025, ‘26?

CD: Well, that’s the brilliance of a good producer, and Owen went to great lengths to find instruments that we would have used in the ‘70s, and when we had it mixed by Bob Clearmountain, you know, we wanted him to make sure that he had 1974-’73 in his audio scope, which he’s done brilliantly, so the whole thing could sound like we would’ve recorded it at the time. The musicianship is extraordinary on it, though, that’s something that maybe in 1973 we wouldn’t have had. You know, when I listened to some of the best albums of that period, like Tapestry by Carole King, for instance, the musicianship is so sweet and so effortless, that it kind of passes all time. And, you know, I don’t think we could have got that.

CG: I find that the song structures and the approach to melody is ahead of its time, certainly when I think about the ages you were. Do you remember writing these songs? Not just reliving it while you’re recording, but do you remember initially coming up with these with Glenn?

CD: Um, I kind of do. I mean, upstairs in my study, I have all the original lyrics. And when I look at them and blow the dust off them, I can see a young man who wants to tell a story and is ambitious and really wants to achieve something different. And I think the influences that I would have had as a writer in those days would have spurred me along. So listening to David Bowie, you know, and listening to Bob Dylan, people like that, who told stories, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, all those people would have driven me along to try my best, which I think I had done.

CG: I wondered about Bowie and even the pair of Who records that were concept records, right before then [Tommy and Quadrophenia]. I wondered it about your influences. And you mentioned American artists, you know. So they came from all over, it sounds like.

CD: Yeah, very much so. And Sparks, I mean, musically I can hear Sparks. I can hear Todd Rudgren a lot, you
know, and that’s a wonderful thing.

CG: What would you say if you were to pitch this record, to describe it as a concept record? What is the story that you are telling with Trixies?

CD: I’d like to see it as a play on stage one day. I see it is a musical play. In my mind, I can see how it would work and I’ve written some ideas down myself, but I’m also aware of how incredibly difficult it would be to make it into a play. But in my dream, I suppose, that would be my legacy to have Trixies on stage as a play.

CG: I think that’s a fun vision to be like, “We’re not done with this material yet. I see it visually more than just sonically.”

CD: Yeah, I think it has legs in that respect.

CG: And it is set in a club, right? This is the stories of people in Trixies.

CD: Yeah, so I was reading Damien Runyon at the time and Raymond Chandler. And those American writers were telling stories that were intriguing to a young Englishman like me. This was the underworld of Chicago and New York. And, you know, these were really amusing tales. I’m a big musical fan, I love musicals, and when I see musical theater, I can see how Damon Runyon’s stories worked.

Some of the oldest Trixies tracks

CG: I’m not trying to belabor the point, but to have a new record after this long as a band and then have these songs come out anew. Is there one or two or any of them that you feel especially attached to as you’re about to go play some of these on tour, you know, alongside these old favorites that everybody knows the words to?

CD: We did an European tour recently and we played the whole thing as one 43-minute piece. And the audience loved it, I loved it. I thought it was very adult for us to do something like that. And then when we got to the end, we started playing “Pulling Muscles [From The Shell]” and “Tempted” and we went off down the normal corridor of Squeeze. But… I think on this tour, I don’t know whether we’ll have the opportunity or the time to do that, so we’ll probably stick six of them in.

CG: And the ones that appear on this record, 13 tracks, right? Were they all as they were, was there anything that was entirely new that you added in to flesh out the record?

CD: There was nothing new at all. Two of the songs I wrote before I met Glenn, “It’s Over” and “The Dancer” were two songs that I wrote when I was sitting on my single bed at home. I’d just been to see David Bowie playing in a local theater and it was pre-Spiders from Mars. And I just thought, “Wow, that guy is just incredible. I wish I could be like him.” And so I sort of prodded around and I came up with those songs. I don’t know why.

CG: That’s funny that you mentioned “It’s Over.” That was in my notes as a song that sounds way too mature for a young man to write. It’s just fully formed, so especially special now.

Learnings in a longtime creative partnership and decades touring

CG: Well, Glenn’s not here to defend himself. I guess I should ask you, after a lifetime of making music together, writing together, I can only imagine you’ve grown together and been able to teach each other. Is there something that he’s taught you as an artist, a songwriter, or even just surviving life on the road after this many years that you would want to share and shout him out?

CD: He’s taught me to have a lot of patience and to respect the unknown and it’s something that I wasn’t very good at when I was growing up in Squeeze. I would challenge internally what I felt about what Glenn had written and often felt very depressed within because of that. But now, when I hear things that we’ve written that maybe at first I go, “I’m not sure about that,” I kind of step back, give it some time, look for the rewards in it, and then be part of my own song.

CG: Beautiful. I hope one day to have patience in my tool kit. It’s not there yet, so it’s nice to know that you can acquire that skill and learn from peers in that. Anything else you would like to share before you’re here on our turf, before tour starts, about this record or still getting to make music?

CD: Yeah, I mean, touring gets harder for me as I get older, I think. We’ve been touring America since 1978. I don’t know how many more American tours I can stomach because they’re quite, they have to be very long to make them work financially. So I’m looking forward to this tour and keeping my eyes open for the whole journey to make sure that I have the memory to pass on.