THE MUSIC INDUSTRY PODCAST FROM RGM MAGAZINE · RGMMagazine

#227 DAVE HILL FROM SLADE

·1 hr 13 min·5 clips

Dave Hill says Slade's Christmas record was not 'Jingle Bells' but an original song that sold 250,000 copies in one day.

1. The Music Industry Podcast from RGM Magazine centers on Dave Hill from Slade and his account of the band's rise. 2. Host Karl Maloney frames the interview as a look back at Hill's career and mentions a farewell tour coming in December. 3. The episode asks how a boy from a council estate became part of a band that reached the top of British rock. 4. Hill says he got a guitar from the Case Catalogue at age 13 and took it from there. 5. A school teacher told him he could not play the guitar upside down because he was left-handed. 6. Hill says his mother wrote to the junior-school headmistress to get him into a music class. 7. The headmistress refused because he could not read music. 8. Hill says nobody taught him to read music, and he learned by listening and hearing. 9. He links his early musical ear to his family's background, including a grandfather who was a classical pianist. 10. Hill describes skiffle, Saturday morning cinema, and early stage experiences with washboard and makeshift instruments. 11. He recalls forming a council-estate group with a singer, a bass player, and a drummer. 12. At 15, he had to get a job and step away from that first group. 13. A music opportunity in Bilston led him to an audition with Don Powell in the band that would become Slade. 14. Hill says he and Don decided to look for a singer and found Noddy Holder outside a store in Wolverhampton. 15. He says Jim Lea played bass with unusual force, and that the four-piece lineup became the core of Slade. 16. Hill credits Chas Chandler with buying them out for 500 quid, guiding their sound, and pushing them toward records like 'Get Down and Get With It' and 'Because I Love You.' 17. He says Slade were the biggest band in the world in 1973 except in America. 18. Hill describes the Christmas record as original, not 'Jingle Bells,' and says Chas called to report 250,000 records sold in one day. 19. The interview sounds conversational, reflective, and full of named references to people, songs, and business decisions. 20. Listeners who like Slade, 1970s British rock, and band history will get the most from it; listeners wanting a short, tightly edited interview may skip it.

As heard by us

A warm Slade memory lane with real industry texture.

Dave Hill and Karl Maloney trace Slade from the first cheap guitar to the moments that gave the band its shape. The strongest stretch keeps the story grounded in plain, useful detail: who pushed which song, why the release timing mattered, and how a record could still catch its…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want Dave Hill tracing Slade back to a 13-year-old guitar.

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