Big-hearted Elton John made a phone call every day for a whole year to help Squeeze guitarist Chris Difford beat the bottle, the Cool For Cats hitmaker has revealed. The New Wave musician, now 70, expressed his amazement that no matter where megastar Elton was in the world, he never failed to make the essential call, having agreed to become Chris’s sponsor to help him conquer his deadly drink and drug addiction.
And now “26 years sober” Chris has told of how Elton’s daily calls saved his life – and he can still message the Piano Man whenever he feels the ‘Black Dog’ of depression looming. He said: “I’m surrounded by really lovely people that can give me that kind of love, and Elton’s one of those people. He’s the sort of person you can ring up on any time of the day or night and just say, you know, ‘I’m feeling pretty shabby about this’. He will just kick you off the pitch, you know, just tell you to ‘wake you go up and go on with it’.
“He was my sponsor for the first year of my sober life and it’s amazing to think that a man as busy as him can take the time to call me every day from wherever he is in the world. It’s extraordinary.”
The Sussex-based guitarist and lyricist found fame on both sides of the Atlantic as Squeeze exploded on the charts in the late 70s, with critics branding him and songwriting partner Glenn Tilbrook as the “heirs to Lennon and McCartney’s throne” as the band notched up three top five hits with Cool for Cats, Up the Junction and Labelled With Love.
His life’s turning point came in 1973 when he took 50p from his mother’s purse and placed an advert in a shop window appealing for a guitarist to join his band. “As it happens, I had no band. I also said I had a pending record deal and a tour lined up. I had neither deal nor tour,” he now admits.
The only person to respond was Glenn Tilbrook, a shy but talented guitarist who would go on to become Chris’s closest collaborator over the next 40-plus years.
He now admits to living the rock’n’roll life to the full, blowing thousands on Concorde flights, lavish hotels, designer clothes and endless sports cars. However, his spending addiction led to him being declared insolvent for three years in the 1990s.
At the same time he developed a severe drug and alcohol dependency which left him broken and suicidal. But with the crucial help from Elton John, Chris went into rehab, sobered up and embarked on a new career, firstly managing the young pop group The Strypes and then his boyhood idol Bryan Ferry, while continuing to perform with the latest incarnation of Squeeze.
Talking to Gary Davies’ Sounds of the 80s Podcast on BBC Sounds Chris says that he has been to Alcoholics Anonymous and rehab “a couple of times” and has no desire to return to his bad old ways.
He added: “I’m 26 years sober now and it doesn’t really bother me, I mean, we were at the biggest weekend festival recently and there was a lot of people drinking backstage and they were having a great time, you know, but I can’t. I would only say that if it had been me, I would still be drinking three days afterwards and I would be taking all sorts of things to sort of make myself feel good – but I can’t do that anymore. I just wouldn’t be right, you know. I’ve had dark moments, but I never go in that direction.”