When Chris Difford extended a friendly invitation to a fellow musician after an awards ceremony, he likely didn’t expect to be sharing his home – and life – with him for the next two years.
But that’s exactly what happened when Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow turned up at Difford’s East Sussex farmhouse and, quite simply, didn’t really leave for a while.
Writing in his 2014 memoir Some Fantastic Place, Difford – founding member and lyricist of Squeeze – details a particularly surreal chapter of his life, one that began on a sunny afternoon with tea on the lawn and ended nearly 24 months later with slippers, mood swings, and a Ferrari in the driveway.
The pair first met at the Ivor Novello Awards, an annual event recognising excellence in songwriting. At the time, both men were battling addiction – a subject that had played out publicly for them in newspapers and interviews.
Difford recalls inviting Pellow to an addiction meeting. Weeks later, the Wet Wet Wet singer got in touch, and Difford invited him to his countryside retreat, Old House Farm.
“He called a few weeks later and I arranged for him to come to Old House Farm,” Difford writes. “He arrived in his car and we sat on the lawn. It was a hot summer’s day and we talked about writing songs on recovery and about him leaving his band.”
Pellow had left Wet Wet Wet in 1999, walking away from a group that had achieved phenomenal chart success throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Scottish quartet had secured three UK number one singles, including their record-breaking 15-week run at the top with ‘Love Is All Around’ in 1994.
But amid the fame, Pellow struggled with heroin addiction, which ultimately prompted his departure from the band he had fronted since the age of 17.
After that first visit, things moved fast. “After a few cups of tea and some cake we looked around my (recording) studio and he met the girls, Grace and Cissy,” writes Difford. “Then we had a takeaway curry from Rye and he moved in.”
Pellow’s stay at Old House Farm stretched on – not for a weekend or a few weeks, but for nearly two years: “Slippers and pipe, Ferrari and a sense of humour”, Difford quips. “He was a funny and delicate soul. A funny sod and really good company… Marti paid rent and mucked in sometimes. He was generous and kind.”
But it wasn’t all laughs and countryside walks. Difford makes clear that living with Pellow meant navigating unpredictable emotional terrain: “We had to live with his mood swings and eternal disappointment that he was not number one in the charts”, he admits.
That drive to return to the top of the charts defined much of Pellow’s time in East Sussex. Difford recalls how the singer’s ambitions were hardly modest. “He had his sights on being the next Robbie Williams and wanted to be on film and stage”, he writes. “He wanted nothing less than James Bond as his first role.”
Still, there was a creative spark to the set-up. Difford introduced Pellow to fellow songwriters and even became his manager as Pellow plotted the next chapter of his career. Though his solo work didn’t quite match the commercial highs of Wet Wet Wet, Pellow would eventually establish himself in musical theatre, starring in productions such as Chicago and Evita on the West End and touring across the UK.
While their domestic and professional partnership had its highs and lows, the friendship did not endure. “Sadly, Marti and I have not kept in touch”, Difford writes. “He called me a few times for directions to London theatres and then nothing.”