We're back with a former Squeeze

Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook tell CASEY COOPER-FISKE and HANNAH ROBERTS why they're dusting off their aborted 70s debut album

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SQUEEZE burst onto the music scene in the late 70s with hits like Take Me I'm Yours and Cool For Cats, becoming part of the burgeoning New Wave sound, but this was not the music they had initially set out to write.

In 1974, the band, who would have further top 10 songs with the likes of Up The Junction and Labelled With Love, had started out writing Trixies, a glam rock opera about a New York nightclub.

Aged just 19 and 16 respectively, the band’s songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook would eventually abandon their foray into this heavier genre.

Instead they built a cult following with their unique brand of witty pop, releasing 15 studio albums, and launching the career of pianist and TV presenter Jools Holland, who had two spells in the band.

Now, more than 50 years on, Squeeze are returning to the aborted Trixies.

"I'm ridiculously excited, we've got a really great album, and the circumstances of it are so unusual, it still doesn’t seem real, even though I know it is," explains Glenn, 68, who has been tracking down demos of the 1974 songs to compare to the versions they are currently working on, with a view to releasing an album in March.