Following this site’s review of the newly-published memoir from Slade legend Jim Lea, How Does It Feel? Slade and Beyond, co-written with Daryl Easlea (Omnibus Press, 2026), here’s a second WriteWyattUK feature celebrating that publication, as we bring you an exclusive interview with Jim’s brother Frank, who deputised for drummer Don Powell during their most successful year, 1973, when these Black Country favourites were on top of the world

Take me bak ‘ome to rural Surrey, early July 1973, five-and-a-half years old, into the last three weeks of my first school year, older brother Mark, 13, spinning Slade’s latest No.1, ‘Skweeze Me Pleeze Me’ on our sister Sue’s dansette, or Dad’s record player downstairs while he was at work.

Slade could do no wrong in our eyes, our smaller room with the bunk beds next to our three sisters’ room in a council house backing on to the idyllic River Tillingbourne, 130 miles south-east and a world away from the Black Country landscapes that moulded a glam rock-riding hit machine with roots in Sixties beat, rhythm and blues.

Geography apart, the band’s ‘boys next door’ working class ethos struck a mighty chord with us, their fifth chart-topper in its second week at the summit, the first to go straight in at No.1 since The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’, a feat they’d repeat twice more before the year is out (The Beatles managed it just that once), the band having sold out 18,000-capacity Earls Court that Sunday, supported by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, only the third rock acts to play there (a few weeks after David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust shows then Pink Floyd for Dark Side of the Moon).

They’d already sold out the following Sunday’s show at the Lido on the central prom at Douglas on the Isle of Man, two shows there (the second scheduled for three weeks later) their only live engagements before a second round of 1973 North American dates in late September. And right now they were letting their hair down back on home ground, drummer Don Powell on the town with bandmate Jim Lea’s younger brother Frank.

On the evening of Tuesday 3rd July, Don and Frank were at the Laf, aka Club Lafayette, Thornley Street, where Jim auditioned for Don and Dave Hill for the ‘N Betweens (the band that evolved into Slade) after bass player Dave ‘Cass’ Jones quit seven years ago, when that address hosted the Blue Flame.

Now, 53 years later, Frank’s on the line to me from Codsall, the Staffordshire village where the Lea brothers grew up, back to his roots, handy for daily checks on brother James (as he refers to him throughout our chat) and wife Louise (me calling from Cornwall, where Frank’s a regular visitor when time allows, owning a seaside property on the south coast).

That night in ‘73, Frank arranged to meet Don later at a nightclub a short distance across town called Dix, where Don’s girlfriend Angela Morris worked, the Slade drummer driving his prestige Bentley over to pick her up, offering Frank a lift home from there. But circumstances led to a fatal change of plans, Don and Angela heading home on their own, the following horrific crash leading to his 20-year-old girlfriend losing her life while Don, 26, ended up in critical care, on life support, the consequences of that night having major repercussions to this day. Does Frank, 21 at the time, still dwell on the notion that he may have ended up on board that night?

‘I don’t actually. I used to knock about with Don a lot, and that night we went up the Laf first, had a drink, and I was talking to a girl when Don said he was going down to Dix’s, because his girlfriend was there. I was banned from driving for drinking and Don said, ‘Come down, Frank. I’ll take you home afterwards.’ I said, ‘Alright, Don, that’ll be great. See you later on.’ But when I got there – one of my other mates was driving – I couldn’t see his car. They’d keep a space for him right outside, so the bouncers could slide a door open, making sure nobody was messing with it. But it was sort of fate that night as somebody parked there earlier and never moved, so Don parked down the side of the building. He was there, but I didn’t realise.

‘I was going mad, thinking that’s not like Don. He doesn’t do that sort of stuff. ‘Bloody hell, Don, you’ve left me stranded!’ My mate took me home, so as it turned out, I was lucky. Then I got a phone call in the early hours. James had one too, telling us Don had been in an accident.

‘I was at Mum and Dad’s house – I was living there at the time and ran down the stairs when I heard the phone, thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s some bird after me, Mum and Dad will go crazy!’ Dad had to get up for work that morning. I quickly answered it, whispering, ‘Hello?’ And it was the police. ‘I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ They said Don had been in an accident. I said, ‘Oh right, oh well,’ thinking it’s his own fault. I thought he’d just had a knock. The last thing on my mind was what happened.

‘I thought he’d just bumped his car or somebody had bumped his and he’d got a bad dent or something. It was a fantastic looking car. They said, ‘Do you know his parents’ phone number?’ I opened the book by the phone, gave them the number, they said thanks. I never thought anything of it.

‘I was doing a bit of work at the time, got up that morning, went to town, and the guys said when I walked in, ‘Sorry to hear about the accident.’ I said, “What are you on about?’ They said, ‘Don Powell.’ I said, ‘What about him?’ ‘He’s been in an accident.’ I said, ‘Well, I had a phone call, but the police didn’t say a lot.’ They said, ‘His girlfriend got killed.’

It’s understood that a marriage proposal was awaiting Angela, a friend of bandmate Dave Hill’s sister Carol.

‘She was a lovely person, a really, really nice girl. So sad. Yeah, I never really knew – it was other people telling me.’

Jim, married earlier that year, hadn’t long since moved out of the Lea family home to set up home with Louise in nearby Penn.

‘Yeah, they would have been on Warstones Road by then.’

Consequently, Frank, a plumber by trade but rather adept on drums, had a brief starring role with Slade, volunteering to deputise for his good pal at that weekend’s Isle of Man show, and the next one later that month.

‘We did the first show on the eighth of July, and when we came back, Mum and Dad made me go back to work! I’m saying, ‘You don’t understand!’ But they were just looking at me. Ha!’

I’m guessing the day job didn’t inspire after that brush with fame.

‘I never wanted that. I wasn’t interested in doing that. I spent more time out of work than I did in work, and I think I packed it up between those gigs.’

Were you nervous when you played those shows? Did you get by on pure adrenaline?

‘I did a rehearsal to see if I could – I’d never played on stage before. James said, ‘We’ll go to the rehearsal room, together, I’ll run through it with you, get you loosened up.’ He was giving me a fair crack of the whip, which was good of him. Then the others turned up and we started playing, Nod listening at my bass drum. But he couldn’t hear it – the pedal had come off, and I was too nervous to say. Eventually, I thought I better had – I wouldn’t get the gig otherwise. I said when we finished the track, ‘Nod, I can see you listening down there. My pedal’s come to one side.’ I hit the pedals sideways when I played.

‘The roadies knocked a nail in, so it wouldn’t slip, then it was alright. I knew the rest – I knew when Nod burped on stage and everything else, because I was with them all the time. I knew everything that went on, on that stage. So it was like a shoehorn in a way.’

I’m guessing it was a friendly audience, in light of what had happened.

’Well, it was kept in the family. Publicity-wise, that helped. And I was playing with them when they were at No.1 with ‘Skweeze Me Pleeze Me’. There was lots of press about me. And you know what they say, all publicity is good. So everything worked, but behind the scenes, they all wanted Don to be okay.’

You were big mates. It wasn’t like you were out to replace him.

‘Yeah, and I played like Don. But I didn’t have the idea I was going to be the Slade drummer. When I finished the second gig, far as I was concerned that was that. And they took Don to America, even though he wasn’t well, with my name not mentioned anywhere as a backup. And I thought, ‘Well, they know what they’re doing.’ I was very close to the circle, incredibly close, but the four of them were closer still. And that didn’t bother me. I too wanted Don back in the band. I was a fan and I just wanted it all to be good.’

I get the impression your starring role made up your mind that a traditional tradesman’s role wasn’t for you. In Daryl Easlea’s band biography Whatever Happened to Slade? you said something similar about when ‘Coz I Luv You’ topped the singles chart in late ‘71, the first UK No.1, you quitting work.

‘I walked out of jobs loads of times, feeling I didn’t want to do this anymore. I was bored. I was young, and I was after the girls and all that. I’d have rather been uptown having a drink with mates and clubbing it. That was my thing.

‘When ‘Coz I Luv You’ became a hit I was working in someone’s house round the corner from Mum and Dad’s. It’s not very rock ‘n’ roll, this story, but I had to take this old water cylinder out, put a new one in. I had a transistor radio on, listening to the new chart, and when it got to No.1 I was so excited I just left my tools in this house. They were at work – they’d let me in earlier – and I left them with no hot water or nothing. They never saw me again. They were just disgusted!’

Was that also in Codsall?

‘Yeah, on the next street to The Broadway.’

I was barely four then, but fondly recall hearing Radio 1 chart rundowns on Tuesday lunchtimes in the following years.

‘Yeah, It was either Monday or Tuesday. And blimey, it was very exciting having my brother at No.1. That was one thing – I wasn’t the sort of brother who got jealous. None of that crap. I was just so pleased. And as I always say, I’m lucky I had a brother who ended up hitting all these heights, becoming famous. And he was my brother! Lots of people would love that.’

So what’s it like to be back in the village where your family moved in the early Fifties (Jim and Frank spent their early days in the heart of industrial Wolverhampton before moving to the Bilbrook end of Codsall, just outside the West Midlands border)?

‘Well, I lived in London for 40 years, being in the music business and all that. But when the pandemic came, I came back to look after Mum. I needed to be up here with all the family and thought, ‘Sod it, I’ve had enough of London. So I bought a place up here and stayed.’

‘But the call of home is loud… still is loud’

‘Yeah, it called me back. I knew maybe at one point I’d come back, but it was just circumstances… and now I’m back in sunny Codsall. I go down to Jim’s nearly every day. In fact, when I finish this conversation, I’ll be down to his place to sit with him, have a chat and a cup of tea.’

Seems like he’s struggled in recent years, despite occasional recording and messages to his many fans, first battling prostate cancer, then suffering a fall a couple of years back.

‘Yeah, and he knackered his hand. He can play, but I think it affected the tendons. We just don’t know what’s around the corner, do we.’

I get the impression that was part of the reason his autobiography project was resurrected, having been on the backburner for a long time.

‘Yeah, I don’t know what James was waiting for, but I sort of took the bull by the horns, got a deal, wanted Daryl, and it went from there.’

Essex-based author, music writer and Slade fan Daryl Easlea first interviewed Frank while researching Whatever Happened to Slade?, building an affinity and friendship with his subject… and consequently brother Jim.

There were four Lea lads, older brother Raymond passing away in 2014 after succumbing to vascular dementia, the same condition that befell their father – another Frank – in 2002, Jim dedicating his biography to the pair of them and mum, Edna.

Jim, two years younger than Raymond, was three when Frank came along. And four years later John arrived. Slade fans should bear in mind though that the pub where Raymond and Jim was born, The Melbourne Arms, long ago fell victim to the building of Wolverhampton’s main ring road. As for Frank, he made his debut not far, far away on Alma Street, before the family moved out of town.

‘Well, you say that, but I don’t know where I was born – I never asked! You know more than I do. But yeah, it must have been Alma Street, because when we moved to Cherry Tree Lane in Bilbrook, I think I was three.’

When we spoke I was up to 1967 in the book, the year I was born and a big one in the Slade story, Jim already on board as the classic four-piece took shape, still going out as the ‘N Betweens then. And there’s lots about the Lea family tree within, including mum Edna’s family, the Whild contingent, with lots of musicians on that side.

Frank’s own dabblings in music suggest an ear for music and an affinity for playing, but would he accept the majority of that ability passed on to Jim?

‘Yeah, I mean, obviously James got the lion’s share, and even though he’s my brother, I’m a fan of what he did. I’ve seen him work in the studio, and played with him in the studio, and he’s pretty bloody fantastic, y’know.

‘I could play, I’ve a good ear and all that, and great ideas, but James… well, he’s on another planet.’

‘I was coming home, I was all alone

In a place so cold I don’t feel

I was there for years, so afraid of fears

I was lost and I was the curse

Oh won’t you be my universe’

Apologies for the brief interlude as I wandered off in my thoughts, giving a spin on my inner jukebox to Slade’s final 45, Noddy Holder, Jim, Dave and Don in bombastic form as they blast out Xmas 1991’s swansong, ‘Universe’ almost a ‘My Oh My’ pt.2, itself now 35 years old. Yet they didn’t even dent the top 75. I blame it on the black fedoras they wore on the cover. And too much hairspray, probably. Their race was run, the last proper live show eight years earlier, Slade in effect a studio outfit by then, Jim in control, a seismic quarter-century journey finally ended when Nod confirmed his departure in Spring ‘92… something of a relief to Jim. And while Dave and Don soon resumed, initially under the name Slade II, Jim quietly withdrew, his only public appearance back at his old high school, opening its new music centre in 1993.

When Jim did a few interviews another 25 years later, in 2018, plugging his Lost in Space EP, I was lucky enough to be among those invited to have a chat (as linked here), at which point he was on top form despite an on-going recovery from cancer (with regular gym trips among his routine). In fact, I returned to that feature the morning I spoke to Frank, and was reminded that Jim referred to his sibling as ‘my younger brother, who is often kicking my ass’. Is he still Jim’s driving force?

‘Oh God, yeah, there’s loads going on all the time and I make sure it’s all done. I wouldn’t say it’s a full time job, but it’s not far off.’

You come across very much as Jim’s influencer (not to be confused with influenza) in his book.

‘Yeah, although I’m the one in the background… and quite happy about that.’

That sounds familiar. I get the impression Jim was also happier in the shadows (not the band, obviously), writing, making and playing music rather than getting side-tracked by the PR and all that.

‘Well, he was happy within the band, being at the back. But as things went on, he thought. ‘Hang on…’ and you saw this so-called quiet man standing on the amplifiers on stage and jumping off!’

He’s certainly something of an enigma in that sense.

‘Well, he wasn’t keen on doing interviews and all that. His brain was working, writing all the time in his head… constantly going.’

You’ve clearly both remained close to your roots, and in the book there’s a page from 12-year-old Jim’s school exercise book, starting an essay, ‘My name is James Whild Lea. I live in the heart of Bilbrook.’

‘Oh, is that what it says! I missed that bit!’

I get the impression that artistic flair was surfacing.

‘Well, he’s highly intelligent. He was talking to somebody on the phone once, getting something all wrong. I said, ‘Let me chat to him!’ So he said, ‘Hang on, Frank wants to talk to you, but just to let you know, I’m the intelligent one out of the pair of us.’ He then held the phone out to me, and I added, ‘Yes, he is the most intelligent of the two of us, but I’m the one with the common sense!’

While it seems the Whild family was where the musical talent was, he suggests in the book your dad was a good singer.

‘Yeah, Dad could sing. There was always music in the family. Our grandmother – we called her Grom – came to live at the house when we were in Codsall, in between getting properties, About a year in the end. And Uncle Frank, her son – mum’s brother – was a multi-instrumentalist. He was bloody good ‘n’ all! If James wasn’t playing the piano, Uncle Frank was, with James playing acoustic guitar or something,

‘There was always something going on. Her husband – our Grandad, who we didn’t know – was first violinist and ran the orchestra, who would come round to Grom’s place. She went from running a pub to getting an off licence in Wolverhampton There’d be two great big barrels of beer, mild and bitter, people coming round with jugs and bottles to be filled up. Mum said musicians from the band would just turn up and play in the lounge – trumpets, violins, Grom on piano. It was like that all the time.

‘Then, when Jim started getting into bands – aged 12 or 13 – his band used to come round and they’d be up in the bedroom,  practising, music going on there… if you could call it music – ha ha!’

Was this the band that became the Axemen?

‘Yeah, I’d be really young then, more interested in playing football, because there was a field at the back.

‘I remember James coming back from London one day, coming up the garden, shouting from the gate, ‘Frank! Frank!’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I got a record here, come and have a listen.’ It was ‘Coz I Luv You’. He said, ‘What do you think of this?’ He played it, and I said, ‘Oh yeah, okay.’ He said, “Shall we listen to it again?’ So he played it again, said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Yes, pretty good. Anyway, James, I’m playing bloody football here.’ I was more interested in that!’

I understand you’re still a Wolverhampton Wanderers fan and a regular at Molineux down the years.

‘I still am.’

As a Woking fan, I’ve got no closer than away games at Hednesford Town, Stafford Rangers and Telford United, but as a sports reporter covering two Lancashire sides I visited Willenhall Town a couple of times at the chillingly-named Noose Lane. Not the sort of place you want to hang around if your team’s just won there.

‘Blimey, oh dear! Ha ha!’

And I did see Wolves at their lowest ebb, close to my old patch at Aldershot. It was the first year of the play-offs, Graham Turner’s visitors missing out on promotion from Division Four after a two-legged final defeat in Steve Bull’s first full season. However, they were back in the top flight five seasons later under the same boss. And who knows, maybe I’ll get to Molineux in the FA Cup one day.

‘It’s getting in nowadays – there are so many season ticket holders, selling around 24,000 straight away. But yeah, we were bottom of the fourth division a couple of weeks at one stage. I went all through that, travelling up from London to watch the Wolves. Night games, whatever. I’d drive up, watch them, drive back down again… even through the shit days.’

Talking of home ground, I understand you saw Jim’s second band, The Stalkers’ sole live show at Codsall Youth Club in November 1965.

‘Yeah, it was four shillings to get in, a lot of money. I don’t remember much about it, but the place was packed. The drummer was good, he had a calliper on his leg. They played ‘My Generation’, James playing bass, everybody had their mouths open watching him. That was only down the road to us. We’d walk to and from school together.

Did you attend the same secondary school?

‘Yes, Codsall Secondary Modern… but we called it Codsall College of Knowledge. That’s where I reached the peak of my intellectual knowledge!’

They couldn’t teach you any more?

‘Ha! No. When I was 15, I was asked to leave!’

There are great photos of the Axemen and the Stalkers in the book. I’m particularly taken by his headcoat – his deerstalker hat. Did he wear it around the house?

‘No! That was purely for the photos.’

But it was big brother Raymond who saw the ’N Betweens first.

‘Well, Raymond was two years older. And when you’re young, two years is a lot. While James was still at school, Ray would be going uptown then. He had one of those dansette record players and always had mates coming round and playing, so James would hear things and wonder, ‘What’s this?’

‘But I think it was one of the lads at school who got James into them. I remember he suddenly sparked off at me once about them. He said, ‘Ah, these ’N Betweens are brilliant!’ When he saw them, it blew his mind. He was a big Beatles fanatic, yet James talked about the ‘N Betweens as much as the Fabs. Then he ended up bloody joining them!’

And soon enough you’d be in the audience, your brother an ’N Between.

‘I was out front at all the gigs. I’d listen to make sure everything was okay. And nobody could touch them then. Compared to the ’N Betweens, then Ambrose Slade and Slade, nobody could touch them!’

The first single from the classic four-piece that became Slade was a cover of New Jersey outfit The Young Rascals’ ‘You Better Run’, with a different version released the same day in early December ‘66 by Listen, featuring the vocals of a certain Robert Plant, a friend of Noddy Holder, both bands having supported Cream at Willenhall Baths a few weeks before.

‘Yeah, I never saw Listen. I never knew who Robert Plant was or who John Bonham was. But the band that became Slade started coming round our house when I was around 13. I’d be off to school and they’d come to collect James and go off rehearsing.’

Do you recall your mum’s disappointment at Jim not pursuing his classical music talent, going down the pop, beat, rhythm and blues route instead? Or were you too young to pick up on that?

‘I know Mum was very disappointed at him not going to art school. I think it was more of a case as he developed and started wanting a guitar that they just let him go his own way. There was disappointment though. Dad wanted him to follow in that direction too.’

When the hits started drying up for Slade, Frank was very much involved and instrumental – so to speak – in helping set up Cheapskate Records with Jim in 1979. He also featured in Jim’s side project, The Dummies, recording for that label. Was that your way of trying to drum up fresh interest?

‘No pun there, eh! Drum up some interest? Ha ha! Well, it was a case of me badgering James when they came back from America. I kept saying, ‘James, I’ve got these ideas…’ I always had decent ideas. ‘What about we do a cover version of ‘When the Lights Are Out’? It’s such a great song.’

‘It took a bit of persuading, but we did it and it turned out well, then it was about trying to get an outlet. I said, ‘There’s lots of indie labels about, why don’t we have our own?’ James got into the idea, so I got the records pressed, phoned radio stations, borrowed Lou’s car and travelled around the country promoting the record.

‘It was Record of the Week on Radio One, and when I turned up at Radio Luxembourg for the second single {‘Didn’t You Use To Use To Be You?’} in their reception, I heard, “The guest for today, Frank Lea!’ And I thought, “What the fuck’s that? I remember a Round Table type programme – they played records and we talked about them, with these record company bods there from RCA and so on, talking bollocks. One record came on and I said, ‘It’s okay, but a typical American band, although the production’s fantastic.’ And they went, ‘Oh, we never thought about the production.’ I thought, ‘So this is what it’s all about, eh?’

‘I never conformed with what the industry was doing. I always did it my way. When people said, ‘You can’t do this,’ I’d question, ‘Why not?’’

Then came the resurgence on the back of Slade’s August 1980 Reading Festival triumph, but all was not smooth behind the scenes, as illustrated by Frank’s fall-out with legendary Slade manager Chas Chandler. Did they rub each other up the wrong way?

‘No, we had a fight… and I lost. Ha ha!’

Chas was a commanding figure, chiselled out in an era when it wasn’t the greatest career plan to argue with your manager.

‘Well, he was a big bloke, yeah! We were in Colin Newman’s office, because it had all fallen apart, you know.’

Colin Newman was (and remains so) Slade’s long-time business manager and administrator, and I should point out that Frank’s talking about the band’s fortunes falling apart rather than their office at London’s Portland Studios – the former IBC Studios in Portland Place, handy for Oxford Circus tube station, bought out by Chandler in 1976.

‘I got there first, and Colin said, ‘Frank, if Chas starts throwing his weight about, don’t… erm…’

Antagonise him?

‘Yeah! It was, ‘Don’t take the bait, just stay calm, do it that way.’ So I did, but I could see Chandler’s face when he walked in the office. Aggressive. His thinking was that he’d been in music longer than me, so deserved the money… and I didn’t.

‘I said, ‘How d’you work that one out? We’ve a 50-50 partnership here…’ With that, he got up, twisted my arm up my back, pushed me against the door, my face squashed. It was my right arm, and he was hurting me. So I thought, ‘No, I’ll stop.’

‘But on Newman’s desk there was a brass ashtray, and I thought, ‘Well, I can reach that with my left hand. I’ll fucking finish him, and as he goes backwards – I was a fit bloke and through playing the drums I’d got muscles and was very agile – I’ll stick the boot in. If I don’t he’ll get up and kill me!

‘I thought about what Colin said though – ‘just stay calm’. And he was saying to Chas, ‘Just stop playing about and sit down!’ And Chas did. He sat down and said, ‘Sign the cheque,’ expecting me to sign all the money over to his name. I said, ‘No!’ He said, ‘If you don’t, I’ll break your arm.’ But I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to sign anything.’ When he finally let go, we sat down, then I left, saying, ‘Don’t expect me to sign anything. I’m not signing anything till everything’s sorted out.’ And that was that.

‘But I was worried about James turning round, saying, ‘You’re causing trouble within the band with all this.’ So in the end, I part-capitulated – I didn’t want the band thinking I was a pest and nuisance.

‘What started it off was when they did ‘We’ll Bring the House Down’. I was there in Portland Studios when that was recorded, and it would go on to peak at No.10.

‘I recall Chandler walking into these massive offices – I had mine on one side of this huge reception area and he was over in another office – with his long coat on a sunny day, wearing dark mirror glasses, holding a cigarette holder with a cigarette in it. He came over and his face was like thunder. I said, ‘Alright, Chas?’ and he said, ‘From now on, I’m the manager. You do not talk to the band. Not even your brother. It’s nothing to do with you anymore.’

‘I said, ‘What’re you going on about?’ and he repeated, ‘I’m the manager. You don’t talk to any of them, and you don’t speak to your brother.’ I said, ‘But he’s my brother!’ And he repeated, ‘You don’t speak to your brother!’ That’s what started it. I thought, ‘I’m not going to be told by the likes of him.’

That said, I think the band themselves would say to a man that Chas was the right man for the job, at least in the early years.

‘Erm…’

Put it this way. They respected him because of his prior experience with The Animals as a member of a successful band and then as a manager with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

‘Oh, big time! If Chas had said, ‘Jump!’ They’d ask, ‘How high?’ The collaboration was perfect, and Chas had big respect for them as well.’

Did you make up?

‘Later on. I ended up as a director for Colin Newman, and Chandler would come in to see him and it was, ‘Alright, Chas!’ ‘Alright, Frank!’ It was time, you know.’

After Cheapskate Records, there was also Speed Records, briefly, with a few more acts signed and plenty of radio airplay, not least for a band I vaguely recall, True Life Confessions (not realising there was a Slade link – they supported them at Hammersmith Odeon once, something else Frank has a tale about). He also signed Wolfie Witcher, who I saw a few times in the second half of the Eighties, hosting cracking Saturday afternoon shows at the Caernarvon Castle, Camden. A right character and top entertainer, with his band The Brew proper pros, playing soul covers, blues and R & B standards, giving them a London flavour, making them very much their own.

There was also a link with Trojan Records, the classic British label founded by Duke Reid, Lee Gopthal and Chris Blackwell in 1968, the year of the ‘N Betweens’ defining residence in the Bahamas. Soon, Trojan became a byword for the best in ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub. But Frank’s involvement came after the label was bought out by the afore-mentioned Colin Newman in 1985, his duties alongside the label’s bread and butter work re-releasing its classic catalogue, under the Sanctuary Records group banner. Frank was a director there for 18 years, chiefly signing fresh acts.

In short, he’s kept himself busy, even if there are still a few customers awaiting his return to finish plumbing jobs all these years on.

‘Well, I’ve been retired 24 years now… but only ever really worked about 19 years of my life! I didn’t start properly till I was 32, and finished when I was 51.’

Have you got family of your own?

‘Knocking about somewhere. Ha ha! For some reason I’ve never liked the idea of being tied down. I like the idea of freedom, doing what I want to do when I want to do it. That’s the way I’ve always been and I’ve been in a position to do that, my life revolving around that.’

Which is very different to Jim.

‘Quite the opposite.’

A six-decade marriage is rather rare in the entertainment world.

‘It is! And I’ll be going down there after this phone call.’

With that, Frank was away, probably with a fresh idea or two to put James’ way. And long may that continue.

For this site’s review of How Does It Feel: Slade and Beyond by Jim Lea & Daryl Easlea (Omnibus Press, 2026), follow this link, the book available now from all good bookshops, and online too.

Meanwhile, there are still a few copies remaining of Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade (Spenwood Books, 2023) available via this scribe – signed and dedicated if you like, just say the word – or via this Burning Shed link