So Here It Is by Dave Hill - Blog Tour - #SoHereItIs - @unbounders

'No Slade = No Oasis. It's as devastating and as simple as that' Noel Gallagher
With six consecutive number one singles and the smash hit ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, Slade were unstoppable. Now, the man whose outlandish costumes and unmistakable hairstyle made Slade one of the definitive acts of the Glam Rock era tells his story.
But there’s more to Dave’s life than rock 'n' roll and good times. So Here It Is also covers the band’s painful break-up, Dave’s subsequent battle with depression, and his recovery from the stroke that threatened to cut short his performing career.
If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be a working-class lad from the Midlands suddenly confronted by unimaginable fame, So Here It Is is the definitive account, told with heart and humour and filled with never-before-seen photos.

So Here It Is by Dave Hill was published by Unbound on 18th October 2018.

Features a foreword by Slade singer Noddy Holder and an afterword by Noel Gallagher.

Slade were the biggest band in the UK in the 1970s, with 23 Top 20 hits, six number one singles. They ‘own’ Christmas with their classic anthem, ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, which has sold over a million copies and charted every year since 1973.

Sold in excess of 5,000 copies in hardback. This paperback edition contains an exclusive new chapter.

This is the first full account of the original Slade’s painful break-up.

Here's a sneaky extract from So Here It Is ....

You can all picture the scene, you’ve all been there. The little bedroom in your parents’ house, all your gear in there, your clothes, your records, your coat hanging up on the back of the door. That was where I was still living at the age of twenty-six, not all that unusual in the 1970s, I suppose.
Only my story is a little bit different. I’ve got the number one record in the UK. Again. I’m in Slade, the biggest pop group in Britain, maybe Europe. I’m on the front cover of Melody Maker. I’m on Top of the Pops all the time. I’ve sprayed a halo of silver paint on that bedroom door around that coat – my dad’s not best pleased with that! I’ve got my Jensen with the YOB1 plate parked in the road outside the house.
It’s not all sweetness and light though. My mom is in hospital, the nut house as we called it. She’s in and out of there a fair bit. My dad is devoted to her, and to me and my sister Carol, but Mom takes up a lot of his time. I suppose that meant we were left to our own devices a bit, that we could follow what we were interested in without
 anybody getting in the way, because Mom wasn’t up to it and Dad was busy. Maybe that’s why we both end up us as performers, looking for a bit of attention, not that I ever felt short of that 

In a lot of ways, that bedroom, that house sums up my story. For all the success I got, the places I went, the things I saw, it was never about escaping from home, which in my case was Wolverhampton. In fact, I’m still there now, pretty much a stone’s throw from where I grew up – mind you, I wasn’t bad at throwing stones as a kid! 

It’s not just a geographical thing. I don’t think I’ve changed much from the kid who grew up on that council estate. For all the money and the fame that’s come and gone and come again, I’ve still got the same values I had then. My family means the world to me – wife, kids, grandkids now, they’re the foundation of everything. 

And then there’s the guitar. I still love picking it up, having a play, getting up in front of people and seeing them having a great time with all those songs. Fifty years and more since I first got on a stage, there’s still no thrill like it when I walk on stage with Slade now, still me and Don Powell together after all we’ve been through.
Then there’s my mom’s depression, which has haunted me all my life, certainly later on. I don’t know if it’s genetic, if it was the fame and the life I led, or whether I just didn’t fall very far from the tree, but I fell prey to the same problems later in my life and had to fight my way out of that. And then I had to get over a stroke that hit me while I was up there on stage.

It’s been some journey, a lot of extremes. Life has taught me a lot on the way, mainly that you can’t have everything at the same time! In the end, getting everything in balance is what really matters, that’s what makes it all work out, and I think I’ve recently got closer to that than I ever did before, even when I was in that bedroom and on top of the music world.
Like I say, it’s been some journey. So here it is…

Dave Hill was born in a castle in Devon and moved with his parents to Wolverhampton when he was a year old. 
As a teenager he taught himself to play guitar and in 1966 formed the band Slade.
After the break-up of the original band, Dave eventually re-formed Slade, and twenty-five years later, they are still regularly touring the world, playing to hundreds of thousands of fans. 
Dave married his wife Jan in 1973, and they have three children and six grandchildren. They still live in Wolverhampton.