One half of the legendary band Squeeze, Chris is a wonderful songwriter. I happen to love his voice too, so it was a great stroke of fortune that he agreed to sing backing vocals on Jumping Ship.
I can’t remember how we were originally introduced. It was probably through Leo Abrahams, as most musical magic in my life has been channelled through him. We met up at Maison Bertaux in Soho, ate some nice cream cakes and drank tea for a couple of hours as I agreed to build his website, and subsequently the app to release his album Cashmere If You Can. It was a lot of fun, and at the end of the process, he gave me one of the guitars I used on the record, a 1964 Epiphone Frontier which sounds fabulous.
I had Chris in mind pretty early for this track, and in fact sent him a demo in late 2012. I wanted that Squeeze sound of having a low voice an octave below the lead, exactly as Chris used to do with Glen Tilbrook to get that signature sound of theirs which I loved so much growing up. You can only imagine how chuffed I felt listening back to that same voice singing an octave under my voice.
So there we have it – Mr Difford, the powerful undercurrent of Jumping Ship.
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