Chris Squire: news about his music &
legacy
This page last updated: 27 Feb 2021
Sessions
XYZ
In an interview for Rolling Stone published Nov 2012,
Jimmy Page (ex-Led Zeppelin) said that he has
multi-track recordings from the 1981 XYZ sessions with Chris
Squire and Alan White and that he would like to see these released
at some point. Squire's response to this came in a Jan
2013 interview:
Interviewer: Jimmy Page recently brought up [...] the XYZ sessions [...] even suggesting the idea of releasing some of it. Are you on board with that?
Squire: I wouldn’t have a problem. It was fairly unfinished when we left it; it was pretty much in a demo form, mainly. So it would require some more work. There were only four tunes that were involved in that, so if there is an idea for a serious release of it, there would have to be a little bit more done on it.
[...]
Most of the material was songs I had written actually, although Jimmy did contribute. [...] Yeah, we might try and revive it in the future. We’d have to get together, of course, and welcome it, but that wouldn’t be something I’d be opposed to.
While Squire refers to "four tunes" here and that's what has been
bootlegged, there have been past indications that there was
further material beyond those four. A Feb
2013 interview then has this exchange:
Interviewer: [Page] said that there are some multi-track recordings that exist that he’d love to see come out. Would the two of you have to do some additional work to make that happen?
Squire: Probably, yeah. There are bass tracks and drum tracks and guitar tracks, but there wasn’t much in the way of overdubs. I did quite a few vocals and harmonies, but they were somewhat rough. It was intended just really to be demos that we were making anyway. So that’s where it got to really. I know you can probably access that stuff — it’s out there on the web and you can find it, but they are just really rough mixes. How they got out there I’m not really sure, but that’s the way those things happen. So yes, if we seriously did anything with those, they’d need a little bit more work on them.
A Dec
2013 interview had another exchange on the topic. The
interviewer asks whether Page has been in contact about releasing
the material. Squire replies, "No! [...] we haven’t gotten in
touch about it." He continues, "And you have to remember that that
stuff would have to be finished off a bit more, because what we
did together was really demo-ish with rough edges. I think it
would need a bit more actual work."
In a Jul
2015 interview, after Squire's death, Page was asked about
wanting to release the XYZ tapes:
Absolutely, but I haven’t worked on it. It’s a series of multi-tracks, it was something that I was wanting to do after all of the Led Zeppelin stuff was out, I wanted to contact Chris and Alan. It’s really sad that we’ve lost him. The music was really good. It’s the first thing that I did after we lost John Bonham. I had a studio at the time, and they wanted to get together, and I thought this was like laying down the gauntlet… I’m not curling up under a rock and hiding [after Led Zeppelin’s breakup]. And these guys are really, really good so I had to be really good too. It was really an interesting blend, and really good music.In his Mar 2017 Q&A, White said:
I saw Jimmy Page recently in Seattle [...] we had a chat and he mentioned he was thinking about digging out the tapes and remixing the XYZ music, finishing some of the tracks. [...] I don’t know when that might happen but we wr[o]te some great music together with Chris so I’d be very interested in pursuing that project.In a Mar 2019 interview, White said:
White: a few years ago I was at a function [...] celebrating the life of Jimmy Page. I was talking to Jimmy for a while [...] Jimmy said, “I want to dig those tapes up and finish them off and release an album.” I said, “Just call me.” I think he put the project on hold though when he got back to England.To Classic Rock in Oct 2020, Page again said he hoped the material would get a release, saying, "it's really good music". However, in a Rolling Stone interview published the same month, he said:
Interviewer: Wow. It would be pretty amazing if you finally finished it and put it out.
White: Well, I need to get in touch with Jimmy and be like, “Let’s finish those tapes off.” Maybe we can get Robert [Plant] to sing on them or something. That would be quite amazing.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost Chris now. It was something that I always hoped to do, as some sort of project, to get hold of him and Alan. It’s not even worth talking about, because it’s all speculation. I haven’t had a chance to really listen to the stuff and see just exactly what we do have, and what we don’t have. I don’t have any mixdowns of it. If I did, I’m not quite sure where they are now.For one day only (4 Jan 2021), Page uploaded a sample of a piece he called "Rock & Ruin", which was recycled into The Firm's "Fortune Hunter", to his website. He wrote on Facebook, "On this day in 1981, I played the XYZ sessions at The Sol. [...] Head to my website today to hear a rare sample of Rock & Ruin - a rough mix of something I presented to them, but their songs were more impressive."
| Other re-releases and
compilations "Hold Out Your Hand" from Squire's Fish Out of Water is included on the 3CD compilation Riding the Rock Machine: British Seventies Classic Rock (Grapefruit, CRSEGBOX088), due 23 Apr 2021. The release celebrates some lesser known classic rock songs. It comes with a 40-page booklet and also includes tracks by The Moody Blues, Uriah Heep, ELP, ELO, The Who, Jethro Tull, Foreigner, Status Quo, Hawkwind, Roxy Music, 10cc and Argent. Esquire, the eponymous debut album by Chris's then wife's band, has had a limited edition vinyl re-release. Chris sang on and helped produce the album: see under Nikki Squire. Autobiography In mid-Nov 2007, Squire announced on his website that, "In the not too distant future, after delaying the project for awhile, I'm going to start work on my book which will cover my experiences, anecdotes, etc. over the last forty years". In an Aug 2012 Innerview, Squire said he is working on his autobiography with actor/musician/film-maker Vincent Gallo: "I'm doing interviews with him and we're recording them. Vince and I have been good friends for years. He's the godfather of my son. [...] the interviews involve me just remembering stuff about my life. I think the project will take a couple of years. We'll see how it ends up." He talked more about the book in an Apr 2014 interview: I sit down with him [Gallo], we talk, we record it, then he goes and transcribes it. |
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Any news, additions or corrections, please e-mail Henry Potts.
Thanks.