Neville ‘Noddy’ Holder MBE, 76, is the musician who found fame in the early 1970s as the lead singer of Slade. The band have had 13 UK Top 40 albums and 24 UK Top 40 singles, including six number 1 hits including Coz I Luv You, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Cum on Feel the Noize and the million-selling Merry Xmas Everybody .
Since leaving Slade in 1992, he has branched out into acting and radio presenting. He lives in Cheshire with his wife Suzanne.
How did your childhood affect your attitude towards money?
I grew up in Walsall, in the Black Country, in a terraced house where three families shared a toilet in the backyard. My mother was a school cleaner, my father a window cleaner. The barter continued: for cleaning the butcher’s windows, he received pieces of meat. I would help during the holidays.
My uncle made me a puppet theater. At seven, quite the entrepreneur, I put on puppet shows and charged the kids a penny to watch – then saved it to buy records. My parents never had a bank account. I had a piggy bank and they bought me £2 premium bonds which I still have.
My father had a greenhouse and sold tomatoes and potatoes near the bus stop. So making money regardless of the way I was taught. In bands, I went through everything with a thin comb, setting aside a touring budget to keep our heads above water.
Before Slade (in the late 1960s the band was called the ‘N Betweens’), we didn’t have a business manager. We didn’t earn much working in clubs; after paying for gas or new tires on the van, we would split the other four ways. We toured like that for five years before we had a hit. When we started selling records, we had to hire managers, accountants, lawyers; you will lose control. Suddenly it gets too big and you’re traveling the world.
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