Slade are now back home after their States breakthrough bid, with a record of successes and failures. Keith Altham met the band in San Francisco and saw them play.

 Here are his and their views on U.S. reaction

WILL SLADE break America or will America break Slade?  that was the question being resolved by the Noddy Holder Experience as they  rocked their away around I the States on a two month blitzkrieg that was expected to bring them the kind of success and recognition they now enjoy in Britain.

I met the band shortly after their concert at the St. Monica Civic Auditorium in Los Angles, where they played to a half capacity audience and received mixed reviews. L.A. Times writer Robert Hilburn reported that Slade were 'good' but not 'very very good', and it was too early to expect them to' headline in a 3,OOO-seater venue. I also saw Slade supporting Humble Pie at San Francisco's Winterland  and that was another story. There they did well, getting through to an audience who had obviously come to hear Pie. The folks were willing enough to respond to Slades' continuous exhortation to 'get it on'. Clap and stomp they did  although admittedly they weren't ecstatic.

Slade's major problem is to find a younger audience. Because major rock concert audiences in America are stiII  eIder students, going to see more established bands like Pie, the Stones, Zeppelin, Tull and ELP. And that's not Slade's bag. They need an audience somewhere Between the 'Osbores' and the Jackson Five, but how to reach them without a hit single or a major TV hype is the problem facing manager Chas Chandler. Slade have a foot in the door. Now they've got to squeeze into the living room.

Still, the make or break situation doesn't appear to have affected the group's good humour and point-blank frankness. There was no tension in the dressing room in San Francisco, where Dave Hill was preening himself in a 'Super Yob'  costume designed from the  NME cartoon conception some weeks ago.   Bill Graham was being introduced all round by Chas Chandler as 'the man who invented British rock promotion in America', and was made immediately welcome. Slade have this innate ability to put people at their ease - absolutely no one gets the cold shoulder.

Noddy Holder was as ready as ever to answer direct questions on their present dilemma.

"I think we're making progress, the two best shows we did were at the Academy in New York where we drew much the same sort of crowd as J. Geils,  last time we supported, but this time we topped. "We'd like a younger crowd but with the state of things in America I think the parents are keeping the kids at home. We'll get to them, but it'll take time. "A hit would certainly help - so far the most we have managed was to make 60 in the charts with 'Gudbye T' Jane'. But 'Cum On Feel The Noize'  seems to be going well now, and  that could be the one.

"Visual communication is important for us, so we've recorded an 'In concert' TV appearance and another show called 'Midnight Special' which will help.

"Apart from leaving out a few of 'the numbers which haven't been released in America we're not changing the act or the presentation. They have to get used to us. "We've had some ultra coolies in the audience and I've had to sort them out. I just told them they'd paid their money so they'd got to move. And they did. I've done that a few times and it's really broken the ice."

I thought it might prove interesting if they employed the same verbal assault on any Hells Angels present

"Oh we've had Angels at the concerts - even had some of them on stage," said Nod calmly. "We haven't tried insulting them yet, though. I'm not really being insulting anyway. y' know - it's just a bit of rough humour which makes them realise we're human.

"For example. we came in for a bit of stick from some Pie supporters during our only slow number, 'Be Home Soon'. I just said: 'Look, if you want to see Pie they'll  be on soon, so why don't you just go out for a crap while we're on?' It's crude but It works because it breaks the ice.

"At the Academy in New York we got a really great reception, and the most disappointing thing was to read a report which said that half the audience walked out.  It just wasn't true.  Santa Monica was a different story because our P.A. broke down. but those kinds of inaccurate reports are so damaging."

It's certainly a fact that reports from America of isolated gigs on the West Coast can give a false impression of how big a group is over the whole of the country. You can be huge in Chicago, for example, and draw nothing in Los Angeles.  Cities only a few hundred miles apart are often as different in their acceptance of an artist as two countries like Germany and Italy. Holder affirmed that on small dates  Slade have been completely successful. "We've done a couple of small clubs and packed in a couple of thousand, and it was just like the old Marquee days. We did two in Ohio, for example. and they were solid,  a real gas."

The only one who seems affected by the stress of touring is bass player Jimmy Lea, who looks like he could do with a massive vitamin boost. "He's just going senile," ribbed Holder. "He's going bald and deaf, we're thinking of getting his brother Frank out here to replace him. He got that beautiful red nose the other night when an over enthusiastic fan bopped him one. He moans and groans about it all, but he'd hate to be left behind."

On their return to Britain Slade will play the massive new London Earls Court venue at which Bowie had so much trouble recently, I  asked Noddy Holder if he was concerned.

"We never suffer from undue tension because we have so much fun backstage," said Holder. "It's always hardest for the first person in a new venue like that. The problems should be worked out by the time we get back.

"It certainly won't be the biggest crowd we've played to. We had 45,000 in Melbourne and had to play in a thunderstorm., Now that worried me."

Whatever happens in America. it seems highly unlikely that they'll alter their approach.

"We've found our format and we're sticking to it," says Holder. "When people say we're 'mindless rock and roll' I like it  -  that's a nice description. We don't aim for the head anyway - we're a rock and guts band. "I don't accept the criticism that all our records sound the same. 'Get Down' And Get With It' was an out-and out rock and roller, and then 'Coz I Luv You' was much, much more commercial, with an electric violin. 'Look What You Dun' and 'Take Me Bak Ome'  were the only two on which I could hear any real similarity. "What we're not going to do is to change policy simply. because other bands are having success on a different basis. Our act is now set up in a certain way and we know it works. We enjoy the bag' we've made for ourselves."

I wondered if the group were allowing their visual  images to bury any musical validity they might possess; and whether things like their campaigns for British Rail weren't just a bit too polite for Slade. Are they turning into a bunch of posers?

"We look on it as a laugh," said Holder. "It's important to have our faces known and recognised by people. We don't want to be nonentities. I don't give a shit if people think we're a bunch of posers - maybe we are."

My most lasting memory of Slade in the States is of their press reception in Los An_geles, where they were surrounded by groupies galore and the glam and glitter brigade. A bemused Holder was staggering around, smashed out of. his head, muttering  'They're all mad, quite mad.'

Manager Chas Chandler, former Animals bass man who also produced and managed Jimi Hendrix, was talking to an earnest rock reporter who suggested that Slade's performance, that evening had been somewhat limited. The normally easy-going Mr Chandler visibly stiffened, and looked down from his considerable height upon the wretched youth.

"Listen," said super Geordie with all the panache of a trade union leader admonishing a rebel member,

 "I think I know more about rock and roll music than you do,  AND I THINK THEY PLAYED GREET MON " There's just no answer to that.

                                                   By KEITH ALTHAM