THE LAST time I was within gobbing distance of Squeeze was 14 years ago in a South London boozer populated by the sort of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals you'd cross continents, never mind the street, to avoid.

'Cool For Cats' had just stormed its yobbish way into the top 10 and yup, much to my eternal embarrassment, I was among the pimply adolescents down the front aiming suitably viscous greenies at the band.

"So you're one of the bastards that used to spit," remonstrates Glenn Tilbrook who obviously doesn't appreciate that the custom was an outpouring of love and affection, as well as bodily fluids.

"I ought to give you a smack in the teeth for that! No, it was funny how we got lumped in with the punk movement because up until the Clash and the Pistols broke, we'd been supporting groups like Dire Straits who were virtually our next door neighbours. I suppose we had some of the right credentials - we were quite loud and snotty when we started plus we came from a working-class area and had shortish hair which were both street cred essentials.

"I know the kind of gigs you're talking about," he continues with a smile beginning to creep across his face. "There used to be bouncers on the door keeping punters in rather than out and it wasn't that unusual to look down and see half the crowd rolling around the floor in a mass brawl. Things were pretty wild back then!."

Those phlegm-filled days are now long gone but apart from a brief sabbatical when Glenn and his main songwriting partner Chris Difford decided to go it alone, Squeeze have continued to peddle their perfect pop wares to an ever expanding and, whisper it, maturing audience.

"I'm glad myself and Chris did the Difford & Tilbrook album because it gave us the chance to muck around with ideas that the rest of the lads wouldn't necessarily have been into. When we broke up in 1982, the divorce seemed more or less permanent and it wasn't until we got back together in '84 for what was supposedly a one-off pub gig that we realised how much we missed and needed each other. It might sound trite but there's a certain feeling, a chemistry between us that's impossible to replicate outside of the band."

Bearing in mind that Difford & Tilbrook didn't exactly set the charts alight, did it worry Glenn that reforming Squeeze might be seen as a cynical attempt to resuscitate his career?

"There was never any question of turning the clock back and trying to relive former glories. We had the same feeling then as we have now and that's, artistically and creatively, there's still a lot left for us to achieve.

"I know I'm obliged to say this," Glenn adds with a chuckle, "but I honestly think our current album, Some Fantastic Place, is the best we've ever done and I'm expecting it to take us to a new and different level of success. The songwriting's very concise and accessible and there are none of the obscure twists and turns that probably caused our last record to sell dismally."

POP SAVIOURS

While gold discs have been a bit thin on the ground these past few years, Squeeze remain a huge live draw on the UK circuit and are currently slogging their way through a 25 date tour which includes a string of sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall. A nice little earner, sure, but isn't Glenn getting a tad long in the tooth for this living-out-of-a-suitcase lark?

"Fuck off," he replies sweetly, "I'm not that old! Playing live is something I've always loved, apart from a paranoid period I went through at the end of 1982 which was triggered off by going on one night and forgetting all the words. Basically, I hadn't been looking after myself properly on the road and I dried up. The more I worried, the worse it got and in the end I had to have cue sheets stuck to the monitors."

Considering that Squeeze have so much new material to draw on, does he find it frustrating that people still come along expecting to hear 'Slap & Tickle' and 'Up The Junction'?

"No, those numbers are part of what we are now, they're our 'roots', and I'm proud of them. Moving on doesn't mean burying the past - there has to be continuity. I've stayed living in South-East London and it's nice being able to walk down Deptford High Street and meeting the same old characters that were there when I was a kid. There's a sense of belonging."

Bearing in mind that the band recently gave the go ahead for what is arguably their finest three minutes, 'Cool For Cats', to be used for a telly commercial, how would Glenn react to U2's assertion that allowing a song to be rehashed in the name of flogging tampons or choccy biccies amounts to prostituting your art?

"Well, I'm not exactly sure what U2's attitude is but if anybody believes that and are in a financial position where they can afford to say 'no', fair dues to them. Personally, if someone wants to pay me a five figure sum for something I wrote half a lifetime ago and I can use the money to keep on doing what I'm doing, brilliant. They can have the rest of the back catalogue too!"

Squeeze, along with Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Pete Shelley, typify that wonderfully maverick and essentially British breed of songwriters who made Top of the Pops a 'must see' during the late seventies. I know this is a rather old foggy-ish question but does Glenn reckon there's anybody around today who's in the same league?.

"They definitely exist but they're a lot harder to find than they used to be. I don't buy this notion of Suede as pop saviours - I've got the album and it's nothing remarkable.

There's one new writer who I think's fantastic and that's a 19-year-old Polydor have signed called Chris Bray - he's going to be massive. The Teenage Fanclub aren't bad either although they're very derivative. Then again, all the best tunes are nicked from somewhere else!

"The advantage the nineties do have over the seventies though," he adds slyly, "is that you don't get spat at anymore."

Touché!