Glum rocker! Veteran Slade drummer Don Powell is axed… so he sets up a rival band with same name 

He had been in the band for more than 50 years and played on all their No 1 hits in the Seventies.

But yesterday Slade drummer Don Powell revealed he was sacked without warning – by email. Powell, 73, claims he was fired by lead guitarist Dave Hill, his friend since 1963 and the only other original member still playing in the glam rock group.

He says he will continue to perform using the name Don Powell’s Slade – in direct rivalry to his old band, now called Dave Hill’s Slade and promised: ‘Expect loads of classic Slade songs.’

A statement on Powell’s website said: ‘It is with great sadness and regret that Don needs to inform his fans that he now is no longer a member of Dave Hill’s Slade.

‘Dave has sent Don a cold email to inform him that his services are no longer required, after working together and being friends since 1963.’ 

Hill, 73, replied on Slade’s website that ‘our parting of the ways has not come out of the blue and his announcement is not accurate’.

Expanding on his plans to create his own band with former Slade singer Craig Fenney, the announcement revealed he will resume his role as a drummer.

It read: ‘The great news is that Don is now fully fit to play drums again. He is coming back with his band who will be called Don Powell’s Slade.’ 

Powell has had to abstain from playing the drums for more than a year after he snapped the tendons in both knees while travelling home from a gig. 

Slade, from Wolverhampton, formed in the late Sixties and also featured frontman Noddy Holder and violinist/bassist Jim Lea.

They dominated the pop charts in the early Seventies with 17 consecutive Top 20 singles, six of which reached No 1.

Their first chart-topper was Coz I Luv You in October 1971, setting a trend for misspelled song titles – much to the annoyance of many teachers. 

The following year Take Me Bak ‘Ome, Mama Weer All Crazee Now and Gudbuy T’Jane were all big hits as they quickly became known for their flamboyant appearances on Top Of The Pops. 

In early 1973, Cum On Feel The Noize became the first single to go straight to No 1 since The Beatles’ Get Back in 1969.

The follow-up, Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, did the same but a month later Powell suffered broken legs and ribs in a car crash that killed his girlfriend and left him in a coma.

He recovered in time to record the band’s biggest hit, Merry Xmas Everybody, ten weeks later.

Like all Slade’s best-known songs, it was written by Holder and Lea, who share an estimated £1million a year in royalties as a result of it still entering the charts each Christmas. They left the band in 1992. 

Lea, 70, continues a solo career while Holder, 73, has worked as an actor and radio presenter.

Asked about Powell’s split from Hill, Holder told a Birmingham website yesterday: ‘I am surprised and would never have seen this coming.’

Holder fell out with the other members in 1992 and decided to leave the band.

In 2015 he told MailOnline that his biggest regret was that he and the other bandmates did not make peace.

‘It really saddens me that the four guys who were in Slade [Holder, Dave Hill, Jim Lea and Don Powell] can’t get together now and sit round the dinner table.

‘Five years ago I got the four of us together so we could air our grievances face-to-face, but it was so painful I’d never want to repeat it. I was shocked.’

Following their decision to leave the band, Holder and Lea are sill, cushioned by the royalties that amount to the kind of salary a City banker might expect, thanks to their festive hit Merry Xmas Everybody.

During a 2015 with the Daily Mail Holder recalled that he wrote lyrics that were ‘upbeat and optimistic’ to counter the general gloom of those days, with Britain gripped by strikes and working a three-day week.

The record went straight to Number One in the charts on the first day of its release and stayed there for five weeks.

No other Christmas song in modern history has come close to emulating its success as the tune that brings the nation together in the festive season.

Powell is far from the first band member to leave a hit group acrimoniously only to set up a rival namesake band.

In 2008, after 29 years, hit band UB40 split. Lead singer Ali Campbell decided to leave the group due to management and business disputes.

The seven remaining members of the group continued on and replaced Campbell with his brother, Duncan.

By 2014, however, two other original members, Astro and Mickey Virtue left the band to form a trio with Campbell and the Red Red Wine singers also perform under the name UB40.

In 2003 original Beach Boy rocker, Al Jardine, who had a falling out with bandmates, was told in a US court ruling that he was no longer able to tour with the Beach Boys name.

Jardine’s former bandmate Love, who also tours with the Beach Boys name, had complained to the courts his use of the name was confusing fans.

Love, a cousin of Jardine’s fellow founding members Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, negotiated the rights to the use of the Beach Boys name for his touring band in 1998, which had licensed it to his group.