Nobody's Fools

Nobody's Fools is the sixth studio album by the British rock group Slade. It was released in March 1976 and reached No. 14 in the UK. The album was produced by Chas Chandler. Musically, the album showed the band dropping their "loud" and "rocky" type songs, as they moved towards a more "American" soul/pop sound. Tasha Thomas was also hired to provide backing vocals—the first Slade album to feature female backing. British fans accused the band of selling out and forgetting about their fan base in the UK, as the band had been in the U. S. for most of 1975, trying to crack the market. The album was Slade's first (since their rise to fame) not to reach the UK Top 10, and to drop out of the chart after a chart run of only four weeks. It would be their last album to make a UK chart appearance until the 1980 compilation Slade Smashes!.

Since their rise to fame in 1971, Slade had failed to achieve a major breakthrough in the United States. During the period of 1972–73, the band began touring there as a step towards trying to crack the market. A number of American cities took positively to Slade, including St Louis, Philadelphia and New York City. However, in other areas, the band's anthemic, audience participation dominated act was less enthusiastically received. By 1975, the band began feeling stale and felt they had achieved as much success in the UK and Europe that they could. Slade and their manager Chas Chandler decided that the next best career move was to try and crack America. The band agreed to move to there and build a reputation for their live performances from scratch, just as they had in the UK. Holder said in 1975: "During the past five years when the band peaked, we did five major tours of Britain, six tours of Europe, two tours of Australia, two of Japan, visited the USA a few times, made a film you can understand why we felt more than a little jaded. We reckoned that we needed to undertake a fresh challenge to regain that old spark." In America, "Nobody's Fool" was the only single to be released from the album, however the neither the album or single made any chart impact. Reflecting on the album in an early 1986 fan club interview, Hill said: "Nobody's Fools was a bit different, wasn't it? That was recorded in America, but it didn't happen over there." The album has been noted for still standing up today as a "varied and highly entertaining listen" and the band themselves remain proud of the album. Both drummer Don Powell and Holder rate it as their favourite Slade long player. In a 1987 interview, Holder said: "That is the only one I can really sit down at home and listen to from start to finish." In a 1976 interview, Lea said: "I am really proud of the album and believe it is the best album we have ever done. I have no especial favourite track on the album – I love them all. I'm sure you will see quite an American influence on a lot of the tracks and we believe the hard work we put in, in America had paid dividends."

In a 1976 fan club interview, Holder spoke of the album's recording: "We recorded the album in New York, where we spent something like six weeks on it. We did it all in one go, more or less, well we also did a couple of days in a L. A. studio a couple of months before, just to get into the swing of things." To allow the band to create what Holder described as a "really first class album", the band decided to take some time off from touring: "We decided not to rush the album, like we have done on past recording sessions. We wanted to get everything just so. It wasn't just a 'wam bam' job. We had six weeks in the studio to get better and better, so the playing got better, and the sound got better, so yeah in terms of improvement it's a big step ahead. The sound and production is the best yet." Speaking of the musical influences on the album, Holder revealed: "Ya know we've been influenced by a lotta things, particularly soul. We used some coloured chicks for back up vocals and I really enjoyed working with them, it was something different for us, and at the same time it gave our sound a lot of body! Those girls have great voices. We enjoyed doing all sorts of sounds, like country, funk, rock. I mean every track has its own particular style." Lea also revealed in a 1976 fan club interview: "We just got a terrific buzz when we were working on the album. We were more relaxed than we've ever been, more willing and able to be more experimental in the studios, and we took it easy and relaxed. Certainly we felt we had a good product in the making, so it seemed right to put everything we had into it."

The band decided to name the album after the title track, "Nobody's Fool". The band were originally unsure of what to call the album, but when listening to the title track one day, they decided to add an 's' to 'Fool'.