Rob O’Connor / Submitted photoBritish new wave band Squeeze, known for a string of ’80s hits, will play at 7:30 tonight at the Tower Theatre.

Squeeze reunited for the second time in 2007 and released its 14th studio album and first in 17 years, “Cradle to the Grave,” in 2015.

In the eight years in between, the British new wave juggernaut’s main songwriters Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford frequently hinted at new recordings in interviews. And it’s not as if the duo — often compared to that other British songwriting juggernaut, Lennon-McCartney — wasn’t trying, as Difford said during a recent interview with GO! Magazine. So what happened?

“Not a lot, really,” Difford said from a tour stop in San Diego four days before the band’s show at the Tower Theatre on Friday night. “I think we were kind of a bit frigid about going in the studio and writing. And some of the writing that we had done wasn’t really that great, I didn’t think. We were kind of trying to find our way.”

It might be surprising to hear about this lack of songwriting confidence from Difford, the man responsible for the lyrics to some of the most recognizable new wave hits of the late ’70s and ’80s. “Cool For Cats,” “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell),” “Black Coffee in Bed” and, of course, “Tempted” all came from Difford and Tilbrook (who writes most of the band’s music and melodies).

Fortunately the band had some help in the form of BBC sitcom “Cradle to Grave,” based on the early life of English writer Danny Baker. Difford and Tilbrook were tapped to write music for the show’s eight episodes.

“It’s just good to have a focusing tool,” Difford said. “Sometimes when people go in to make records, they don’t know what they’re gonna do, and they kind of try out lots of different things and there’s no formula. … And because we hadn’t written anything for so many years, (the TV show) was much appreciated.”

Though originating as a soundtrack to a TV show, the album stands on its own, flowing much like 1981’s sprawling “East Side Story” while also evolving and expanding the band’s palette from its ’90s albums. The band — now featuring Tilbrook, Difford, newest member Lucy Shaw on bass, keyboardist Stephen Large and drummer Simon Hanson — has so far toured the album in its native U.K. to positive responses. The Tower show will be Squeeze’s first Bend appearance.

“People couldn’t get enough of the record; they just wanted more new songs,” Difford said. “And I think there’s a vast majority of our audience who like it when we play new things, because they hear the progress and where we’re heading. And then there’s the bystander, the Squeeze bystander, who just wants to hear ‘Tempted’ and all the normal hits. So when we play, we come to a cross section of old and new, and that way we try and keep both halves of the audience happy.”

Squeeze is on the road with an old friend. Chris Collingwood, lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for Fountains of Wayne, will open the Tower show with a stripped-down version of his new band, Look Park. Fountains of Wayne toured with Squeeze on one of its first reunion tours, and Collingwood said he’s looking forward to this round.

“The reason we (Fountains of Wayne) got to know Glenn to begin with was he was covering one of my songs, and I don’t know if it was on YouTube or somebody told me about it,” he said. “He ended up opening for us in London at some gig, and then we did a tour opening for Squeeze. And we ended up playing a couple of Squeeze songs with Glenn, and he ended up playing ‘Red Dragon Tattoo,’ which is one of my songs, with Fountains of Wayne. It was just amazing, a really, really good time.”

Look Park’s self-titled album, a much lighter yet more expansive pop affair than anything Fountains of Wayne ever released, came out in July. Initially, Collingwood referred in interviews to a solo album in the works following Fountains of Wayne’s last album, 2011’s “Sky Full of Holes.” However, he wanted the project to have a band feel, and recorded with session musicians to achieve a fuller sound.

“I didn’t want people to think of it as just a solo record in between Fountains of Wayne records. Those tend to get ignored,” Collingwood said. “I thought it should have a band name so that it felt like its completely own and completely different thing. Besides that, I’ve never been one of those guys that really likes the sound of my own name. I don’t know why, since I was a kid, it just feels better to feel like it’s a band and to have a band name. It’s just cooler.”

The name Look Park comes from a park in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Collingwood lives. In that way the project is still clearly a Collingwood creation: Fountains of Wayne took its name from a lawn ornament store in Wayne, New Jersey.

“It wasn’t that I was particularly fond of Look Park — which I am, I mean, it’s a nice park, but it’s not like I hung out there quite a lot,” he said. “It’s more like the name has always been interesting to me. Sort of like Fountains of Wayne, where if you say Look Park and people don’t know what your talking about, it doesn’t sound like it makes any sense.”

Collingwood has spoken in past interviews about the difficulties recording “Sky Full of Holes” (and more recently, he’s hinted that Fountains of Wayne may never record together again). The Look Park record, recorded with producer Mitchell Froom (Peter Case, Elvis Costello), had a much easier gestation — though Collingwood wrote and threw out quite a few songs before arriving at the 10 tracks on the record.

“There were some songs that I thought were a little bit too close to Fountains of Wayne-type songs, and those I didn’t finish or I had them done and I threw them out. It’s just an effort to get away from that,” he said. “And (it was a) similar train of thought seeking out Mitchell Froom to produce the record, the idea of being — to get somebody to get me out of my usual habits with recording.”

The writing process for Squeeze’s “Cradle to the Grave” was a bit more arduous, especially from Difford’s perspective.

“For the most part it was one of the most difficult lyrical records for me to concentrate on,” he said. “We had used some melodies in the past that had different lyrics associated to them, so that was quite complicated. It’s difficult to find new inspiration for old songs along the way. However, some of the newer ones worked really well, and yeah, I mean, it’s — I think it did what it was supposed to do. It represented the TV scripts exceptionally well. I think Glenn did a brilliant job of producing it and putting it all together.”

Though Difford and Tilbrook have written together for more than 40 years through various incarnations of Squeeze — not to mention a duo album, “Difford & Tilbrook,” in 1984 — their partnership is still evolving. The sessions for “Cradle to the Grave” were much more collaborative than in the past, Difford said.

“We were virtually in the same room writing songs, whereas in the past we never would communicate that closely,” he said. “That was a good education for us, and it brought out the best in the songs I think. You know, we tiptoed around each other for a while, and then it kind of all fell into place.”

Despite two breaks in the band’s history — from 1982 to 1985 and again from 1999 until this most recent reunion in 2007 — the two bandleaders always seem to end up together again. And with Difford hinting at another new album, the partnership doesn’t look like it will dissolve anytime soon.

“Speaking for myself, I’ve got a massive respect for Glenn and what he does,” Difford said. “He’s very different from me. We kind of consider, in life, different things, but I can’t help but adore him at the same time.”