Spare the Rod, spoil the child

Few rock ‘n’ roll singers have managed to reboot their careers over five consecutive decades. In the 1960s Roderick David Stewart was Rod The Mod, the husky voiced vocalist with Long John Baldry’s Steampacket and the Jeff Beck Group, before fronting raffish jack-the-lads The Faces, whose bawdy poolroom boogie influenced everyone from the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones to Oasis to The Libertines.

But just as The Faces were beginning to come apart at the seams, Rod kick-started an extraordinary solo career with a series of classy and soulful singles, including the transatlantic number one ‘Maggie May’ and ‘You Wear It Well’. The rest of the 1970s saw him attain even greater commercial success with singles like ‘Sailing’ and ‘D’Ya Think I’m Sexy’, even as critics lambasted his transformation into a high-rolling, spandex-clad stadium rocker.
And yet, whenever it seemed Rod was ready to be put out to pasture, he’d score another hit with ‘80s MTV staples such as ‘Tonight I’m Yours’, ‘Young Turks’ or ‘Baby Jane’, covers of classics like Tom Waits’ ‘Downtown Train’ and Van Morrison’s ‘Have I Told You Lately (That I Love You)’, or anomalies that ranged from the sublime (‘Handbags And Gladrags’ from his 1993 MTV Unplugged set) to the ridiculous (‘All For Love’ with Bryan Adams and Sting). Indeed, in 1998, he made a point of highlighting his jack-the-lad influence on the Britpop generation by covering Oasis and Primal Scream songs for When We Were The New Boys.
Then, in 1999, Stewart was diagnosed as having thyroid cancer, for which he underwent surgery in July 2000, and as a result had to re-learn how to sing. Once recovered, he made an astonishing comeback under the auspices of legendary music business impresario Clive Davis, recording four American Songbook collections, featuring pre-war classics written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George and Ira Gershwin. Late last year, Stewart released Still The Same… Great Rock Classics Of Our Time, featuring a cover of Creedence’s ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’ as its first single. The album entered the Billboard Charts at number one.
Dave Fanning: Rod, congratulations on Still The Same. If I’d said to you in 1999 that the success you’d had in the previous three decades was about to get bigger in the next, would you have believed me?
Rod Stewart: No. It’s been a tremendous five years. I’ve made five albums in four years. I’m very, very happy. They’ve done extremely well. This was a very radical change from the four American Songbooks that were all standards, as you know. They’re songs we grew up with. Not that you’re the same age as me, Dave. (Laughs) If I get my way, which I tend to do, I’d like to do a country album or a blue-eyed soul album.
What about the Rod-Stewart-writing-songs album?
Well the way things are going now, I look at the likes of Paul McCartney and Neil Young and The Rolling Stones and Sir Elton John, they’ve all brought albums out last year that got great critical acclaim but failed in the charts. They just didn’t sell, especially Elton’s last album. That really went down the toilet. All were self-penned albums, so I’m a little wary. I don’t think people want to listen to our age group and what we’ve got to say anymore. I know Bob Dylan’s got to number one, but it contained a lot of covers that he’d changed, old blues songs and things.
Your biggest albums have been mixtures of originals and covers, a Tim Hardin song here, a ‘Maggie May’ there. But do you feel vindicated as an interpretive singer, where you can say “Look, I have a great voice.”
Absolutely, I’m glad you hit the nail on the head. I’ve been waiting for somebody to say that. God’s given me a wonderful instrument – the voice, I’m talking about – and I just really think I can sing anything. I proved it with the American standards. Maybe I am blowing my own trumpet, but it’s God’s gift. Although I’ve worked at it, it’s still God’s gift.
God gave you this great voice, but he nearly took it away in the year 2000, didn’t he?
Yes he did, the little bugger. If I hadn’t gone for the scan it probably would have done me within 18 months, but because I’m so health conscious I always have a full-body scan every year and they found it. So I was in and out of hospital within 24 hours. I can’t actually say I battled cancer and I survived, I was really lucky. I was in and out and they whipped it out.
But the muscles and the vocal cords all had to be moved. So was it like starting off again when that happened?
Yeah it was, you’re right there. Everything has to be moved aside and you suffer memory loss, the muscles forget how to sing. The voice didn’t come back for six months and I had to retrain it to sing again. I could talk a little bit and then the voice would disappear. They didn’t warn me about this before the operation. I still would have had the operation and been really scared. They rip you open all the way through your neck, and for a singer that’s frightening.
So when you had to learn to sing again, did you have to sit at a piano and go, “doh, ray, me” with a piano player.
That’s exactly it.
I can’t imagine your patience. How long did that last?
It lasted for, as I said, six months but I decided it wasn’t working. So what I needed to do was get the band back into the house and we just plugged in and started playing songs. Then I could sing one song, then one and a half songs, then two songs, then three songs and after a couple of months I was singing for two hours.
And that was it?
That was it; I was back.
I imagine you’d advise everybody to get checked out.
Yeah, go for a scan. It could have gone to such a point where I wouldn’t have even known I’d had it and they’d have said, “Sorry mate, you’ve got six months to live.” It was thyroid cancer and the doctor said if you’ve got to have cancer this is the one to have. It’s the most easily treatable.
Did you have any idea that albums of standards by Irving Berlin and the Gershwins would work out as well as they did?
Well, I was comfortable singing the songs, whether they were going to be accepted by the public or not was a different thing altogether. I wanted to make this album 25 years ago, the American Songbooks, but Warner Brothers said no, you’re a rock ‘n’ roll singer and we’re not going to invest any money in a crooner. So I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. When the album was made I said to Arnold, my manager, “If it sells 50,000 I’ll be happy and then I’ve got this music that I feel off my chest.” (But) I’d have killed myself if it sold 50,000. Lying bugger.
In 1971 you had a single out, Tim Hardin’s ‘Reason To Believe’, and the B-side was ‘Maggie May’, which DJs picked up on. Obviously you hadn’t a clue about hits then!
Well, those were the days when you made albums and you didn’t care about singles. Yeah true, the A-side was ‘Reason To Believe’ and they said, “Put that pile of shit on the B-side, Maggie May.” It was a disc jockey in Cleveland that turned it over.
I don’t know if it’s still in the record books, but in September 1971 it was the number one single in Britain and America. And this was a time when singles really meant something. None of Dylan’s albums went to number one, apart from Modern Times. Do you look at that and think, “How did this get to number one?”
Well now I’ve listened to it I can understand, because the head of the record company, Clive Davis, he said, “Try and make concept albums.” I think the Dylan album, from what I’ve listened to, is more of a concept. He’s taken some old blues songs and changed them around a bit.
Are you a lazy songwriter, Rod? At one stage you were really into telling stories: ‘Tonight’s The Night’, ‘The Killing Of Georgie’, ‘Maggie May’, a real coming of age story. I mean, you don’t really write very much, do you?
You’re right, I don’t, and I openly admit I’m a lazy bugger. I’ve always considered myself a storyteller. I feel I’ll release an album of songs when I feel I’ve got somebody to write with and I feel I’ve got the time to do it. I’m a very slow writer, terribly slow. I can’t just knock out five songs in a day.
When we started writing songs with The Faces, they had to lock me and Ronnie Wood in a room. Literally lock us away, let us out in five hours, give us a bottle of wine when we came out with a song. It’s always been like being at school to me. I didn’t like being at school. Although when they’re finished and you hear them on the radio for the first time, they’re like your children; you’re very proud of them.
With The Faces, everything creative you did was in the pub.
Yeah, I can’t remember too much about the Faces days.
Your hair was shambolic, your look was shambolic, you’d walk across the stage and trip on that Celtic scarf. It’s not like that now.
Well, obviously I’m 61 now. I don’t go about doing what I did when I was a lot younger. The reason we were so shambolic was nine times out of ten we were all pissed as farts, and the reason for that was we didn’t think we were very good. You had two or three Small Faces guys and two guys out of the Jeff Beck group. We asked ourselves, “What on earth are we all doing together?” And then it clicked due to the amounts of alcohol.
Is it true that one time The Faces were in America and you pretended to be Fleetwood Mac because you’d been kicked out of some hotel?
The Faces were banned from all Holiday Inns across America because we’d been smashing them up. And the only reason we smashed them up was because we weren’t getting any respect as customers. So we checked in as Fleetwood Mac ’cos we weren’t very well known in those days, and we did all sorts of things. Ian McLagan burrowed through from one room into Ronnie Lane’s room with a fork cause they were only breezeblocks. It was hilarious.
You used to go on stage plastered all the time. Was there ever a stage where you said, “I’m going to try it sober tonight.”
No, you’d be a weakling in The Faces if you didn’t have a drink before you went on, it was a ritual. Nowadays I’d have one rum and coke, I’ve got it in my mind that it’s good for my voice, but it’s Dutch courage really. I don’t get plastered anymore. It’s a whole different ball game. In the Faces days we used to play for three quarters of an hour and it was straight down the pub. Now you’ve got to play for at least two hours. It’s a lot more effort than it used to be.
Everybody seemed to love Rod Stewart, even before The Faces hit big. Then there seemed to be a backlash in the mid ’70s with your Britt Ekland period.
Yeah, it’s the old cliché – I went to Hollywood and went out with a famous film star, and that’s the worst thing you can possibly do if you’re supposed to be a dyed-in-the-wool rock ‘n’ roll singer. But I do feel a great love from the public who come and see the shows, and I do try and give them 110% every night.
You lost a lot of credibility with the boater on the cover of that album… what was it, A Night To Remember?
(Laughs) That’s the (film about the) Titanic. A Night On The Town.
It was a terrible album cover. I was very much in love with Brit and on that album cover I had so much make-up on I looked like an Avon girl. I was listening to everything that she said. She dressed me up; I was wearing her knickers, so that went down in rock ‘n’ roll folklore. It was a dodgy period but the public stood by me, bless ’em. The voice has always got me through. I’m lucky. A lot of other people have fallen by the wayside making huge mistakes like that. Thank goodness for the voice.
You brought your kids back to London once and showed them the house where you grew up. How did they react to it?
It was a council house in North London, so I took them there and they were just shocked. The people living there at the time said, “Rod Stewart used to live here, come in.” We walked in and even I was shocked how small it was. My little kids, Liam and Renee, they said, “Dad, this whole house is as big as my bedroom.” I try and do that with the kids. I’ve taken them all back to where I grew up.
You’ve also let them have a house on your land in Hollywood. Was that a good decision?
The worst decision I ever made. It’s 7,000 square feet, it’s got sunken baths, walk-in wardrobes and marble floors and the three of them are going to live there. Sean’s 26, Kimberley’s 27 and Ruby’s 19. It’s literally 20 yards from my house. The thing is, I don’t think I’m ever going to get rid of them cause it’s so luxurious and they’re so lucky. I thought, “What have I done? They’re going to be living there when they’re 35 or 40.”
The last time we spoke you mentioned Ruby was starting a music career.
Yeah, I spoke to her yesterday. She’s been rehearsing with her band. She listens to some of my advice, but not a great deal of it, she’s very strong-minded. She wants to do it her way, she doesn’t want to use Rod Stewart’s name. I said, “You haven’t got much option with that unless you change your name.” She’s got a voice but she’s a little narrow-minded in how she wants to do it.
I know you know Paris Hilton. Do you think you had it easier in the ’70s compared to the press she gets?
Paris is a friend of the family; I’ve known her since she was 14. She’s a great friend of my kids. I think she courts the press a little more. I was talking about the likes of Beckham and the Brad Pitts. Their lives must be hell. Compared to them, I get off lightly. They really can’t go anywhere without being followed.
Does your sister still write to you in the States asking if you’ve changed your underwear and all the other stuff?
Yeah, bless her, me sister Mary. She still writes me letters every couple of weeks. Handwritten, lovely letters. People don’t do that anymore do they? It’s all faxes and text and all the rest.
You’ve probably been asked this before, but could you have been a professional footballer? You signed up with Brentford.
No, I was there on trials and they were interested in me but I can’t say I signed up. It’s something the press ran with for so long. To tell you the truth, I was never good enough. I didn’t have the commitment. I did it to keep my dad happy. He had three sons and he always wanted one of us to be a footballer. But it was the same time when I started loving music and avenues were opening up in the music business.
Do you still have football pitches at your homes in Britain and America?
No, I haven’t got one in America. I’ve one in England and it’s full-size, the size of Parkhead.
But you don’t train anymore?
No, the knees are playing me up, but I still run the team. Celtic have trained on it, Liverpool, Newcastle, a lot of premiership teams have trained on it.
Even people who weren’t born then say they remember every single thing about Celtic winning the European Cup. At the moment though, the biggest thing Celtic have done is beat Manchester United 1-0. Where were you at the time and what did that do to you?
I was there. I have to be very careful, I know there’s a lot of Manchester United supporters in Ireland, but it was a magic night to be a Hoops supporter. You have to realise that our team hasn’t got the money that Chelsea or Man U have got. It was a wonderful night to be there. I was supposed to be going to see them play Aberdeen tomorrow but I’ve been told I’ve got to look after the baby for the day.
You’ve seven kids. Ever think of a vasectomy?
(Laughs) I don’t know where that one came from! No, I’m not going to do that.
The kids have five different mothers. You’re partial to blondes, as we know. Do you ever get the names mixed up?
The mothers? No, never. I don’t see the mother of the first-born, she was adopted. (Stewart had a daughter, Sarah Thubron Streeter by art student Susannah Boffey in 1964. She was put up for adoption.)
She did get married not so long ago, and you sent some flowers.
Yeah, a huge bunch of flowers costing thousands. She doesn’t keep in contact with me. She writes me letters but never gives me an address to write to. But with the other mums I’m on great terms, the other four. But of course, one of them, (Penny Lancaster) I’m getting married to. I’m getting all confused now.
The love of your ’90s (Rachel Hunter), do you think she was too young when you married her?
Yeah, without a doubt. She was 20 when I met her and 21 when I married her. As my wonderful sister told me, “You should know better.” And I should have. I should have given her at least four or five years before we got married.
Sir Mick, Sir Paul, Sir Elton. When’s your turn?
I’m sure I’ll be looking at the New Year’s honours list this year. I haven’t heard any rumours. I’d love it, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.
What do you think of Paul McCartney at the moment? Do you wish him the best?
Yeah, you just need to keep your head down. I think the worst of it may be over. It’s definitely taken its toll on him. You can see he’s started to age in the past six months. It’s a horrible thing to go through.
Finally, would you ever do the Vegas thing?
Yeah, I’m doing it in a couple of years. I’m looking forward to it. Vegas isn’t what it used to be in the days of Elvis and Sinatra, it’s not supper clubs any more with people eating while you sing. There are beautiful venues, 5,000 seaters where everyone has a great seat, beautiful stages. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be able to go home every night, back to LA to see my kids. I’ll be able to have a 40-piece orchestra come out of the ground. I’m looking forward to it, I really am.

Rod Stewart plays the RDS on July 13 & 14