Rod Stewart on Ronnie Wood, the Faces and the simple art of songwriting

The youngest of five children, Roderick David Stewart was born on January 10, 1945 in Highgate, north London. Raised by his Edinburgh-born father Robert and English mother Elsie, “wee Roddy” grew up as the city repaired and reinvented itself for a post-war generation. Perhaps Robert Stewart had designs on his youngest playing for Scotland but with the choices of football or rock ’n’ roll laid out in front of the one-time Brentford trialist he plumped for the latter. 
“The house where I was born was knocked down. I took Penny [Lancaster, Stewart’s third wife] down there and showed her Highgate Woods. It was a great time to be alive but it was also a tumultuous period, when I first began to play guitar and wanted to be in a group. My dad was always 100 per cent behind me. He never once said, ‘Don’t be a silly sod; go and get a proper job.’ He just encouraged me.” Besides his backing Robert bestowed the necessary ingredients to form a romantic Scottish identity which has featured in song narratives and countless tartan-clad stage-outfits. 
A family home where your father turns off England winning the World Cup in 1966 – that’s bound to have an effect, isn’t it? “I’m sure it does. My dad just switched it off. I wasn’t aware of his Scottishness for a long time. The penny dropped with my brother Bob, he had all these Scotland players on the wall – I was probably around 11 or 12.” By his mid-teens Stewart had submerged himself in folk music, learning guitar and harmonica while dipping his toe into the anti-nuclear politics associated with the remnants of the Beat Generation. Before turning 20 he had adopted the Rod the Mod persona, becoming a recognisable face around Swinging London while befriending his musical jack-of-all-trades partner Ron Wood.

“We’ve been through a lot together – hard times and a lot of good times with the Faces – that’s the hallmark of any relationship. We have our own unique humour. My wife says it’s pointless inviting anyone else out for dinner with me and him because no-one else can get a word in.” 
On joining the Jeff Beck Group in 1967 the pair helped set the precedent for arena rock when touring America, influencing the emerging Led Zeppelin and the harder rock sound of the Rolling Stones, whom the guitarist would eventually join. 
Prior to that Stewart served his apprenticeship with Long John Baldry. The British blues luminary provided a protective, mentoring role for Stewart while Beck allegedly withheld payment. I suggest he couldn’t have had two more contrasting guides. 
“I don’t think Jeff was deliberate about not looking after me and Woody but it’s true that we didn’t get paid regularly. He is a wonderful guitar player but I don’t think he is much of a bandleader. John was the opposite: he always made sure the band got paid on time and that we were in decent hotels. He came to the house with flowers and promised he’d look after me. My mother adored him.” 
Stewart recalls his first attempts at writing. “I was with the Jeff Beck Group – the Beatles and the Stones were writing their own stuff so Woody and I had a go. We went round his mum’s house, had glass of wine and that was the start of it. His mum came in, of course.” She turned off the electric fire and offered her opinion that the Beatles didn’t have much to worry about. 
“We were actually asked to write songs, as I recall it was Mickie Most, who was Jeff Beck’s producer. When I moved into the Faces they wanted to do an album of self-penned songs or at least as many as we could and lyrics fell to me and Ronnie Lane. I really enjoy the process of writing now but I didn’t then.”

The Stewart/Wood partnership produced the band’s swaggering anthem Stay with Me, the late Ronnie Lane’s starry-eyed ballads such as Debris and Ooh La La (co-written with Wood) balancing the band’s rowdy charm. 

As we pass Broadcasting House and return to the Langham he reflects on the recent reunion. “I think we could have done without the brass section and girl backing singers, although they were very good. The Faces were traditionally a five-piece band and if we ever do more I’m going to suggest that’s how we go about it. Woody’s guitar is so important – you can’t do it unless he’s there.
“What made the evening for me was the amount of freedom he had – he doesn’t seem to move around very much with the Stones. I let him run all over the stage with the fag dangling from his mouth. It was good to see him in his own right. I didn’t want it to be about me – I wanted it to be about the band and have that sense of sharing the stage.” Although the group split in 1975 their legacy played out in generations of reckless rockers from the Sex Pistols and Guns N’ Roses to Primal Scream and Oasis, who have all referred to the group’s soulful, knockabout delivery. 
So why has it taken 40 years to reunite one of rock ’n’ roll’s most celebrated bands?While his position has been vague in the past, Stewart is forthright about his ambition to front both the Faces and the Jeff Beck Group for a tour. In 2009 Faces keyboard player Ian McLagan, who died last year, suggested the frontman had gone quiet on the idea of reunion. Was there a problem between them? “Mac was a bit of a fly in the ointment I must admit, God rest his soul. Many times I would say something positive about getting the Faces back together and he would be just be the opposite. He’d say, ‘I can’t do it this year,’ because the Small Faces had one of their reunions – some anniversary of Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake or whatever. Mac and I were never as close as with the others, there was always something between us. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Will there be more gigs? “I was hoping it would be Glastonbury next year but I don’t know – I’ve got a tour in June playing some football grounds. I’d like to get the Jeff Beck Group together as well; I haven’t given up on him [Beck] yet. Two members are in both bands. All we need to do is a Faces set and then bring Jeff on. It will never happen, though; he’s a weird one. He wouldn’t do it if it was the last gig he was offered but I would do it; I would love to.” While Beck has admitted being awkward when doing what’s expected he recently expressed an interest in reforming the group. 
Stewart hit his stride as writer with the wistful folk-rock vignette Maggie May in 1971. He appeared on Top of the Pops with the Faces and John Peel, who mimed the beguiling mandolin part while the band knocked a football around the studio stage. It was one of the BBC programme’s defining moments and set Stewart on course. It was a landmark year which saw the release of Every Picture Tells a Story – a defining solo collection which was the third in a run of four critically lauded albums.

He also recorded two albums with the Faces. It was a prolific and pivotal juncture but it came with new pressures. “It was a lot of work but it never felt like it, plus if you add to that the fact we were touring constantly. We had the energy to knock out a couple of records in a year but really it was the solo career that undid the Faces because Ronnie Lane got pissed off seeing the billing of Rod Stewart and the Faces and so did I. I say it to this day: all I wanted was to be in that band with the guys.”
By the release of Atlantic Crossing (1975) he was one of the most famous faces on the planet and in the throes of a much publicised romance with actor Britt Ekland. Blondes Have More Fun (1978) was a chart topping long-player in America but it was the beginning of critical decline. As a singles artist he continued with a procession of hits on both sides of the Atlantic but when his post-Faces live “band of tearaways” was replaced with sterile session men and industry insiders, the work suffered.
“The songs I recorded in the 1980s like Every Beat of My Heart, Passion and Infatuation weren’t as personal,” he admits. 
A decade of cover albums began in 2002, including his Great American Songbook series which he has previously suggested was viewed as “rock ’n’ roll suicide” by a section of his fans. “My days of singing covers are finished. I enjoyed the American Songbook but I’ve had enough.”
In 2013, Time was his first No1 UK studio album of mostly originals since 1976 and it clawed back some lost acclaim. He admits it was a final throw of the dice as a songwriter. “If Time hadn’t done as well I might have thought, ‘You’ve done your last song,’ and found something else to do.” The album, like his early records, was an honest and candid snapshot which saw him write about his divorce from his second wife Rachel Hunter,and his split from the mother of his first daughter Sarah, who was given up for adoption when he was still a teenager.
A lack of confidence is not something you associate with Rod Stewart but he has admitted losing belief in his ability. Another Country, like Time, is a strong collection and the recent single Please summons something of the old strut. “I wanted it to be catchy but not in a corny pop-song way. I can’t analyse it, they just come to me. There’s no science, it’s dead simple and that’s the way it should be.” 
The Drinking Song also nails the Faces’ sense of brouhaha and bonhomie. “Every line in that song is absolutely true, apart from the fact I wasn’t drunk when I got my tattoos, but everything else like walking through the Continental Hotel half naked – it’s all on the line.” 
His gift for melody is present on We Can Win, which samples fans at Celtic Park. It’s a raucous terrace anthem about his many trips to watch the side he began to support after meeting Jock Stein in 1974. Celtic Park evokes another tale of anxiety, his appearance at the ground for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. 
“I was so bloody nervous before that gig, you wouldn’t think so after all the years I’ve been doing this, but because it was Scotland and the Games … I sang the first song without taking a breath – I was red faced when I came off. It’s what happens when you’re nervous, you do it all in a breath.”
September’s Faces reunion in Surrey and his subsequent solo performance at Hyde Park reawakened the old devil-may-care rocker. Both shows featured a more casual delivery, perhaps reminding the public why they fell for the singer all those years ago. By his own admission, unearthing cult gems and the much-eulogised early period has been another nerve-wracking episode. 
“It was f****** scary. I was OK at rehearsals but when it came to doing the show in front of a live audience of thousands I started to get cold feet. I was out of my safety zone and I didn’t have time to learn 15 songs. I had to look at the teleprompter.
“It brought back a lot of memories for people and that’s what it’s about because I forget, too. It was positive – with rock ’n’ roll you should get your toes burned every now and then. There should always be that element of risk.”

Another Country by Rod Stewart is out now. He will play Rugby Park, Kilmarnock on June 17, 2016, and the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium, Inverness on June 18.