Rod Stewart: 'This is the last big tour for me'
Rod Stewart plays two concerts in Dublin in November. Picture: Penny Lancaster Stewart
When Rod Stewart played at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork, in 2019, the giant stage-side screen showed an image of the late Liam Miller, the locally-born footballer who had starred for the singer’s beloved Glasgow Celtic.
It was one of many emotional moments on his visit which included a performance of the Irish ballad Grace written by Frank and Seán O’Meara. “It’s one of the loveliest and best love songs ever written, if you study the lyrics and what it is about it’s just so moving! Every day I get up and sing those words. I was performing the song on Irish TV where Frank and Seán were in the audience and when they came up it was so emotional.”
Stewart is discussing his previous visits to Ireland over a pre-match lunch at the Walfrid restaurant in Celtic Park. He’ll be back soon, with two nights in Dublin, and another in Belfast, performances as part of a tour that the 77-year-old says will be his final “rock'n’roll arena shows”.
The rooster hair, jovial laugh and mischievous demeanour are all present when he affirms: “This is the last big tour for me, absolutely right, it will be the last time I’ll play Maggie May at all these venues.”
Despite the news, Stewart is still a long way from retirement. He has a new album in the can, and tentative plans are already being made for 2023.
Twenty years ago he released It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook, the first in a series of five albums of material of classic US tunes. He suggests the next phase of live concerts will showcase the best of those recordings.
“I want to move on and I’ve always wanted to do the Great American Songbook live, it sold 38 million copies. I’ve also done a fantastic swing album with Jools Holland which is more Louis Prima than Frank Sinatra; I just want to make a change.” In recent years, there have also been rumours of a reunion of the Faces – the fondly remembered band he joined in 1969 - particularly following a successful one-off charity concert in 2015. For that event, the sense of connection between Rod and his original bandmates Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones was still very much alive.
“Six months ago we were close to having something special,” admits Stewart. “I was with Ronnie, we were playing the old Faces songs and they were brilliant. You can hear it’s the Faces but as you get older your voice gets a little lower. I said: ‘Ronnie I can’t sing them anymore’. I told him we can tune down and suggested he get me, him and Kenny in the studio with a really good bass player.”
If any rock’n’roll band deserve a fond farewell, it’s the Faces. The likes of the Sex Pistols, Guns N’ Roses and Oasis have all name-checked the London five-piece as an influence. Their cocky rock’n’roll swagger, laced with good humour, was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
“I think with all of those bands it’s about the spirit to go out there and make the best music you can and to love each other as a band,” says Stewart. “There was no greed or jealousy with the Faces, with the songs we’d say: ‘anyone got anything to do with this?’, and count one, two, three and split it like that. We were fair to each other, adored each other and were all close mates.
“Oasis hate each other, I’ve had some good times with Noel [Gallagher], he’s a good lad and he’s been here [at Celtic]. It’s also the same with the Pistols now. I’m flattered beyond belief that all these bands were influenced by the Faces because the Pistols hated us at the time but it has since come out that we were an influence.
“It’s like when I first saw Jagger playing at Eel Pie Island in 1963, I thought: ‘I can do that’ and that’s the spirit of the whole thing with all those bands.” Stewart recalls how Mick Jagger had assured him he would never take Wood from The Faces. “When Ronnie joined them I was like, ‘Yeah Jagger you lying bastard’.”
Stewart also reflects on his other 1960s collaboration, with guitarist Jeff Beck, again speculating that a reunion wouldn’t be out of the question. He even suggests a producer who could make it happen.
“At the moment there’s about as much chance as me and Jeff working together as Scotland winning the World Cup or Celtic winning the Champions League, but if one person could get me, Ronnie (Wood) and Jeff together again then it's Rick Rubin!
Those excursions with Beck and the Faces were a glorious time for Stewart, but it was the 1970s when he took off as a solo artist. The 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story gave him a No 1 hit with ‘Maggie May’, and he went up another gear in 1975 with Atlantic Crossing, recorded in the US.
“We were recording in a dry state,” says Stewart about a record made with R&B legends Booker T & the M.G.’s. “And couldn’t get a drink to save our lives! Tom Dowd [producer] woke me up at 10am saying: ‘C’mon we’re doing Sailing’.
“We recorded the album totally sober at Muscle Shoals in Alabama. There was one bottle of Bacardi where we marked the amount with everyone’s name. There was Steve Cropper, Booker T and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn…I wish I still had that bottle!”
Stewart had been absorbed by black American blues and soul from an early age. A highpoint was performing live with his hero David Ruffin in 1971. “Oh yes, your heroes’ don’t change and my reference point is still David Ruffin and all the great black singers of that era: Otis Redding, Muddy Waters... all of them. David had come through a drugs period and was clean at the time but he wasn’t with The Temptations. What a moment that was to perform with him, I have a wonderful photo of the two of us at home examining our larynxes. I couldn’t work out how he never got a sore throat, I was always having to look after mine.”
Earlier this year, Stewart released Touchline, a self-penned single about his Scottish father from Leith in Edinburgh. “Dad was a very quiet man but a football fan through and through,” he says.
Stewart suggests his father would be quiet until he would be watching Scotland v England. “I came up to see England play Scotland in 1966 at Hampden. My brother said to me ‘For f**k’s sake, don’t open your mouth’.”
Thankfully, he has plenty to shout about at games these days. After our lunch, he watches his beloved team beat Dundee Utd 4-2. Old memories, new music, and Celtic on top of the league – happy days indeed.
- Rod Stewart will perform at the 3Arena Dublin on November 18 and 19[ and Belfast, SSE Arena on December 20. Stewart also appears on support band Johnny Mac & The Faithful’s debut single Me Oh My
