HE WEARS IT WELL
AT 72, ROD’S STILL WEARING IT AS WELL AS EVER
Rod Stewart’s royal gaffe
Never mind Maggie May, let’s talk about Theresa May. Sir Rod Stewart is in a most mischievous mood. He has been chatting about his headline appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival, reminiscing about his beatnik youth and how he lost his virginity in a “little triangle tent” at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival aged
16, when his train of thought is derailed by a passing mention of the recent election and the UK Prime Minister.
“She seems genuine,” Rod rasps softly. “She’s believable. I was reading about how in love she was with her husband when they first met and that it was genuine love.
“I’ve seen a picture of her at Oxford and I’m telling you, she was a fair piece. Trust me, I know about these things.”
Rod has sold more than 100 million albums and rocked a thousand stadiums with hits including Maggie May, You Wear it Well, I Don't Want to Talk About It, Sailing, Tonight's the Night and Baby Jane.
He’s had three wives, eight kids and is estimated to be worth $280 million.
Dressed in a striking checked jacket, skinny cords, work boots and a stylish gold tie, there’s never a dull moment with Rod. His hair, as ever, is up for it.
Two summers ago, we were sitting with him as he drank his morning coffee when he expressed an unexpected desire to become a knight of the realm. “I’d love to have one but I can’t think too much about it,” he said then. But some guys have all the luck and Roderick David Stewart is now a “Sir”.
Prince William hosted the investiture and although he is a “big fan”, Rod admits he would have preferred the Queen to have done it.
“You never know who’s going to do it,” he tells. “I’m just pleased I got it. I actually bumped into the Queen that night. They were having a do at the Royal Academy of Arts that I was invited to because I’m a big collector. She was there, and she said, ‘You were knighted today. Who did it?’ I said, ‘William, Ma’am.’ She said, ‘Did he make a good job of it?’ I said, ‘He certainly did, Ma’am. Thank you very much.’” He rubbed his hands together in the manner of a man who has won life’s lottery.
“I can’t understand why people like John Lennon and David Bowie would turn down a knighthood,” he puzzles. ”Because it’s the British people that give it to you, it’s an honour from the public.
“There’s a committee. People write in and the committee look at it. Then they say, ‘Why not? We’ve had enough letters about Rod Stewart. Let’s look into his background and make sure he’s paid his taxes.’”
Here, he can’t resist cupping a hand to his mouth and stage-whispering “David Beckham”, who was reportedly refused a knighthood over irregularities in his tax affairs.
“If you’re all in order,” Rod continues seamlessly, “then the Queen gives her approval.” He arises excitedly to demonstrate the steps that must be rehearsed meticulously before being dubbed a knight.
In the event, Rod completed the walk-up perfectly, then broke with royal protocol by giving the prince a twofisted handshake.
“And I closed off the conversation,” he groans. “You’re not meant to do that. He was talking to me, and I said, ‘Thank you very much then,’ and I left.
I don’t know why I did that. He was still talking and I’m going, ‘Great, cheers, I’m off now.’”
Nonetheless, Rod celebrated in timehonoured fashion. “I got pi**ed at lunchtime and then I tried to get pi**ed in the evening, but I fell asleep on the job, so to speak.” He grins
wearily. I tell Rod it doesn’t take a trained physician to detect a recurrent drinking theme in his life of late.
“I do like a drink,” he chuckles unapologetically. “I must be honest. I love it. But I can’t drink pints any more. I go down the pub and I struggle with one pint of beer, so I drink white wine. Not by the pint, obviously. I have three reasonable glasses every night, unless I’m sick. I have a great chef and I can’t drink a glass of water with a great meal.”
Does the venerable entertainer ever worry he might be drinking too much? “Yes!” he shouts with comical impatience, but there is a distinct note of seriousness in the fine-grain voice.
“I have regular blood tests and scans on my liver and kidneys. I had one last week. Cameras down my throat, the works. It was all clear, thank God.
“But we’re all susceptible.
I’m not getting any younger. I’m 72. We’re all going to go over sooner or later, but there seems to have been a bit of a cluster of people going over recently: Bowie, Prince, George Michael, all in a couple of years.
“The Stones are still with us. Mick’s here and Keith, just about. Ronnie’s funny; I haven’t heard from him for ages. He’s had these two kids and that’s it, he’s gone off, over the horizon. Not a dicky bird.”
Rod didn’t see Bob Dylan’s famous Isle of Wight show in 1969 (“too expensive”) but he is delighted that his teen hero (“I listened to his first album non-stop, learnt every song”) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year.
“Bang in order,” he declares. “Completely deserved. Would’ve been nice if he’d shown up to collect it but some people are like that.”
As a Dylan-esque beatnik in the sixties with an acoustic guitar and a two-man tent on his back, Rod was a regular festival attendee.
He and a dozen mates
“who didn’t have a pot to p*** in” crawled through a sewerage pipe to gain free access to the Beaulieu Festival in 1961, where young Rod, presumably having had a wash, duly lost his virginity to “a larger, older lady who chatted me up in the beer tent” to the distant strains of Acker Bilk.
Rod later commemorated the episode in Maggie May, although he says the running time of the song, which the singer thought “went on a bit”,
lasted longer than the incident that inspired it. “It was all over in 20 seconds,” he says sheepishly, running a hand through his rooster hairdo.
Woodstock, too, was a let-down for Rod. Having toured the States to great acclaim as vocalist with the Jeff Beck Group, the bluesy Brits were poised to play the mother of all festivals in 1969.
“We were all in New York, ready to do Woodstock the next day,” Rod remembers. “Then Jeff supposedly heard that the gardener was having it off with his old lady, so he went home. Now I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that was the rumour that came back from his managers and the roadies. He just disappeared.”
Rod missed out on Live
Aid in 1985 as well due to a scheduling conflict and is unaware of the rumour that, at one point in the concert’s planning, he was down to perform a duet with Madonna in Philadelphia. “That would’ve been interesting,” he laughs.
“I’d like to have done I Could Have Danced All Night (But My Wheelchair’s Sprung a Puncture) with her. That would’ve been a good one.”
Rod was fired up about the Isle of Wight Festival, on which he descended in a 19-seater helicopter, with “the full tribe”, including his young sons
Alastair (12) and Aiden (6).
“I’m fully here for these two boys,” he acknowledges proudly. “We do everything together. When my two eldest [Kimberly (37) and Sean (36)] were young, I was trying to build my career, so I didn’t have any option but to go and tour.
“Of course, the wives say, ‘You weren’t there for them.’
But I say, ‘You knew what you were marrying. You like the lifestyle, but I’ve got to go out and earn it. So you shouldn’t have married me or you shouldn’t have had a child with me.’ Now I look at the kids’ schedules and everything works around their holidays.
“One of my boys is playing cricket now, and he cried this morning because I couldn’t go and watch him. He said, ‘Dad, you promised…’ I’m getting emotional,” Rod sniffs, eyes misting up. “Anything sets me off these days: TV commercials, Celtic winning…”
He takes a sip of mineral water and reveals that despite being struck down by a near-fatal viral infection earlier in the year, his “dear friend”
Sir Elton is making a steady recovery and has been texting him. “He’s not been feeling great so I texted him the other day,” tells Rod.
“I said, ‘Don't bother to text back unless you feel like it.’
But he did text to congratulate my lad on his hockey. [Rod’s son Liam (22), from his marriage to Rachel Hunter, had scored his first international goal representing Great Britain in the ice hockey world championships.] It made
Liam’s day, I can tell you.”
Rod has been impressed by the backseat role Elton has taken in the career of Ed Sheeran, who is signed to his Rocket Music management company. “Old Ginger Boll***s, I call him,” Rod caws with characteristic charm.
“He’s probably the most unlikely-looking popstar you could ever imagine. He’s not a beauty, that’s for sure. But he’s fantastic, you can’t take anything away from him.”
He also approves of Harry Styles, who could be considered a Rod for the modern age, having left his band, One Direction, to go it alone, much like Rod did with The Faces in 1971. “I love that new song [ Sign of the Times] he’s done,” the older songwriter enthuses. “I wish him well. He’s proved he can keep his head well already but I think he’s a different breed to what we were back then,” he adds sagely. “I don’t think he’s much of a druggie, I don’t think he drinks a lot. Certainly not like we did. Jesus Christ!”
Rod recalls how touched he was that the first person to text him when his knighthood was announced was his old piano-playing pal from Pinner, Elton. “It read, ‘Who would have thought a couple of north London tarts like us would become knights?’”
Rod hoots, theatrically straightening his tie knot and heading for the hotel lobby. “I’m so bloody lucky,” he smiles sentimentally.
‘ The wives say, “You weren’t there for them.” But I say, “You knew what you were marrying. You like the lifestyle”’