Rod: I joined CND in ’60s ...but just to Chase Nubile Demonstrators!
AS a young musician, Rod Stewart’s support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament saw him join the Aldermaston Marches and get arrested at sit-ins – but he now admits this stance was more about making love than stopping war.
‘We used to all go on the CND marches,’ he said. ‘I used to do it to get s ***** d. I didn’t care about the war, actually.’
Sir Rod, who has been married three times, enjoyed success with the fairer sex despite confessing that his personal hygiene in the early 1960s left a lot to be desired.
‘It was just rebellion,’ he told BBC2’s Reel Stories. ‘You had to be smelly, though. You had to wear corduroy trousers for months and it really smelled. Don’t change your underpants. It was disgusting.’
The lack of pride in his personal appearance did not, however, extend to Sir Rod’s famous hair.
‘On the Tube, all us were going down there holding on our bouffant haircuts because when you go down the escalator the train comes in and there’s an awful wind that comes up,’ he said. ‘So [there would be] six or seven of us all going down holding our hair. Even then I used to have it back-combed.’ The 74-yearold also reflected on his friendship with Sir Elton John, whom he got to know in the 1960s but with whom he has now fallen out after branding the Rocket Man singer’s threeyear retirement tour a ‘moneygrabbing opportunity’.
‘We really were mates in those days,’ he told presenter Dermot O’Leary. ‘Really close friends.
We’re not talking nowadays. He has got the hump with me now.’
Asked if the rift could be healed, he replied: ‘Yeah, it could, but we’re both very stubborn, so neither of us call each other.’
Sir Rod, who this month became the oldest male performer to top the album charts, insisted he will never announce a retirement tour.
‘That’s when you start thinking, “I’ve got nothing to do”,’ he said. ‘I don’t want retirement. I refuse to use the word.’
He is hoping to reunite with the Faces, with whom he enjoyed success in the 1970s, for a concert to mark their 50th anniversary.
And he revealed that he always carries photographs of dead former bandmates Ian McLagan and Ronnie Lane with him.
He said: ‘Every time I do a concert, I have pictures of them down on the stage because I owe them.’
Sir Rod is facing a milestone birthday next month, when he turns 75. He may have been born in Highgate, London, but for decades now he has considered Scotland to be his ‘spiritual home’.
He follows the national team wherever they play and is famously an ardent Celtic fan.
But he was condemned by many of the club’s fans last week after he congratulated Prime Minister Boris Johnson following his General Election victory.
Fellow supporters criticised him for supporting the Conservatives and a banner was unfurled during a game last week at Glasgow’s Celtic Park ground reading ‘Tories not welcome... f*** off Rod.’
‘You had to be smelly... it was disgusting’