Old rockers never die, they just do Pilates
The other day on Celebrity Gogglebox, Roger Daltrey of The Who was filmed offering his friend, the Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop, a glass of mineral water.
‘have you ever tried mixing half a glass of sparkling with half a glass of still?’ suggested the man who once sang of how he hoped he’d die before he got old. ‘It gives the water a sweet taste. It’s not quite as fizzy . . . It’s really good for your guts. Because bubbles aren’t really good for you, you know.’
Bishop looked surprised. ‘Of all the things I was expecting to learn from a rock ’n’ roll legend, it wasn’t how to mix your still and sparkling water!’ he scoffed.
Bishop was behind the times, of course. Gone are the days when rock legends were known for taking too many drugs and driving Rolls-Royces into swimming pools.
These days we leave that sort of thing to Cabinet ministers and captains of industry. We are more likely to spot rock legends enjoying a quiet night in with something eggy on a plate.
Daltrey himself is, like quite a few rock legends — among them Rod Stewart, Jools holland and Neil Young — a keen railway modeller. ‘ The great thing about model railways,’ he said in a recent interview, ‘is you can be doing a bit of woodwork, a bit of painting, a bit of this, a bit of that, and having fun with your mates and you can listen to the radio at the same time.’
Other rock legends enjoy a round of golf.
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Snoop Dogg, Willie Nelson and Meat Loaf are all keen golfers. Alice Cooper, best known for biting the heads off chickens in the 1970s, has been a keen golfer for nearly four decades, and still plays on average 250 rounds a year.
It is those who were wildest in their youth who appear to be the most domesticated in old age. Keith Richards has lived in the same house in West Sussex for over half a century. And instead of hard partying, he now relaxes by listening to Mozart and reading the seafaring novels of Patrick O’Brian. ‘I live a gentleman’s life,’ he boasts.
Far from being a Street Fighting Man, he is now occupied with fighting a planning application for a 100seater restaurant down the road. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, who used to pride himself on leading the loudest band in the world, now spends his days complaining about the noise from the building works instituted by his nextdoor neighbour, Robbie Williams. Ozzy Osbourne (pictured) was perhaps the wildest rock legend of them all. In his memoirs Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue recalls his tour with Black Sabbath in 1984. Ozzy was, he said, acutely distressed on learning that they were clean out of cocaine. he watched as Ozzy picked up a drinking-straw and walked to a crack in the pavement. ‘I saw a long column of ants marching to a little sand dugout,’ remembers Sixx, ‘and as I thought, “No, he wouldn’t,” he did. he put the straw to his nose and . . . sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose with a single, monstrous snort.’ Thirtysix years later, Ozzy Osbourne has learned his lesson. he is recovering from a severe fall and a bout of pneumonia by painting and doing Pilates. It was Bob Dylan, a pioneer in so many ways, who first felt the urge to put his wild days behind him. In his memoirs, he records being so irritated by his hippy fans that he moved to the country to get away from them. But they found out where he was, and took to camping on his lawn. Dylan was furious. ‘I would tell them repeatedly that I was not a spokesman for anything . . . whatever the counterculture was, I’d seen enough of it.’ eventually, he called the police, who were obliged to inform him, much to his frustration, that shooting hippies was illegal.
OF COURSE, many old rock legends suffered from such poor record deals and/ or dodgy managers that they are too poor for a life of ease.
A friend of mine, a singer from the Sixties, told me that at a Christmas party not long ago, he spotted a circle of old rock stars chatting animatedly to each other. he edged close enough to hear the subject under discussion. It was, he discovered, the senior citizen winter fuel allowance.