Rod Stewart's unlikely fake name given at hotels after they banned his band
It's been 55 years since Sir Rod Stewart first teamed up with Ronnie Wood as part of legendary band The Faces and famously 'had me a real good time.. Now the rather more wrinkly rockers are to reunite on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage later this month, when they take the Legends slot.
In the five decades or so since they played their unique fusion of rock 'n' roll, blues and psychedelia - with hits like Stay With Me (1971), Ooh La La (1973) and Had Me a Real Good Time (1970) - the faces of The Faces have changed … a lot! Just as well known for their drinking, drug-taking and debauchery as they were for their hit songs, wrecking hotel rooms grabbed the band as many headlines as their music.
Back then, Rod Stewart was a fresh-faced 24-year-old singer with the five piece band, known as 'Rod the Mod.' Now 80, the Da Ya Think I'm Sexy star recently revealed, enthusiastically, of him and Ronnie on That Peter Crouch Podcast: 'We're going to do Glastonbury together."
Playing together in The Faces from 1969 to 1975, when Rod left and the band split, the music he and Ronnie helped create was said to have influenced The Sex Pistols - although their concerts were either brilliant or shambolic, depending on how much alcohol they'd consumed.
Ronnie, now 77, wrote in The Faces' biography: 'We were the sponsors of Holiday Inn and Marriott, and anywhere we could get banned from. We used to call them the Holiday Out. We used to check in as Fleetwood Mac; no hotel chain would have the Faces because of the damage and madness that went on... Half the audience would come back with us to the hotel. We would party with whoever was there and they'd all end up staying with us.'
Touring America, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the UK, the band played more than 500 concerts. DJ John Peel was an early champion of their music and said a 1973 Faces gig at Sunderland Locarno was his all time favourite live concert. While Rod and Ronnie were the band's most famous faces, there were other notable musicians. These included other bassist Ronnie Lane, who died in 1997 after a battle with multiple sclerosis.
He left in 1973 and was replaced on bass by Tetsu Yamuchi. There was also keyboardist Ian McLagan, who died in 2014 following a stroke, and drummer Kenney Jones, who joined The Who in 1978, replacing Keith Moon after his death. He also formed the band The Law with Paul Rodgers and The Jones Gang, touring the United States in 2005. In 1975, the year Rod left, Ronnie joined the Rolling Stones.
Over the years, they reformed a number of times - one of them being for the encore of Rod's Wembley Stadium concert in 1986. That year, Ronnie Lane appeared on stage with the band, but by then he had multiple sclerosis and was in a wheelchair, so Bill Wyman played bass for him. At the Brit Awards in 1993, the same line-up (minus Lane) reunited once more when Rod was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award - finally coming together again in 2015 at Rod's private 70th birthday party.
In a birthday speech, Rod said: 'Being in The Faces was a mad and brilliant time for all of us and although we don't have Ronnie and Mac with us anymore this is our chance to remember them and say 'Had Me a Real Good Time'.'
Then in 2021, Jones, Stewart and Wood announced they were recording new music for an album due to be released in 2026 - their first in over 50 years. In fact, they have been working together a fair bit, with Rod revealing recently that he was reuniting with Ronnie and Kenney Jones, 76, to work on a new documentary.
Rod, who has twice been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, has won a Grammy and a Brit Award and holds the World Record for staging the largest free rock concert in history. His New Year's Eve concert at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1994 was attended by 3.5 million people - and he looks set for a busy 80th year, as he prepares to embark on a world tour.
He said: "I enjoy going on tour now more than ever, at this ripe old age of 80. I'm doing seven concerts in Vegas and then I am around the world. It keeps me fit. You have got to be fit to do it. I would probably die if I didn't do it. I have seen so many guys that have to give up and retire and they have nothing to wake up in the morning for."
Wrinkly they may be, but Rod and Ronnie are still clearly rocking it!
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