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About Faces, Stones, Who... Read and enjoy.
Hits out for the lads
David Sinclair
June 25, 2004
THE GUITARIST Ron Wood and the drummer Kenney Jones are sitting next to each other on a sofa, remembering the hellraising days when they used to play together with Rod Stewart (vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboards) and Ronnie Lane (bass) in the Faces.
�We had a good laugh,� Jones says. �But you wouldn�t want to be around us and get the piss taken out of you. We could never have a proper meeting with our manager, Billy Gaff. We just wrecked his place and wrecked him.�
�We used to go up to the record company and trash the office if things weren�t going right,� Wood recalls, beaming proudly. �Do you remember that Warner Bros guy in Los Angeles? We got him up against the wall and I went, �If you don�t make our record a hit � you�re dead.� He worked hard after that, didn�t he?� �Oh yes, he did,� Jones says. �He was quite loyal to the band.�
Spread out on the table in front of them is a sheaf of artwork and four discs which comprise Five Guys Walk into a Bar . . . , a new boxed-set of vintage recordings by the Faces.
�Have a look, have a laugh, have a listen,� says McLagan in his sleeve notes that accompany this treasure trove of greatest hits and previously unreleased rarities. �I give you the Faces at their very best, at their very worst, and at their rawest and rarest.�
At their best, the Faces were the finest bar-band in the universe. Their music sprang from the great American blues and soul traditions but was invariably tinged with a mood of slipshod, British bonhomie. Songs such as Had Me a Real Good Time, Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally were warm, raucous and relaxed, but kicked like a mule. At their worst, the Faces were a shambles. Their six years together, from 1969 to 1975, were governed by the maxim of one for all and all to the bar. And on a couple of off-the-cuff rehearsal-room recordings, such as the aptly named Dishevelment Blues, that is exactly how it sounded.
The boxed-set includes a generous 67 tracks. Have Wood and Jones actually listened to all of them? �No,� Wood admits, raking his hand through his mop of raven-black hair. �It�s a lot to plough through.�
�I�ve scanned �em,� Jones says.
�Yeah, I�ve scanned �em too,� Wood says. �Ooh, I�ll have a listen to that.�
�Wow, Pool Hall Richard,� Jones says. �I�d forgotten how good that was.�
�You Can Make Me Dance is fantastic,� Wood says. �There�s this real Barry White guitar. We did some good ones � just before we split up.�
The Faces were born when the singer and guitarist Steve Marriott left the Small Faces to form the 1970s supergroup Humble Pie. The remaining musicians � McLagan, Jones and Lane � invited Wood and Stewart (who had been playing together in the Jeff Beck Group) to join them and form a new group.
Stewart, who was at first too shy to sing in front of the others, blossomed so much that he quickly developed a parallel solo career. The band recorded and toured incessantly, building up a loyal following in Britain and America. But before they knew it the Faces were turning up at gigs to find themselves billed as Rod Stewart.
�I think he used to listen to his girlfriends too much,� Wood says. �When he was with Britt (Ekland) and all that. They�d put him in those stupid clothes and eye make-up. We always tried to keep it just the lads together and if the girls came along it was fine. He was hanging out with people like Elton John and listening to too much gossip as well.�
When Lane left the group in 1973 to go and live in a gypsy environment in Wales with his best friend�s wife, the Faces recruited the Japanese bassist Tetsu Yamauchi and soldiered on. Lane enjoyed some success as a solo act, but was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and after a long period of decline he died in 1997. Yamauchi, who stayed with the group until they split up, was last spotted sleeping on a park bench in Tokyo.
�Last time I saw him, he tried to punch me out,� Wood says. �He�s torn between religion and alcohol. He is probably the only tramp in Japan.�
Wood, meanwhile, went on to join the Rolling Stones, while Jones took over the drum chair from Keith Moon in The Who, a change of gear for both of them.
�When I joined The Who it was like walking into a board meeting,� Jones says. �I felt about this small.�
�With the Stones I suddenly got newsletters under the door telling me what I was supposed to be doing,� Wood says, the memory prompting an expression of comic incredulity on his face. �There were set lists and everything was down on paper, what key the songs were in, what time to be at the soundcheck. With the Faces it was just us lot wandering round. What do we do next? Nobody had a clue.�
Do they miss the good old days? �No,� Jones says, immediately. �They�ve not stopped really. I kind of miss each other�s company and the playing that we did.�
But while it was fun at the time, the non-stop partying regime eventually took its toll. Wood has recently been in rehab to curb his drinking, which was threatening to derail him, both physically and professionally, before the recent Rolling Stones tour. �I�m off the booze now, as much as I can. But it�s a hard fight, like cigarettes,� he says, leaning over to spark up his third Marlboro Lite in half an hour. �I control it as much as I can. Then I go in to rehab for a top up. Because it�s a disease, alcohol, it�s a continual fight. One day at a time.�
I mention a recent report on the internet that Keith Richards has given up smoking. Wood looks aghast, but quickly collects himself.
�You get some maniacs on the internet. They�re usually wrong. It�d be news to me if he�s given up.�
Five Guys Walk into a Bar . . . , a four-disc box set by the Faces, is released on Rhino/Warner Bros, on Monday
ROCKBIZ EXPLAINED BY KENNEY JONES AND RON WOOD
Question: Did it slow you up a bit, all that larking around and not concentrating on the business?
Jones: I suppose it did a bit.
Wood: If we�d been better businessmen we�d have sold a lot more records. But mostly you find in groups that the LV (lead vocalist), like Jagger, he�s London School of Economics, Jimmy Page, he�s concentrating on business � Rod was business. But basically, when you�re a musician all you want to do is to do the best you can and play the best you can � and you can�t be expected to cook the books as well.
Jones: No. We left that.
Wood: Oh my God. We got ripped off. Oh God. But you know, that�s the way it is.
Jones: I�m not even sure we got the correct amount of money after the tours we did. We just accepted the money.
Wood: We never knew really.
Jones: I�m sure we made far more, y�know.
Wood: We�d never start a tour knowing what we were going to get. We might get a very rough estimate.
Jones: You�d ask how much you were going to get. Oh lots. Lots.
Wood: When I did my New Barbarians tour in 78/79, I rented a 727. I had Stanley Clarke, Zigaboo, Keith, Mac (Ian McLagan) and Bobby Keys. I ended up coming out of that tour $200,000 in debt � I owed CBS 200 grand. But I wouldn�t change a thing. It was the greatest time.
Jones: Mind you, we used to do that with the Faces as well. Just rent aeroplanes and all kinds of s***.
Wood: Yeah. Live beyond our means.
Jones: But we still came out with a bit.
Question: And you both went on to bigger things, didn�t you? The Who and the Stones � the two biggest British bands of that era.
Wood: Life takes you down a funny old road sometimes.
Question: What was it like trading in Rod Stewart for Mick Jagger?
Wood: Well, it suddenly got professional. With us lot (the Faces) on stage it was like, what we doing next? We�d ask the audience: �What do you reckon? Stay With Me? All right.�
Question: The business has moved on from those days, hasn�t it?
Wood: Yeah. And the technology � things like tuning. We used to tune up on whatever piano was in the building. If the piano was out of tune then we were out of tune. And if it wasn�t a Steinway, Mac had a hatchet to break the piano afterwards, �cause it was in the contract that it had to be a Steinway. If it was a Baldwin or something, we�d do the gig on a rotten old piano and then afterwards Mac would hack it to bits.
Jones: Cost us a fortune.
Wood: Ah. But it was in the contract. Should have been a Steinway.
Jones: Exactly.
Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7948-1157952,00.html
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| T&A |
good reading. sad that he's not given up the fags, though - that'll probably be the death of him at some point, i hate to say.... |
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| stonedinaustralia |
Ronnie says:"�You get some maniacs on the internet."
proof postive, i suggest, that he must read rocks off!! |
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| Joey |
quote:
stonedinaustralia wrote:
Ronnie says:"�You get some maniacs on the internet."
proof postive, i suggest, that he must read rocks off!!
I would venture to say that Mick and Keith read Rocks Off but Ronnie ?!?!?!
Nah ... |
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