More Rosebud - Francis Rossi

Gyles's guest today is Francis Rossi: the lead singer, guitarist and one of the founder members of the legendary British rock band Status Quo. Francis tells Gyles about his childhood in Forest Hill and Balham, South London, where his family ran ice cream stalls and sweet shops. He talks about his Italian heritage, and his love for the language and culture. Francis talks about his parents' complicated marriage, and his mum's increasingly fervent Catholic faith. He talks about secondary school, where he hid behind a jack-the-lad persona, and made friends with Alan Lancaster while playing trumpet in the school orchestra. They started playing music together, and eventually went on to be called Status Quo. Francis also talks about his friendship and musical chemistry with Rick Parfitt, and about Live Aid, and about marriage and children. This is a fascinating conversation with one of the UK's most enduring rockers. We hope you enjoy it. And our deep thanks to Francis for sharing his wit, wisdom and stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Hello, I'm Gyles Brandreth, and this is More Rosebud, which means I'm not alone in our studio. I have with me my producer and friend, Harriet Jane.

• 2:00Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  Harriet, we don't often talk about music, you and I. From your girlhood, what are the bands? What are the performers that resonate still in your head?

• 2:15Speaker 04

  Oh, well, I was an eighties child, so I was obsessed with pop music from about the age of nine, eight.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  Goodness.

• 2:25Speaker 04

  I used to buy Smash Hits, learn all the lyrics. If something comes on the radio now, I can still sing all the words to hundreds of eighties songs. But I loved Duran Duran. I loved Wham. I loved Aha.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  In this interview that we're about to play today, there's talk of Live Aid. I mean, that was a huge event in my life, and I'll never forget it. Yeah, so I loved music. I still love pop music. And I love that period in particular, the eighties.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Well, you mentioned Live Aid, 1985, the big Bob Geldof moment. And we are going to be meeting today somebody who was central to that, the first act.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, the first act on stage.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  The first act on stage. He's going to talk about that. It is the man who created Status Quo.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Francis Rossi.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  And his story is completely extraordinary.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  It is. It's the story of a working class boy from South London. Done good.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Done, not just good, but super good. I mean, because his success is phenomenal. I mean, the number of records sold, the number of, I mean, just completely amazing. Basically, it all began in the seventies for them. Can remember any of the, maybe it's before your time. It's more my time. Albums like Piledriver, On The Level, songs like Paper Plane, Caroline, Down Down. I think that was the number one hit.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Any of, anything you can do? Well, probably you can do the one from that day.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, everyone knows rocking all over the world. What were the other songs, the big songs they had in that time?

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Whatever You Want.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Whatever you want, dun dun dun dun, whatever you need, dun dun. Yeah, they've got a lot of groove, energy, drive, rhythm. And he talks about that. It's rock and roll.

• 4:18Speaker 03

  Rock and roll, what you're proposing.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  What is fascinating to me about, so much his story is fascinating personally, his family, his relationship with his mother, which is really a roller coaster relationship. His relationship with his father, who is of Italian heritage. His mother comes from Liverpool, the Catholic faith when they were young. All of that is fascinating. His three big relationships, his eight children. All of that is intriguing.

• 4:45Speaker 04

  The ice cream business.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  The ice cream business. But one of the most amazing things to me in the conversation is him describing him and Rick Parfitt.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Their combination.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  Their chemistry.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  Their chemistry, the X factor.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  And he analyzes that in a riveting way.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  He does. He analyzes the energy they create on stage and through their dual playing of guitars. And there was something he describes, the energy Rick Parfitt's able to create by keeping this rhythm, driving rhythm going. And then his, Francis Rossi's, interaction with that is very interesting. And he describes a sort of alchemy that he can't even really describe, which is obviously the sort of sound of Status Quo. It's quite, quite interesting to hear some of that.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  I think this is one of our most remarkable conversations because it does a number of things. It's a human story that is very intriguing. I think he reveals two sides of his personality. He is a Gemini, and there are two sides to him, which I think come to the fore. It's got what you would expect, I suppose, from somebody of his generation, Status Quo. It's got sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  True.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  At the heart of the story.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  It's also got, well, the challenge of his relationships in his life, his eight children, the daughter he didn't speak to for 17 years. It really is a very rich episode. But I very much liked him, didn't you?

• 6:07Speaker 04

  I loved him. What a charmer.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  A real charmer. And he looks so smooth, the earring. I loved the way he explained the earring away.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  And he's going on tour all over the country.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we must mention that.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  We will, we are mentioning that. And we will, you and I are going to go as groupies.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  And he said, don't tell me you're there. So we won't reveal when we're there.

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Make him nervous. Yeah, because he's actually shy, isn't he?

• 6:30Speaker 03

  He is shy.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  He is shy. It's, anyway, I think this is a fascinating conversation.

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, but the tour's all over the country, isn't it? Buxton Opera House, among other lovely places.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Well, we might go there. Or we might go to the Story House in Chester. Or there may be one nearer to London.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's a long drive.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  But it's quite quick by train. And it's near my daughter's constituency. So we could go and see her at the same time.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Lovely.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  It is very nice.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Great.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  So this is More Rosebud with a true rock legend, Francis Rossi, Status Quo. Here he is.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Cue the music.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Francis Rossi, born 29th of May, 1949. I have to ask you to begin with, Francis. What is your very first memory?

• 7:32Speaker 05

  There's two, I can see my brother breastfeeding, so he's two years younger than me. But I'm not sure. That's kind of blurry, and I get put off by it somewhat. But it's another memory around that time. My brother was in the bath. My mother was bathing him. I was at the top of the stairs. She'd given me a saucepan lid. So I used to play and making circles in the carpet at the top. And I had a migraine. And I later found out it was migraine. And I was crying and she, I can hear her pleading with me just to stop. Oh, just give it, kind of give it a break. It must have all been getting too much for her.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Very vivid first memories. And your mother's central to both. Who was your mother? What was her name? What was she like?

• 8:16Speaker 05

  When I was growing up, she was called Nancy, but her name was Anne, I believe. And she married, she came, was born in Liverpool to a large family. But she, much later in life, when I was probably 20, had gone, went kind of ultra religious, over the top. And that kind of ruined my relationship with my father, my brother. All sorts of strange things went on. And when one's been brought up a Catholic, I think you, I remember desperately thinking, I need to get it right, like life, I suppose. And that was dictated to by my mother's form of Catholicism or Christianity or whatever.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  So she was an English Catholic from Liverpool, from a large family.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  She married your father, who?

• 9:01Speaker 05

  He was an unfortunate little fellow, yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  What was he?

• 9:04Speaker 05

  No, he was lovely. He was, he was an Italian fellow, born in Deptford, I believe. He got thrown out of school when he was 13 for chasing a teacher around the room with a cane. But he was a carpenter by trade, so was my grandfather. But they eventually went into ice cream. And the whole ice cream was the family we were into retail, which is, gives you a really good lesson for life, I think, retail.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Okay, well, I've got, I've got parents. I've got this mother from Liverpool, from a large family. I've got your father, who, as you say, small carpenter.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  They were both short, yeah. He was a.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  What was his name?

• 9:43Speaker 05

  Dominic. He was a delightful fellow. I really liked my father.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  So how many children did they have in all?

• 9:48Speaker 05

  They had one they lost before myself. A daughter died of a hole in the heart very quickly after birth. And then myself, and then my brother. I think my mother lost one other after that.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  So there were three or four children, two surviving. Tell me a little bit about your mother as a childhood Catholic and what that meant to her.

• 10:08Speaker 05

  It wasn't so evident then, although we were brought up as Catholic, she took me to confirmation and Holy Communion. More than anything, my parents and my family generally taught me about retail. And as I said to you, I think it's a good lesson for life. I have this thing, I'm looking forward to go back out on tour in a couple of weeks, and then I'm back home in November. Now, I love the winter, I can't stand the summer. But my self-analysis is that when we saw blue skies and it was hot, my parents and my entire family would be out working and work much longer hours, from earlier hours to longer hours. So that was, oh, good, it's doing well.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Selling more ice cream.

• 10:50Speaker 05

  Selling more ice cream. And but as the season went, and the darker nights came in, the idea of them selling ice cream got less and less. And then we would have the grey times, by the fire, doing the jigsaws. My dad would have bags of satsumas and eat them, and nuts and stuff. And he was great at just being. So I loved being indoors, like this time of year now, which is starting to go, the light. And I love that. And that's one of the reasons I like to be at home. And I figure I got that and learned that by being in retail. But you knew it had to, you know, that we would have a shop in Ballam at one point, and it had to open at eight, and it was closed at eight, no matter what.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  My dad said, no, we have to open, no matter how you.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  And this was an ice cream parlor?

• 11:38Speaker 05

  This was later on, we had just a regular sweet shop in, I think it was trying to get him out of ice cream.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  What was it called, the shop?

• 11:46Speaker 05

  Candy Shop in Bedford Hill, Ballam.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  The Candy Shop Bedford Hill Ballam, that's central to your childhood?

• 11:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, when I was about twelve, I think.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Describe your parents, if you can remember, what they were like together when you were a little boy, before you were twelve, when you were small.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  My dad always made my mother laugh. So we figure he may have got caught playing away at some juncture, which might have sparked all that other thing off. But they were always very happy together. And very much that retail working ethic, everything was about the work. Because we'd been self-employed, and I grew up self-employed, and I became self-employed. And as you know, if we don't do something, nothing comes in. So I learnt that when I was very, very young. They were always very happy together. We went to Southend on sea once or twice, to the Cursel, or to Margate, to the Dreamland. And my dad loved the fairgrounds, as my mother did. So once, I don't know how many times that would have been. When you're

• 12:44Speaker 05

  young, you think, oh, we did it every year. It may have happened three times in your childhood.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Give me your sweetest recollection of you, Francis, as a little boy with both your parents. What comes into your head as a really happy recollection?

• 13:00Speaker 05

  What comes to my head is coming out of the, in the Cursel in Southend, they had this, like a helter-skelter at the bottom. You went into this huge bowl, which was wooden, like parquet floor, and you swizzed around that. And all of us ending up, my brother too, and my mother, she had to get up quickly and cross her legs because she was going to pee, because she was going to laugh. He made her laugh anymore, and of course my dad would make her laugh. They were fabulous together, until all that stuff later on.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  What went wrong?

• 13:31Speaker 05

  I don't know. There was some, she had a sister who married an Italian guy that who was in, they were in New York. And she started having these ridiculous long conversations with her sister, which was really annoying my dad. And it was a time when it was costing serious amounts of money.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Because on the phone, you mean, she was talking to New York?

• 13:53Speaker 05

  To New York, yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  And money was important, of course.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, just throwing it away was, and then she went to, decided she was leaving my father, and I thought, she said, I need to come and live with you. I thought, just my luck. And, you know, later on, I thought, well, what wasn't much else I could do, to be branded as this kid who just blanked his mother. With all that money you've got, you know, you could have looked after. And so I did, I took my mother in, and she lived with me for twenty years.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Now, just let's try, because we've brought this up now, let's try and nail this once and for all. You're giving me the impression that as a child, it was a happy family, and retail, i.e. running the business, was key to their life, they worked hard for that. When they were together, they seemed a happy couple, they laughed a lot together, you went on holiday, it was a good childhood. And then down the road, something happens.

• 14:45Speaker 05

  Something happened, yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Had he been playing away too much, do you think?

• 14:49Speaker 05

  That's what my, it may have happened. My brother and I speculate doing, something like that must have happened. Or my sons tend to think that their grandmother must have had some, she had hysterectomies, she had various nervous breakdowns and stuff earlier on in their lives. So don't know what that was, but it just messed us up. And I can't, I was probably about eighteen or nineteen, and saw my mother for something, and she, quite viciously in a sense, said, well, I'm not your mummy anymore, I'm not your mother, you don't call me mommy, you call me Annie. And, but there was this thing

• 15:29Speaker 05

  that, at that point, I lost my mum, my mum, that close thing. And whether it's my parents taught me this, once I get, you chop something off, it's finished, it's done, there's no more.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Before we leave this, have you tried to analyse what caused this change? It's clear, she had mental health issues, she had physical issues, it may be to do with just growing older. And she possibly had problems with your father, because he may have played away.

• 15:59Speaker 05

  I think so.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  She had an underlying faith. Something was triggered, maybe it was the conversations with her sister in New York?

• 16:05Speaker 05

  Well, okay.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Was it a clergyman who introduced her to?

• 16:07Speaker 05

  No, no, she was, although she was very religious, she's mocked the church somewhat, that it was all what was wrong with the church, and there are many things wrong with the church. There was something from her sister that I think was particularly vicious, that for some reason, that's why I assume maybe he played away, she confided in him. And she told me certain things that she, one day she said to me, her sister said, I've been whoring myself. You're telling your son this?

• 16:38Speaker 03

  I've been whoring myself.

• 16:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I think there may have been a sort of, what we call now role play, perhaps, going on with my parents, in the evening. And I suddenly thought one day, Dad, you crafty son. But they were happy doing that. And then she perhaps confided in her sister, and this is what became the whoring.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Forgive me, I'm not quite understanding what you're saying.

• 16:57Speaker 05

  I know, I've confused things, don't I?

• 16:58Speaker 03

  Well, yes, but we must get this clear, because it's central to, in a sense, your growing up, but also your attitude to life, what you said about when something ends, we cut it off and we move on.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  It's finished, yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  When you say she was whoring herself, well, they were playing role play, play games together?

• 17:15Speaker 05

  I'm assuming this, I don't see, my mother actually tells me.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Or was she going out and having men?

• 17:19Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Oh, she's joking, far too early for that. No, I don't think that would have happened at all. I assume that something went on, because one day she said to me, someone said you've been whoring yourself. And I went, oh, great. And that's when I started to, I remember my mother having the black horn rim, thirty fifty glasses, and the French bun, and her hair done red. And I saw another picture of a red curly hair in a trap. And I went, ding, oh, this is how it was going with them. And they were fine doing that, I didn't have a problem with that. My brother can't deal with talking about them actually doing anything like that. And that's, I put that together, I may be completely and utterly wrong.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  So let me get this right. Your father may have strayed from the marital path. Your mother obviously wouldn't have liked this, she discussed it at great length with her sister in America. They maybe tried to keep things going, you call it whoring, by which I think you mean that they played games at home where she sort of dressed up in a tartly way. That didn't work out. She leaves him, she wants to reject him, she clings on to her faith, she becomes someone different. She comes and lives in your house for twenty years, until she dies, and you have, you have a good relationship in the sense that you look after her?

• 18:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was doing, as I was told, it was a deal, and I'd, there was, she had a frac, she had a very fractious relationship with my first wife, and to kind of, that gave her, we were having this thing, she was going to live with us, and we were going to have this meeting, my wife and her, and.

• 19:01Speaker 05

  And my mother, she asked my mother, how long was she going to stay living? And she said, I'm here for good. But it was a play on words. She would have said, I'm here for the good because I'm doing God's work, kind of. And that forced a divorce, which was going to happen anyhow. And she left. And then the deal was that my, my mother would look after my children when they came for the weekends and such.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  So your mother came to live with you. That precipitated the divorce from your first wife, which was on the cards anyway.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  It accelerated it.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  And the deal was that your mum at weekends would be the good granny.

• 19:41Speaker 05

  There was the blackmail later on, over the years, there was this sort of blackmail.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Explain the blackmail, what does that mean?

• 19:46Speaker 05

  Well, it was implied that, it was just implied, kind of, and then, how are you going to do this? Who's going to look after the children? And also, the wife, ex-wife was vilified as this evil woman. And again, the Catholic boy trying to believe that his mother was kind of the way or, you know, that God, the religion, everything. And I now, I've got no problem believing in a supreme being of a sorts. But if there is one, we're all fine. There's not just one for these lot, one for that lot, one for this lot. We're better than your lot. And that seems to be how we played a religion's card.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  During these years when your mum is living with you, what's happened to your dad? He's gone off elsewhere?

• 20:31Speaker 05

  He'd gone off elsewhere. I know, it's just cut off from him because it was not the wise thing to upset my mother. Plus, she made him, painted him into this vicious corner of vicious things that she just, she wanted nothing to do with him or speak of him. There's not even, nothing was good that my father may have done, could have done, thought, nothing at all.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Let's, let's now go back to your childhood. We will have to return, I'm afraid, to your mother when we come to deal with your three partners and your eight children and the part that...

• 21:06Speaker 05

  He does play, he does play.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  The part that your parenting has played in the way you are. But let's take you back to you, the little boy, who is having fun making shapes on the carpet with the saucepan lids, playing at the top of the stairs. Who's your first friend outside the home, other than your brother?

• 21:25Speaker 05

  Outside the home? There was a guy that lived in these prefabs. His name was Stuart Norton. And I really liked him. And Christine and Tina that lived in this other prefab. And I knew them and we played with them quite happily for years, until one hits eleven, twelve years old and all that other stuff kicks in.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  You were happy at primary school, weren't you?

• 21:46Speaker 05

  Pretty much so. There was a sense that bullying went on and I was four eyed and picked on-ish.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Why were you picked on? Why were you four eyed?

• 21:55Speaker 05

  Four eyed and Italian, so I was like...

• 21:58Speaker 03

  And you were treated as, I mean, they called you the ITI.

• 22:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, all that.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  It's not that long after the war, after all. It's ten years after the war.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Which is why I said earlier that we spoke Italian. My brother doesn't remember. And by the time we went to Italy for a couple of months, three or four months, and I was six, seven, coming up to seven. And by the time we came back, one of my uncles had said to Nona, my grandmother, that we mustn't be speaking Italian anymore. So it was cut down in the house. So therefore, we became really English. But it's so, I find that was such a shame that in my family, that we didn't maintain that Italian speech. We're great, but I loved it.

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  Primary school was okay.

• 24:49Speaker 05

  It was okay.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Secondary school, not so good.

• 24:51Speaker 05

  Uh-uh. Well, I met, it's tricky, I met Alan Lancaster, who I formed a band with, or we formed a band together, and then another guy called Alan Key. Played trumpet in the school orchestra and such. And I remember being really, wow. That's where I really learned to swear and do a real fucking call, blimey, lad, sort of, like, fuck, and oh man. And I can do that and...

• 25:17Speaker 03

  So were you playing this Jack the lad character? Or do you think you were?

• 25:20Speaker 05

  I've been playing that Jack the lad character, I think, ever since. And I always want to be funny. I always want to make people laugh. And that started there because it was a form of defence. And I remember walking home in the first year, walking down this hill, trying to swear like this guy at school. And I walked past this woman who's probably younger than I am now. And I went, you fucking... And she went, oh. And it definitely hurt her ear when she, oh, that was, all those consonants doing the thing with the vowel in the centre there, bang, you know? And I often thought, I'd like to apologise to that lady.

• 26:00Speaker 05

  But I did end up being everything I wanted to be, of which I'm pretty much ashamed of now, I think. I don't want to be that way. It was a form of defence in that school.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  In order to blend in with everybody else.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  To blend in with, yeah. I always say that, they're, they're, you go in a classroom, you'll get the main guy, and he's got four or five guys. And if a teacher walks in and number one tries it and the teacher shuts it down, it goes quiet. If the number one gets away with it, number two tries it, number three tries, and I'd be number five and I would try it. And if we got away with it, the class was finished. There was a guy called David Waldron. There was a time then, there was this fascination or trend for going to people by the back of their head and really slapping them as hard as you could.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Gives that to each other?

• 26:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. And in the class, we walked out of this class, number one, number two, number three, number four, and number five. And number five, I got to him and I smacked him round the head so hard. And it's just, I can see him now, he just looked at me and he rested. And that's another person I really needed to apologise to and I never have, I never got to see him again. But I belted him as hard as I could because I didn't want these guys to think I didn't do it and get you afterwards for it. So that was going on in secondary school.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  And what was going on in your head? This is the act we're putting on.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  I'm going to be a rock star.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  You were going to be a rock star.

• 27:33Speaker 05

  Well, that wasn't the term. I was just going to be in a group. I just think people talk about these days that particularly somebody I know want to manifest what's going to happen and they'll ask the universe as such. I knew I was going to do this and how it's going to happen, how it was going to be, I don't know.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  You say, you hoped, in your head, you thought, I'm going to be a rock star. Wasn't a phrase we had. And then what we call them, pop star.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  Pop star, be, I was going to be in a group. I was going to be in a group.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  You were going to be in a group.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  There is such a joy in playing an instrument with somebody else. If you get a guitar now, we play to it. I could be gone, that's it, I'm happy.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  And your first guitar came into your life when? You asked for it, didn't you? It was a Christmas present?

• 28:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was before that. My brother and I had seen the Everly Brothers. And I said, I want him to do that. And he said, yes, I will get guitars for Christmas. So we asked him. And he changed his mind before Christmas. I've got a train set, triang train set. But he wouldn't have been, my brother wouldn't have been any good at it. You have to be, apart from diligent and it's obsessed and obsessive and never take your finger off the pulse, you know this. And a lot of people in this show business, you know, they're letting go and just say, oh, I come back, it's gone. We shouldn't let it go. And I've been like that since twelve or thirteen.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  At what age were you when you met Alan Lancaster?

• 28:49Speaker 05

  Eleven or twelve, the first year at that school. And I don't know why, but him and I and Alan Key used to have these trumpet lessons. I enjoyed playing trumpet somewhat. And I think it was Alan Key on, they said, we should form a beat group. He said, well, one of you is going to have to sing.

• 29:10Speaker 05

  So, well, I'll never go. I was Michael Row the boat is yours. I was, I said, I became the singer because I had the, I don't, I can't understand where I got the guts to do it. But I just sang that and that's what we said, you're the singer then. I saw, I started to sing.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  And you've been doing that basically ever since, from the age of eleven?

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, trying to sing, yeah, trying to sing. People think I'm being modest or joking, but I'm trying to sing. And you can tell I'm getting the octogenarian, it won't be long.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  When did you first do it in front of an audience? Can you remember the reaction?

• 29:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was thirteen in October sixty-two. Alan Lancaster's dad worked for Samuel Jones, this place in, in Peckham. And he re, he got us this gig to play at their sports ground in Dulwich, and this little, it was just, it was probably about as big as this maybe. And I couldn't go on. I re, that's the first time I was ever, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Until Alan's mother was there, not my mother, not my father, Alan Lancaster's mother, May. And she turned up and we went on and did it. And I was very lucky, this guy came, I said, I want a manager, I beg your pardon, I want a manager, a manager group. I said, you'll have to ask Alan's mum.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  And, you know, he went, oh, so he went and asked Alan's mum and she, and then she looked back at me, she went, okay, she had a word with him. And he was our manager from then on. So at the first gig we ever had, we had a manager who was always pushing for us.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  But this is incredible. So how old are you, three boys doing this?

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Thirteen.

• 30:44Speaker 03

  And what are you calling your little group at that stage?

• 30:46Speaker 05

  The Specters, I believe, yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  The Specters, good name.

• 30:50Speaker 05

  Well, of the time it was, yes.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Yes, it's a bit tarnished now as the name, Specter.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Wouldn't work now, no.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  But nonetheless, the Specters and a manager hears you, sees you, says, I'm gonna look after you.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  That was the luckiest thing, I think, is that we did various auditions and we always failed the auditions. And he eventually got one for Butlins. He would drive people wherever, he was a.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  Was it Butlins at Minehead, it usually is, yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, and we, because, I'm a believer that because it wasn't particularly important, we'd failed so many, and it was taken, ah, we'll fail, so we went in and just did the thing. And we passed, and then we got the gig. And it all went pear-shaped from there, really.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  No, it all went like a rocket.

• 31:37Speaker 05

  The rocket test took off, that was it.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  It just took off.

• 31:39Speaker 05

  And that made me even more obsessed with it, and you cannot take your eye off the ball.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  What age did you leave school?

• 31:45Speaker 05

  I was fifteen in the May and I was left in the July.

• 31:50Speaker 03

  And is it true that you were actually expelled on the last day?

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, for having your, having your blazer signed up, you'd since previous years, leavers, get the bounce, and everyone's, yes. Went back in class and this teacher, Mr. Gaze, lost his rag, so to speak, and sent me to the headmaster. And the headmaster looked to Mr. Brown, who I had a lot of respect for before this, and he said, you're out, you know, kind of, you know, I'm expelling you. And I stood outside the school at about two fifteen in the afternoon. And it's, it's good because of these moments that you suddenly go, all this respect one had for the system, I still had a certain amount of respect for it, I remember thinking, dickheads.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  Probably some other word, not dickheads, but, and then I went to, and I got on the train, I went home and that was that, went on to whatever I did next.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  And what you did next was the band?

• 32:45Speaker 05

  Well, before that, I went to work in Albert T. Harris in, in Bromley, Bromley South as opticians, standing opposite a clock, huge clock across the road, you don't wanna work in front of a clock there, well, we do. And I've got these lenses, you had lens on and the wheel dropping, with waters dropping and like that, and you had to push them into the lens, and I worked there and I thought, I can't deal with this.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  But that was retail?

• 33:09Speaker 05

  The, a form of retail.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  It was, of course, selling spectacles.

• 33:13Speaker 05

  They were charging, if you cracked the lens, they took it out of your money.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  You go in, you work the day.

• 33:17Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  And how did the band go on developing? You had a manager?

• 33:21Speaker 05

  He was, that's right, during that period, we must have gone for the audition, there had been subsequent auditions and gigs, and even met my manager, my agent, who, who still is to some degree, Neil Warnock. And we were playing above Burton's in Lewisham. Do you remember Burton's always had these bories? And a very steep cellar, and he came up to see us, and he got halfway up and the guy said, don't come up here, he said, I'll knock you straight down that, he said, I've never heard a band as bad as this in my life. And subsequently, it went on from there. But we went to Butlins and you played once in the afternoon, once in the evening, and they were long sessions and you got sore blistered fingers, you lost your voice.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  But we didn't use the time, I think, I, I lost the viewer bit there, I think, it kind of.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  You slightly took your finger off the pulse.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  Well, I think so, yeah, because we could have improved somewhat, because as musicians, we were, we're probably below average, I would say.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Had you met girls at the school?

• 34:21Speaker 05

  A lot of girls, a lot of girls.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  Well, that, that is clear, as we come on to.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  And you're gonna get me for the children, aren't you?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  I am. Well, I mean, it only happens one way, traditionally.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  It does, apparently, yeah.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Well, not entirely, because I seem to remember that your mother came to the conclusion that you had not been conceived the normal way, that you were the result of an immaculate conception. Have I imagined this?

• 34:44Speaker 05

  But isn't that obvious? What's the matter with him? Yeah, yes.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  But you did go to a phase.

• 34:48Speaker 05

  That was another thing. Now, you imagine, you're sitting with your mother and she's gone all like with what I've been through.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  And one day you're sitting there quite seriously, she said, well, your father never came near me. I said, oh, come, nobody's ever, however, I said, I had even a problem being the immaculate conception, but you then perceived my brother's conception to be a dirty one. Well, yes. Ah, just so one loses that respect for one's mother as well, I believe. I feel I did.

• 35:14Speaker 03

  So girls, were there girls that you're comprehensive?

• 35:17Speaker 05

  Lovely. Pardon, yes, there were. I learned all sorts of stuff from girls.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Can you remember your first kiss?

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Yes, Priscilla Cole. So she taught me to kind of kiss properly. Before that, it was, you know, TV.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Oh, that's quite sweet.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  It was quite sweet, yeah, well, not from her.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  How long did it last with Priscilla?

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Not long. I went out the first night and that's, I suppose, that's that growing up thing, what am I gonna put on? So I put my school uniform on.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  Oh, bless.

• 35:47Speaker 05

  And I met her, and she must have been, you know, fourteen or so, and there I am eleven or so, thinking, well.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Oh, she was an older girl?

• 35:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I thought, I was like older girls.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh, so you're eleven and Priscilla is teaching you how to kiss properly, but you're eleven?

• 36:00Speaker 05

  Mm. You're getting me excited here, I might have to leave the room for a moment.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  How marvelous. What was your, who was your first serious girlfriend?

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Susan Small. Oh, I know Susan Small, she comes to see me occasionally in this show. And, yeah, she was nice, very nice, I probably should have stayed with her. But, well, in, I do Q and As occasionally, I did do, and the question people often, do you have any regrets? As though one never has regrets. Well, yeah, I'd have many, I shouldn't have left Bernadette's mum, I shouldn't have done cocaine, or the drink which led me to cocaine and so on.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 36:36Speaker 05

  But we are the sum total of, aren't we? So if I hadn't have made those mistakes, and everyone assumes if they hadn't made mistakes, that they'd be in a better place, I don't really wanna take that chance of saying I'd be in a better place.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  No, but Susan Small was clearly a lovely, lovely girl.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  Lovely woman, yes.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  And you got on really well, and you were, it was a special relationship.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  What's you trying to say?

• 36:59Speaker 03

  No, I'm just saying, I'm just, I'm savoring the sweetness of Susan Small.

• 37:03Speaker 05

  You warned me, didn't you? Yes, she did warn me about you, she said.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  All I'm wanting to establish is the loveliness of Susan Small.

• 37:11Speaker 05

  She was lovely, yes.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  And why do you think you lost her?

• 37:14Speaker 05

  I went to Butlins.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 37:18Speaker 05

  And then I met my first wife.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Your first wife?

• 37:20Speaker 05

  I did, I walked through the door at Butlins, I told you it went pear-shaped.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  But you were still a teenager.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Sixteen, the day I was sixteen, I went to Butlins. And I walked through the door, I met her, her sister and Rick Parfitt, and my life went pear-shaped from then on. You thought I was joking.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  My gosh. Well, let's take them in, in order. The, the wife, we'll come on to Rick Parfitt, because that's part of the trajectory.

• 37:45Speaker 05

  It's the other wife, yeah.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Everyone knows about Rick Parfitt.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, really.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  The, the girl you meet is your first wife. So Paul and Susan Small is immediately forgotten because very before your very eyes.

• 37:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's how, what a git I am, really, let's face it.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  Well, I'm getting the impression.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  Show business, we're gits.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So you see her and her sister, but interesting, you choose her, not her sister, but never mind.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Sister, I still know very well, I get on very well with.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Good.

• 38:06Speaker 05

  I don't necessarily get on with my first wife very well.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  That's tricky because of her sons, my first three sons, they're all.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  How quickly did you get married?

• 38:12Speaker 05

  Well, I made up my mind, I could see her dancing and we were, I forget what song we were playing, but she was dancing and I actually thought, I'm gonna marry her. I said to John Cogley, I'm gonna marry her, that'd do me, lovely. And I kept pushing her for some time. And then somehow the baby arrived, Rodney. That's us Catholic boys, we never leave when we should.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  And then two more arrived as well?

• 38:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I, I make all those jokes about my first wife and I don't, as I said, don't get on particularly well anymore. But without that, I wouldn't have my first three sons, they're all delightful.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  How long were you with your first wife?

• 38:54Speaker 05

  From when I was sixteen till nineteen, so sixty-five to seventy-nine, which is a long time when you're that age, yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  By your standards, it's almost a lifetime now.

• 39:04Speaker 05

  You're writing this down as well?

• 39:05Speaker 03

  Now, so you go back, we are at Butlins at Minehead, it's going well. Rick Parfitt you meet.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  I met him walking through the frigging door, yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  And why did you and he click? What did you decide to do together?

• 39:17Speaker 05

  We didn't at first, we were playing one afternoon and there were these stairs and we'd see people walk up the stairs and they'd walk along the back and go out, oh, fuck I know. We'd be really, and then one day this guy came up and he walked up to the centre and he had a silver suit on. I remember the line in a Bob Dylan song, I want you, and he walked up the centre there, he's got that real flash look on that we tend to have. And he came and spoke to us afterwards and then got to know him quite well there. But our relationship later on developed when our first manager, Pat Barlow, he said, we need a singer. I thought, well, that's me out there, isn't it, kind of?

• 40:01Speaker 05

  And when he said Rick, I went, oh, that's different, I liked Rick, I got on well with Rick.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Had you changed the name yet? You were still?

• 40:10Speaker 05

  We changed our name in this period from The Specters to Traffic, to Traffic Jam within a week, had one or two singles. And we're doing this gig, the first one with Rick, and we'd been through rehearsals, and this stage with Rick all his life, he was terrible. He'd learned the songs in theory, and we're setting up, and he said, Ross. I was called Ross. Ross, I haven't learnt the songs.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  What? I haven't learnt the songs. Oh. Well, you'd just, you'd better just unplug and mime all night. So he unplugged and mimed all night. And, um, afterwards, the others realised and they wanted rid of him. And I just said, no, which was, was one of the mistakes, really. It was, there were years of him and I was so, so close. And then as time goes by, we drifted apart and rather a lot. Went different ways somewhat.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  But he is the joint author of the success.

• 41:14Speaker 05

  In a sense, yes, but I mean, the band had already had its record contract. We'd already become, uh, decided it was going to be the Status Quo. In fact, our manager came down the stairs in Lambeth Walk in this basement. We used to rehearse in the basement and, um, he said, we're going to change the name even Quo Vadis. Yeah. And it, and he said, what about Status Quo? We said, yeah, that's fine. We're just learning something or whatever. And hence we were the Status Quo.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Initially, you were the Status Quo, weren't you?

• 41:42Speaker 05

  Yes, everybody was the first.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  As in The Beatles, The Rolling Stones.

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Everything was there and they all got dropped, yeah. And T-Rex was another one. They were Tyrannosaurus Rex and they did that T-Rex. So everybody started to be S quo and all names got shortened all the more. The Stones then became The Stones.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  So was Status Quo was the manager's idea in passing and stuck.

• 42:05Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  And then when, when does the liftoff moment happen? When you suddenly realise, actually, this dream I had when I was 11 of being, I'm now bigger than the Everly Brothers.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  Well, that's interesting because Matchstick Men was being recorded, this other thing.

• 42:20Speaker 03

  And who wrote Matchstick Men?

• 42:21Speaker 05

  Me.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  And did you like the paintings of Ellis Lowry?

• 42:25Speaker 05

  No, I didn't really know about them.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  But that is the origin of the title, isn't it?

• 42:29Speaker 05

  I know it's in there, but that was something that came, my first wife came up with pictures. I'm a picture, Matchstick Men, all right, fair enough. I didn't know about Lowry at all. It turned out a very good record. And, uh, they released it in November and it became a hit in February 68. That's a long time, right? It was when we first did Top of the Pops and whatever. Then I realised that very quickly that, well, you know, showbiz is, there it is. Quickly just, oh, you just need to get on with it. And from then on, you're hanging on, are you? And I'm still hanging on. Damn, I'm white knuckling, you can't let go, can't let go.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  But you kept your finger on the pulse.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Through sales of many millions of records.

• 43:13Speaker 05

  Many, yeah.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Up there, top 40, top 20, top 10, number one with Down Down.

• 43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, 20 minutes nearly, number one, we were.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Well, never mind.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's long enough.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  Uh, and in all, what is it? 120 million or something, I mean, anyway, it's fantastic.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  You keep growing up.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  And you kept going.

• 43:30Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  During that time, there was the distraction of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

• 43:35Speaker 05

  Lovely.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. I don't know why I say that.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  You brought it up.

• 43:39Speaker 05

  I know.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  How did you get, how did you get into the, you said the drink got you into the heroin or was it the other way around?

• 43:44Speaker 05

  Well, we all do that, men do that to men. It goes back to the school album with that sort of, oh, you fucking, have a drink, boy. I don't want a drink, thank you. Have a party, drink, what's up with you? What kind of boy, puff eye or what, that sort of. And it was, we were in, um, Montreux making an album. And, uh, Queen used to record there too. And they came there one night or they were playing there and we all went out together for this Mexican meal. And, uh, John Coghlan was one of those people. Lots of people did it, not just him. Have a drink. Andrew Bown still does it to me, taste that, you know? And, uh, I sipped this margarita. Oh, salt and sugar, that's going to work with me, bit of lemon, lovely.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  And so I drank six. Oh, that's quite good. I thought that's quite, and that started me drinking. I, and I do believe we all become somewhat a-holes once we start drinking. We become.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  And how long did that last?

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Six, seven years. Quickly the cocaine, I would never have touched coke. Putting powder up my nose and a dirty pound note first, yeah, not going to happen. And it did. And then I, I'm one of those addictive natures, I get, uh, in the good and the bad. I can be addicted to something.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you also, when you get to the end, as you've explained, you're someone who can't stop, cut it off and move on. So you, overnight, you gave up, did you? Did somebody help you?

• 45:09Speaker 05

  Drinking first, that's just what I don't fancy feeling that way.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Drinking or it just helped you?

• 45:14Speaker 05

  No, I just, we were in Moscow and I.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  In Moscow?

• 45:17Speaker 05

  We did 14 shows at this one place, about 17,500 people a night. It just was phenomenal. But we, I would drink this time and I thought, I would have on the encore, you know, I'll drink on the encore. And I'm, well, we're looking on the encore, is it kind of? And I just thought, no, I don't want to do this anymore. So I stopped and that was it. And the same with cocaine. We were going to make an album in Nassau. It was the worst place to go to give up coke because.

• 45:47Speaker 03

  Roger.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  That's about as much as you needed to do to get coke from this. And I just thought, well, I tell you what I'll do. We were going to have three or four days on and then have a day off. So I thought, well, I have it too, the night before a day off, because I don't want that, being in the studio thinking I need something. And it got to, each night it got to the, the day before the day off. I thought, I'll wait another day. I'll wait till the next day off. And I just kept waiting till the next day off. And then part of me doesn't want to let me down by doing it or slipping back down to, and then, and then the craving goes. And I'd done the same with, I smoked one cigarette a day in the evening.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  Put it out, yeah, put it out until, till one is gone.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  You do that still?

• 46:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  You have one cigarette, that's your one indulgence.

• 46:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, whenever I go medicals and such, they just don't believe you do one. Yes, I do, one. It'll start at about 10 past eight tonight and, uh, be finished by, I don't know, half past nine.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  Oh, it's nice, it's a, it's a little ritual, a habit for you.

• 46:50Speaker 05

  Yes, it is, and I still get the kick, which I like.

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• 48:03Speaker 03

  Chatting with people about you, you coming here, several people said, oh, God.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  Schmuck.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  Live Aid, 1985.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  That, because you were the opening act, weren't you? And you didn't expect that to be an extraordinary day, but it's become.

• 48:14Speaker 05

  No, not at all.

• 48:15Speaker 03

  You're part of, a part of a bit of history because of that.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  It gets more important and bigger and more wow, the further we get past it, yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Did you feel on the day that it was going to be pretty wow?

• 48:24Speaker 05

  No, I didn't want to do it. Rick and I were in Phonogram on a day off in the summer. We weren't working that summer. I, I come this upstart Irish fellow. I want a drink, you can fucking say, I don't know what you're talking about, son. But he went on about this gig and we said, no, thank you, thanks very much, goodbye, and let him go. And then maybe within three weeks, we were there again doing promo. And he came in again and badgered and badgered. He said, I need an older band to, and subsequently found out he said this to the who and various other people, which is probably true. That's what made it work, all the older acts, I suppose. And, um, then there was the story that was obvious that we were going to open. No, it wasn't, son.

• 49:08Speaker 05

  And if you open, you're bottom of the bill. I remember asking Colin Johnson, have they sorted the bill out yet? He said, no, nobody wants to get, once everyone had agreed, well, no one's going on before anybody else, because they're bigger than everybody else, kind of goes on. And in the end, him and I said, well, we're going first, we'll be out of there by 12:15, we'll be back home by 12:30, you know? Didn't realise that it was going to snowball until the gig, it snowballed. Plus, when we went on, that was the moment we looked at each other, the amount of press, or media, we call it that. But media and people in the front, in the pit was just, never seen that before. And the sense of euphoria from the audience.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  And, and when we came off, you realised we'd hit every newsreel on the planet and did do for the rest of that week. And you could see people going, should have gone on first, shouldn't we? We just, everybody learnt that lesson, ah. And it, maybe things changed that, just so. And we never realised we were going, it was going to happen like that.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  You stayed through the night though, didn't you? You stayed to the end.

• 50:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, you could, you couldn't really get out. You can just start flying helicopters all over the place. We stayed there, yeah. Didn't want too far from it because Bob wanted to do a finale and all that, old Bob. So I just crept up the back ramp and sat on the floor.

• 50:26Speaker 03

  There were pictures of you and David Bowie?

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Me and David Bowie were sat on the, on the table at the back. And then the lights went out and the table collapsed and then I don't know what happened. But I just, I can't go and do that. I can't, can't push my weight to the front. Ricky was very, very good at that. He would just get out and why.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Why did you and Rick fall out eventually?

• 50:49Speaker 05

  I think outside of influence is my wife, his wife, consecutive wives, whatever girlfriends. And it happens in all bands.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  Your wife, I would say, would say, "Oh, it's all about you, darling", and just keep pushing it. "Why is he saying that? Why can't you have? Why is he getting woken?" And that became a very easy way to get to Rick. And he said to me one day, "I'm fed up being number two." "Well, I'm quick. I thought that means you want number one's job." "Whoa, that's not gonna work." "Because I don't believe one can be... I couldn't be Rick." "Rick, the people who love Rick still love Rick, and they hate me for speaking about Rick."

• 51:33Speaker 03

  But you were reconciled before you died?

• 51:35Speaker 05

  Oh, no, we were still together as such, but it just wasn't what it was at all. There'd been moments, I have a picture, one picture of him and I at home, and you can see it, he's looking at me, and it was only a couple of months before he died. I thought, "There's Rick." This is why I kept the picture, because I can see he's the guy that I always loved and always it was a pleasure to be with. We would make each other laugh, and he was great, when he was great.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  Have you analysed your success? Why, obviously, part of it is keeping the finger on the pulse and producing records that people want to buy. But do you stop and think about it, or have you just gone on doing it?

• 52:16Speaker 05

  A bit of each, I think. I'm pretty sure that it's fairly simple music, and people do write it somewhat. I've only recently, in the last five or six years, realising that whatever him and I were doing, the way we do, it drives me fucking mad here, and it too. And particularly when people send you a track, "You'll love this one, it's right for you", "Da-da-da-da-da", and you go, "Oh, fuck, how do you tell this person?" But I've only realised the interplay between him and I. He played this straight, "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da", and pushed ahead of the beat. I'm going, "Gadak, gadak, gadak", so this interplay went on. There's something going on. I don't really know what it is.

• 52:59Speaker 05

  I don't want to overly analyse it, because I'd disappear at my own bottom. But I realised a lot of that. And they talk about the X Factor, which is a ridiculous programme, because you can't find it, it's the X Factor, that's why it's called that. But something goes on when you look at him and I. No, you can't take away what him and I could do. Something comes off it, you know, to some of the two parts. Either one of us is good, I believe. But together, something else happens. And then we would start talking, and then we could be funny. We could do... And that became the more and more vice of rock and roll. So it's easy that the musical side of things is kind of ignored. But you cannot ignore Rick's drive.

• 53:44Speaker 05

  I don't know any guitar player that can play "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da", for four, six, eight, 10 minutes, keep going, and never tired.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  But between you, you combined to have the X Factor.

• 53:57Speaker 05

  I believe so, yeah, and that's not being big head, that's just analysing the entire thing. What is it? I don't know what it is, so therefore it has to be.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we can't argue with the success. Let's touch on the three... Were they all wives?

• 54:13Speaker 05

  No, Bernadette's mother, I would have... Bernadette, my first daughter, she said to me one day, "Why didn't you marry my mum?" "I don't know." So we phoned her mum, who was back in Kansas, "I'd never have married you." That's typically Irish, you know, I would never have married you.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Is Bernadette the one you didn't speak to for 17 years?

• 54:31Speaker 05

  So that was my fault, not her fault. She was with me very recently, her and her three children and her husband and her mother.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  I'm glad.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  You are, you should have had them then.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  No, because obviously, the reason you didn't speak to her for 17 years is because of this thing that you mentioned right at the beginning, of when something's over, "I cut it off and I move on."

• 54:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, but that was really pertaining to things where, as with my mother, when she said, "I'm not your mommy anymore", "Fair enough, that's that done", whereas I walked out on Elizabeth, who was this wonderful Indian girl.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  Forgive me, Elizabeth is Bernadette's mother?

• 55:05Speaker 05

  She is.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  And you left her?

• 55:07Speaker 05

  I did.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  And obviously Bernadette was quite small at the time?

• 55:10Speaker 05

  She was, and she does, she still holds it against me somewhat. They were here, as I said, just, what, a month ago?

• 55:17Speaker 03

  So, three boys by your first wife?

• 55:20Speaker 05

  Hmm, then Bernadette.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  Then Bernadette, and then what next?

• 55:24Speaker 05

  Some American woman that lives at my house, I don't...

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Oh, she's still there?

• 55:28Speaker 05

  That one, yeah, she was there this morning, I believe.

• 55:31Speaker 03

  Oh, well, but she hasn't heard this yet, has she?

• 55:33Speaker 05

  She's a delightful woman, she's a delightful woman.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  And you have four with her?

• 55:36Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  I mean, actually, it's quite conventional.

• 55:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I've had a full two minutes, so it's about 16 total, 16 minutes of sex. I could have done with a bit more, I could have lasted a little longer, perhaps. That's the Catholic thing, in and gone. Something to eat then, shall we?

• 55:53Speaker 03

  You're very funny. But obviously, you've been settled then with your present wife for some years, yes?

• 55:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do moan at her rather a lot.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  Are you easy to live with, that?

• 56:04Speaker 05

  No, I don't think I am at all.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  You're fun to live with, I'm sure.

• 56:06Speaker 05

  I don't know, when I'm fun, yeah. But I have a terrible thing, "Whew, mood's gone", something can really upset my mood, and yet something really... We were at home last Christmas when I was doing... Being at home in the winter, lighting the fire, doing the jigsaw puzzle, I love a jigsaw puzzle. Something had been really made me feel down that day, probably something about work, blah, blah, blah. And I realised that it was a part of the puzzle that I was doing that I was having trouble with. There was a guy sat in a wheelchair in the garden, in a wheelbarrow with a paper over him. And I got this bit, and I was like, "Yes, that made my afternoon", so my mood, which was really, "Hmm", went just like that, for something as light as that.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  The other night before last, she did some fish, I said, "It was particularly brilliant", I said, "You run your rod for your back now", because she won't do it like that quite again, will you? That really was so good, and it made my evening, I was like, "Oh, God, that was good."

• 57:07Speaker 03

  Why are you going on tour again? It's a big tour.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do the, I've been doing them, I started as a talk tour. I think I'm getting quite good at talking. And then I was asked to play a song, I thought, "No, thanks", so I did, and I thought, "I like this", started at 150, 200 people, we're getting up to 1800 perhaps. And I enjoy myself, look, I'm enjoying myself immensely, and I don't know why or what it is.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  I'm going to come and see you, maybe the Story House in Chester, or the Opera House in Buxton.

• 57:39Speaker 05

  Buxton, oh, that's a lovely place. Oh, I love it there, and I love that town, God, the houses.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  I love the way you've still got your finger on the pulse. We're coming to the end now. I want you to answer what straight comes into your head.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  That's difficult, you know that, you've talked to me for six or seven hours now.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  Exactly, people are just seeing the edited highlights. This was our first 12-hour, first ever 12-hour Rosebud.

• 58:04Speaker 05

  Just goes straight in, yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  I want Francis from your head.

• 58:07Speaker 05

  Quick responses.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  Quick response.

• 58:09Speaker 05

  I'll do my best.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  A moment of joy in your life, particularly from your earlier years.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  Seeing my children, my first few children born, the second one, Nicholas, my wife was fussing about in the Dullish Hospital, and this nurse said, "Oh, come on, dear, you'll be fine", "You're on your first child", I just had my second, she went, "Oh, shit", and so we had to panic, and I had to cut the cord and whatever else, and blood spattered up my... And it, but for some reason, it was such a joyous moment, I don't know why. And various children I've seen born, it's great moments.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  Are you on good terms with all your children now, all eight of them?

• 58:47Speaker 05

  I can't stand any of them, yes, I am, as far as I know, yes.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  Do you have grandchildren yet?

• 58:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:57Speaker 05

  My wife thinks they're sacred, I just think they're little, they're children. And I don't, I'm not one of those that thinks, "Oh, my child, she's gone missing, she's the most beautiful child, she's very, very friendly, everyone loves her at school", "My daughter's a little shit, what do you think? I still love her, though", so I don't see why we don't do that. They're my children, that's it really, nothing else is great about them. They're just my kids.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  There's quite a lot of the Italian still in you, isn't there?

• 59:22Speaker 05

  What, the gestures?

• 59:23Speaker 03

  The gestures, the look, the way you speak, the language. Do you feel British, Italian, what do you feel, international or global?

• 59:30Speaker 05

  I feel British, but I desperately want to be Italian. I miss that, it's of my childhood that I can't get hold of, because I don't speak the language anymore. My aunts, the ones that are surviving, there's only one to remind, Zia Theresa, she will talk to me in Italian, and I go so far, and then I get embarrassed. So I still, I do really would love to have been Italian, although they're gobshites, basically. That's a Liverpool, isn't it, you gobshite, yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  You're such an interesting mixture.

• 1:00:06Speaker 05

  I'm a mess.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  No, you're not a mess, you're a mixture, like most people are. There's still inside you that shyness, and you still do the Jack the Lad.

• 1:00:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I'm very shy, but that's why, when I stand at the side of the stage, I go out next two weeks, I have no idea what I'm going to tell. The stories I tell, you know, when you tell stories, you have one or two, "Okay, we'll start with, or we'll try", I have no idea what I'm going to do, and I'll be standing at the side of the stage, getting shit. And I walk, and as you know, something happens. Jack the Lad comes back, off he goes, because he has to. But I don't understand how I do that, if I'm that, when I'm that frightened.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  Well, we've been very lucky, because we in this conversation have seen both sides of you, I think.

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  I'm shutting up now.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  But I've liked both sides. After joy, give me a moment of sadness that comes into your head.

• 1:00:59Speaker 05

  Oh, I don't have to think on that.

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  You're into star signs at all?

• 1:01:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:05Speaker 05

  Well, I'm a Gemini, so therefore, oh, it's fucking good. This is.

• 1:01:12Speaker 05

  And each star sign has two sides, so you've got these four things going. There's this juggle going on all the fucking time. So what's my saddest moment? Um, there's been so many and they, and they're gone.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  The moment your mother died, were you with her when she died?

• 1:01:26Speaker 05

  No, I was with her. My wife came, Eileen had to go, you know, go and lift her onto the toilet each time and blah, blah, blah. And Eileen came in to me about seven in the morning. She said, Annie's dead. I said, okay. I turned over and I was getting up. I used to get up at 10 o'clock then and say, I'll be down soon. But a thing I can, I learned as well, whether other people had learned this. She was lying there and I went and touched her. Oh, there was that thing, another lesson that one had been taught. There's nobody there. Unless you've done that, there's nobody there. That woman is not there. I can see the outside, see the, yep. And I think, okay, I've got to go to rehearsals. And I went to rehearsals, same. Just go on with it, you get on with it.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  And when your dad died?

• 1:02:13Speaker 05

  I wasn't there. That lady came and told me he was, he'd died that morning. He fell at the stairs. He'd been out dancing and apparently he got to the top of the stairs and went, hit the deck. And it was dead by the time he hit the floor. So I was kind of saddened, but all of that had gone when my mother split the family up, so to speak. And I thought, oh, well. So I went to, I went to his funeral as well and, and went on to rehearsals. Because this is important, what I do. And I'm trying to display the sort of vacuousness of it and the, and the self, self me, me, me about it. And that's actors, people in show, all people in showbiz, it has to be me, me, me, darling.

• 1:02:58Speaker 05

  It's me, darling.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  But you don't need to apologize for any of this because the career has been a total triumph. You've had ups and downs.

• 1:03:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, but don't, don't you think even if it hadn't, he would still be this vacuous me, me, me, darling? Still trying to do it.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  But I don't think you need to feel that. You are a performer, therefore there is that narcissistic element. You go out there, you do it. Sometimes it requires Jack the lad, sometimes it requires something more thoughtful. But you are.

• 1:03:28Speaker 05

  I'm getting better at that, I think, yeah.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  And you were a very good partner with Rick, despite the divisions between you. You recognize on stage, something is happening that we can't do without each other, that we're doing together.

• 1:03:39Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  And that's the reason that status quo has been and remains in people's heads, so huge.

• 1:03:46Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Great. I can see it occasionally, yes.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  Feel good about that. What has life taught you, Francis?

• 1:03:56Speaker 05

  Never get too carried away with yourself, I think, basically. And there's always that battle to get carried away with. That's why I said to you on a few things about that, don't do that. Because he'll take it with him. I will take what you said with me. And one has to be very careful of that.

• 1:04:12Speaker 03

  Well, I'm taking with me that we have been very lucky to see the two sides of this Gemini.

• 1:04:17Speaker 05

  He's working.

• 1:04:18Speaker 03

  That is Francis Rossi.

• 1:04:20Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  You're very special. I'm going to come and see you on tour. Yes, there will be a critical audience for a change, not just a fan.

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I realize that. Yes, somebody knows what he's talking about.

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  You are, explain the ring in your ear before we go, because some people will think.

• 1:04:34Speaker 05

  I just thought it was groovy when I was about 19 and I went in the shop and said, can you put, and they did. And they put one, and this one I got in Dubai. The other one before was margin larger, bigger, you know. And I see other people with it, I go dickhead. And then I realized, oh, I've got one, I forget. Same with the white socks. So I changed the white socks to grey socks.

• 1:04:56Speaker 05

  He's a very strange person.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  But fascinating. Francis, thank you very much.

• 1:05:00Speaker 05

  Thank you very much. It was a joy.

• 1:05:59Speaker 00

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