Rhino was interviewed on The Limehouse Podcast on 3rd December. The seventy-minute interview - conducted with Rhino in the toilet of his holiday home on the UK's South coast - covered his varied background in music and many other topics along the way!
The interview kicked off with Rhino talking about his relationship with Freddie and his kids in general, with him sounding like a very proud Dad. He mentioned that he met his wife, Kathy, while dressed as a Bay City Roller at a fancy dress party! The podcast's presenter talked about his first experience of attending a Quo gig and how he has remained a fanatical follower of the band for the next thirty years. Talking about the loyal Quo fans, Rhino said that the band has a genuine connection with the fans and that the "band are having a great time playing great songs, we're here for your party".
Rhino was very open about his early life, saying he was a "troubled soul as a child, a problem child" and was seeing pyschologists from the age of seven. His interest in music started with violin lessons at school which led to private tuition. Around the same time, he heard The Beatles for the first time and it was an epiphany. Shortly afterwards, he was awarded a scholarship to the London College of Music, but he was still a "total nightmare" and also managed to get expelled from grammar school, before having a "fantastic" experience at a school for "maladjusted boys". Rhino's education continued at the Hammersmith College of Further Education where he discovered drugs and bands, then on 7th November 1969, it was a Free gig at Richmond Athletic Ground that led to his second epiphany, "I'm gonna be a bass player". Soon after he auditioned for a bass player gig, got it, and was quickly earning "five quid a gig". When Paul Rodgers went on to support Quo many years later, Rhino said that he found it hard to handle him supporting them, "it seemed weird".
The presenter recalled seeing Rhino on Top Of The Pops with Dexy's Midnight Runners, saying it was "the funniest thing ever". Rhino mentioned that he'd been on Top Of The Pops several times before Quo, with Judie Tzuke, Dexy's Midnight Runners and Kim Wilde (featuring him with dark hair for their appearance with "Rage To Love"). He said he'd loved being in Dexy's Midnight Runners, for the dress, the image and the attitude of the band. The very first thing he did with Dexy's was recording The Young Ones, a show he'd never heard of and playing a song he didn't know! Rhino said he was "very thankful for what has happened to me in my life" and it was probably either going to be the music business or drug-dealing as career choices!
He spoke fondly of Peter Green's playing, saying it "touches my soul" in the same way as that of Free's Paul Kossoff. He described how his new Rhino's Revenge live album, "Charge", came about before revealing that he will complete his third and final studio album in 2022, called "You're Never Too Old".
Rhino described his relationship with Rick as being "very close for a very long time" and that he "miss[es] him loads", though acknowledging that "he was a game of two halfs". He reiterated that he was the "funniest man I've ever met and used to make me weep with laughter". When Rhino had sepsis and nearly died several years ago, Rick sent a beautiful email which closed with "Rhino my love, if there's anything I can do for you, fuck off and get someone else to do it"!
Somewhat surprisingly, he said that James Brown at the Beacon Theatre in New York was the best gig he'd ever seen (maybe since Free, at least). Turning to Quo's appearance at Glastonbury, he said he wasn't nervous, having done it three times before with different bands. He said Quo "were good, really tore it up" and that Francis even joined the band in a pub after the gig, unheard of! Talking about Francis, he said he's "a top man, a force of nature, enigmatic... You'll never meet a more loyal person or a fairer person, a good man, mad as a box of frogs, he is what he is... I admire and respect Francis, he's a nice guy if he likes you".
Rhino surprised the presenter by mentioning that he first saw Quo back in 1971 at the Winning Post with Thin Lizzy. He again told the story of auditioning with Quo and how he couldn't believe how loud it was ("mental loud") and honestly said he "looked like a complete twat when I joined". He argued that the "Under The Influence" album reconnected with what the band was really more about (and produced by his long-time friend, Mike Paxman).
The interview wrapped up with a plug for both his Rhino Revenge live tour in January and the forthcoming "Charge" live album.
The Limehouse Podcast can be heard on Spotify.
Revisit the December 2021 event list
The following interview with Francis appeared in the UK's Sunday Times on 12th December.
"Francis Rossi formed what was to become Status Quo in 1962 with schoolmates in Catford, London. The band have had more than 20 UK Top Ten hits, with Rossi writing many of them, including Down Down, their only No 1. Quo opened Live Aid in Wembley in 1985 with Rockin' All Over the World. They won the outstanding contribution to music award at the Brits in 1991, when they ripped off their tuxedos to show their trademark blue jeans. In 2010 Rossi and his bandmate Rick Parfitt were both appointed OBE. Once known for taking so much cocaine that his septum fell out in the shower, a teetotal Rossi, 72, makes smoothies and swims 40 lengths a day as he gets ready to tour with Quo next year. He lives in Surrey with his wife, Eileen, 66, and two of his eight children.
How much money is in your wallet?
Ooh, blimey, about £200. That would've been great in my day, wouldn't it?
Which cards do you use?
I used to have shitloads of cards. It was a prestigious thing, the more cards you had the more clever you felt. Now I just have two, via my bank, Coutts, and I pay everything off quickly.
Are you a saver or a spender?
I look after money. I'm not miserly, but I worry about money long before there's any need to. I'm 72 and it has hit me that most of my life has gone. I've always figured I'll live until I'm 93. How the bloody hell am I going to finance that? My career's not suddenly going to take off again, is it? I go around turning lights off. I've had my car nearly two years and I've only done 2,000 miles in it. If I'm going somewhere I'll get someone to pick me up, I don't want to put the miles on my car. Once I kept a car for 14 years and it only had 37,000 miles on.
I've saved £5,000 or £6,000 a year since I gave up hash five years ago. I miss it because I enjoyed the calming, insular thing of sitting, playing guitar, thinking it sounded marvellous. But that had to stop because I'm convinced it was getting stronger; in the morning I'd feel down, like there was no point to anything.
What has been your most extravagant purchase?
I spent silly money on a suit. The band had a film out, Bula Quo!, and I needed something for the premiere. This PA took me somewhere in town and I thought it might be £1,000, but it was Ermenegildo Zegna and it was £3,500. I was, like, I'm going to wear it once! I read somewhere that I spent £2 million on drugs - there's no way. It sounds good in rock 'n' roll mythology. I was always a weedy fella and was frightened of drugs. It was only when I began drinking that I started taking coke. I was out with [the band] Cream in Montreux in Switzerland, sometime between 1980 and 1982. We were in a Mexican restaurant and someone kept saying: "Go on, have a drink!" I can't stand the taste of most alcohol. But they kept on: blokes do that to each other. So I drank six margaritas and I liked the sweet taste. From that point I became a drinker. There was a lot of pressure. They would say: "Want a toot? Want some coke?" I'd say no, thanks, but if I was tipsy I'd be like: "Yeaaah, go on then." I wrote a song called Marguerita Time in 1983, but in 1987 I gave up coke and drinking. I've read that Class B drugs are a gateway, but I think that's bullshit. Alcohol was what led me to cocaine.
Have you ever been really hard-up?
Yeah, when I got married in June 1967, I was living with my first wife, Jean, and her sister, near Dulwich in south London. We were in a prefab filled with asbestos with 4in walls. F*** it was cold! Gigs were tight, so Jean told me to go on the dole. I went, this guy asked what I did and I said I was self-employed. "What do you mean, self-employed? Who d'you think you are?" He was really shirty, but he gave me £5 and said not to ever come back. Not long before that I'd been working at an opticians in Bromley, cutting lenses and doing the cake run for elevenses, earning £2.50 a week. I also had a spell cutting grass for the council, and was about to start driving an ice-cream van when Pictures of Matchstick Men took off, in February '68.
How much did you earn last year?
Not much because we were in lockdown. I wrote most of the hits, so I get royalties, but I'd be getting even less without Sandie Shaw! I was at Buckingham Palace - I can't remember why, but it was around the time I got my OBE. Shaw came over to talk about copyright because at that time songs went into the public domain after 50 years, so you stopped earning money. Sandie was like: "Come on, we've got to extend the copyright!" It's now 70 years, and it's all credit to her. I'm lucky it happened in time for me, but with books it goes on to your offspring, and with music it doesn't - I find that wrong.
What has been your best investment?
Probably school fees. I've spent shitloads - a couple of million? I've got eight kids all far better educated than I am.
Do you invest in shares?
No. Maybe I'm a scaredy cat, but I try not to go into areas I don't understand. Lots of people in the music business wander into another field, thinking they know it, and lose fortunes. It's all: "I'm a businessman!" No, you're a dickhead that's in a band that got lucky.
What was your worst investment?
I lost £45,000 investing in a huge development of holiday lets in Tenerife in 1978 or '79. That was probably the last of my "Why don't we invest in this or that?" moments. When I was in Australia with Rick two guys told us they were going to float the Titanic. They said they'd get ropes underneath, inflate these balloons, and it would float to the surface. I can't remember how many million they wanted - it was always millions people wanted. We chatted away and it seemed like a great idea - but no one who's trying to con you is going to make it sound like a shit idea, are they? Luckily the people who were looking after us made sure they didn't get the chance to rip us off.
What's better, property or pension?
With property you've always got it. With pensions I've had magical schemes that have all gone pop. There was one policy I got at 20, where I paid in tuppence or thruppence a week, for a payout of £80,000 when I was 40 or 50. When I took it out the house I was buying cost £9,800, so £80k sounded amazing. But of course when I was 40 all it did was help with my overdraft. I don't know what pension I've got now, but I trust my adviser. I was a mess before I met him.
Are you better off than your parents?
My parents really did work, but at the sufferance of the children because my brother and I were just left at home. For a while we had Italian girls living with us. They were only 13 or 14, and probably 16th cousins removed. They looked after us while my parents worked. My grandparents had a small ice-cream factory with a cafe in Catford, south London. My mother worked in the factory while dad went out and sold ice cream. In the evening they sold ice cream together. At one point my father was coming home, changing vans, then he'd go out selling fish and chips. When I was 10 or 11 we moved to Bedford Hill, in Balham. My parents bought an old-fashioned confectioners called the Candy Shop. The area's sort of coming up now, but it wasn't nice then. Once there were two prostitutes beating up another and my mother went and gave them a belting. They opened the shop at 8am and finished at 8pm, six days a week. Sunday it was 10am to 4pm. They were always working, that's just how it was.
What's your money weakness?
I've spent silly money on guitars. I've got about 40. I've bought three or four in a day before. They're hard to resist. I paid £15,000 for a Fender Flame. That was 15 years ago, and I don't even use it! When you're famous or you've got money, things go up when you walk in the door.
But I bought a green Telecaster in 1968 for £75 and auctioned it for almost £120,000. It became famous and people would make the sign of the cross when they saw it! The poor thing was worn out by the time I auctioned it off. Charity got a lot, and so did the taxman.
I buy a new car every two years or so. I had a Porsche once, because I tended to copy Rick for a while. But I'm not a sports car person. I wouldn't buy a Ferrari - that's a dickhead's car. I've always been a BMW guy. Cars in England always used to break down but BMWs didn't. If they put out a new series I try to resist, but there's something about me that needs a large car. Perhaps I'm lacking in a certain department, but I like a nice large saloon. All the BMWs I buy are basically the same. I just get whatever's top of the range. The last couple have been about £89,000.
Do you own a property?
I bought my first house for £9,800 when I was 20 and I sold it about three years later for £21,000. In 1974 I bought a sprawling 11-bedroom house in Surrey for £50,000. I had a pool built and thought I'd finish my days there. Then, 15 years ago, I saw this place they were building 100 yards around the corner. I'd begun to worry about getting older. The new place was just seven bedrooms and only an acre of land. It had stone floors with underfloor heating. An estate agent friend said I could get £4.2 million for the house I was in. I wanted a quick sale, so I put it on the market for £3.9 million. The new house was £3.5 million and I wanted it badly, so I took out a bridging loan that I ended up having for 18 months. The interest was phenomenal - it really did hurt. The market crashed, so the house finally sold for two-something million. I lost a f***ing fortune! I moved in here in January 2008. It was a bad investment, except that I love the place and I'm happy here. It's got a small indoor pool - only foolish English people put them outside! We've worked a lot on the garden, and now it's beautiful. My wife and I have a bathroom each. People think that's snobby, but who wants to share a bathroom?"
Revisit the December 2021 event list
Francis appeared on the Psycho Schizo Espresso podcast on 14th December, alongside psychologist Dr Kevin Dutton and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson.
The chat kicked off by discussing the famous Rossi's ice cream business before turning to Francis meeting Alan Lancaster and Alan Key at school to form their first band back in 1962. A long discussion followed about the challenges of getting along with band mates, both in Quo and Iron Maiden (and other bands such as Deep Purple).
They talked about what genre Quo really were and are, noting that there now seem to be so many categories of music perhaps influenced by Spotify - Francis remarked that he thought there was now too much choice. Band line-up changes were discussed next, both in Quo and to the lesser extent experienced in Iron Maiden, and how fans react to them.
Francis noted that some fans have seen Quo over 600 times and said he's "not sure if it's great or sad"! He again claimed that he doesn't look forward to any one gig more than another, saying "each gig to me is dreadfully important and then it's gone". In wrapping up, the next Quo tour was briefly discussed, with Francis saying he's "got lockdown lazy" after his longest ever break from working, but that he was in some ways looking forward to getting back out on the road.
This was a fascinating discussion and the psychology aspects made it something quite different, bringing out the more thoughtful and considered sides of Francis. The full forty minute interview can be found on YouTube.
The following article appeared in the UK's The Express on 19th December, titled "Status Quo's Francis Rossi refuses to drive his £90k BMW 'I'll get someone to pick me up'" and written by Melanie Kaidan.
"Multi-millionaire Status Quo co-founder Francis Rossi, 72, has revealed his tips for saving large sums of money on a daily basis. The rocker suggested his career is not likely to take off again and therefore, he must be aware of his spending.
When asked whether he is a spender or a saver, Francis explained: "I look after money.
"I'm not miserly, but I worry about money long before there's any need to.
"I'm 72 and it has hit me that most of my life has gone.
"I've always figured I'll live until I'm 93.
"How the b****y hell am I going to finance that? My career's not suddenly going to take off again, is it?"
The musician also admitted to having people pick him up instead of driving his £90,000 BMW in a bid to spend less and avoid putting the miles on his car.
He added to the Sunday Times: "I go around turning lights off.
"I've had my car nearly two years and I've only done 2,000 miles in it.
"If I'm going somewhere I'll get someone to pick me up, I don't want to put the miles on my car.
"Once I kept a car for 14 years and it only had 37,000 miles on."
Earlier this year, Status Quo announced their 2022 UK and Ireland tour dates.
The group were set to tour the UK and Europe in 2020 following the release of their latest album Backbone.
However, the tour was eventually cancelled due to the pandemic.
The Out Out Quoing tour is now scheduled to take place in Spring 2022.
Francis said the band "cannot wait to play again".
According to Planet Radio, Francis said: "Every gig is special for Quo but it's been too long since we got to play anywhere.
"Going out is something that we all took for granted. Not any more.
"Going out, going out properly - 'going out out', as some would have it - became a bit of a dream but now that dream can come true."
He added: "The name of the tour is a bit of humour, but a celebration too.
"However, I'd urge fans not to overthink it and just prepare for all the hits and some serious live music energy!"
Revisit the December 2021 event list
Andy was interviewed by Jason Barnard on The Strange Brew podcast on 17th December. The 90-minute interview covered all parts of Andy's long career and it was great to hear him being interviewed for a change!
The interview kicked off by playing "Running Out of Time" (a co-written song by Andy and Francis from the "Backbone" album). The upcoming Spring and Christmas tours in 2022 were discussed first, with Andy saying that rehearsals will start in February and last for a week to ten days, following their longest ever break from live work. He was clearly disappointed that the planned 2020 tour around "Backbone" never happened, saying that "promoters were terrified" and they had a bad feeling about 2021 too. Andy suggested that a couple of "Backbone" tracks will make their way into the live set in 2022.
Winding right back to the start of his career, Andy talked about his time with The Herd who he mentioned had "loads of line-ups, probably 20". The band had an organist but Andy thought he could do better than him and so changed from bass guitar to keyboards. The cause for the eventual winding up of The Herd was simple, "the arse fell out of it"!
The host then played The Herd's "From The Underworld".
Andy mentioned writing a few tracks during The Herd period including some with Peter Frampton. The host then played a second track from The Herd.
Andy said that The Herd were the biggest working band in Europe for a year and it was great to have the success with them. After leaving The Herd, their drummer Andrew Steel had to stop due to ill health and they "auditioned 5000 drummers", one of whom was Welshman Henry Spinetti. It was the Welsh connection that led Andy to joining Judas Jump (with its all Welsh line-up). He described the abum he worked on with Judas Jump as "really not very good" and that the "songs needed a proper producer".
The host played Judas Jump's "Beer Drinking Woman".
Andy went on to describe being introduced to Trevor Preston (who did the music for The Sweeney TV series) and they went on to write several songs together, including Andy's "Tarot" solo single (on which he played everything apart from the drums!) which was the theme song to the "Ace of Wands" TV series.
The host then played "Tarot" and also its instrumental B-side "Lulli Rides Again" (also penned by Andy).
Referring to his own early solo albums, he said that the first two "weren't terribly good" and he wasn't confident, but the second two were good.
The host then played "Drowned in Texas" from the "Come Back Romance, All Is Forgiven" album.
Andy's long experience as a session muso (often for "eight quid a session"!) led him to an opportunity with Quo. Although he claimed not to remember the first track he did with Quo, the presenter said it was "Blue Eyed Lady" and Andy said he did remember being "pretty nervous", but he "learned quite a lot and earned quite a lot" from the first sessions with Quo. He recalled getting along well with the band, even when Quo gigged with The Herd long before he worked with them.
The host then played "Blue Eyed Lady".
By the time of "Rockin' All Over The World", Andy had done a lot of sessions with the band. When the band were recording the album with Pip Williams in Sweden, Bob Young was asked to call Andy to get a different take on things as the band themselves "were not really getting anywhere with it". Pip asked Andy to "do an intro of some kind" on the title track and that was it - leading him to eventually start Live Aid with it!
The host then played "Rockin' All Over The World".
They went on to chat about Andy's collaborations in songwriting with Quo, starting with the "If You Can't Stand The Heat" album (by which time he was a full-time member of the band). He talked about writing "Whatever You Want" with Rick in Jersey and that he wrote the guitar solo during the recording session when Pip said the song wasn't long enough!
The host then played "Whatever You Want".
The presenter mentioned that he'd previously spoken to Bob Young and he'd said that the "Heavy Traffic" album reconnected Quo with the fans. Andy mentioned writing "Blues & Rhythm", a co-write with Francis, and how different it was working with him compared to Rick. He said, in terms of writing, it's "quite detailed working with Francis".
The host then played "Blues & Rhythm".
Discussion turned to Andy's last solo effort, "Unfinished Business". The long hiatus between his first solo albums and this one was put down to being "really busy with Quo" and that it was not easy to get a record deal. Andy described himself as "critical" of his own work and said the "material is too varied, too many styles" on this newer album and next time he'll try to "settle on a vibe". He talked about producer Mike Paxman coming up with the idea for "rubber gloves", a "very much tongue in cheek" song.
The host then played "Rubber Gloves".
Talking about the genesis of "Burning Bridges", Andy said his daughter Sophie had recorder lessons at school and was playing the song "Darby Kelly". Andy noted that this song was in the public domain, wrote a verse, Francis said it was great and then played the chorus just like that. Andy remarked that the song was very poorly mixed on the album "Ain't Complaining" but the remixing they did resulted in it "sounded like a single when we'd finished". He noted that this song fits the acoustic treatment and that the acoustic projects were "great fun to do".
The interview was closed out by playing the aquostic version of "Burning Bridges" from the "Down Down and Dignified" recording from London's Albert Hall.
Revisit the December 2021 event list
Alan Lancaster was honoured during The Royal Variety Performance aired on ITV in the UK on 19th December. The full list of those honoured can be seen in this YouTube clip.
Rhino was interviewed on The Guitar Show UK's "9-42" podcast on 20th January. The hour-long interview covered a lot of ground and Rhino was in great form!
Rhino talked about his love of transport posters (for trains and trams) from the early 1900s before moving onto the impact of COVID and how he thought it might end his career. He said that he was about eight songs into the new (and final!) "Rhino's Revenge" album and that he was "really really pleased with the [new] live album" (Charge!).
Turning to his history with Quo, he said he first saw them at The Winning Post pub with Thin Lizzy in the early seventies, when he was a "Free fanatic". He talked about some of his other career gigs including joining Dexy's Midnight Runners (saying he admired Kevin Rowland's "artistic integrity"), being in "Space" and gigging with Kim Wilde & Judie Tzuke.
Back on the subject of COVID, Rhino said he "rubbed along really well" with his wife during the lockdowns, their first time spending so much time together as he's been away from home so much for over forty years with touring bands. He said that she's his "best mate apart from Mike Paxman!".
He told the story of joining Quo (via sessions on Rick's solo album with Pip Williams) and talked about his closeness to Rick, though he acknowledged they drifted apart over the last three or four years of his life. He said Rick could "throw a custard pie and be a right arsehole sometimes" but he was still "the funniest bloke" he ever knew. Rhino thought that the period from "Heavy Traffic" to the noughties was a great time in the band, but did mentioned Matt Letley leaving as he was "fed up with the sound". He spoke fondly of the current line-up saying "we're a happy band" and referring to Leon & Richie as "the kids". He went on to tell the story of how Richie joined the band following Rick's passing.
Rhino talked about the difference in the writing process for his own songs compared to those with Quo, before turning to a definite passion in the shape of Brentford FC (and how he's ended up writing songs for/about them). The funny story of Dexy's on The Young Ones was told yet again to close out the interview.
Rhino was very funny and engaging in this interview, but also quite humble, closing out by saying his "story would be a pamphlet, not a book!".
The following article about Francis's 2021 talk tour appeared in Classic Rock magazine, titled "Let's Talk About It" and written by Mick Wall.
"It's good to talk. Certainly Status Quo's Francis Rossi thinks so, as in 2021 he continued his marathon spoken-word tour around the UK. Classic Rock's Mick Wall was alongside him every step of the way.
Francis Rossi's I Talk Too Much UK tour, for which I joined him on stage as compere and second-banana interviewer, finally completed its second leg this summer. His first attempt - 56 dates between March and June 2020 - had been scheduled to coincide with the paperback publication of Rossi's official autobiography, I Talk Too Much. Ghost-written by me, it was built on months of face-to-face interviews with Francis, and first published in hardback form in 2019 - when the first, 36-date Talk Tour took place.
We had only managed four shows in 2020, however, before You Know What Hell descended and the tour had to be postponed. After it was hurriedly rescheduled for July, it then became clear that that wasn't going to happen either, and the tour was put back to February 2021, because the whole lockdown thing couldn't possibly still be happening then, right?
And then it was put back again, this time to June. Officially it was due to recommence on Freedom Day - then cancelled yet again as Freedom Day got put back to July 19. By the time it finally got going, our original 56-date tour was cut down to 33 dates. And then to 28 when some theatres cancelled late, as covid reared its ugly head again (and again).
And yet, despite all the delays and endless complications, the often half-empty theatres and the sense that the whole thing could grind to a halt at any moment, it turned into the most unexpectedly uplifting tour any of us on board the tour bus bubble had ever experienced.
There were two main reasons for that. First, the show. When Francis and I had first appeared on stage together, in March 2019, we literally had no idea what we were doing. I had built a show on paper that consisted of several videos and a few verbal cues for stories I hoped to get him waxing lyrical about. But he refused to rehearse anything as he didn't want to lose the spontaneity. The only thing we knew for sure was that he would not be singing any songs. He had been insistent on that point.
Then, within five minutes of being on stage at the first show, in Whitley Bay, he picked up his acoustic and began playing and singing.
Okaaaaay...
We were doing five shows a week, back-to-back, two days off, then five more, and so on for seven weeks. Every day on the bus we would do a post-mortem on the night before, decide what to keep, what to change, what to never speak of again. After three weeks or so we had a version of the show we could more or less stick to. But Francis being Francis, he kept wanting to add to the show right up to the sound check for the thirty-sixth and final show in god knows where, I can't remember now.
Cut to two-and-a-half years and several lifetimes later, and although we still discussed the show, the subject was virtually closed. He knew what he wanted to do. I knew what he needed to help him do it, and that was that.
Show highlights included: Francis's childhood; the Status Quo origin story; meeting Rick Parfitt; 1970s success; Live Aid; Francis and Rick as a double act (OBE from the Queen, Coronation Street appearances, etc): Rick's death: Quo now. There were acoustic singalong versions of some old Quo nuggets, the theme to Corrie, and, to finish, a full-on, have-some-of-that, all-join-in version of Caroline.
Those were the bullet points. But the real fun, as is often the case, would occur unexpectedly - almost always driven by the audience. Shouted one-liners, comic interventions, just the sheer energy of the people in attendance some nights meant everything just seemed to go right.
There were other less fun moments too, though. The angry drunken woman in Scotland with the impenetrable accent who walked right up to the stage and began yelling at Francis for... we couldn't work it out. Or the time someone in the audience fainted during the story of Rick's death, early versions of which were extremely graphic, and l found myself appealing for "a doctor in the house". When it happened again two weeks later, Francis agreed to make the story shorter, and to leave out some of the grislier details.
On this summer's tour, though, we had the whole thing down pat. Francis could have fun with it...
The main overriding reason this tour was so special, though, was entirely to do with the bizarre nature of the situation. We were already sound-checking at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton, on July 19, as Boris announced his (delayed) Freedom Day. Of the five-man team in our bubble, we were all double-vaccinated and were testing every other day. But no one knew what to expect. Francis is 72 and has had pneumonia three times. One positive test and the tour is over.
But as the days whizzed by and the nights got better and looser, those fears, while always there in the background, no longer dominated. Of the 28 towns and cities we visited, between July and September, almost everybody we encountered - not just at the shows but as we walked around visiting shops and restaurants, pubs and cafes - was ecstatic to be out and about again, able to come to a theatre show without having to social distance or wear a mask (unless they wished to; nobody judged anybody else). Lateral flow tests available. Sanitiser everywhere.
The feeling at the shows was also different to the original 2019 tour. They were much more heartfelt occasions. I began each night by explaining how Francis had been virtually the last major rock star on the road in Britain in March 2020 when the shit hit the fan(s). And how he was the first major rock act to be back on the road the first chance he got, on our actual so-called Freedom Day. Then invited everyone to give ourselves a round of applause for simply making it through this far, to where we were actually at a live show again.
Everything was less tense backstage too. In 2019 every show was studied forensicaly, often during the intermission, or straight after the show, always the next morning. And the next and the next x 36.
Here in covid-battered 2021, however, there was none of that. Francis would offer some direction occasionally, always spot-on, I might come up with a quick suggestion for something. But the whole focus was no longer on such comparatively petty concerns. The irony of having Francis front a spoken-word tour called I Talk Too Much is not that it's true - he really does talk too much - but that when he's in the mood he tells some of the most outrageous and extraordinary stories I have ever heard from any rock star. Insane adventures from a life in Quo that would have me simultaneously doubled-up in stitches and gasping with horror.
Of course, I would laughingly (but, secretly, hopefully) suggest he based his next book on some of these over-the-top treasures. And, of course, he would tell me to fuck off. "Maybe when I've retired," he'd say to me smiling enigmatically.
But of course Francis Rossi is not going to retire. Not in this lifetime. Status Quo is still his baby and that is never going to change.
Will there be more Talk-style shows, though? Possibly, or certainly a revamped version of it, I would have thought. Indeed, the idea of rock stars undertaking similarly stripped-down words-and-music tours has begun to take off in recent years.
As we were touring this summer, we noticed that Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson had begun a similar jaunt. Under the heading An Evening With Bruce Dickinson, and originally based on his 2017 memoir What Does This Button Do?, Dickinson's show is spoken-word, no acoustic singsongs. Then some of the shows towards the end of his tour had to be cancelled when he tested positive. "I thought: 'Oh well, shit,'" he said.
The shows have now been rescheduled for December. And although Bruce, like Francis, will be back with his band and appearing in much bigger venues next year, with a new podcast recently launched and surely more books in the offing, expect many more evenings with Bruce you can share.
Danny Bowes and Luke Morley of Thunder also did their own songs-and-stories tour in November, based on their official new biography Danny & Luke: The First 50 Years. That tour was planned to follow the format established in 2019, when I joined them on stage in the same role as with Rossi: compere, comedic foil, story-prompter. I will not be there this time. I've got my own album to do, as the saying goes.
Is this the start of a new trend for rockers with a story to tell - and which of them hasn't? The smaller, seated venues and the atmosphere of cosy mateship these things evince, surely, guarantees it."
Revisit the December 2021 event list
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