ROD JUMPS TEAMS

“Is he a movie star?” the newspaper photographer wondered out loud, pointing to an 8 X 10 glossy of Rod Stewart and Britt Eklund, casually positioned behind a scenic garden landscape, arms intertwined, eyes locked tightly together by adoring glances. “Oh well,” he sighed ^packing up his camera cases because Rod Stewart, the singer, did not want his picture taken. “I don’t usually do this kind of work anyways.”

It was easy to understand the photographer’s confusion, for these days Rod Stewart is a changed man. Sitting in his Chicago hotel suite listening to a test presang of his new album Atlantic Crossing, Rod seemed incredibly subdued. That cocky rock ’n roll flamboyance was now replaced by an eerie smugness. Outrageous conceits no longer decorated his conversation while passionate conviction no longer held up his bold statements. The only time he raised his voice was to put the Faces down.

“You’re talking to a new man now,” Rod proudly announced, apparently pleased with the changes. “The world is a lot bigger than Great Britain and the Faces. A lot bigger.”

Reasons behind this revelation were twofold. Recording the album in America under the wings of producer Tom Dowd, aided by Muscle Shoals musicians, Stewart realized he no longer needed the usual well known Faces he’d used on previous solo albums.

“I thought it was going to be strange making the album without Woody but it wasn’t,” Rod inhaled the next sentence quickly. “I must have had blinkers on these last five years. I must have been mad using the same musicians over and over again. I should have branched out a long time ago.” ;

“All the fun has corfie back into recording for me at last. I’ve never liked going into the studio and now I can’t wait to go back. I’d always used the Faces on my albums so for that reason I’ve wanted to keep the band together. But now I know I can stand on my own two feet. This* is the first album made entirely in America. Ya know I don’t live in England anymore.” He grinned like a mischievous bad boy.

Encouraged by both Britt and the allconsuming 98% tax in Britain, Rod fled his native country Opting for the life of a world traveler. Daily scandal sheets back home ran large headlines that proclaimed, “BRITT TAMES THE TARTAN TERROR.” And Rod did indeed ^ seem captive. It was hard to believe’ that in just a few weeks time, Stewart would be strutting the stage, leading the audiences through a “Maggie May” sing along, back on tour with the Faces.

“Britt is great,” Rod enthused, humming a little love song as his true flame prepared herself for public exposure in the room next door. “She got me out of England, got me out of a rut. At the moment I like living out of a suitcase. Four countries in one day we did last week! ‘You get into a rut in England with your house in the country, goingto party after party. It’s got nothing to do with music. I never got bored with all of that, I just felt like, well it’s not as if I’m paid to do this. I mean there was a nine month period last year where I was being a jetsetter, a casanova. It was a time for a change. All that stuff I was doing in England had nothing to do with my profession, with being a singer.”

At the moment, the happy couple have no permanent home. Rod says he wouldn’t mind living in Paris. “They’ve got the best shopping in the world.” But America has definitely been good for his musical personality, hence the Atlantic Crossing on vinyl.

“In America you’re surrounded by great musicians. You’ve got music drummed into you twenty-four hours a day and you need that. I can’t have the Bay City Rollers drummed into me,” he complained of the British teen scene. “I’d like to think of myself as a pretty dedicated musician and I’d like to think of myself as always wanting to move forward. You should never be predictable,” he suggests. “Predictable people are boring.”

For the first time in their five year history, Rod no longer raves about good time camaraderie between him and the Faces. These days he talks seriously of if the Faces stay together, complaining about the albums he made with them. Perhaps part of Rod’s metamorphisis has something to do with Ron Wood’s recent show of strength with the Rolling Stones. Despite the fact that Rod often sang Woody’s praises, he easily had the band under his thumb.

Yet Stewart’s behavior had been curious throughout the summer. He never once saw his long time cohort perform with the band. “I’m not interested in seeing the Stones,” Rod yawned. “Bad Company are my favorite rock band.” Sticking close to Britt, Rod maintained an unusually low profile. The days when he used to brag, “Mick Jagger is a better showman than me but I can sing the pants off ’im,” seem to be a thing of the past.

“Everyone’s a little worried now with Woody being with the Stones and me working completely and utterly on my own,” Stewart summarized, asserting his independence. “I don’t know if things will work out with the Faces but I’m not worried about it.” There was something behind this blase posture that suggested that he was. “I would’ve been worried before I made this album, but not now. I’ve got a new lease on me confidence now.”

"I've got no intentions of making any more albums with the Faces."

"Our farewell tour will be a punch up and we'll have the fight televised."

The Faces have always depended on good time spontaneity onstage, acting out the part of enjoying a night out with the boys. Yet that infectious atmosphere now seems tainted with bitterness and bad feeling amongst a band once known for its congenial, alcoholic personality.

“I’m getting tired of a five piece band anyways,” Stewart complained. They recently added guitarist Jesse Ed Davis for their tour. “We’ll probably augment. We’ve got a fifteen piece orchestra on every gig. I couldn’t bear to do it as a five piece,” Rod says with an oddly passive conviction. “I was getting tired doing the same old thing. You’ve got to change.

“This is the first time I’ve ever thought about going on the road without the Faces. I want to reproduce a lot of the music I’ve done over the last five years. And reproduce it accurately. If it takes me six months of rehearsals it will be worth it. My goal in life is to play ‘Mandolin Wind’ onstage and make it sound like the record.

“1 mean the best tracks I’ve ever done are never played live,” he complained, never saying we but always I. “I know I’m probably a bit negative but so I should be. I really don’t know what’s going to happen to us. And I don’t know what shape Woody will be in after the Stones tour. We’re not the easiest two bands to tour with. Fuck,” Rod sighs in frustration, “is he still alive? I really don’t know.”

Reassured that Woody is still alive, Rod displayed little sympathy or relief. This tartan terror has been most decidedly tamed. For the hundredth time in his career, Stewart once again insisted that he would never again record with the Faces. This time he seemed serious.

"What — me worry?"

“I must be honest,” Rod said, trying hard not to contradict himself. “I’ve got no intentions of making any more albums with the Faces. It’s too much hard work. Some of the best things I’ve ever done on their albums have never seen the light of day. I mean ‘Silicone Grown,’ that one I wrote about silicone tits. I was really proud of that cause it’s a difficult subject to write about and it just got lost.

“There’s no egos involved or money. I just want it to sound better. I just want to have a band that’s like the Band, a musician’s band. The ideal situation is Dylan and the Band. They’ve got their own identities. They don’t often record together but they do tour together which is the ideal set-up.

“If it doesn’t work out in rehearsal then we just won’t tour,” Rod announced with authority, seemingly unconcerned with what anybody else thought. “If it doesn’t sound how I want it to sound that’s it. I want it to sound like something now, like the record I’ve made. You’ve got to be a lot more disciplined. We’ve got to tighten up.

“We always looked at touring like it was party time which it should be but it’s time we proved ourselves. It’s time we took the blinkers off.” Whenever Rod said “blinkers” I imagined Ken Russell-type Tommy contraptions rendering one deaf, dumb, and blind. “I can understand why Mac, Kenny, and Tets are still wearing blinkers living in England, it’s like being closed off in a room.”

Stewart himself was beginning to feel claustrophobic within the Faces organization, confined to the group. Traffic have already broken up while the Who are presently ironing out their problems. The Faces could easily be the next in a long line of deceased bands to severe the umbilical chord and die.

Britt suddenly appeared from the room next door, looking just as perfect as that 8 X 10 glossy. Rod smiled affectionately. If the Faces broke up, he would simply organize those Muscle Shoals musicians, get the old MG’s — Steve Cropper, A1 Jackson and Duck Dunn — back on the road. After playing on his record, they want to play onstage. “Besides,” Rod says, “they drink as much as the Faces anyways.”

The sun was shining outside, so Rod and Britt wanted to stroll, hand in hand, along the lakeshore beach. Before the summer jaunt, Rod played “Three Time Loser” on his hotel stereo, one of his favorite self-penned tracks from the new album, a song about venereal disease. He’s quite proud of it. This uptempo rocker blasted out of the speakers with unfamiliar clarity, rtiissing the unmistakable sloppy raunch of Faces rockers and sounding sterile.

TURN TO PAGE 90.

STEWART

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43.

Like other rock ’n roll mainstays, the Faces’ future looks bleak. Hopefully they’ll pull together, forget jealousies and personal squabbles and return with their old vengeance. If they don’t, we’re left only with a piece of celluloid frpm the Faces’ ’74 romp through Brit, ain , a concert film featuring crony Keith Riichard on several rockers. Maybe that photographer who mistakenly assumed Rod was 3 movie star will eventually be proved right.

“I’ll tell ya what,” Rod Stewart, the singer, volunteered, getting ready to strojl the beaches. “If we do bust up there’s gonna be no bloody farewell tour. It’ll end up in a punch up. We’ll have the fight televised,” he laughs, genuinely amused, “and that will be our farewell tour, kicking the; shit out of each other.”