Adams is at home in Vancouver. Meanwhile, Stewart, in his apartment high in Beverly Hills, is playing Rod Stewart perfectly: the open shirt, the carefully unkempt hair, the glint in the eye, the ever-present chuckle. He’s watching football at the same time as he does the interview with Adams, and there’s as much gossip and mickey-taking as there is talk of Long John Baldry, Jeff Beck and others. (Read the full interview on Americansongwriter)
BA: Can you give me a funny story or a story from back in the day that nobody would know about you and Jeff?
RS: Jeff was a great guy, but he wasn’t a great bandleader. I mean, you have to look after your band. I remember when me and Ronnie [Wood, who played bass in the Jeff Beck Group] were staying in New York, and we never got a per diem, we just got our money every week, and sometimes that money would be very late in coming. Not necessarily Jeff’s fault, but his manager. I think it was Peter Grant.
So me and Woody would go up the corner from the Gorham Hotel where all the bands used to stay, and we’d go into shops and nick eggs – steal them. Sometimes Jimi Hendrix’s girlfriend would go and buy us breakfast because we had no money. It’s not exactly funny.
BA: No, but it’s real.
RS: Yeah, we had to steal.
BA: Well, thirty-five quid a week… Oh, no, that was before this?
RS: It was about the same time. But it was just slow in getting to us, you know? Do you have to pay your band for travel days?
BA: I think we do. Yes.
RS: I’m dead against that. You never got paid for travelling in my day.
BA: You gotta pay everybody proper now, Rod.
RS: Yeah.
BA: I think it’s okay. You know, I don’t have a problem. I have a problem when they go three days beforehand.
RS: Yeah, I stopped all that. I don’t even do rehearsals now. We’re on the road most of the time. I go: “Right. Soundcheck… That’s it. Finished.” And when we go down to Vegas we don’t even do soundchecks.
BA: As long as the voice is okay when you get up there.
RS: The only reason to do a soundcheck is to make sure that everything is working.
BA: So what is next? You’ve got the touring. You’ve got the swing album. And that’s kind of it, isn’t it?
RS: Well, next year [gets briefly distracted by football again] Oh my God! How did you miss that? I’m doing South America this year, I’ve just done Australia and New Zealand, I’ve got Britain to do, and I’m going down to Sao Paulo, another residency in Vegas. So that’ll take me up to December, then I’ll have a lie down.
