‘We tend to think of age only in time, but I don’t think it has much to do with time at all; there’s a whole load of other things . ‘I’ve met 16-year-olds who are old and 90-year-olds who are young. Yes, I’m a grandfather, but in some ways I feel the same as when I was younger.’ (This article is an extract from Dailymail by Nicole Lampert, to read full click here)
‘You have to keep fit being a singer — that’s part of the job,’ he says. ‘You can’t do it unless you have incredible stamina.’
On the domestic front, Roger was also always the most settled, and recently celebrated his ruby wedding — although that is not to say there weren’t plenty of groupies. He had a four-year marriage to model Jackie Rickman, which produced his first son Simon. They were divorced in 1968 shortly after another son, Mathias, was born as a result of an affair with model Elisabeth Aronsson.
When I married American model Heater Taylor
(she was the inspiration for Jimi Hendrix’s Foxy Lady), it was with the proviso that I was allowed to stray
‘It’s not an open marriage, but in the early days of our relationship she never put restrictions on me,’ says Roger. ‘I was in one of the biggest rock bands in the world, going out for four months at a time. At that age do you expect me to come back and say, “Oh yes darling, I was a good boy?”
‘Over years we have developed something a lot deeper than that — she is the most extraordinary woman I know.’
Today Roger is as well known for his charitable work as his music. His annual week-long series of gigs at the Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust has helped many young kids.
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‘I have deliberately kept singing because I have to at my age,’ he says. ‘If I stopped for even a year my voice would slowly deteriorate until it’s not there at all. That’s a fact about getting to my age. Rock musicians have never been this age before and so we are in the land of the unknown really. I could never stop. I just love to play. I enjoy singing; being in touch with something that is inside of me.’
‘Pete is almost stone deaf,’ he says sadly. ‘He deafened himself in the recording studio, and when we last performed he had to stand right next to the speakers to hear anything. I don’t know what Pete will do. I don’t want to do a tour and have him end up completely deaf.’
