OverSixty April 2023 Digital

ISSUE 4 | APRIL 2023 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU 24 ENTERTAINMENT SIR ROD STEWART “I don’t feel awkward singing saucy lyrics” “I haven’t joined the pipe-and-slippers club yet, but I have to look after my voice” JONATHAN DEAN ENTERTAINMENT R od Stewart is at home in his Essex mansion, beaming in a cardigan and a Celtic FC necklace. His spiky hair is as you would expect and takes moments to perfect. Apply product, dry upside down, add wax. I spot some model trains and ask if they are part of his famous replica of a 1940s US city. “Oh, that’s over yonder,” he says in full rasp, pointing to another part of his home. I call it a train set, and he interrupts. “I get o$ended if you call it a train set. It’s a scale model rail- road, if you please.” But it started as a train set? “Yes,” he says, smiling. He began collect- ing as a boy in the 1950s. “I wanted a station,” he says. “But Dad bought me a guitar.” And here we are. At concerts in December last year, Rod played all the hits you would want to hear from his years with Faces and his epic solo career. Are there any old songs that make him feel… “Awkward?” Exactly. “No. I went through a brief period of thinking I’mnot go- ing to sing ‘Hot Legs’, because it is a sex song, but what do I !nish with? ‘Hot Legs’. And people love it. "ere is nothing I feel uncom- fortable singing.” I believe him – although few 78-year-olds would dare to sing about cavorting with a schoolgirl and, maybe, her mother. His lat- est album even has the line “"e sex was immense”. But this is who Stewart is: an en- tertainer who is as open and authentic as his voice is distinctive. His charm is a superpower that means, unlike some of his peers, if you google “Rod Stewart cancelled” it is simply a list of gigs postponed due to COVID. Have his tours calmed down since the days when he lost count of how many women he had slept with? “"ey’re not as wild as they were,” he says. “In the old days, it was all sleeping around and drinking, but you can’t carry on like that. I haven’t joined the pipe- and-slippers club yet, but I have to look after my voice.” “I have no skeletons in the closet, as far as I know.” To keep !t enough to perform, heworks out three times a week. “I do underwater swim- ming to improvemy breath control. You know who toldme about that? Frank Sinatra.” A voice uniting generations "ere is not a generation that does not love Stewart. I am 42 and his music soundtracked my childhood car trips. His !rst single came out when my mum was 11. I ask if his audi- ences have got any younger. “We just did three months in the US and it was younger than I’ve ever seen,” he says. “Unless the pro- moter pushed all the young girls down the front to keep me happy.” Given his wealth, he must really want to tour – surely he has no need to? “Well, I’ve got eight children.” "e man is a blast. Irreverence from a by- gone age mixed with a shot of empathy. For someone worth £300 million, he knows how hard it is for other people now. “Nobody’s got the money,” he says with a sigh. “Usually my tours are sold out, but one in Aberdeen has nearly 1000 tickets for sale. I shouldn’t admit it, but I’ve no ego.” Stewart was joined on tour by Johnny Mac & "e Faithful, a folk and rock band fronted by one of his best friends, John McLoughlin, 55 – Stewart sings a track on their new album, Midnight Glasgow Rodeo . "ey share a love of Celtic FC and pubs – McLoughlin regales me with glorious stories of Stewart in thewild, like the time in Rome when the singer hoisted his jacket up a %agpole outside an upmarket ho- tel. Mainly, though, their bond is football. If Celtic are playing, McLoughlin stands in the wings to update Stewart on the score. Despite being born in London, the singer enlisted in the Tartan Army because of his parents. Using his time well Often, Stewart comes across as a family man – he talks sweetly about his kids being into "e Temptations – with a lot of time on his hands, who wants to put that time to good use. First there were the potholes. In March, he spent a couple of hours !lling holes in the road near his house in Harlow that made it hard for his Ferrari to pass. He also saw an ambulance get stuck. “So I bought the sand,” he says. “Did it myself.” It got the press he wanted – the road is now retarmacked. "en he rented a home for a family of sev- en refugee Ukrainians and gave two of them jobs. A lot of his charity work goes under the radar, but sometimes he wants to lead by ex- ample. “I’m a knight,” he explains. Sir Rod arose in 2016. “"ey give you a knighthood because of what you have done, but I don’t just want to rest. I thought if I make this pub- lic, other people might do the same thing. Mick Jaggermaybe,” he adds, mischieviously. "ird in the list of how to grow old grace- fully is Stewart’s interest in HRT. His wife of 15 years, Penny Lancaster, 52, was struggling withmenopause, sohe foundoutmore about it and, last April, backed her Menopause Mandate campaign to raise awareness. “I hadn’t seen [menopause] before becausemy marriages didn’t last that long [Alana Stewart was 39 and Rachel Hunter 37 when they and Stewart divorced], so Penny was the !rst. She would get into blinding !ts of rage. One night she threw utensils, so me and the boys gave her a hug and since then she’s worked to let people know what it is. Men have to under- stand and not just go down the pub.” Stewart remains a man visibly excited by life, even though times can be hard. His brother Don died in September, aged 94, a few days before the Queen, who the singer met many times (“she liked ‘Sailing’”). After appearing on a reality show, Penny joined the City of London Police as a volunteer special constable and was on duty during the monarch’s funeral. “She burst into tears,” Stewart says. “She was within touching distance of the co#n.” Stewart is never more animated than when enthusing about his wife’s new job – he worries when she is out on the beat and she texts him when she is running late. “Darling, go to bed,” she says. Stewart’s inevitable biopic will be a riot. “I keep getting o$ers,” he complains. “But I’ll be the last to do it – even Robbie Williams has one now.” Will he let all the sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll hang out? “Yeah, I have no skeletons in the closet, as far as I know. I just wish someone would make one before I kick the bucket.” What will he call it? "ey tend to name it after a song – so how about “Some Guys Have All the Luck”? “"at would be lovely.” From left: on stage in the ‘70s; getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; at his knighthood with Penny and their two sons. Photos: Getty Images ENTERTAINMENT "e singer, 78, hasn’t lost his cheeky sense of humour BONUS SECTION