Classic Rock UK - April 2019

(or ‘a polish’, as he calls it) on early Quo tours; the

fun he had with Bowie and Freddie Mercury; the

moment backstage at Live Aid when Rossi

concluded that Elvis Costello was, in the bluntest

terms, “a c**t”. As Rossi says with a broad smile:

“I do have some great stories...”

You turn seventy this year. How does that feel?

My acupuncturist told me: “Oh, you’ve got ages

yet.” But she’s thirty. To her, twenty years is a long

time. Not to me. Surely I’ll be done by then. I’m just

about hanging on now.

Have you changed your lifestyle of late?

No dope-smoking. I gave that up a year ago. It was

making me feel so negative. But I stopped and the

negativity is gone. I still have one cigarette a day.

So you’re feeling good about life right now?

It’s all about enjoying the journey. I thought about

this recently when I was trying to write with

Andrew [Bown, Status Quo’s keyboard player].

I don’t really want to do another Quo album.

I wasn’t looking forward to writing. But we ended

up with a new song. And I said to him: “I fucking

enjoyed that.” He asked me what I thought of the

song. I said: “I don’t care really.” It’s about enjoying

the process.

So you’ll carry on making music, with or

without Quo?

Yes. It doesn’t have to be Quo.

What drives you? You can’t need the money.

Well I ain’t as fucking stinky rich as people think.

I like my lifestyle, but it’s not cheap living here.

I just paid out two and a half grand for tree work.

Surely there’s a fair bit coming in?

The band grosses this, and I end up with that. Then

I pay forty-five per cent to the tax man.

Did you waste a lot of money in the past?

In the seventies I was paying eighty per cent tax,

and the rest you piss away. You take drugs, you buy

aeroplanes – well, Rick did – you get divorced, you

get ripped off. But I’ve done all right. I’m not poor.

So why keep working?

It has to be ego. I read this thing about successful

men, how they’re heavily driven, egotistical, and

they only know one thing. And I went: “That’s me.”

My first wife bailed. My current wife – I love saying

that – she’s allowed me to be obsessed with this.

Is there a sense of guilt in all of this?

I can’t be a good father, because I had eight kids

and my career came first. I was at the birth of my

first son, in August sixty-seven. I was eighteen

then, just before I wrote Matchstick Men. But some

of the other births I missed because I was working.

That I regret, but only with hindsight. At the time,

I wanted my career.

Your father was Italian – his family ran the

famous Rossi ice cream parlours – and your

mother was Irish. Growing up in South

London as the son of immigrants, how did

that shape your personality?

A lot of it is front. I was from this strange Italian

family, so I pronounced words differently. I was

told: “You talk fucking poncey, don’t you, boy?”

That strong South London thing was so

intimidating. So I would just go into ‘him’. Rick

was like that too.

You first met Rick Parfitt at the Butlin’s
holiday camp in Minehead in 1965, when
Status Quo were playing there. Do you still
remember that day well?
It was the twenty-ninth of May. I walked into the
GET camp and within two minutes I’d met Rick. He

TY^

x^2

“Everybody thinks they’re better than Status Quo.

‘Anyone can do that.’ F**king tossers!”

Francis Rossi with Quo at the Great

Western Express Lincoln Festival,

Bardney, Lincolnshire, May 29, 1972.

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