Sir Rod is getting the band back together for Glasto’s Legends slot. But the last time Rod, Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones played in the Faces, they were more famous for their partying than hits
It will have been 55 years since old Faces Sir Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood were on stage together, when they reunite for the Legends slot on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage next weekend.
Back then, they were in the Faces with drummer Kenney Jones, before Rod left for his solo career and the band split in 1975.
In the 1970s, the Faces were just as well known for their drinking, drug-taking and debauchery with groupies in the “Party Room” as they were for their hits.
And their concerts were either brilliant or shambolic, depending on the amount of alcohol and drugs they’d consumed
Yet, despite this excess, Sir Rod, 80, Ronnie, 77, and 76-year-old Kenney are still going strong.
In the five decades or so since they played hits like Stay With Me and Had Me A Real Good Time, the faces of the Faces have changed… a lot.
Originally called the Small Faces, the line-up in 1969 was guitarist singer Steve Marriott, bassist Ronnie Lane, drummer Kenney Jones and organist Jimmy Winston, who was replaced by Ian “Mac” McLagan on keyboards.
Very much a 1960s pop band, they mimed along to their charttoppers like Sha-La-La-La-Lee, Itchycoo Park and Lazy Sunday on Top Of The Pops and were popular with teenyboppers.
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But they were also getting a reputation for their acid trips and hard partying, especially when hanging out with The Who and Rolling Stones.
In his 2018 autobiography Let The Good Times Roll, drummer Kenney recalls a six-date tour where the late Keith Moon provided the outrageous entertainment back at the hotel.
He writes: “Lying on my bed, beginning to drift off, I heard a strange scratching sound coming from beneath the desk up against my wall. Got to be mice, I thought.
“The noise grew louder. As I got up to investigate properly, there was a loud crunch, followed by an explosion of dust and clattering of bricks.,
“I bent down to take a look under the desk, and found myself staring into the bulging eyes of Keith. “Fancy a drink, Ken?”
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Another time Keith was told to move his purple Rolls-Royce when he arrived at a hotel and drove it straight through their front door, right up to the desk. “He threw the keys at the startled receptionist and said, ‘Can you park this please.’
The Small Faces fell apart when lead singer Steve Marriott, fed-up with trying to shake off their pop image, walked off stage on New Year’s Eve in 1968, yelling: “I quit,” and formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton.
When the remaining members of the band met Rod in a pub in 1969, he was a fresh-faced 24-year-old singer known as ‘Rod the Mod’. He and guitarist Ronnie Wood quit the Jeff Beck Group to join Ronnie Lane, Mac and Kenney, and dropped the Small to rename themselves the Faces.
Kenney recalls the band being great mates who loved to play pranks on each other. “We were like naughty boys whenever we had the chance,” writes Kenney. “One of the things you learned from the very early days of touring with the Faces was never fall asleep on a plane.
“Ronnie Lane made that mistake. Once. When we were coming back from Scotland on a private jet, he received the butter treatment – knobs of it delicately placed in his hair while he snoozed.”
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But it was the sex-parties the Faces became infamous for while on tour.
“‘Party back at our hotel!’ Rod’s announcement at the end of gigs wasn’t the least bit subtle,” writes Kenney. “It was an invitation to the girls looking for some fun. How many Faces, roadies and girls could we pack into one motel room? Answer, well over a hundred.
“It was a huge pain if the party formed in your room. So we paid for an extra suite, and designated it the “Party Room”.
“After each gig, we could take our time, have a shower, get changed and one by one make our way to the Party Room. The fans would be there already, and it really was a case of walking in, having a few drinks, taking your pick of the girls and disappearing to your own room.
“An hour later, the others were most likely back at party HQ for a second sitting.”
But their hedonistic reputation soon spread.
“When playing gigs in southern US states, we’d be met at the airport by the Country Sheriff plus a police escort,” writes Kenney, saying the police were protecting innocent citizens from the excesses of rock and roll.
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Ronnie, now 77, also wrote in the Faces’ biography: “We were the sponsors of Holiday Inn and Marriott, and anywhere we could get banned from. We used to call them the Holiday Out.
“We used to check in as Fleetwood Mac – no hotel chain would have the Faces because of the damage and madness that went on.
“Half the audience would come back with us to the hotel. We would party with whoever was there and they’d all end up staying with us.”
In 1973, a disenfranchised Ronnie Lane quit the Faces, and was replaced by Japanese bass player Tetsu Yamauchi.
“Testsu was talented… but he was basically a bottle of Teacher’s whisky on the stage. You just lifted his head and filled him with scotch.”
But all good things come to an end, according to Kenney, who recognised by 1975: “We were drifting apart. Rod was spending more time on his solo career, and when we did get together, drink and drugs were adversely impacting our performances more than before. Where previously we’d all been half cut on stage, now we were screwing up.
“Booze played its part, but it wasn’t the primary problem. When we were together, the alcohol intake was pretty even across the band – bucket loads.
“Drugs, coke specifically, was the real issue. Rod wasn’t interested and neither was I. But Mac and Woody, they were all over the white powder, which would keep them up for days.”
In 1975, Rod moved to LA with his girlfriend Britt Ekland. “We now had a transatlantic gap adding to our problems. Telephone calls took an hour to step up.
“Then Woody announced that the Stones had asked him to fill in for Mick Taylor, who’d quit,” writes Kenney.
That September, the band and wives and girlfriends reunited in Hawaii. But a mix-up at the hotel caused a falling out with an Aussie singer and her husband manager, and the Faces played a joke on them before Rod and Britt checked out to let them have their suite.
“Messing with hotel rooms was a Faces speciality,” says Kenney. “Rod and Britt’s suite was the target. The telephone was dismantled, dimes put in the lamp socket, so they would blow when turned on, towels down the loo, the bed rigged to collapse as soon as someone sat on it.”
A punch-up afterwards in the hotel lobby had the police turning up, and the band legged it for the airport.
But the hi-jinx were getting out of hand – with Mac even chopping up Steinway pianos with an axe on stage!
“When it finally came, the split was unavoidable. Rod loved being a Face, but having to deal with Mac and Woody being out of their trees all the time eventually became too much.”
Many of the old Faces are no longer here. Sadly Ronnie Lane died in 1997 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.
Dogged by cocaine and alcohol addiction for years, Marriot died, aged 44, in a house fire in 1991, and keyboardist Mac died in 2014 following a stroke.
Meanwhile, Kenney replaced his old mate Keith Moon in The Who in 1978 after his death, Ronnie stuck with the Stones, and Rod went on to be one of the best-selling solo artists of all time.
The Faces reformed a number of times before finally coming together again in 2015 at Rod’s private 70th birthday party.
In a birthday speech, Rod said: “Being in the Faces was a mad and brilliant time for all of us and although we don’t have Ronnie and Mac with us any more, this is our chance to remember them and say Had Me a Real Good Time.”
Then in 2021 Jones, Stewart and Wood announced they were recording new music for an album due to be released in 2026 – their first in over 50 years.
Rod also revealed recently that he was reuniting with Ronnie and Kenney to work on a new documentary.
Rod himself looks set for a busy 80th year, as he embarks on a world tour. He says: “I enjoy going on tour now more than ever, at this ripe old age of 80.
“I’m doing seven concerts in Vegas and then I am around the world. You have got to be fit to do it.
“I would probably die if I didn’t do it. I have seen so many guys that have to give up and retire and they have nothing to wake up in the morning for.”
Their Faces may be a bit wrinklier now, but Rod, Ronnie and Kenney are still rocking!
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