Faces Reunion Likely, Rod Stewart Says
Rod Stewart recently told Boston radio station WZLX that the Faces – the bluesy rock group he and current Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood joined after they came to prominence together in the Jeff Beck Group – would likely return to the stage in 2015. He revealed the news in response to a question about the possibility of a reunion with Jeff Beck. “I think we have got much more of a chance of getting the Faces back together,” he said, according to Radio.com. “In fact, Ronnie’s office is talking to my people, and we’re earmarking 2015.”
Photos From ‘The Faces 1969 to 1975’
The lineup would likely feature Stewart and Wood playing with original members drummer Kenney Jones and keyboardist Ian McLagan. In recent years, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock has been filling in for Ronnie Lane, who died in 1997, and Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall has taken on Stewart’s role. The band came together in 1969, after vocalist Steve Marriott left the group the Small Faces and they sought out a replacement singer. They played together until 1975, releasing four albums, one of which – 1971’s A Nod Is as Good as a Wink . . . To a Blind Horse – went gold.
“We were a hard partying band,” Wood recently told Rolling Stone. “That was one of the unwritten rules. The celebration factor spread from the band to the audience, and we would give out cases of booze instead of having a support band. Everyone was nicely wrecked.”
Although members of the band have performed together variously over the years in addition to the group’s reunion gigs with Hucknall, Stewart hasn’t fronted the group since the 1993 Brit Awards. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year and had planned on playing their hit “Stay With Me” with Stewart, but the singer pulled out at the last minute due to a sudden illness.