Despite achieving enormous success and continuing to sell out UK shows, Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi still has doubts, and he also worries about his own demise.
Hard-living rocker Francis Rossi has admitted he is obsessed with his health and asks himself: “Will I last too much longer?” The Status Quo frontman has been open about his hellraising past, including a one-time cocaine addiction. But he said the fact that he is now 76 “gets to me most mornings”.
He continued, “My wife asks me when we have coffee at around 7 or 8:30 am and says, “How are you today?” ‘. I leave and say, “Well, I’m getting a message that says, “Wow, I’m doing this!” and how one will endure a prolonged period of inactivity.
And no matter what I do, I can’t get that out of my head. As the day progresses, I’ll be fine. I haven’t been to the studio in a while. And that’s it, really, is what I look forward to the next meal. Despite spending years as a rock star, he admitted to waiting for the worst and enduring his insecurities.
On the Dr. Hilary Show podcast, he also mentioned how hurtful it is if Status Quo are disenchanted or treated like a joke. When I was about 38, Francis said, “I started practicing quite diligently, and I have to do it every day, in some way.”
“We go back in September-ish, and I’m always paranoid about not being ready, so we’ve already done vocal exercises this morning.”
I’m actually dreaming as I approach the stage, without a guitar, and without what to say to the audience. I don’t believe that’s the alternative to being a mug bastard, but I do believe they will love me.
“And I’ve heard that many people in my position or relative positions have this stance: “I’ll be fine, they’ll love me. ” I believe it to be a showbizzy thing, and I expect things to go wrong because of their own insecurities, which I believe they are, and that is my view. The worst is always what I anticipate.
You’re being very guarded in some documentary, my eldest son said in a clip I received the other day. I watched a clip of it, which is very challenging to watch.
However, this person acknowledged that, as you may be aware, “You’re seen as a joke, aren’t you?” I said, ‘ Well, yeah. ‘ People say, “They’re a bunch of d***heads, it’s only three chords, they’re not very good,” and that’s what I said to you, glass half full or half empty. Hum and the blonde dude are funny, but they can’t be that funny, or else they wouldn’t be that funny.
“And so that goes in there as much as you can try to be impervious to it,” it goes in. And so, I believe it’s preferable for me to view life from that perspective, and anything else that does is is advantageous.
Status Quo was founded in 1976 by Francis, who will celebrate 50 years of music next year. And he revealed that he still dreams of late band member Rick Parfitt, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 68, only to wake up and remember that they “drift apart before his death” for horrifying reasons.
He continued, “A serious drinker like that, there are no two glasses of wine, and he just kept going, and he and I just kept getting more and more apart because of that.”
By the time we were older, we were so different. We were fantastically close, and we were really, really, really close. And I occasionally have those dreams, but I occasionally wake up to discover that we had somehow drifted, for what, terrible reasons.
Status Quo were a member of the UK’s rock elite, claiming over 50 Top 40 singles and over 20 Top 10 albums. Guitarist Rick Parfitt passed away in a hospital in Spain in 2016 at the age of 68. Status Quo became one of British rock’s most enduring acts thanks to Parfitt’s five-decade musical collaboration with Rossi.
With hits like Rockin’ All Over the World and Whatever You Want, Quo achieved worldwide fame.
* Rossi is scheduled to return to the UK in September. More details can be found at www. www.francisrossi.com
