Post by quomanuk on Sept 8, 2015 1:00:58 GMT
www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Rick-Parfitt-interview-Just-wrong-decision-ve/story-26908035-detail/story.html
Rick Parfitt of Status Quo: 'Just about every wrong decision I've made has been because of booze
One half of one of British music's longest standing partnerships, Rick Parfitt of Status Quo has been there, done that and then some. JUDE CLARKE hears about the wild times and career highs.
I have a friend who always claims that "anyone who says they don't like Status Quo is probably lying". Contentious, perhaps, but he might well have a point. They are one of the country's most successful acts of the last half century, if not ever.
The boogie rock veterans probably don't need much of an introduction. One of the UK's longest-established bands, the two lynchpins are founder members Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, who have been touting their if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it, good-time brand of rock 'n' roll (after a more psychedelic start – well, it was the 60s after all) since Parfitt was invited into the band in 1968.
Even if you're not a hard rocker, you will definitely know the Quo. With total worldwide record sales exceeding 118 million units, more than 100 singles released (oh you know: Whatever You Want, Caroline, What You're Proposing and – of course – Rockin' All Over the World) and immortalisation by means of a feature film, Madame Tussauds AND Royal Doulton along the way, it's actually quite hard to know where to start, when I put a call through to a French hotel suite to chat with Rick Parfitt, enjoying a day off mid-tour.
"I could never have believed in my wildest dreams, when I was a 14-, 15-year-old kid, that I would have achieved now what I've achieved. I wouldn't have believed it if somebody told me", Rick begins.
"I was the kid who was sitting at school looking out of the window, thinking of Tommy Steele and Lonny Donegan and Burt Wheedon. I picked up a guitar when I was 10 years old and I never wanted to do anything else, that was it."
So having left school as early as he could ("For the last couple of years I didn't really listen, I wasn't interested, I just couldn't be bothered"), the early days of success with Status Quo were "phenomenal".
"When it started happening it was wonderful", he continues, genuinely still sounding misty-eyed after all this time. One of the first moments that he really realised "we've made it" came at a small gig in Cromer. Rick takes up the story:
"We'd played there a couple of times before, and this particular night we'd rammed it: sold out, about 800, nearly 1,000 people in there. I remember going home – in those days you got paid after the gig – with £400 in my pocket. My mum and dad were in bed and I woke them up and did that thing you see on television. I threw it all up in the air. Four hundred quid! I'm 18 years old – it was just incredible. I always remember that moment."
But while all was well "in terms of the success of the band – that's been phenomenal", all was very far from well as the inevitable dark side of fame took over – "with the drugs and the alcohol, living the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, you know".
Now off the booze and drugs, since a second heart attack in 2011 gave him the fright which an earlier attack (and bypass surgery) in 1997 failed to do, Rick acknowledges that his life in music has been "a very varied ride. . . a very dangerous business" – indeed, one that very nearly finished him off.
So does he have any regrets? Quite a few, it seems. "The way I've conducted myself over the years, if I could go back I certainly wouldn't go down that road again. Just about every wrong decision I've ever made in my life has been because of booze, alcohol and drugs – and believe me, I've made quite a lot of wrong decisions!"
Even what was arguably the pinnacle of the band's career, when they were chosen, in 1985, to open Live Aid, their song, Rockin' All Over The World (a cover of a John Fogarty track, which many now assume was the band's own composition) becoming the event's anthem, is something of a blur.
Although Rick describes it as "one of the most incredible moments of my life", playing to a live audience of 82,000 and with the awareness that "the whole world is watching this" via TV cameras beaming the performance out around the world, he describes how the actual gig itself left him "so disappointed – it was over in 15 seconds". And the rest of the day? "I don't remember another thing. I went somewhere. Some people have said they saw me getting on a bus, and other people have said they saw me getting on a helicopter with David Bowie – you could tell me whatever and I would not know. I was completely. Out. Of. My. Tree."
Momentarily floored by the possibility that someone could board a helicopter with DAVID BOWIE and not remember it, I quickly rally as Rick goes on to compare and contrast those lost years with his lifestyle nowadays.
"I'm a fairly levelled-out sort of person now. I'm very staid, almost boring: I've gone from one extreme to another". Like today, for example, a day off, when he plans to "just have a day watching tennis [our conversation takes place during Wimbledon fortnight], and then go to bed early. That's basically what I do on the road."
And how does he get on these days with Francis Rossi: a relationship that has endured longer than most marriages, after all? Are they like an old married couple?
He laughs. "Well, we're old, but we're not married. These days we're vastly different people. In the days of the ligging and the rock 'n' roll we were inseparable, but as you grow up you find your own interests. Francis has his dressing room and I have my dressing room, and we don't really have a lot in common any more, other than what you do."
I'm beginning to think this sounds a bit frosty, but Rick assures me "It works nicely, you know? We're friends, there's no conflict between us, but as soon as we finish touring we go home and then for however long the break is, we won't speak to one another at all."
And after having known each other for 50 years and worked together for nearly as long, I suppose it's not really any surprise. But although the intra-band dynamics have obviously changed, the magical Quo formula that keeps the fans coming back for more doesn't seem to be showing any signs of petering out. Does Rick have any insight into their enduring appeal?
"I don't know. I don't understand why young kids come out to see old men in boys' clothes", he says. But whatever the reason, he loves the band's fanbase: "It's a fantastic audience, Quo is a good time for anybody really, we always go out there with 100 per cent attitude and get it on."
And that fanbase now takes in not only Rick's grown up children (Harry, 25, and Richard, 40), but also his 7-year-old twins. Clearly a proud dad, he tells me how son Tommy "just loves us. We've got a cinema at home and he's got a podium and he stands up in front of the screen with us on, live, picks up his guitar and will do the whole set."
His own musical tastes these days stretch to Muse ("I think they're good but I'm not a big fan") and – more unexpectedly – English tenor Alfie Boe, but he mainly still likes "the AC/DCs and the Metallicas: I do love rock music". When it comes to younger bands he has, he admits, become everything that the younger music fan dreads: "I'm like my mum and dad were towards me, I don't tend to listen to the younger bands, I don't understand the attitude of it, and I just don't get it any more. I'm kind of like: 'What is this? I don't understand it.'"
So how long can we expect the Quo to keep going? Well those of you who have tickets for their Newmarket show this week don't need to panic. Although Rick acknowledges "We're not getting any younger – the bones do ache when you're leaping around on stage and jumping for an hour and more every night", they don't have any immediate plans to quit. "There's talk of knocking it on the head at the end of next year, but we'll see how next year goes. I'm not going to make any rash decisions here."
So it seems like, after a lifetime of making VERY rash decisions, Rick has now found a way to keep the fans happy, keep the show on the road and just continue, for now (forgive me) rockin' all over the world. And for that, at least, surely you would have to admit to a BIT of a soft spot for the man, and the band?
Status Quo play Newmarket Nights on Friday, July 17, 4pm to 10.30pm, tickets £25-£61, newmarkettickets.thejockeyclub.co.uk / 0844 579 3010.
Rick Parfitt of Status Quo: 'Just about every wrong decision I've made has been because of booze
One half of one of British music's longest standing partnerships, Rick Parfitt of Status Quo has been there, done that and then some. JUDE CLARKE hears about the wild times and career highs.
I have a friend who always claims that "anyone who says they don't like Status Quo is probably lying". Contentious, perhaps, but he might well have a point. They are one of the country's most successful acts of the last half century, if not ever.
The boogie rock veterans probably don't need much of an introduction. One of the UK's longest-established bands, the two lynchpins are founder members Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, who have been touting their if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it, good-time brand of rock 'n' roll (after a more psychedelic start – well, it was the 60s after all) since Parfitt was invited into the band in 1968.
Even if you're not a hard rocker, you will definitely know the Quo. With total worldwide record sales exceeding 118 million units, more than 100 singles released (oh you know: Whatever You Want, Caroline, What You're Proposing and – of course – Rockin' All Over the World) and immortalisation by means of a feature film, Madame Tussauds AND Royal Doulton along the way, it's actually quite hard to know where to start, when I put a call through to a French hotel suite to chat with Rick Parfitt, enjoying a day off mid-tour.
"I could never have believed in my wildest dreams, when I was a 14-, 15-year-old kid, that I would have achieved now what I've achieved. I wouldn't have believed it if somebody told me", Rick begins.
"I was the kid who was sitting at school looking out of the window, thinking of Tommy Steele and Lonny Donegan and Burt Wheedon. I picked up a guitar when I was 10 years old and I never wanted to do anything else, that was it."
So having left school as early as he could ("For the last couple of years I didn't really listen, I wasn't interested, I just couldn't be bothered"), the early days of success with Status Quo were "phenomenal".
"When it started happening it was wonderful", he continues, genuinely still sounding misty-eyed after all this time. One of the first moments that he really realised "we've made it" came at a small gig in Cromer. Rick takes up the story:
"We'd played there a couple of times before, and this particular night we'd rammed it: sold out, about 800, nearly 1,000 people in there. I remember going home – in those days you got paid after the gig – with £400 in my pocket. My mum and dad were in bed and I woke them up and did that thing you see on television. I threw it all up in the air. Four hundred quid! I'm 18 years old – it was just incredible. I always remember that moment."
But while all was well "in terms of the success of the band – that's been phenomenal", all was very far from well as the inevitable dark side of fame took over – "with the drugs and the alcohol, living the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, you know".
Now off the booze and drugs, since a second heart attack in 2011 gave him the fright which an earlier attack (and bypass surgery) in 1997 failed to do, Rick acknowledges that his life in music has been "a very varied ride. . . a very dangerous business" – indeed, one that very nearly finished him off.
So does he have any regrets? Quite a few, it seems. "The way I've conducted myself over the years, if I could go back I certainly wouldn't go down that road again. Just about every wrong decision I've ever made in my life has been because of booze, alcohol and drugs – and believe me, I've made quite a lot of wrong decisions!"
Even what was arguably the pinnacle of the band's career, when they were chosen, in 1985, to open Live Aid, their song, Rockin' All Over The World (a cover of a John Fogarty track, which many now assume was the band's own composition) becoming the event's anthem, is something of a blur.
Although Rick describes it as "one of the most incredible moments of my life", playing to a live audience of 82,000 and with the awareness that "the whole world is watching this" via TV cameras beaming the performance out around the world, he describes how the actual gig itself left him "so disappointed – it was over in 15 seconds". And the rest of the day? "I don't remember another thing. I went somewhere. Some people have said they saw me getting on a bus, and other people have said they saw me getting on a helicopter with David Bowie – you could tell me whatever and I would not know. I was completely. Out. Of. My. Tree."
Momentarily floored by the possibility that someone could board a helicopter with DAVID BOWIE and not remember it, I quickly rally as Rick goes on to compare and contrast those lost years with his lifestyle nowadays.
"I'm a fairly levelled-out sort of person now. I'm very staid, almost boring: I've gone from one extreme to another". Like today, for example, a day off, when he plans to "just have a day watching tennis [our conversation takes place during Wimbledon fortnight], and then go to bed early. That's basically what I do on the road."
And how does he get on these days with Francis Rossi: a relationship that has endured longer than most marriages, after all? Are they like an old married couple?
He laughs. "Well, we're old, but we're not married. These days we're vastly different people. In the days of the ligging and the rock 'n' roll we were inseparable, but as you grow up you find your own interests. Francis has his dressing room and I have my dressing room, and we don't really have a lot in common any more, other than what you do."
I'm beginning to think this sounds a bit frosty, but Rick assures me "It works nicely, you know? We're friends, there's no conflict between us, but as soon as we finish touring we go home and then for however long the break is, we won't speak to one another at all."
And after having known each other for 50 years and worked together for nearly as long, I suppose it's not really any surprise. But although the intra-band dynamics have obviously changed, the magical Quo formula that keeps the fans coming back for more doesn't seem to be showing any signs of petering out. Does Rick have any insight into their enduring appeal?
"I don't know. I don't understand why young kids come out to see old men in boys' clothes", he says. But whatever the reason, he loves the band's fanbase: "It's a fantastic audience, Quo is a good time for anybody really, we always go out there with 100 per cent attitude and get it on."
And that fanbase now takes in not only Rick's grown up children (Harry, 25, and Richard, 40), but also his 7-year-old twins. Clearly a proud dad, he tells me how son Tommy "just loves us. We've got a cinema at home and he's got a podium and he stands up in front of the screen with us on, live, picks up his guitar and will do the whole set."
His own musical tastes these days stretch to Muse ("I think they're good but I'm not a big fan") and – more unexpectedly – English tenor Alfie Boe, but he mainly still likes "the AC/DCs and the Metallicas: I do love rock music". When it comes to younger bands he has, he admits, become everything that the younger music fan dreads: "I'm like my mum and dad were towards me, I don't tend to listen to the younger bands, I don't understand the attitude of it, and I just don't get it any more. I'm kind of like: 'What is this? I don't understand it.'"
So how long can we expect the Quo to keep going? Well those of you who have tickets for their Newmarket show this week don't need to panic. Although Rick acknowledges "We're not getting any younger – the bones do ache when you're leaping around on stage and jumping for an hour and more every night", they don't have any immediate plans to quit. "There's talk of knocking it on the head at the end of next year, but we'll see how next year goes. I'm not going to make any rash decisions here."
So it seems like, after a lifetime of making VERY rash decisions, Rick has now found a way to keep the fans happy, keep the show on the road and just continue, for now (forgive me) rockin' all over the world. And for that, at least, surely you would have to admit to a BIT of a soft spot for the man, and the band?
Status Quo play Newmarket Nights on Friday, July 17, 4pm to 10.30pm, tickets £25-£61, newmarkettickets.thejockeyclub.co.uk / 0844 579 3010.