00:00Hello, good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, and
00:07this is just stupidly insanely exciting to be speaking to Francis Rossi of Status Quo.
00:12Lovely to speak to you.
00:13Thank you, you want testing, yes.
00:17Pardon?
00:18You never heard that, you want testing.
00:23You're not supposed to say that to a fan, but it's lovely that you are heading our way
00:28to do an evening with. You're going to do Portsmouth, you're going to do Hastings. I caught you doing
00:33similar in Portsmouth a few years ago, and you just loved sitting there reminiscing. Why
00:39is it an enjoyable evening for you? Why do you love doing it so much? It just came across
00:43so well.
00:44I really don't know, and if I do find out, I'm frightened that it would ruin it for me. I
00:50just love, and I said to you before, it's building into something it feels, which is a bit ridiculous
00:56for a man in these mid-50s, didn't it? Sorry, in 76, that I think it's going somewhere.
01:03I'm booked to go in 2026.
01:06This is the second coming, isn't it?
01:08I suppose something's going on that I really, really enjoy. I get to play a guitar, I get
01:15to sing the songs I like, I get to put them in keys that are far more comfortable with
01:19the same. The guy I work with, Andy Brook, it's been my guitar tech, he's my studio engineer,
01:25and he enjoys doing this with me, he's not out of my position. There are too many pluses.
01:31I keep thinking that, just hope it doesn't go wrong.
01:34And it must be lovely just to plunge back into those memories, to have all that behind you,
01:39all that status quo means to people, and they really do mean a lot to people, don't they?
01:44I upset someone. I think some people get a little disappointed, perhaps, that he's not.
01:52And I do try and impress this on them, that you think we're wonderful, and you may have
01:59a picture of whom I am, or Rick was, or Madonna is, was, or Beyonce, or Taylor Swift, whoever
02:06it is, but that's your idea of whom we are.
02:09And it's so evident, as much as so many people have been discovered doing things they really
02:15shouldn't, since the 70s onwards. So it's just, it's lovely that, like I said, I'm the
02:22insecure little show. It's lovely that they love it and want to see it, but I don't, I'm
02:27desperately trying not to upset them. Unless perhaps one of them may upset me, I might snap
02:34back occasionally. But then I apologise. Sorry for that, sir.
02:38But it's that longevity that's so extraordinary, isn't it? I think the original incarnation of
02:43status quo was formed before I was born, and yet still, you're still going.
02:48Me, young people, they make me sick. The, yes, it is. And it's something, we talked a moment
02:56ago about something, spiritualist, if you like. And one of the things that I've often talked
03:01about over the years is how one manifests what can happen, and that one can do this.
03:07And I believe you can. I have a friend that works with me. She's done it so many times,
03:12but she talks about it, and within X weeks, it fucking happens. I don't understand. I know
03:18that I envisaged something when I was 11 or 12, and a little before that, when I was probably
03:25at seven or eight or nine. But it just, it goes in my mind, and I think, hmm. And I subsequently,
03:31later in life, realised that if you want to manifest something, and then I might, when the ego gets
03:39involved and starts bragging about it, it does not happen. So it has to be, for me, something
03:45I envisage, and lo and behold, it happens over, but you can't give it, no, it needs to happen
03:53by now. It doesn't work with me. It works with a friend. She can say, I need this to happen,
03:59and it does. But I do believe that I did that when I was younger, and I subsequently do it
04:05every now and again. I try not, I'm trying to scan now, so when I might have done it, but
04:12I mustn't, because again, that's terrible. So I believe there's a spiritual thing going
04:17on there. As we both said, you don't want to go into religion. I don't believe the religions,
04:23but there is something, I believe.
04:25Yeah. And well, it's also continuity, isn't it? I think, I think there's something actually
04:30really rather reassuring, that status quo is still around, and still lap up the music.
04:35I was just thinking you wouldn't say about that there is something, and I do find that reassuring
04:41that there is something, and someone many years ago said to me, said to my mother about
04:48me, and I can't say what it is, because it will ruin it, and somebody else just said to
04:56me, just have faith. So again, but that alludes too much to religion to me. You know, and then
05:04somebody says, oh yes, and off they go on this, their own religious trail, whatever they think
05:09they follow. But I think when we have faith, you said something, before we started recording,
05:16I won't tell them what you said, you're safe with me. But you said something that alluded
05:22to the same thing, which I will take, and I will savour that and keep it with me, because
05:28yeah, that's right. It's something that verifies something. I don't want to be too specific,
05:35because it will ruin it. Right. So you said that, yeah, it's another way of saying, no,
05:41you have faith. Okay. That's it, really. Not in Buddhism, and this-ism, and that-ism,
05:47that-ism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, any ideology. No, you just have faith
05:52in it, perhaps. So you're not going to be short of something to talk about, then, are you?
05:57No, and I can always tell when I've gone on a little too long, the room's empty.
06:03You noticed it.
06:05And the people around me are gone.
06:11My gardener's a funny bloke who went to school with one of my boys. I've got so many people
06:17around me that went to school with my kids. Sorry, yes. What did you say? He was looking
06:22at me. Brilliant. Well, I shall leave you in peace. Fantastic to get the chance to see
06:28you again in Portsmouth before too long. You're also doing Hastings. Francis, massive
06:33pleasure to speak to you. Thank you ever so much indeed. I'm looking forward to Hastings.
06:37I told you, it's such a wonderful place, and I can't- I expect that it'll be sold out by
06:41now, but I'm beginning to expect too much, you see. Good. Keep expecting. Lovely to speak
06:48to you. See you now. Thank you.
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