Francis Rossi, as you might be aware, is a talker. By the end of our allotted hour with the Status Quo lifer, we have enough material to fill this entire magazine – and still he wants to keep going (“Until I tell you to fuck off, you’re fine”).
Most of it is unusable, of course, consisting of silly voices, off-the-record slander, and his sweet-but-infuriating habit of twanging a guitar to illustrate his point. But Rossi does want to get at least one serious message across: he is inordinately proud of his new solo album.
And why wouldn’t he be? Co-produced by Andy Brook, The Accidental is a potent collection of driving boogies and instant melodies – drawing a line under Rossi’s recent run of mostly acoustic music – to reconnect with the power of a revved-up electric guitar. And at 76, he sounds as surprised as anyone by this late-career miracle baby that he has delivered.
Article continues belowSo you’ve gone and recorded an album by accident?
Yeah. I didn’t want to make it. One of the guys I did this with – Hiran Ilangantileke [guitar] – went to school with my son. They were in bands together and I’ve known this kid since he was 11. Hiran was always a whizz-kid guitar player. But I said to him, “You’ve got to learn to play in time.” Fantastic lead guitar player, but he was all over the place. So then he went away for three years, practicing with a click track.
This year, Hiran asked me if I fancied doing something. I really enjoy conversing with the bloke – he’s highly intelligent, compared with me, anyway. So he came around with an Acoustasonic, we started playing, and we wrote three songs in a couple of days. He asked, “Do you want to record them?”
I said, “Not particularly. Why would I want to do that?” Then I went off ranting about how we make quarter of a penny per download. I told him, “You’ve missed the boat. People don’t sell records now.”
Digital-era incomes are a bone of contention for you?
To me, there’s something wrong with making a product and not earning from it. I use the term ‘product’ in the face of other musicians, who like to pretend that’s not what it is. Please yourself, my son. You like to pretend you’re not in showbiz? Then get off the fucking stage. This has been my living since I was 16.
Back in the '70s, the German [record executives] used to say, “I think music should be free.” And I’d say, “Well, fair enough, I’ve got three kids, do you want to pay for their education? And I like a BMW every new year. If you want to make free music, go ahead, you please yourself.”
But back to the album’s inception…
So we recorded those first songs anyway, then my wife said, “Why don’t you write some more?” And I said, “Because it’s fruitless.” I’m not one of those people who [records for my own pleasure]. I need more than that. It’s the insecure show-off in me.
But I did agree to record some more songs. Then I went full tilt ahead. And lo and behold, I suddenly had an album I thought was truly tremendous. And it so happens that probably half-a-dozen people think the same.
Where did you end up recording The Accidental?
My studio in the garden. It’s a large Swiss-chalet-type place, with a Harrison console, Logic software. I wasn’t planning to use John Edwards on bass. But he asked, “Can I play on a couple?” That’s John all over.
He walked in and he played, and I’ve used a couple of other guys, but John is a brilliant player, there’s no two ways about it. So is Leon [Cave, drums]. When he first started playing with us, the difference behind me was like, ‘Wahey!’ You can feel the happiness in his drumming.
This record sounds like you’ve fallen back in love with the electric guitar.
Oddly enough, I played this black Status Slipstream. It’s a one-piece neck, carbon fiber body… everything that makes guitarists of my generation go [pulls pained face]. Everything about it, for traditionalists, is wrong. It’s not American. It’s not got [Patent Applied For pickups] from 1932 or whatever. I think the humbuckers are possibly Chinese.
These guitars are two-a-penny. They’re not old – you can knock them up any time you like. But that’s my baby. The custom green Status I had built a few years ago is great, too.
Why not the old Quo-era Telecaster?
It’s been sold because it would not go in tune. The bolts on the back of the neck, we kept reseating them. It was getting worse and worse.
When you play acoustic guitar these days, what do you reach for?
These are lovely [holds up a Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster]. However, [I find them] difficult to keep in tune. The piezo crystal piece is a little short. In fact, they sound better acoustically than when you plug them in.
I’d like someone to give it a twist on the truss rod. And maybe have something done to the nut to lift the B and E strings. Just to give it a bit more zing. But there are also some truly beautiful, wonderful things about these guitars. We’ve got five of them out on the road, and they all vary.
More generally, what are the best pieces in your guitar collection?
Other than this particular black Status Slipstream, probably the Gibson Stereo that I made Matchstick Men on. That’s the one I swapped for a Grimshaw with Pete Ham from Badfinger.
How about your amps?
I’d been getting a great noise in my back bedroom on this baby Vox [VX15 GT]. So we sampled that, put it into the Kemper, and I used that on the last Quo tour.
Again, a person of my generation would normally say, ‘Oh no, I’m not using that modern shit.’ Which is a bit of a dickhead attitude. It’s very much head-in-the-sand. So we had the Kemper in the studio for this album and I kept coming back to that sound: the Vox via the Kemper.
You’ve always worked particularly hard at your guitar technique. Do you think you have breakthroughs that are still to come?
I practice every day, except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. But I still fuck up, badly and regularly. Like on Matchstick Men [plays it and fumbles it]. I played it at 32 shows this year, no problem. Then we came back out for six shows on the trot – and I fucked it up. Isn’t that guitar part hardwired into my brain by this point? Yeah. So why does it go wrong?
On the new album, there’s a nice solo on Beautiful World. It’s nice to be able to listen to oneself. But I’m not that good a guitar player. There are players where I’m sat there thinking [jaw drops].
My son said he’s thinking of going over to Nashville. I told him, “I wouldn’t go there again.” He said, “Why not?” And I said, “Everywhere you go, everyone can play the arse off you.” Jesus. I’ve still got a long way to go. I won’t live long enough to get that good.
But you’ve been a professional musician for over half a century.
People think I’m being overly modest. No, I know what a good guitar player is – and I know what my limitations are. And I’m a lot better than I was, but I am still not where I should be. I’m still frustrated by that. There was that period – from the late '60s into the early '80s, you could say – when there were just so many players who became legends.
You had Free, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple – just band after band after band. We just knew them as bands on the circuit. It’s only 35 years later that you realize: “Shit a brick, there’s never been that amount of quality music again.”
Your sense of groove is unsurpassed, though. How do you get it so tight?
“It’s very hard not to have your heart running at the bpm the last song was played at. Hence, we started using clicks with Quo because Rick [Parfitt] would be all over the place. Some nights, if he’d had a downer, we’d start with Junior’s Wailing and it’d be [treacle-slow groove]. “Rick, for fuck’s sake! What have you had?”
So that was it. I said, “We’re having a click in our ears.” You need to have a reference point because it’s very difficult to control where your heart is. Have you not found that when you’ve tried to get to sleep at night? You’re like, “Shit, my heart is going fast…”
A decade since his death, have you got used to playing guitar without your Quo wingman, Rick Parfitt?
Rick and I as a twosome were great, but he had this whole ‘number one/number two’ thing. And once he was settled in the band, he was like, ‘No, I want the other position’
Rick did not want to be a twosome any longer, a long time ago. I dreamt of him last night. I dream of him a lot. And I only dream of the positive stuff. But it’s the negative stuff that hits me in reality. The first night he joined, he came up to me and said, “I haven’t learnt the songs…”
Rick and I as a twosome were great, but he had this whole “number one/number two” thing. And once he was settled in the band, he was like, “No, I want the other position.” That’s where it became so acrimonious between us. Rick was never going to be happy because he always wanted what was over there. I kept saying to him, “The trouble with over there is, everywhere you go, there you are.”
Rick always needed to be the loudest thing in the room. One of the joys of playing with Richie [Malone, late-period Quo guitarist] is that you can say, “Turn it down, Richie.” And Hiran wants to be Hiran; there’s very unlikely to be a competition because there’s so many years between us. He always respects that I’m the older person. I miss the days when Rick and I were very, very close – but they weren’t there at all at the end.
Do you feel more creatively free when you’re not recording as Status Quo?
Oh, definitely. And that’s understandable, isn’t it? But still I want to be fair to the band – it may have been me that put those shackles there.
Do you think The Accidental is up there as the best guitar performance of your career?
Without a doubt. And people will think, ‘Well, you would say that.’ Yeah, true. But whether or not it sounds like I’m full of shit, I don’t think I’ve ever been as pleased with an album.
Do you have particular commercial aspirations for it?
Well, unless you have a ticket, you’re not going to win the lottery. But if you buy just one ticket, then you can fantasize. Even if nothing happens, it’s still a lovely record. I don’t know if I can turn out stuff that good again – but I damn well hope so.
Finally, are you more nervous before a playing gig or a talking gig?
Neither. I’m extremely comfortable at both. I don’t know what I’m going to say some nights. But I tell the audience, “If I repeat myself, just tell me to fuck off…!”
- The Accidental is out now via earMUSIC
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
