Fifty years of booze, drugs, women and bust-ups... memories that Stay With Me

WHEN rock bad boys Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood got together in their wild years, trouble was rarely far behind.

- BY SIOBHAN MCNALLY and JACKIE ANNETT

Think sex and drugs and rock and roll with more than a dash of booze and that was the pair alongside their 70s band the Faces.

The quickest look at the titles of their hits shows you what drove the musicians - Stay With Me, Had Me A Real Good Time, Ooh La La.

But times change, Faces get older and Rod and Ronnie are about to reunite on stage.

They are deservedly playing the legends slot on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage next Sunday.

Back in the day, the band's gigs were either brilliant or shambolic, depending on how much alcohol and drugs they had consumed.

It meant they were as well known for excess in all areas, including with groupies in their party room, as they were for their music. Yet despite the destructive lifestyle, Sir Rod, 80, guitarist Ronnie, 78, and drummer Kenney Jones, 76, are still going strong.

PARTYING

The Faces were formed out of the Small Faces, of which Kenney was a founding member along with guitarist and singer Steve Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane.

And touring with The Who gave Kenney a taste of things to come.

The Small Faces were a very popular 60s band and mimed along to their chart-toppers like Sha-La-La-La-Lee, Itchycoo Park and Lazy Sunday on Top Of The Pops. But they also got a reputation for hard partying, especially when hanging out with The Who and Rolling Stones.

Kenney, in his 2018 autobiography Let The Good Times Roll, recalls touring with The Who and the behaviour of the band's late drummer Keith Moon in a hotel.

He says: "Lying on my bed, beginning to drift off, I heard a strange scratching sound coming from beneath the desk up against my wall. Got to be mice, I thought.

"The noise grew louder.

As I got up to investigate properly, there was a loud crunch, followed by an explosion of dust and clattering of bricks.