33½ minutes with...Francis Rossi

"Quo's last record got 3.5m streams... which is apparently fuck-all"

- Mark McStea

Francis Rossi is about to embark on an extensive tour of the UK with his one man show, Tunes and Chat. Running from March through to November 2023, well over 100 dates, it follows on from a similar show Rossi toured with in 2019 and 2020, before the global shutdown brought everything to a halt. At 73, Rossi's enthusiasm for the performing side of the business remains undimmed, although he is less enthusiastic about the travel and logistics. Having achieved so much with Status Quo, it turns out that he does harbour one small regret when it comes to looking back on Quo's aborted attempt to crack America: they're huge in every territory bar the States.

Did being big in the US never appeal?

Well, we never plugged any of our 60s hits in America, but we did go over there in the early 70s. It seemed so daunting to break such a huge territory without management and record company support. California alone seemed like it would take a fucking lifetime to crack. It seemed that we could never do it justice without compromising our success in the rest of the world, so we didn't really pursue it.

Didn't you consider having another go in the wake of Live Aid?

I do think, in hindsight, that that was probably a mistake - maybe we could have really had a go at that point. It's funny at my age to be thinking about new areas to move into that we haven't really fully explored. Foghat were a Quo kind of band who did well, so maybe there would have been an appetite for what we were doing if we'd really pushed it.

You were there when Slade were trying to break America, weren't you?