Latest news with #FrancisRossi
Daily Mail
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Status Quo's Francis Rossi, 76, admits he's constantly worried about his health and mortality after lifestyle overhaul: 'Will I last too much longer?'
Status Quo's Francis Rossi has admitted that he's constantly worried about his health and mortality. The rocker, 76, spoke candidly in a new interview as he said he often now asks himself: 'Will I last too much longer?' Francis is the co-founder, lead singer, lead guitarist and the sole continuous member of the rock band Status Quo. In recent years he has embraced vegetable smoothies, herbal supplements and 60 sit ups-a-day as part of his impressive lifestyle overhaul following years of alcohol and drug addiction. He told The Mirror this week: 'My wife asks me when we have coffee at about 7ish, 7.30 am, she says, 'How are you today?'. I go, 'Well...' It's in the morning I get, 'What the f*** am I doing?' 'And I can't get that out of my mind, whatever I do. I'll be alright as the day goes on. I'm going into the studio in a while. And then I look forward to the next meal, and that's it really. 'Will I last too much long. Being 76 gets to me most mornings'. Back in 2021 he quipped that he hadn't got 'long left' as he discussed his strict health regime to prepare for his OUT OUT QUOING tour in 2022. He said to The Sun on Saturday at the time: 'Coming out [of lockdown ] is a problem for me. Going back to work with Quo is a problem for me. 'Physically, can I do the Quo gig? I'm fit, but I cannot emulate the lung capacity any more and I have to increase that. 'I've been practising in my room at night. I've been trying to sing Paper Plane and I get about a quarter of the way through it and it just tires you out.' His intense fitness schedule included 30-length dips in his swanky indoor pool at 7am, followed by eight minutes of crunches and 60 sit-ups. Francis, who lives in Surrey with his wife of 32 years Eileen, fills his nutrition-packed smoothies with broccoli, kale, spinach, carrots, raspberries and strawberries, with apple cider vinegar to aid digestion. Breakfast includes a diverse selection of fruit and vegetables while 'dinner' takes place at 3.30pm, giving the Status Quo star plenty of time for his stomach to settle ahead of exercising his vocal cords or going on stage. Francis revealed he prefers to eat early as he performs better on an empty stomach. Dinner is followed by a one-hour scenic power walk around his leafy neighbourhood. Francis confirmed he has ditched prescription medicines in favour of herbal remedies and a long list of supplements including probiotics, Omega 3, vitamin D and magnesium tablets. He decided to go teetotal several years ago after abusing alcohol in the 80s and developing a £1.7million cocaine habit which caused his septum to fall out in the shower. Francis said any type of drug, including prescription medications, can be a 'slippery slope' for him, after struggling to give up the legal drug, Valium, in the past. He also watched the deterioration of his band mate Rick Parfitt - who he has known since the age of 16 - after the rock 'n' roll lifestyle took a toll on his body. Rick passed away in 2016 at the age of 68. While he has turned his life around for the better, Francis confirmed he still has one vice, a single cigarette which he savours between 5.15pm and 6.30pm daily. He opts for an American spirit tobacco which is free of nasty preservatives and additives Francis said of his one-a-day habit: 'I light it and the nicotine hits worse than any drug or alcohol. I've got to have one vice!'
Daily Mirror
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi admits he worries about dying
EXCLUSIVE: Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi still has self-doubt despite huge success and continuing to sell out UK shows and also fears his own mortality Hard-living rocker Francis Rossi has admitted he is obsessed with his health and asks himself: "Will I last too much longer?" The Status Quo frontman has been open about his hellraising past, including a one-time cocaine addiction. But he said the fact that he is now 76 "gets to me most mornings". He explained: "My wife asks me when we have coffee at about 7ish, 7.30 am, she says, 'How are you today?'. I go, 'Well...' It's in the morning I get, 'What the f*** am I doing?' And how one's going to last too much longer. "And I can't get that out of my mind, whatever I do. I'll be alright as the day goes on. I'm going into the studio in a while. And then I look forward to the next meal, and that's it really." Francis confessed he suffers insecurity despite years as a rock star, waiting for things to go wrong and expecting the worst. He also told Hilary Jones on the Dr Hilary Show podcast that it still hurts if Status Quo are dissed or seen as a bit of a joke. Francis said: "I started practising quite diligently when I was about 38, and I have to do that every day, some form of it. "I've done vocal exercises already this morning, because although we've been off two weeks, we go back in September-ish, and I'm always paranoid about not being ready. "In fact, I'm dreaming at the moment of walking on and I don't have a guitar and I don't know what to say to the audience. I think that's the alternative to being a smug bastard really, I don't think, you know, 'I'm fine, they'll love me.' "And I've heard many people in my position or relative positions have that sort of approach, 'I'll be fine, they'll love me.' It's a showbizzy thing and whether that's their own facade, mine is sort of insecurity, I think so I will be doubly, doubly, doubly sure and expect things to go wrong. I always expect the worst. "My eldest son sent me a clip the other day, he said, 'You're being very guarded in some documentary.' I saw a clip of it, and I find it very difficult to watch. "But this person opened with the fact that, you know, 'You're seen as a joke, aren't you?' I said, 'Well, yeah.' So it's what I said to you, glass half full or half empty... people say, 'They're a bunch of d***heads, it's only three chords, they're not very good. Him and the blonde fella, they're funny, but they can't be real musicians or they wouldn't be that funny' and so on. "And so that goes in as much as you can try to be impervious to it, it goes in there. And so I figure it's better for me to view life from that point of view, anything from that is a plus." Francis formed Status Quo in 1976 and will celebrate a half century in music next year. And he revealed he still dreams of late band pal Rick Parfitt - who died aged 68 in 2016 - only to wake up and remember that they drifted apart before his death "for terrible reasons". He added: "A serious drinker like that, there are no one or two glasses of wine, and he just kept going and him and I just drifted more and more apart because of that. "We were so different by the time we were older. We were really, really, really close, fabulously close. And I dream sometimes about that time and then wake up and realise that we'd drifted somewhat for whatever reasons, terrible reasons.' Status Quo were among the rock elite in the UK, securing over 50 Top 40 singles and over 20 Top 10 albums. Guitarist Rick Parfitt died in hospital in Spain aged 68, in 2016. Parfitt's musical partnership with Rossi, which spanned five decades, made Status Quo one of British rock's most enduring acts. Quo found global success with hits including Rockin' All Over The World and Whatever You Want.
Spectator
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
We've underestimated Francis Rossi
I have a friend who insists that had Status Quo hailed from Düsseldorf rather than Catford, they would nowadays be as critically revered as Can, Faust, Neu! and those other hallowed Teutonic pioneers of unyielding rhythm from the 1970s. Maybe so. Very probably not. Canned Heat and ZZ Top seem more reachable comparisons. But it's true that 'the Quo' have been underestimated and unjustly derided throughout their six-decade career, not least by themselves. The band has happily perpetuated their position as rock and roll neanderthals: a 2007 album is titled In Search Of The Fourth Chord. There was always a little more to it than that. Personally, I have always divined a terrible sadness at the heart of their music. Like most court jesters, Status Quo internalise great loneliness and despair. Consider the regretful pills-and-powder sentiments of songs such as 'Marguerita Time', 'Living On An Island', 'Down Down' and 'What You're Proposing', made all the more doleful by the bleached stoicism of Francis Rossi's pinched voice. Their prototypical heads-down Ur-boogie, meanwhile, is the cosmic hamster's wheel made sound, a pitch perfect aural representation of the existential treadmill. Inelegantly billed as 'An Evening of Francis Rossi's Songs from the Status Quo Songbook and More', this two-man touring show offers a corrective to the established Quo-text, though I very much doubt that is the intention. Having lost his brother in arms, Rick Parfitt, to a heart attack in 2016, Rossi is joined by second guitarist and backing vocalist Andy Brook. Supplied with nifty Fender Acoustasonic semi-acoustic guitars, the pair perch on a couple of red easy chairs, separated by a small table adorned with a green desk lamp.
The Courier
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Courier
Status Quo legend Francis Rossi comes to Perth Concert Hall
'I'm not a particularly good guitar player,' Status Quo legend Francis Rossi whispers. 'I'm better than I was but I'm probably not as good as my peer group, perhaps – well, definitely.' Such self-doubt is perhaps not a quality most people would associate with the once cocksure Francis Rossi, especially those who grew up in the decades when his band seemed omnipresent on radios and TV screens. However, approaching his 76th birthday, Rossi is a much-changed figure from the hell-raiser who lived the rock'n'roll lifestyle to the max with his friend and Quo sidekick Rick Parfitt, who died on Christmas Eve 2016. A sense of reflection surrounds the frontman these days, with memories of past times to the fore both in the part-storytelling acoustic tour that he's bringing to Perth on Monday and in his 'new' album The Way We Were Vol 1, a collection of vintage demos. Having landed his first record deal with The Spectres in 1966 aged 17 and playing live virtually non-stop ever since, it's little wonder that Francis regards touring as his defining lifestyle. 'I remember being very young seeing programmes on TV that were all about travelling circuses or fairs, and they would always travel together in convoy in trucks and buses, so it's always felt like that,' he says. 'Someone asked me a question last night about how kids make it and I said you have to be between diligent and obsessed, and it's become an obsession with me. I just don't really know to do anything else. 'There are bad sides to that and there's the positive side – it makes me happy when I'm doing it.' After years of excess, the singer's London working class upbringing has informed many of his more recent decisions, so rather than expensive hotel stays on his latest tour he recuperates on his tour bus. Playing acoustic gigs with a tiny entourage compared to the mind-blowing logistics of Status Quo ventures means he's in a mainly peaceful place. 'I keep telling the audience how much I'm enjoying myself and I'm worried that it sounds like a showbiz ploy, but it really isn't,' Rossi declares. 'I mean, at my age I would just stay home. It's not that I need the money, but I probably need the audience's adoration, if that's the word. 'I've discussed with my wife when I should stop, because I do have a fear that I may outlive my nest egg. Quo are touring in '26 and planning to tour in '27, so I will deal with that two years down the line. 'It's weird, coming into 76 I suddenly feel like 25 again, like it's something to grow. That might seem idiotic to other people and part of me thinks that way.' 'It has to be the insecure show-off in me that needs to be in front of people to validate his very existence. I'm too old to start pretending that I'm this giant rock star, but I'm a part of the bulls*** that is showbiz. 'I can tell people I'm definitely not as nice as they think I am, because the fans really think I'm wonderful. I can't be, and we do that all the time to showbiz people. 'It's why we get so upset when they do things that let people down by being greedy or sex pests or just grumpy s***s. I'm probably one of the grumpy s***s.' Reflecting on his younger days, he says he was 'putting a front up' in terms of his public persona. 'Now I'm trying to say to people that I'm very much like they are, I just happen to be the one that's sat on the stage at that particular moment,' he explains. 'Quite often a question comes up at whatever venue and they laugh when I say playing here is actually far actually far more important to me than playing Wembley Arena or Glastonbury, where you're being sold something but you don't know what it is. 'I'm far too open sometimes, but that's what I am, and I've not many years left to be genuine with people.' Status Quo started in 1967 as psychedelic hipsters, later morphing into the denim-clad Live Aid-openers who scored such huge hits as Rockin' All Over The World, What You're Proposing and Down Down. 'Most of the things we do on this tour I thought would be impossible, like Roll Over Lay Down and Don't Waste My Time, but something happened,' says Francis. 'The audience tend to listen because if we go quiet, it's f***ing quiet. There have been one or two little worries – at the beginning it was how many stories there will be or whether I'd repeat them, but I just ad lib or something else comes up. 'I try not to think about it until I face the audience, and something happens in that first 10 minutes when I talk to them and then I kind of follow my nose. 'Once or twice I've stumbled and thought it wasn't really working, but that's something I've learned over many years talking for Quo, as it were. You're stood there with maybe 15,000 people and you can sense it's not working, but something happens and you change foot.' Status Quo have played a few times in Perth down the years. 'We used to stop for clothes at a shop in Perth on the way up north,' Rossi recalls. 'They used to get those Arab scarfs, the black and white ones or the red and white ones. We used to use them a lot, and various unusual garments – it was a fantastic shop.' Francis Rossi, Perth Concert Hall, May 19.
Perth Now
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Francis Rossi fears running out of money
Francis Rossi is "scared s***less" of running out of money. The Status Quo rocker, who turns 76 later this month, has no plans to retire from making music or performing live because he is "constantly" worried about his financial security. He told The Guardian newspaper: 'The thing that worries me constantly is: will I have enough money if I stop now and there's no more income? I'm scared s***less of that.' And Francis doesn't know what he would do without music. He admitted: 'I don't know what else to do. I'm obsessed by it all, and I just keep going.' The 'Whatever You Want' hitmaker initially formed his group, who were first known as The Paladins and then The Spectres, with Alan Lancaster in 1962 while still at school and later added drummer John Coghlan and late guitarist Rick Parfitt to the line-up and the quartet set out to emulate the Beatles. Francis explained: 'Everybody liked them and I must have been a wimpy kid, and I terribly wanted to be liked. Still do in some ways. That's quite sad. But we tried to emulate them – that's where we wanted to go.' The 'Down Down' rocker has previously spoken of his tendency to say inappropriate things and a lack of visible grief for those he loved and he's now reflected that a diagnosis of neurodiversity "would explain" some of his behaviour. Asked if he has ever been tested for neurodiversity, he said: 'You're the first person that's ever broached that at all. And now there are loads of things going on in my mind, because that would explain …' Speaking about poking at his mother's body to check she was really dead and making arrangements for his working day when told his father had died, he added: 'I said, 'Is the car coming to pick me up?' And it makes me feel like I'm cold. "But if I'm in a situation and I'm told what I'm supposed to do, I can't do it. I'm supposed to grieve, I'm supposed to say certain things. And I will be thinking, 'I shouldn't say that, that's not appropriate.' "It's interesting, what you said. I never thought about that before.'
