“I give 3,000% of myself when I’m on stage”

Every day, a personality invites itself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Friday February 23, 2024: British artists Rod Stewart and Jools Holland. They released an album: “Swing Fever”. Rod Stewart will be in concert on June 30 at the Zénith in Paris.

Rod Stewart is one of the greatest international artists, a staple of British rock and one of the best-selling in the world. When we talk about him, we obviously think of his hits which have become our Madeleine de Proust: Maggie May (1971), Sailing (1975) or even Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? (1978). In 2002, he received the Chopard Diamond Award for his 100 million albums sold and Queen Elizabeth II even knighted him in 2016.

Jools Holland is an English musician, pianist, television presenter. He is also the founder of the Squeeze group. A great pianist who has collaborated with Tom Jones, Eric Clapton and today with Rod Stewart. From this union an album has just been born, Swing Fever which comes out today. Rod Stewart will also be in concert at the Zénith in Paris on June 30.

Franceinfo: Swing Fever, it’s 13 tracks in homage to a glorious musical era, to the timeless songs of the Big Bang years. Does this sound ultimately represent the rock ‘n’ roll of your time?

Jools Holland: Yeah! I think that’s it, the music on this record is the most important thing, whatever you want to call it, it’s the intention of the music and the feeling of the music.

Rod Stewart: We didn’t want ballads and slower songs, and thanks to Jools and his incredible band, we couldn’t play this without an amazing drummer and bassist, between Jools’ piano and my voice, we hope it works. We love this album. It’s one of the rare albums that I play myself. We just finished it, but I play it and listen to it and I never get tired.

Jools, was it a pleasure to finally push Rod to his limits, to go after him on this? Because even his voice is different.

Jools Holland: I would never dare push Rod into anything! But I think what happened is that often people who make records together say, “It was the worst time of my life, we got confused over the songs, we fought in the studio“, well there, it was exactly the opposite. Yes, what a pleasure! When we made these arrangements and his vocals came on the arrangements, everything became obvious. That’s the most important thing. He’s one of the greatest singers in the world and that means something. I didn’t push him. I sort of followed him!

“When Rod sings, it goes straight to people’s hearts and that’s what we wanted to do with this record ‘Swing Fever’. It made me so happy.”

Jools Holland

at franceinfo

Rod, it’s true that when we listen to this album, your voice is almost unrecognizable, that is to say that you went looking for nuances that we didn’t necessarily have. used to hearing before.

Rod Stewart: Believe me, it’s natural. So natural for me. The Lord gave me a voice that can adapt to a lot of different styles of music. I understand these songs and I can sing them all. I am very lucky. But there was no effort. It was really natural for me to sing that stuff.

I was wondering when you discovered this voice, Rod, and when you understood that this was your path since in the beginning, it was football.

Rod Stewart: I always dress in football, I love football. I’ll tell you when it happened. When I was at school my father bought me a guitar, I was 12 years old. I didn’t want it. But anyway, I started playing guitar and then I became a beatnik and I was singing on the beach in Brighton with my friends. We were all beatniks and people would get together and say, “Hey Rod, go ahead, sing!“And I thought, oh, maybe I have something and I pushed from there.

“If you had told me at 16 that I would still be singing at 79, I would never have believed it! But here I am and I’m still doing it and I love every minute of it!”

Rod Stewart

at franceinfo

Jools, in addition to this voice, this career, this involvement, is it this energy that you like about Rod?

Jools Holland: Yes. I was so happy when he called me. I didn’t know Rod even though our paths crossed from time to time and it always went well. But thanks to this album, I got to know and appreciate him much better. Now I really like it because there’s always a surprise, there’s always something funny happening like with a really good friend. It’s great because as you get older, it’s hard to make new friends. In fact, most of the time, the older we get, the less we want to have new friends. But this one is awesome.

Rod Stewart: I share this sentiment, Mr Holland!

I would like to talk about the scene. What does it mean to you, Rod? You will be at the Zénith in Paris on June 30.

Rod Stewart: All ! It represents everything, it’s my whole life. Playing live on stage means everything to me. With Jools, we show off a little… I don’t look like a rock star, look at my hair, my big nose! I’m so happy and satisfied that I can continue to do this and still have an audience that comes to see us play live. And I give 3,000% when I’m on stage, I love every second of the moments I’m on stage.

Watch this interview on video: