Rod Stewart had to be locked in a hotel room until he wrote songs

Rod Stewart recalled being too “lazy” to write songs in the ’70s because “there was too much fucking and drinking to do” during his time with the Faces.

In a new interview on Apple Music’s Time Crisis 1 – coinciding with the release of his latest album Tears of Hercules – the veteran singer said his first attempt to write with bandmate Ronnie Wood was a complete failure.

“I had never taken a pen … until I joined the band Jeff Beck,” Stewart recalls. “And then Jeff said we should start writing our own songs for one of Jeff Beck’s two albums.” As a result, he visited Wood’s house on a winter’s day. “We lit the electric fire, which had three bars. And then her mother walked in and said, ‘You can only use one because it’s expensive.’ It was very cold. We had a notepad, a sheet of paper and a pencil. And we tried to write a Jeff Beck song and nothing came out. And then we said, ‘Well, let’s have a glass of wine. We had a bottle of wine between the two of us and still nothing came out. They eventually came up with the track “Plynth (Water Down the Drain)”, but he said it was “a fight”.

“The Faces had locked me in a room at the Holiday Inn; I used to give myself a bottle of wine and a tape recorder and a piece of paper and they’d locked the door until I got the lyrics, because I was lazy, ”Stewart continued. “In the 1970s there was too much to fuck and drink. Party! Because the Faces were the party group.

Since those days, however, Stewart has said he has come to find the writing process “enjoyable.” “I love the way we put the albums together. I’m not saying everyone should do it this way, but I do mine on the laptop – I make edits that way. spent probably 20 years in studios with no light and no sun, it’s a relief to be able to do it this way… I enjoy the songwriting process now more than I have in my entire life.