Rod Stewart at 80: Do Ya (Still) Think I’m Sexy?

In 2000, When he was 55, Rod Stewart started to map out a new career, this time as a landscape gardener. A routine scan had found a cancerous tumor on his thyroid gland, which required a surgeon to cut into Stewart’s golden throat. The operation can cause a variety of temporary or even permanent voice disorders, including hoarseness and total voice loss. “They didn’t tell me that when I went in for the operation,” Stewart says now with a roll of his eyes. “Only when I came out.”

After the surgery, one of the world’s most famous singers was unable to sing. Stewart had always been able to count on two things: his voice and his spiked blond bouffant. Now one of them was in jeopardy. (The other one, thank God, was fine.) So he seriously considered devoting himself to taking care of plants and trees. Not as rewarding as his first career, but a good way to stay active.

In the meantime, he painstakingly began relearning how to sing. “First I could sing one line of ‘Maggie May.’ Then two lines. It was scary.” It took nine months of rehab, but eventually his voice did return. Not all singing voices age with grace or power, but Stewart thinks the surgery helped him: “It gave my voice an extra quality of warmth.”

That warmth has given Stewart, now 80, a glowing body of work that early on included stints as the frontman of the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces, and culminated in his glorious solo career, which has generated a dazzling 33 singles in the Billboard Top 40, including “Tonight’s the Night,” “You’re in My Heart,” “Passion,” “Hot Legs,” “Have I Told You Lately,” “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” “Forever Young,” and the notorious “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” which, as he wrote in his 2012 memoir, turned him into “Mr. Disco Trousers.”

Stewart grew up among the generation of Brits who venerated American blues, but he also changed styles to sail with the wind. In the early ’70s, his songs had mandolins and fiddles and helped define the music now known as Americana. By the late ’70s, even female singers, notably Bonnie Tyler and Kim Carnes, seemed to be channeling his soft-leather voice. He ventured into hard rock, dance music, and in the early ’80s used synthesizers and drum machines. From 2002 to 2010, he had a career renaissance with five albums that cover Great American Songbook composers, such as Cole Porter and George Gershwin. He’s sold more than 100 million albums worldwide and has had million-sellers in six consecutive decades.

He recorded his 30th studio album, Blood Red Roses—while he was again being treated for cancer, this time of the prostate. Diagnosed in 2016, he had kept the news from his kids, before being declared cancer-free in 2019. “I didn’t want to worry them,” he says. “And I’m all clear now.”

Stewart’s stature in the pantheon of vocalists is secure. Rolling Stone put him on its list of the 50 greatest singers of all time. The British music bible MOJO placed him 51st on its list and praised his “sweet sandpaper” voice. “Without a doubt, he has the best voice in rock,” Elton John told MOJO.

I’d interviewed Stewart before, in a huge Manhattan hotel suite where we drank (and finished) a marvelous bottle of perfectly chilled white wine in the midafternoon. He was affable, unpretentious, and readily admitted that he hadn’t always made the best use of his talent. “There was a bad period in the mid-’80s when I’d say, ‘Oh, that’s a hit record. I won’t worry that it’s shallow,’ ” he told me back then. “But I can sing anything and make it sound halfway decent.”

And there’s never been a rock star more unabashedly comfortable with the jet-set lifestyle than Stewart, a true bon vivant widely known not just for his music but for lavish spending on cars and clothes, multiple houses and, in the wayback, for gorgeous companions, sometimes in overlapping relationships. He has a gift for making stardom look effortless and has always been refreshingly unapologetic about his success. “I come from nothing,” he said once. “Then all of a sudden, I’m faced with a lot of glamorous women. What am I going to do?” Now Sir Rod (he was knighted in 2016) appears to be busier than ever, with his Las Vegas residency, more than 40 additional live shows scheduled this year (including two co-headline dates with Billy Joel) and, as he revealed to me in a breezy interview in April, several new albums in the works.

While the singer of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and “Hot Legs” is indeed a grandpa, it’s also clear he hasn’t entirely matured. To stay in shape and feed his competitive appetite, he recently began running 100-meter sprints on his private track. “I got it down to 19 seconds by learning how to push off,” he enthuses. “I’m going to try and do 17 seconds, which I think is a world record for an 80-year-old.” It doesn’t take long to realize that his life consists mostly of fun, with very little worry, which is why his wife, Penny Lancaster, 54, has called him “my eldest child.”

His son Alastair, a towering 19-year-old model, one of two kids he has with Lancaster, passes through the room while we are chatting and asks why his dad hadn’t replied to a recent phone call. “I did hear you screaming,” the elder Stewart retorts with a grin. Today, and not unusually, he wears the green-and-white jersey of Glasgow’s Celtic FC, the Scottish soccer team he adores. He pauses the interview to show off his opulent 10-bedroom home—filled with pre-Raphaelite paintings—on 46 acres in Essex, England. “It’s like Buckingham Palace, isn’t it?” he asks. Charm pours from him, as does self-deprecation, candor, a sense of not taking himself too seriously, and a few lively turns of phrase as he discusses work, family, friends—and frolic.

THE INTERVIEW

Your family seems like the archetype of one that didn’t have much money but was close and loving.

RS: We were a working-class family—all work and no class. [Grins] I was the youngest by 10 years, and I was given lots of attention, plus the odd chocolate now and then. Didn’t have much money, but it didn’t seem like a worry at the time.

You were 26 when “Maggie May” came out and you’d had several misfires before that, in terms of chart success. What gave you the confidence to keep at it?

RS: Family, without a doubt. A lot of my mates who were trying to get into the music business had dads who’d say “Get a real job.” Nobody in my family said that.

I was 19 when I turned professional. You get this burning ambition in your chest: I want to sing. It was either singing or soccer, and I didn’t do soccer as well as I could’ve done, because I was already falling in love with music.

I was a beatnik, busking on the beaches of Brighton and singing under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I got my breakthrough with Long John Baldry, who helped bring American blues to the British Isles. He found me in a railway station, playing harmonica after I’d been to his concert and was on my way home. He said I looked like “a bundle of rags with a huge nose sticking out.” He asked me to play harmonica in his band, and I said, “I can sing a bit as well.”

Indeed you can. Did your family’s support make your success sweeter?

RS: The first time I heard “Maggie May” on the radio, I was driving in London. I turned around and went all the way back to me mum and dad’s house to tell them. Of course, they started crying. That was a magical moment.

When I got a check for $1 million from Mercury Records, I showed it to them. And I took them everywhere with me. I took my dad on the Concorde. And he was a Scotsman, right? So as we were coming in to land, he asked the stewardess for the bill. Bless him, my dad.

What does it take, physically and mentally, to keep up the active performance schedule you have?

RS: Lots of women, drugs and wine. [Laughs.] No, I keep myself very fit. I played soccer all my life—don’t so much anymore, because I had a knee replacement. And I’ve always had a trainer—same guy for 38 years. I have an indoor pool, massive gym, golf course, everything. We do a lot of underwater training, where the trainer throws a brick into the pool and I have to dive in, push the brick to the end of the pool, and come up. Frank Sinatra once said to me, "Rod, the secret to being a great singer is having powerful lungs. Do lots of underwater swimming, where you hold your breath."

When Sinatra gives you singing advice, take it.

RS: I met him a couple of times, and he always asked, “How’s the old voice?” Because I have a gravelly voice and he thought I had a sore throat!

The albums you made between 1969 and 1974 were very American sounding—where did your idea of America come from?

RS: Bob Dylan albums. I played the first Dylan album over and over. I’d never been to America, and I used to dream of the wide-open spaces, huge mountains, blue skies and massive buildings. When I finally went to America, with Jeff Beck in 1968, I was not let down. I loved the place. Rock ’n’ roll belongs to America; all us Brits have done is resell it to you.

What happened from ’74 on?

RS: Music is always changing, and yet it’s not. It’s the same chords over the same themes, but with different sounds. I’d done the acoustic rock thing, then I went into more keyboard rock, just keeping up with the times. I wanted to be in the front of the game. I had “Young Turks” and “Tonight I’m Yours,” which were keyboard driven.

“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” was out of your set lists for a while, and now it’s back. Do your feelings about that song evolve?

RS: Yeah. I say it was like a pink toilet seat. That was from Jeff Beck—he said a dreadful song of his was like having a pink toilet seat around your neck. “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” got so criticized by critics. I said, “Oh my God, I’ve ruined my career.”

Eventually, time goes by and people love it. Now that’s one of the highlights of the evening, because it brings back memories. That’s what music is about—those memories.

Speaking of touring, one thing I’d like to clear up. Critics say, “Rod was great, but he had to take a rest.” Drives me mad! When I do concerts, I change costumes, mainly because I like to show off, but also because I sweat a lot. I’m not resting. Taylor Swift goes offstage about a dozen times, but they don’t say that about her because she’s young.

When you put together a set list, how much do you rely on the hits?

I like to give people what they want. If Sam Cooke was alive, I’d want to hear him sing “You Send Me” and “Twistin’ the Night Away.” Mick Jagger said that once: “You play a new song, and the audience goes flat and starts picking their nose.”

You once said that you’d rather slam your fingers in a drawer than write lyrics. Then in 2021 you released The Tears of Hercules, which had lots of songs you cowrote. What changed?

RS: When I was with the Faces, we had such fun. We were famous, we had some money, we’d go out and drink. But I was stuck in a hotel room—Ronnie Wood and Ronnie Lane literally locked me in a room and said, “Finish the lyrics. This album’s got to be out by September. Here’s a bottle of wine.” They’d go out partying and leave me. Writing lyrics does not come easy to this songwriter.

You’ve been a model railroad hobbyist for more than 30 years. Railway Modeller said your layout, a 27- by 62-foot mid-century cityscape, is “an artistic masterpiece.” What’s the difference between a good model railroad setup and a masterpiece?

RS: There is no difference. It’s the pleasure it gives you. Everywhere I go, I take me paints and me tools, and I’ll build something instead of sitting around the hotel room all day. That’s what has kept me sane. I’m happiest when I’m in my workshop, building something.

When you watch your beloved Celtic FC play soccer, do you yell at the TV? And does the whole family follow the team as well?

RS: Of course I yell at the TV. And I yell when I’m at the stadium. My boys go with me. When Celtic scores, they all jump on me and knock me to the floor in happiness. I took Penny once and she didn’t want to go again. She saw a big fight between Celtic supporters and supporters of their archenemy, the Glasgow Rangers, outside the ground, so it turned her off.

I’m a one-sport man. My son keeps saying, “Dad, I got ringside seats for the Lakers.” I’d rather have a root canal. I can’t bear basketball.

How did you celebrate your 80th birthday?

RS: We hired a massive yacht. Cost me an absolute fortune. I don’t mind—you’re only 80 once. I’ve got eight kids and five grandchildren, plus various boyfriends and husbands, so there were 15 of us. We had three chefs. The boat was so big that I didn’t even see some of it. We dressed up every night, with a different theme. One night, they all dressed up as Rod Stewart and didn’t tell me. My dear wife brought wigs for everybody and some of my old outfits. It was a wonderful time.

Given the limits of geography, how often do you see the kids and grandkids?

RS: I have a house in Beverly Hills and two of the kids live there off and on, and my son Liam lives in Long Beach. Ruby is in Austin, and Renee lives here in London. When I wake up, it’s the most gratifying thing to see that all my children have left me messages. We live far apart, but every summer we get together in Italy or France or somewhere else. Penny manages to bring most of the kids together, which is quite an achievement, because the youngest is 14 and the oldest is 62. My dad, a very stern Scotsman, loved me dearly but he never hugged me. It wasn’t considered normal in those days. With my kids, I hug and hug and hug.

Do you have any advice on how to maintain good relationships with your exes?

RS: My exes have been together—there are photographs where all the five mothers have been in the same room, and it’s OK. Just lucky, mate.

Other than exercising a lot, are there other changes you’ve had to make as you get older, maybe in terms of eating and drinking?

RS: Voice rest is important. If you feel your voice getting husky, don’t talk for eight hours, and the response is amazing. I drink tons and tons of water. And on tour, don’t go to restaurants where you have to shout.

I get to the venue two hours before the show starts, and my trainer gives me a good massage. Then I’ll do my vocal warm-up, which takes half an hour, and ride a stationary bike to pump my legs up. I do like to have a drink before I go on, I admit that. One rum and Coke. Can’t remember the last time I got drunk. And the drugs are long gone.

After being knighted, did you stay in touch with the royal family?

RS: My dear wife is very good friends with the Queen and with Charles. She gets invited to Buckingham Palace to have tea. And she’s a police officer—a part-time constable. She was on duty last night when a 14-year-old boy jumped off a building. Very brave girl.

And you stay in touch with Elton John.

RS: We FaceTime each other. It was his birthday a couple of days ago, so I sent him 48 pink roses.