(Credits: Far Out / W. Punt / Dutch National Archives)
Sun 1 March 2026 16:30, UK
Rod Stewart never wanted to take a second of his time in the spotlight for granted.
He was more than happy to sing at the top of his range until he dropped, but he had to take a little while before he found his true calling as a solo artist. But even when he was making some of the greatest rock and roll records that anyone had ever heard, there were bound to be a few collaborators who he never really saw eye-to-eye with
But that’s really the nature of the business as well. No one really is in the industry to become the best of friends behind the scenes, and while Stewart did have more than a few times where he seemed to work like a charm in a band, there were bound to be a few people who felt that The Faces may have been much better without him when they first got started. If there was one thing for sure, though, it was that Stewart loved his job singing with The Faces dearly even before he moved on to his solo career.
There’s not a day that goes by that he isn’t grateful to have a friend like Ronnie Wood working with him, but there were bound to be a few bruised egos when he left The Faces for the first time. No one could deny that he was the breakout star of the band, but even before he properly blew up with songs like ‘Maggie May’, there were already a few bumps in the road when he started working with the Jeff Beck Group.
No one would have been complaining if they worked with one of the single greatest guitar players of all time, but there was a lot more baggage in being a member of that band than Stewart hoped for. Beck wasn’t the best bandleader by any stretch, but Stewart couldn’t really say the same about himself as well. He was a phenomenal solo artist, but when it came time to try and reunite The Faces, he admitted that the main reason why there was a wedge between everyone came from Ian McLagen.
It’s a wonder why the rest of the band wasn’t a bit jaded about Stewart leaving them behind, but McLagan was always the one who kept Stewart at bay for years at a time. In his mind, he wanted The Small Faces to be their own entity, and since Stewart had done his part to become a superstar in his own right, he wasn’t going to spend his days going back to supporting him as a glorified backing band.
While the band did eventually get back together, Stewart didn’t mince words about McLagan being the one major sticking point after he passed away, saying, “Mac was a bit of a fly in the ointment when it came to getting the band back together, so once he passed, it became a lot easier, because every time I’d say, ‘Right, we’re going to do it next year’, Mac would go, ‘No, you’re not doing it next year because we’re not ready. We’ve got a Small Faces album coming out.’ Or something like that. So it was always a bit of negativity with Mac.”
In all fairness, it’s not that hard to see why McLagan wanted to distance himself from The Faces for a while. He had already been trying to carve out a name for himself on his own, but even if Stewart’s offer came with a hefty payday, there was bound to be the kind of baggage that Stewart probably felt when he was working with Beck back in the day.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but even if the fans got screwed out of a proper reunion, it’s also about being realistic to some degree. Not every band stays friends for the rest of their lives, and there are more than a few times when musicians drift too far apart after one too many years away from each other.