(Credit: Joe Bielawa)
Wed 13 August 2025 8:00, UK
There’s a God-given, peroxide permanence to blue-eyed soul crooner and occasional disco dabbler Rod Stewart.
Whatever you think of him, Stewart can still command a performance. If you excuse the queasy AI backing clips of late, the 80-year-old struts on stage bellowing out his hits with a little discernible effect to his characteristic raspy vocals. His jackets still dazzle, too, seemingly forever in possession of a bottomless wardrobe of shiny brocade or leopard print clobber.
For those old enough to have been following his career since the beginning, Stewart will always be The Jeff Beck Group singer and Faces frontman across the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yet, another band could have boasted Stewart as an alumnus had some of rock’s biggest names taken a different path toward the 1990s.
He wasn’t sure if it was mooted as a joke, but Stewart nearly found himself forming a supergroup trio with Elton John and Queen’s Freddie Mercury. Having partied hard and hung out in the same celebrity circles at the peak of their 1970s and 1980s fame, the sparkly musician was struck with the flashbang idea of combining forces for a special side-project.
It’s not clear how far the thought went beyond an off-the-cuff proposal, but reportedly, the name was nailed on early enough, plumbing for Nose, Teeth & Hair, after each member’s defining physical attributes, as well as dressing like the light entertainment group The Beverley Sisters.
“Those were great nights, mate,” Stewart reminisced on Chris Evans’ How to Wow podcast in 2020. “I don’t know if we were kidding each other about forming a band, but it just shows what a little cocaine and alcohol will do for you!”
Having enjoyed plenty of sing-alongs when in Los Angeles together, helping themselves to the indulgences of the day, the provisional Nose, Teeth & Hair likely had much indirect rehearsal time across their hedonistic heyday. Yet, things never quite materialised, despite all three enjoying serious commercial success throughout the 1980s.
Any chance of Nose, Teeth & Hair finally getting their act together and committing to the studio was dashed with Mercury’s death in 1991. Stewart had remained close to the Queen frontman till the end, labelling Mercury as “adorable” and “a sweet and funny man” in his 2012 autobiography. His and John’s relationship remains prickly but good-natured, however, and not above the occasional mud-slinging to the press and bouts of estrangement.
The closest Queen and Stewart ever got to releasing material together was during the recording sessions for 1984’s The Works. Provisionally called ‘Another Piece of My Heart’, Stewart had contributed vocals to the work in progress before languishing as a Queen outtake for years, eventually reworked as ‘Let Me Live’ from 1995’s Made in Heaven, the final Queen album assembled from recordings after Mercury’s death but with Stewart’s contributions excised.
Despite their performative bitchiness, John and Stewart have enjoyed a string of collaborations, duetting on 2005’s old Broadway standard cover ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ and ‘Let Me Be Your Car’ nearly 20 years earlier for Stewart’s Smiler.
Related Topics