“I think we have got much more of a chance of getting the Faces back together, in fact, Ronnie’s office is talking to my people, and we’re ear-marking 2015.”
That’s what Rod Stewart recently told Boston’s WZLX radio station, but if he and Ronnie Wood are getting Faces together in time for 2015, they might have to do without Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones, who seemingly are more concerned with marking the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Small Faces.
In saying that Stewart will have to, ‘Wait until 2016 because 2015 is the Small Faces’ year’, keyboard player McLagan adds to Uncut: “It’s interesting that Rod announces these things without talking to me or Kenney. Why would we fuck around with the Faces when we’ve got bigger fish to fry?”
The Small Faces grew exponentially after a chance London meeting between Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane in 1965. In the wake of Marriott’s messy departure at the end of the Sixties, the remaining bandmate re-emerged with some notable new additions and an abridged name not long after.
Any anniversary celebrations will be especially poignant given the absence of the Small Faces’ iconic engine room – Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991 while Ronnie Lane succumbed to pneumonia in 1997 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.