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Status Quo interviews and international press reviews

Taken from different newspapers, magzines & web sites and compiled by Patrick Specht.

Something to add ? send me a mail : quofrance@yahoo.fr

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Status Quo, Grimsby Auditorium Thursday, 31 October 2002

Having seen Status Quo in the past at other venues in the region, we looked forward to a loud, rock-fuelled, Quo experience.

Reviewed by John and Christine Cummings

And that is exactly what we got. We witnessed a long serving, sometimes ridiculed, band who were so tight musically and at the pinnacle of their entertaining style. Francis, Rick and the boys exploded out onto the stage for an hour and three quarters of classic, Quo, chart-busting hits. It was a capacity audience at the Auditorium and not one person left the venue without their ears ringing. The Quo had everyone on their feet and rocking from start to finish. Francis Rossi joked: "How can anyone come to a town that begins with ‘Grim’?" But, it’s a good job they did, because we and the rest of the (very mixed) audience would have missed a fantastic night. At one point, someone shouted from behinds us: "We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy!’ (From Wayne’s World). How true that was. I have never witnessed so many talented musicians, all in one band, who make playing live and entertaining, look so easy. They played a montage of their old hits, interspersed with lots of new material from ‘Heavy Traffic’, their new album, which hard-core fans will find is back to the original, Quo style.We have one question. Why did Status Quo have a carpet laid and vacuumed on stage, before the performance? Emails to humber.online@bbc.co.uk On a gruelling tour, it’s hard to believe that every (ageing) member of the band looked so good and rocked!

Quo still going strong after 35 years

Status Quo are one of the most successful rock acts ever...with worldwide record sales topping 112 million.They're also great fun live - and you can catch them in Plymouth in December.

Status Quo Plymouth Pavilions -Wednesday 4th December 2002 (7.30pm)

Tickets: £26.50 - Box Office: 01752 229922

Veteran rockers Status Quo are back on tour - and, it seems, back in favour! After years of being snootily looked down on by music critics, their new CD, Heavy Traffic, has been widely acclaimed as one of the best things they've ever done.Which is saying something, considering they've been around for over 30 years now. It all kicked off back in 1968, with Pictures of Matchstick Men, and carried on throughout the '70s with a string of hits - Down Down, Caroline, Roll Over Lay Down, Wild Side of Life, Rockin' All Over the World, and Whatever You Want to name but a handful. The 1980s brought a load more hits, such as What you're Proposing, Marguerita Time, and In the Army Now. Despite the hits, Quo continued to take a hammering from the music press. But they didn't care what anyone said - they carried on making records and touring, and they've still got a huge fan following.Heavy Traffic may even have attracted some new fans - and the group themselves reckon it's among their best albums."We're very very pleased with it - in all seriousness I think it's the best album we've made. The material is the best it's been for a while," said Francis Rossi.Rick Parfitt believes the way they recorded it helped: "We adopted a process we used to use in the 70s," he explained. "We put all the gear around the edge of the room and sat in the middle and almost jammed it."So, there'll be some new songs at the concert - but there'll be plenty of old favourites to jump up and down to as well. And at least with Status Quo, you know what you're going to get.

STATUS QUO Clyde Auditorium December 20 ,2002
Brian Mcpake

MENTION Status Quo in music circles and all the usual "three-chord" cliches are trotted out.

But, love them or loathe them, you've just got to admire Quo. They are still packing out venues all around the country and last Friday night at the Armadillo was no different. This was the Heavy Traffic Tour and the night began with the background sounds of a very noisy motorway which culminated with Quo bursting into their opening four numbers starting with Caroline and ending with Don't Waste My Time. Veteran Francis Rossi was in fine form as he played the melodic Gerdundula and followed it with Roll Over, Lay Down. Four songs were performed from their new album, two of which had a ZZ Top feel to them which went down a storm. A few softer tracks followed including Rollin' Home and they closed with Rockin' All Over the World which had the crowd boppin' all over the aisles. A five-song encore included Chuck Berry's Oh Carol and Bye Bye Johnny, both of which had the fans singing along. All in all, a great night out and I can't think of a better way to start off the festive season.
Roll on next year.

HE ORIGINAL GUITAR MAGAZINE ISSUE 217

Interview with Francis Rossi - Page 28 :

Status Quo The full Quo-ta

Honestly? I feel the same as everybody else, Surely you´re not going to milk that again?" Yep, it´s time for the Quo to have their back catalogue repackaged, remastered and re-shoved down the throats of their adoring fans, and Francis Rossi, for one, is not too trilled. "The best thing about the box set is they have presented it nicely," claims the ponytailed riffmeister, damning it with faint praise. "I can take the view that they shouldn´t do this because it´ll make the punter feel like, What the **** do you think you´re doing? Especially when I read our Website and hear the fans saying stuff like that. But when I look around the rest of the industry it´s a norm, so I´m sort of ambivalent. I suppose they´re exploiting the avid collector, but there are only a few of those. I´m more interested in what were doing at the moment, I can´t wait to get this new material out."

So what´s Francis´ favourite period ? I suppose the Hello album period. We were really doing it then, poking people in the eye. So you feel good about that. Would he ever consider trying to recapture the raucous energy of the band´s earlier work? "Oddly enough that energy is still there, the problem has always been getting it on record. After a while, some double tracking came in on the vocals and guitars and it wasn´t until we got our most hate mail, after the Rockin´ All Over The World album, that we started to tidy up a bit. "The problem was that the correct way to record is to have no overspill. Stuff just became more sophisticated, and we lost that edge. With the project we´re on at the moment we´ve found a studio that resembles IBC, where we used to record all those old albums, with an 18 foot ceiling. So you´ve got some room going on, some natural reverberation. And I´ve always liked to hear a record where you can picture a bunch of guys sitting in a room. We never had a problem live, we´ve always had a problem with records.

"Some old recording techniques have been reintroduced to help recapture that old spark. "I´ve been using an AC30 and a Roland Cube, but they´re underneath these stairs so there´s a lot of wood and different shapes and angles going on to give a lot of reverberation. We´ve got a reasonably close mic, a distance mic, plus another ambience mic in the room. And there´s a piano in the middle of the room. We haven´t used a live piano for years. Sadly, although the band are delighted with the results so far, the album still won´t see the light of day until next summer at the earliest. "We´ve got five or six tracks at the moment and the only pisser is we´ve got to go out on tour for a while and come back to it in February," says a frustrated Rossi.

"I´m writing with Bob Young again. He brings a kind of blues angle, if you like, and suddenly everybody´s started freaking about the material. Even Rick likes it, and for a long time he´s not been keen. "I saw a documentary on the Spice Girls once. They were doing this showcase very early on, and you could see these guys looking at them thinking. There´s nothing going on here. But the girls believed it so bad that eventually we all went, Well yeah. That´s what we were like when we were younger. And that´s what we´re trying to get back now. People say we shouldn´t want that now, we´ve done all this, we´ve done all that. Well you can **** yourself, I still want it."

Impossible to fail

(Göteborgs-Posten Oct 13th 1986. Article by Bert Gren)

Status Quo  Scandinavium, Gothenburg Saturday.

Of course it isn't a very good idea to split up a band that attends an audience of more than 8000 people to Scandinavium. It seems that Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt are having a great time on the road again with the new line-up of Status Quo. I don't think that anybody in the audience was disappointed after the show this Saturday. A small part of the charm is of course gone by now. It's rather obvious that Rossi and Parfitt are the superstars in the band. Besides, the new rhythm-section with Rhino Edwards on the bass and Jeff Rich on the drums is so proffessional, that the primitive rock'n roll sound doesn't always appear. The somewhat blurred sound with too laidback drums and cymbals did things more difficult this time. A band that can pile up classics as "Rockin' all over the world", "Whatever you want", "Roll over lay down" and "Caroline" can't fail. What Status Quo does best they do better than anyone else. The only downers were an unusually pale version of "Roadhouse blues" and "Overdose" from the new album "In the army now", that showed that the audience doesn't appreciate the pop-style from the "new" Quo. Next year Status Quo will celebrate 20 years as a band. There is nothing that says that it could't be another 20 years.

Who could believe this...The old boys are still going strong!

(Göteborgs-Tidningen Oct 13th 1986. Article by Tore Lund)

STATUS QUO, Scandinavium.

I saw Status Quo at Liseberg...yes it feels like it was 100 years ago, but it was in May 1975. Eleven years ago and already at that time you thought that Rick and Francis were old men. Now they're back. The farewell tour the other year was, like many people guessed, not the final tour.With Status Quo on stage again it feels as though time has been standing still. Rick has got some more wrinkles and our old Francis has lost some more of his hair. But the Telecasters are the same and the songs and the joy of playing live. Some of us might have felt a bit hesitate after the latest album "In the army now", but after a couple of minutes we knew we were wrong. "Whatever you want" , "Paper plane", "Roll over lay down" Three classics in a row. The 8000 strong audience in Scandinavium roars and greets Status Quo with a welcome back. The same old, lovely Quo that has rocked us for 25 years like noone else ever has done. They serve us a couple of real downers. A catastrophic version of "Roadhouse blues" and a couple of emberrasing steps outside the territory of boogie, but after one or two hours of tumling rock all you can do is surrender. And, against all odds, Bollands "In the army now", which on record feels totally pointless, is a real live smash-hit that knocks out 8000 people. Who could believe that... For certain Status Quo hasen't meant more to music in the 80's than Samantha Fox, it sounds a bit dull on record. But on stage everything is quite right. Rock'n roll is always rock'n roll. And Status Quo is rock'n roll. Rick and Francis are still having a great time. May they live for 100 years.

Francis Rossi Interview – December 2001

Interview with Francis Rossi of Status Quo by Ashley Gray: On The Street, Sydney

"You leave your credibility at the door when you come and see us", declares Francis Rossi, leadman and ace pinstripe vest wearer with platinum-selling, Guinness Book of Records breaking, Royals entertaining Status Quo. Yes, the Quo are back in town after 20 years, ready to shake and break any high fallutin' notions about good ol' Rock'n' Roll. Francis elaborates, "Look, my songs aren't about much, nothing deep, just fantasy stuff off the top of my head. The funny thing is I don't even know what they're about till ten years later." Doubtless, Francis has a very cool knack for making unintentionally funny statements, but then he can afford to; Quo are the most successful band in British chart history having sold more than 110 million units worldwide. Their easy lad rock and boys' own stage antics have set the mould for several insipid imitators, but Quo have outlasted them all, if only just. Francis is keen to let everyone know that these days the Quo are clean living boys. "I'm 47, and I never thought I'd make it to 45. Suddenly I realised I wanted to live longer, so now I swim 3 times a day and have a healthy diet. It keeps my lungs going, coz I smoke, and if I get on stage and can't breathe it pisses me off."

As well it might, though Francis is adamant that the Quo have always been a little abnormal in the Rock'n'Roll if not life scheme of things. In fact, sex, drugs and R'n'R have long been over for the Quo: "Well the sex ain't over", Francis protests. "I've got 8 kids, so I've had the full 16 minutes. I never believed in Sex, drugs and Rock'n'Roll. On the road after a show I tend to do nothing at all. Rick (Parfitt) is usually in his room in his dressing gown, drinking a cup of tea, and the rest of us are playing wist. "Sex, cards and bedtime stories aside, an astute musical observer once noted that Status Quo is 'beer reaching' music, - doesn't matter where you are, as soon as you hear those first bars you'll be groping for the glass of amber, available or not. For Francis though, drinking just messes up his throat, a situation that would have been very unwelcome on their Guinness Book of Records breaking 4 gigs in 11 hours and 9 minutes marathon. "You bet your arse it was tough," Francis moans. "By the second gig we were like 'this could be tricky', and by the fourth we were just plodding." But they made it, and now they hold the honour of having played most shows in a night anywhere on the planet.

And the Quo have just about played everywhere on the planet too. Indeed Francis rates their pre-Olympics 1980 Moscow gigs the strangest he's ever played. "We were playing at this stadium that was being built for the Moscow games, and we were playing 14 nights in a row to 17 thousand people each night. These people filed in quietly at 6:30 and sat down. After each song there was just a ripple. All the things that normally work for a show, lights, lasers, whatever, just didn't happen. They just didn't know. One night I started to announce something, I pointed to Rick and I said 'he's a bit pissed off tonight' and the whole place went into rapturous applause. And when I said it again the next night the crowd did it again, so I just kept on doing it, it was the only way to get 'em going. Then they left quietly at the end, no mess, no arguments, - it was weird." The Quo's propensity for Spinal Tap like situations is not lust on Francis who is quite happy to be sent up. "We still live on that movie, most nights when we go on some wag'll shout 'Hello Cleveland!'" (In the movie the Tap couldn't find their way on stage and before each locked door they'd cry out hopefully, 'Hello Cleveland!') But Francis has his frustrations too, "I always thought we'd have time machines by now so I could go to the gig at 4 and do a sound check, hop in the time machine go back to my wife for dinner, then hop back in, go to the gig , have a few drinks afterwards and then go back to my wife having wasted no time and have a game of wist," he complains bitterly. He is not so bitter however about erstwhile bass player and Australian resident Alan Lancaster though the chances of him returning are non-existent. "Well we fell out years ago, and
he's probably not happy with us coming out. But we're happy and it would be an insult to the guys we've had over the last 10 years to have him back." On the prospect of the Australian tour Francis is ecstatic "It's one of the most beautiful countries in the world", and now that he's fit and trim he's got more of those trademark blue and white vests to wear. "I bought some in Stockholm recently, it's wherever you can find 'em." Which is the same with his musical influences, "I love those guys who wrote for Abba, and look at that Britpop thing, everything goes. I also like songwriters like Jeff Lynn (ELO) and the Everly Brothers. "For the Australian tour Quo will be playing a mixture of all their hits over the last 25 years. So leave everything at the door and get on down. Their show is at the Enmore Theatre on Thursday March 6.

Ashley Gray.

They will go on making records.

(Göteborgs-Posten May 4th 1984. Article by Peo Andersson)

Status Quo are out on their last tour after 16 years at the top of hardrock. Farewell concert tonight in Copenhagen, tomorrow in Gothenburg and finally at Milton Keynes in England on the 27th of July in front of 60.000 fans. Just because the touring is over it doesn't mean that Status Quo as a group will split up.

-No, we will go on making records just like we always have been, they promice as G-P's reporter meets them in Copenhagen, were they just have arrived from a couple of successful concerts in Germany.

Status Quo began in 1962 and made a name in 1968. Two of the five members of the group, Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster, have been in the band from the beginning. The information that Quo will continue making records is a cup of joy for the fans. And Alan Lancaster suggests that there are sertain possibillities that the band might perform live, but that should only be at very rare occasions. -Maybe we will show up at some festival once in a while, but the touring is definetely over. We are the best liveband in the world, but we need to spend more time on producing records. Besides, all of us have families whom we probably have neglected earlier. Hopefully we can spend more time with them now.

When John Coghlan quit two tears ago, didn't you ever suggest that the whole group should quit?

AlanLancaster: - No, John was musically more important in the earlier days. He was still important for the sound, but he was yet a replaceable part of the group.

Would it have been different if any other of you had quit?

Andy Bown: - Definetely, Alan and Francis have been around since 1962. They are the founder members of Quo and they would have been impossible to replace.

According to rumours there is an album called "Tokyo Quo". What can you say about that record?

Rick Parfitt: - I've never heard of that one. I'm sure it's a bootleg recording. The japanese are very good at recording those, he says with a grin.

Francis Rossi: - No, it's not a bootleg. The japanese wanted to release a live album with us, recorded in -76. I've listened to it and I thought it was crap. Besides, all live recordings are crap.

Don't you even like your own live albums?

Francis Rossi: - No, you can never capture the feeling at the arena and put that on a record. The fact is, that when we were mixing our "Live" album we had to raise the audience sound level so that the record would't sound to similar to the studio recordings.

Do you have any solo projects besides from the work with Quo?

Alan Lancaster: - Each one of us have got some ideas. But there's nothing concrete yet. My style will be "rhythm and blues" and therefore harder than Rossi's, who will produce music similar to our latest single "Marguerita time"

Will you, just like The Rolling Stones, play live at small clubs during this farewell tour?

Alan Lancaster: - We are playing at many smaller venues during this last tour. The venue in Copenhagen has a capacity of 3000. That's what I call a small arena. Our record is an audience of 75.000 and is from a concert in the U.S.

You haven't visited Gothenburg since 1978. Don't you like the city, and is it true that your opinion was that many people in the audience were too drunk?

Alan Lancaster: - Yes, that's right. It's ok if you drink, but to get as drunk as the audience in Gothenburg is just disturbing and unnecessary. We, ourselves never play when we have been drinking. Another thing is that we don't want to bore the audience by often attending the same venues. It's not a question of the quantity of the concerts, but the quality of them-and now we are better than ever. Rick Parfitt smiles and agrees with Alan: -Now, we are really at the very top, he says.

Goodbye, all fans!

(Göteborgs-Tidningen May 4th 1984. Article by Maria Holmin)

Status Quo are retiring.

This year 22 years of rock history will come to an end. Status Quo say farewell to their audience with "The End Of The Road Tour". Many people feel very sorry about it, but you should stop while things are at their best. And we will probably meet the members of Quo as solo-artists in the future. In England people queued up when the announcement was made that Status Quo would do their last tour. The group will definetely visit Sweden. Sweden is a country were Quo has had an audience that have remained true. Tonight Quo will be playing in Stockholm and tomorrow it's time for Gothenburg. Tough and hard boogie-rock is the trademark of Status Quo. Simple melodies, not that much variation but very inspiring. This form of timeless rock is succesful, you can tell from the many hitsingles that this group has had through the years. They had their first hit in 1968 with "Pictures of matchstick men". At that time they were still a pop-group. A couple of years later they started to develop their hard rock and they made a name as a good live act. But the Status Quo history begins far earlier than that. In 1962 the singer and guitarrist Francis Rossi and his school-mate the bassist Alan Lancaster formed "The Scorpions". Soon they changed the name to "The Spectres". They joined forces with the drummer John Coghlan. In 1965 Rick Parfitt joined the band together with Roy Lynes on the keyboards. Meanwhile the band changed the name to "Traffic" and then to "Traffic Jam" but finally to "Status Quo". Roy Lynes quit the band in 1970 and Quo continued as a quartet. "Dog of two head", their first LP introducing the new harder rock style was issued. But not until 1973 the real breakthrough was made with the "Piledriver" LP. After that the Quo-machine was going forward. Status Quo released album after album, with a permanent increase of sales. "Quo" in 1974, "On the level" in 1975 and "Blue for you" in 1976 all went straight into the top of the charts. In 1976 a new member joined the band. Andy Bown on the keyboards. The band toured all over the world with "The Rockin' all over the world tour" in1977. They also did huge tours in 1979 and 1981. At that time the band was able to look back at some 12 albums in a row, all entering the charts at the top five and at least one hit-single every year since 1973. This year Status Quo has had their 29th hit with "Marguerita time". Status Quo could probably go on producing songs and records and be on the road. But now they have decided that this is it. They are getting older. Already in 1982, when the drummer John Coghlan quit the band, rumours were saying that the group would split up. In the future the members are planning to produce music on their own. Those fans who aren't satisfied with that can always enjoy all the old records...

A worthy farewell

(Göteborgs-Posten May 6th 1984. Article by Bert Gren)

Status Quo. Scandinavium, Gothenburg. Saturday May 5th.

The volume got a bit too loud towards the end of the show. Apart from that Status Quo had a worthy farewell here in Gothenburg. The 2 and a half hour show contained the most and the best with the group. "Farewell Status Quo Kings Of Rock!" said a banner somewhere in the big audience below the stage. Since the beginning of the 70's the group has polished it's heavy boogierock sound. Status Quo stops touring when they are at their best. There is no other rock music artist that can make you jump and clap your hands like Quo! In the long run their music can seem quite monotonous. When Status Quo after two hours still were rocking I started to get a bit tired. The sound was rather loud, and before the encore the band served us too many solo numbers. It isn't hard to understand why the band has managed to keep it's popularity for such a long time. Firstly, this music really rocks! But at the same time it consists a very personal mixture of rock, hardrock, country, folkmusic, pop and boogie. Other groups will have to be satisfied as long as their albums keep selling. Status Quo have recorded almost thirty singles which have become hits! There really isn't so much more to say. It was very enjoyable to be there to say goodbye. I'm sure that this band will survive another twenty years in the studio making records.

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