Status Quo: At current prices

We've heard many, many stories of Status Quo's drug years, and the Telegraph is happy to go through some of them again.

But this being the Telegraph, there's an acknowledgement of the interests of their readers:

Indeed Rossi, who formed the band, originally named the Spectres, with his south London school friend Alan Lancaster in 1962, appears never to have questioned how much he was spending on drugs once the band became successful.

He said: “I used to spend £1,200 a week on cocaine, which again doesn’t sound like that much now.”

When it was pointed out to him that the sum amounted to £1.69 million over a decade at today’s prices, he admitted that with hindsight he wished he had not indulged quite so recklessly.

Yes, the paper works out the actual investment the band made in drugs, and uprated it to 2013 prices.

Although the writer, Patrick Sawer, does seem to have used the slightly risky assumption that Rossi bought the same amount of drucks week in, week out, for 520 weeks.

So tell us, Patrick, having burned through all that potential cash must have left Rossi in penury, right?

Rossi - whose fortune is estimated at between £2 and £10m - said his most costly outlays nowdays are his eight children and their education.

There's a chilling warning for the kids: if you spend your cash on drugs when you're young, you might end up with so much cash nobody even seems able to count it.

Francis Rossi: Everyone's rubbish

A penny for Francis Rossi's thoughts? You don't even need that, as he spent a chunk of time sounding off to the Metro, allowing a glimpse inside his head without the need to pay at penny.

What does Francis think of modern music?

Not a lot, it turns out:

Look at Madonna – she can’t sing but she can make a decent record. Her first one, they had to slow her voice down and speed it up. She used the system really well.

Oddly, Rossi can sing but hasn't made a decent record in a very, very long time.

pice Girls – biggest pile of s*** to hit the planet but what a great PR job. Can’t sing, songs weren’t very good, they didn’t look very good but they used the business against itself.

I'm not quite sure how the Spice Girls used the business against itself - isn't the pop business about taking some not-very-appetizing ingredients and making them into something that will sell? It's like suggesting that meat is using the butchery industry against itself.

Oh, and some of the Spice Girl songs were really great pop tunes.

Same with Kylie

You might spot that every act Rossi is damning is female here. But, please, tell us about Kylie:

some innocent child off some Australian soap, she suddenly s**gs Michael Hutchence and her bum comes out and everyone keeps buying her records.

Hadn't Kylie already had a seven-times platinum album before she started hanging out with Hutchence?

I'm not sure if Kylie - who apparently owes her career to having a bottom - has come off better here than the Spice Girls, who "don't look very good".

Is there anyone Rossi rates?

I learned when I was younger from watching Little Richard and working with Jerry Lee Lewis, who was so physically committed to his music he made it move you.

Yes, yes, I think the self-regard we can take as read. Anyone else?

Brian May’s very shy but can stand on top of Buckingham Palace playing his guitar.

"You can stand on Buckingham Palace and play your guitar" sounds like something you might shout at a rotten guitar player, I'd have thought. But, yes, Brian May. One of the greats.

There are some younger bands he likes, though:

At my age they’ve got to be around for about five years before I hear of them so I like Muse, Snow Patrol, Killers. I love Lady Antebellum. I don’t understand people who’ll just listen to one genre of music.

Three plod rock bands and a country act. He's practically Andy Kershaw, isn't it?

And the music industry - is that in fine fettle?

It’s 95 per cent bulls*** and the other five per cent is bulls***. I didn’t realise until I was about 40. It’s not real.

It's perhaps a bit unfair to suggest that Rossi is a bit slow on the uptake...

When I was much younger I’d read music magazines and it took me years to work out you never read an interview with anyone or see anyone on a chat show unless they’ve got some product out.

... oh, actually, it might not be.

The Quo, though, Francis. You must like the respect you've earned by being in the Quo?

I understand that people can’t stand Status Quo. There are thousands of people across the world who think we’re fantastic but most don’t, obviously. It’s the same with anyone. Michael Jackson selling 45million records in America – that still means 220 million Americans didn’t like it. But ‘showbiz’ blows it up as important. Mars bars sell better than Michael Jackson records and so do paper clips, envelopes and coat hangers. How come no one’s come up with a song that sells 2billion? Even then, two thirds of the world won’t like it.

How come nobody's ever come up with a song that sells two billion? There's a question that probably keeps Guy Hands awake at night. Sure, you can see Rossi's point - everyone is going to be disliked by someone - but suggesting that Michael Jackson is less good than paperclips sounds like the result of some drug-addled face off, with the victor going on to meet the winner of Love versus Thursdays in the final.

Rossi does admit that sometimes, he's not up to par himself:

[Metro:] What’s the worst gig you’ve done?

Live Aid. We weren’t particularly good. We were under-rehearsed and didn’t bring in enough equipment. It’s funny when you see these programmes about it now because back then no one knew how big it was until you went on the stage – and I’ve never seen so many cameras in my life.

Ah, yes. You were under-rehearsed. Apparently under-rehearsed out of your tiny skull, judging by what you told The Observer back in 2004:

It was crazy. A really crazy day. There were shitloads of drugs - coke, dope, all sorts. Everyone was going bananas. Rick [Parfitt of the Quo] told me recently that he got so out of it he couldn't sing anymore and was so annoyed on his way home that he was almost arrested for kicking road cones. Everybody was just totally out of it and Rick and I were the drug centre. People were saying, 'Let's go and see Doctor Rossi and Doctor Parfitt, shall we?'

Sounds like you took too much gear in. Even if you didn't have enough equipment.

Still, taking part in Live Aid - that must be something to be proud of, right?

But if the West really wanted to feed the Third World it would have happened by now instead of doing some fundraising gigs every 25 years.

No? Oh well.

Live At St Luke’s is out on March 14.

Hey... hey... do you think Rossi is just doing this because he's got something to sell?

Quo B E

The establishment recognises the Status Quo: Partfitt and Rossi have been given OBEs in the New Year's Honours, for services bringing all the drugs to the Band Aid recording, or something.

Gordon in the morning: Now with Francis Rossi

The story about doctors recommending neck braces for headbangers has got Gordon Smart all annoyed:

IT’S enough to give heavy metal fans a headache.

Health and safety experts want to pull the plug on headbanging – the skull-shaking dance craze which started at a Led Zeppelin gig in 1968.

He's so angry, he's called in Francis Rossi to join him in an anger-swamp:

WHEN I heard that experts are advising headbangers to wear neck braces, I thought it must be a joke.

That, Francis, is because, erm, it was a joke. It was a bit of fluff for the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. They weren't actually seriously suggesting that you wear neck braces to heavy rock gigs. It was meant to be lighthearted...

[T]he nanny state would have had a field day with us.

There have been so many times that we’ve nearly decapitated each other by swinging our guitars around our heads.

Even if they weren't joking - which they were, and you're getting all annoyed about something meant as a joke - they're university researchers and not part of the "nanny state", and were only making suggestions, not prescribing rules. But it was a joke anyway.

[T]here’s a difference between taking care of yourself and being totally paranoid in life.

What, you mean like being so paranoid someone writes a tongue-in-cheek article for a Christmas edition of a magazine and you're so blinded by belief that people are trying to do you down that you write an opinion column for a national newspaper? That sort of paranoid?

Not so long ago, RICK (PARFITT) twisted his ankle on stage from rocking out during a gig. What did he do?

He carried on playing and sorted it out afterwards.

If health and safety had been there, no doubt they would have carted him off on a stretcher and kitted the rest of us out with protective bodywear.

Yeah - damn health and safety and their nannying ways, theoretically trying to stop Rick Parfitt from having a nasty injury which might have caused him mobility problems in later life, if they'd been there, whoever "health and safety" might be.

Some people even look on a sore neck and ringing ears the morning after a gig as the sign of a good night.

I wonder if Pete Townshend might like to take Rossi to one side and explain exactly why that might be an especially dangerous thing to say. Somehow, Rossi has managed to take a joke and turn it into something that could potentially persuade people to put their hearing at risk. You'd have thought that Gordon might have had the wit to remove that line.

Gonna buy some records by the Status Quo

Francis Rossi isn't that impressed by Amy Winehouse:

"Amy is supposed to be great but I can't stick her. I like a couple of records but I'm not sure if people will like her in three years.

"I'm not knocking her for the sake of it. But I have been subjected to so much of Amy and her antics that I just think, 'Fuck off'.

"What message does giving her Woman Of The Year send to young people? There has to be some responsibility somewhere, surely?"

Well, she's been named Woman of the Year in Mojo magazine, so I doubt if any young people will ever notice, but... do carry on:

"Everyone knew what was going on with her. She's not a good role model.

"They should have said to her: 'You're not getting it. You would have done but you're not cutting it anymore.'

"She may be able to sing, but what gets through to the kids in the street is the fact that she is out of her tree, falling over and not being able to keep her hands out of her knickers. She should straighten herself out."

These are fine words, although Status Quo have dined out more than once on their tales of being wasted at Live Aid, which might throw their claims to pick role models for the next generation into some sort of relief.

But Rossi hasn't finished. He then turns his attention to Pete Doherty:

"Doherty, on the other hand, isn't even worth entertaining. At least Amy has serious talent. Pete hasn't got anything. There's no talent there, otherwise he would do something. He doesn't count. He seems quite intelligent but the records are grim."

Pete gets busted, then comes straight out and thinks it's no problem being nicked.

There's no fear of the law or of punishment and young people think, 'If he can do it so can I'. Doherty is still acting like an angry young man and so are Oasis. Get off it. You can't be an angry young man pushing 30 and if you are you're a twat."

Well, certainly you shouldn't be publishing teenage-style diaries at that age.