While some of his contemporaries are doing farewell tours, Rod Stewart is still going strong. He says he’s got three new albums in the works, and no plans to stop performing.
Speaking to AARP magazine, Rod, 80, says, “I’ve got so much more music to do. At the moment, I’m doing a covers album of all the songs I’ve ever wanted to cover … I’m supposed to do a country album … and we’re working on a Faces album, so that’s three projects that have got to be done.”
Plus, Rod says, he’d still like to do a tour with “a big orchestra and play those glorious songs I did from the Great American Songbook.” He adds, “I enjoy doing concerts more than I did back then. Maybe I’ve come full circle to appreciate how lucky I’ve been.”
As for how he maintains his stamina, Rod says he keeps himself “very fit.” He says Frank Sinatra once told him that the secret to being a great singer is to have powerful lungs. So, he says, “We do a lot of underwater training, where the trainer throws a brick into the pool and I have to dive in, push the brick to the end of the pool, and come up.”
Off the road, Rod enjoys his massive family, which includes eight children, five grandkids and “various boyfriends and husbands.” For his 80th birthday, 15 of them took a cruise on a huge yacht he rented. “One night, they all dressed up as Rod Stewart and didn’t tell me,” he says.
And though they had a falling out a while back, Rod says he and Elton John are friends again. He tells AARP, “We FaceTime each other. It was his birthday a couple of days ago, so I sent him 48 pink roses.”
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