Surviving Faces members Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, and Kenney Jones have reformed to record new songs, according to a new interview with Wood in The Times. The trio has reunited for a handful of brief live appearances in recent years, but there hasn’t been a new Faces album since 1973’s Ooh La La. A spokesperson for Stewart did not immediately respond to Rolling Stones’ request for comment.
The Faces broke up in 1975 due to Stewart’s success as a solo act. Guitarist Wood joined the Rolling Stones later that year, drummer Jones replaced Keith Moon in the Who in 1979, keyboardist Ian McLagan became a session musician and solo act, and founding bassist Ronnie Lane cut the 1977 collaborative album Rough Mix with Pete Townshend before he was sidelined by multiple sclerosis. Lane died in 1997 and McLagan followed in 2014. [Latter-day Faces bassist Tetsu Yamauchi lives in Japan and has retired from the music industry.]
The classic Faces lineup reunited at a Wembley Stadium Rod Stewart concert in 1986. A handful of brief, partial reunions followed until the surviving members, minus Stewart, toured as the Faces in 2010 with Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall on vocals and Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols on bass. Stewart was slated to reunite with them when the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, but he had to pull out because of an illness. Hucknall once again took his place.
In 2015, Stewart, Wood, and Jones played at Stewart’s 70th birthday party and a charity event. Just last year, they played “Stay With Me” at the conclusion of the Brit Awards. There was little talk of cutting new music throughout all of this, and details of the recent session have yet to emerge.
Elsewhere in the interview with The Times, Wood said that the Stones are working on the 40th-anniversary edition of Tattoo You. “Me and Mick have done nine new tracks [for it],” he said. A rep for the Rolling Stones had no information on the Tattoo You reissue, but the band has gone into the studio in recent years to flesh out vintage tunes on box sets for Exile on Main Street and other classic Stones albums.
From Rolling Stone US
