The Faces: Coming back

[beth]

British 1970s pop group the Faces to re-form


LONDON (AFP) – British 1970s group The Faces are to reform, with Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall filling Rod Stewart's frontman role, band members said on Thursday.

The group are to perform a gig in England in August, followed by a tour in January, with a former Sex Pistol and ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash helping out, alongside drummer Kenney Jones.

Hucknall has been rehearsing with the band and the group say they cannot wait around for Stewart. "He just had the electricity in his voice like no time had gone by," guitarist Ronnie Wood said of Hucknall.

"We haven't ruled Rod out. It's just that his schedule is so busy and his manager is just putting work in every time we try and work including Rod," he told BBC television.

"We haven't got time to wait around for that. The music is hot and Mick Hucknall is singing hot so we're ready to go. The time is ripe."

The band played a one-off gig last year at the Royal Albert Hall in London with various singers filling in for Stewart, including Hucknall.

The band had been rehearsing with Hucknall, who will call time on his chart-topping soul band Simply Red after 25 years following a farewell tour this year.

"He's normally a romantic, ballady-type singer but when he rocks, if you close your eyes, it's just like the Faces were in the 1970s, he can really sing them songs," said Wood.

Their first gig will be on August 13 at the Vintage at Goodwood festival, an "annual music and fashion-led celebration of creative British cool".

Former Sex Pistols star Glen Matlock will fill in for the late Ronnie Lane on bass guitar, while Slash will help out where possible.

Wood said former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher, Stereophonics frontman Kelly Jones -- who has a gravelly voice like Stewart -- and Chris Robinson from The Black Crowes had offered to sing.

The band evolved from the Small Faces when singer Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie. Stewart and Wood from The Jeff Beck Group teamed up with Lane, Jones and keyboardist Ian McLagan to form the new outfit in 1969.

After the Faces split in 1975, its members went on to their own successes.

Jones later replaced Keith Moon in The Who; McLagan played with artists such as Bob Dylan; Wood joined The Rolling Stones; Lane formed his band Slim Chance, and Stewart became a chart-topping solo star.

news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100526/ennew_afp/entertainmentbritainmusicfaces_20100526154015

[fretslider]

But where did the Faces came from?

After the Small Faces split, Lane, Jones and McLagan floundered briefly before joining forces with former members of the Jeff Beck Group, singer Rod Stewart and guitarist Ronnie Wood. This line-up dropped the "Small" tag and became simply Faces -- at least in the UK. However, hoping to capitalize on the Small Faces' earlier success, record company executives wanted the band to keep their old name. The band objected, arguing the personnel changes resulted in a group very different from the Small Faces. They were right, it was a very different outfit and sound. As a compromise, this line-up's first album in the UK was credited as First Step by Faces, while in the US the same album was released as First Step by Small Faces.

Steve Marriott's first post-Small Faces venture was with the rock group Humble Pie, formed with ex-Herd member Peter Frampton. The group was a huge hit in the U.S., though not in the UK. Many would argue that Marriott made the Small Faces the success that they were, I'm not sure Rod was in the same league.