Sir Rod Stewart may be at home at his Essex mansion but his heart is thousands of miles away in Italy.
It is the morning of his and Penny ’s 16th wedding anniversary but the pair are apart for the occasion… at least for the time being.
“She’s been away in Italy picking truffles but is coming back tonight, thank goodness,” Sir Rod laughs.
Given the two are known to enjoy one of the strongest marriages in showbusiness, the fact the music legend is looking forward to Penny’s return is pretty much a given.
And while he may have sung Tonight’s the Night… it seems every night is a special occasion in Sir Rod’s book.
“I’m definitely more romantic than she is,” he says.
“I dress up every night for a formal dinner together. I absolutely love it. I love lighting all the candles.”
While he waits for Penny’s return, poor Rod has the pleasure of talking to me for the time being. But what a treat it is to be in his company.
He is everything you want from a rock star: oozing charisma, as sharp as a tack and – unlike today’s bland assortment of stars – not afraid to speak his mind.
But in the past 12 months a different, and admirable, side to his character has emerged: that of campaigner and social justice warrior.
Firstly he funded an extraordinary mission to Ukraine where he rescued refugees at the border before housing and giving a family jobs in the UK.
Then he vowed to cut NHS waiting lists by paying for people’s MRI scans, while simultaneously performing his Global Hits tour around the world.
And Penny has also been campaigning, on the menopause, while juggling a successful TV career and shifts as a special constable with the City of London Police.
I ask whether such busy, independent schedules help to oil the cogs of their marriage.
“It does actually,” he says. “We often joke about the fact that we can both be in this large house in Essex and not see each other.
“We stay within the perimeters of the house but we don’t see each other until the evening.
“We wake up, have a cup of tea in bed together, and then she goes her way and I go mine. It’s lovely, we are not on top of each other all the time. We’re very fortunate in that position.”
We are talking ahead of a series of summer dates across the UK including Edinburgh, Northampton, Plymouth and Hull.
Our interview is slightly delayed as Sir Rod has been finishing up a gruelling workout.
Not just any workout, but an “SAS-style” one.
“Nothing stops me from doing that,” he explains. “It was in a 20-metre indoor pool, where we do some SAS training by swimming with weighted bricks under water, and all sorts of joviality.”
For a 78-year-old, it’s rather impressive. And Sir Rod insists he not only sees the physical benefits, but the mental results too.
“Sometimes when you exercise you think, ‘f*** I can’t be bothered to exercise this morning’. But then you push yourself, it’s just so uplifting for your mind and body. If I go 10 days without working out, I go in the dumps.”
In the spirit of clean-living, I ask whether he would ever go the whole hog and consider quitting alcohol too. His reply is succinct and to the point. “F*** that, mate, no, I enjoy my drink,” he roars. “But I don’t get as outrageously drunk as I used to. I can control it.”
And as if to hammer home his point, he has launched his own blended Scotch, called Wolfie’s Whisky, which he describes as a “rascal of a thing”.
As you’d expect, Sir Rod has been hands-on road-testing batches at Loch Lomond Distillery. Each bottle has Rhythm of My Heart – his 1991 hit – emblazoned on the base, as a nod to the song’s Scottish folk roots.
“It’s a fine tipple… especially when celebrating a Celtic win,” he jokes.
And by the sound of it, it will certainly be flowing while on tour.
“I’ve got 12 in my band, and six gorgeous women, and we have lots and lots of fun,” he says. “They are all very young, in their 20s and 30s, and they keep me young. We like a drink before we go on, and a drink when we come off too. We party but at the same time we’re very, very professional.”
Going on the road would also not be complete without his other great passion – his model railway.
For the past 27 years, Sir Rod has been working on a massive model of a US city based on New York and Chicago around 1945.
The singer, who once had a hit with a cover of Tom Waits’ song Downtown Train, put the model city together in an attic at his home in Los Angeles before relocating it to the UK 12 months ago.
“It came over in two bloody great big containers. Thousands of boxes. And it took eight or nine months to even begin to make it look like a layout, but it really is fabulous now.”
So fabulous in fact that during downtime on tour, he is always allocated a special room where he fastidiously works on the project.
“The hotels will give me a room with fans to get rid of the smell of paint, as well as a big worktable, covered with a cloth. I bring loads of containers with all my tools. I might be building a factory, and when I finish it, I will bring it back home and put it on
the layout.
“I mean I would have died of boredom because one of the
downsides of touring is when you’re in a strange town, sometimes there are no museums or anything to see.
“You are just sitting there watching television. It can be horrible.”
When not on the road, dad-of-eight Sir Rod is a big family man and recently became a grandfather twice in one week.
On May 9, daughter Ruby had son Otis and then four days later, his son Liam welcomed son Louie.
Rod shares daughter Ruby with ex-girlfriend Kelly Emberg and Liam with ex-wife Rachel Hunter.
Celtic fan Sir Rod, who also has sons Alastair, 18, and Aiden, 13, with Penny, says: “It was very fulfilling. There was supposed to be six weeks apart, but one was late and one was early and we got done in four days.
“They are both boys and they have already got their Celtic tops. There’s no other way they can go right? My other boys are Celtic too, they had no option either when they were born.”
Our conversation drifts back to his campaigning and his zeal to help people desperate for scans.
He has already paid for a day’s worth of scans at his local NHS hospital but wants to do more.
“I thought it would be a flood of offers but nothing happened. You need to help me get this out there,”
he says.
I ask whether he may set his sights on other issues, such as potholes. It comes after he filmed himself fixing a road near his home and claiming the council was uninterested.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger had to do it as well,” he says. “I think people should take it into their own hands because they’re dangerous. A child riding a bike down a country lane could kill or injure themselves really badly. You can’t sit there and think if only I’d filled that pothole.”
He says the local council “told him off through the press” for doing it, but added: “Funnily enough the council within three months had the whole road, which is a mile long, renovated. I embarrassed them and it worked… nothing’s going to stop me, mate.”
We expect nothing less.
* Wolfie’s is now available at www.wolfieswhisky.com for £35.
* Sir Rod is playing Plymouth, Northampton, Durham, Bristol, Hull and Edinburgh from June 24 to July 7. Tickets on sale now at www.rodstewart.com
