Quite frankly no band gets me as riled up as that of the short lived but oh so perfect 'Faces’.
Oh Faces, what you could’ve given us in a different time and under different circumstances. As I love to dream of the could’ve and should’ve of the world’s most famous “what-ifs”, I shall answer you burning question: “Who the fuck are Faces?”
So glad you asked! Faces were an enigma. A band so sloppy they were perfect, made up of the best sidemen to ever exist, essentially a goldmine of what happens when good things happen at bad times.
In the history lesson I can tell you’re burning for, Faces is the phoenix that rose from the embers of the British psychedelic-pop phenomenon Small Faces [most well known for their hit Itchycoo Park, a song that Paul McCartney told me himself is better drug infused rock than any piece of music from The Beatles experimental period, true story.] They were honestly a great band, though hidden amongst all the other great British rock coming out at the time, and even if their psychedelia was great they had just begun to compete with the likes of The Doors and Grateful Dead, so… they were beginning to fade before they ever burned bright. It was Steve Marriott, the band's singer and guitarist, that would make a swift exit, forming Humble Pie and finding much more success there than he would ever find with Small Faces. But… what about the band?
Well, since Marriott was the band's guitarist and singer, the band needed to find a replacement(s), or they would be one very lopsided rhythm section [though I do believe Ronnie Lane, the bands’ bassist and designated George Harrison-one song per side-vocalist could have easily filled this spot, bass playing frontmen was much more late 70s chic than 1969 chic, sadly]. But… what do we hear? The fracture of another band?
Jeff Beck is the greatest to ever touch a guitar. His guitar speaks words as Roy Orbison sings them: effortlessly and beautifully. Beck was a guitarist in the British blues band The Yardbirds for about a year. He was recommended by Jimmy Page [a broken clock who proved to be right twice in his life: once here for introducing the world to Jeff Beck and once more a few years later for introducing the world to Robert Plant] as Eric Clapton’s much better and more talented replacement. He introduced his signature stylings to the group, his groundbreaking use of fuzz, distortion, feedback - everything to love about guitar, basically, it started here with this band and with Beck. He proved to be integral to their sound and was the basis for much of their famous and experimental work, but was fired for his lack of professionalism [something that would plague him his whole career, as this man could not be trusted to do something he didn’t want to do, and his perfectionism was something to behold]. Beck was, by this time, seen as one of the best to ever do it, mainly because he was, and formed his own group, a group with the incredibly unique name, The Jeff Beck Group.
The Jeff Beck Group had four original members in its original line up: Beck himself [if you couldn’t tell from the name], Micky Waller on drums, Ron Wood on bass, and Rod Stewart on vocals. The band would release two albums with this line up, before Beck's lack of professionalism once more struck a nerve and the line up changed again. Stewart and Wood would have to steal food due to not being paid a liveable wage by Beck [he was a terrible businessman and band leader, if you can’t tell by the two (2) groups he’d now lost], and eventually left the band. Stewart would work on a solo album. Since he had recently graduated from the Jeff Beck school of naming things he had titled it The Rod Stewart Album. Creative, no? Wood was on the album, as the two were now a packaged deal, ‘me and my boyfriend’ type vibe, and the album featured a cover of the then infant Stones classic Street Fighting Man [foreshadowing], with Wood taking on the titular guitar parts [even more foreshadowing.]
Well, if you can’t tell where this is going:
Small Faces needed a singer and a guitarist, and a singer and guitarist needed a band. Similar to a match made in heaven, the band formed, and we, as a society, got the greatest band we never knew: Faces [as Wood and Stewart were well versed in naming things due to their relation to Beck, the ‘Small’ was dropped before the band was titled after every band member, followed by the word group].
Faces released their first album in 1970, First Step. The album made no splash at all, whether it was due to the then no-names in the band or the photo they put on the cover with major ‘my mom wanted a picture’ vibes, the world may never know. But, nevertheless, Faces persisted. It was the following year they’d drop two albums, Long Player and A Nod Is As Good As A Wink.. To A Blind Horse. Long Player featured a cover of the then-newly released current Maybe I'm Amazed, which got them a bit more of a push, and Nod would feature their biggest hit: Stay With Me. Now they made it big-time, baby! No they didn’t. While Stay With Me was a hit, and got them much further into a career than anything that preceded it, 'the boyfriends' [Stewart and Wood, if you forgot] had been working on Stewart’s next solo album. He released one the year prior, with Wood in tow, though it made little splash similar to their band work that year, but he hit a home run with his next try. The year: 1971. The album: Every Picture Tells A Story. The single: A Reason to Believe. “I've never heard of that song-“ The B-side: Maggie May. Stewart had struck gold. He, by his third album as a solo artist and eighth overall, had a double A-side single and worldwide acclaim for his autobiographical work of abuse and regret. All of a sudden, he was getting invited to Top of the Pops to perform, and, what’s that? The accompanying band is Faces? And they’re actually pretty good? and Hey, I like this Rod guy, let’s check his other work. Oh… Faces is getting traction… but as a Rod Stewart side project.
Well, kinda? Faces was Stewart’s main stream of focus, or he lied about it being so, either one checks out, really. The solo albums were just coming, and he was pumping out classics. The following year, his album Never A Dull Moment would make a hugggggeeeee splash on the American rock scene, introducing a second wave British Invasion of singer-songwriters from across the pond to American audiences. This is the album we can accredit popularizing what would become popular music for the following years to come, so everyone say thank you. When touring the states, he was playing as the lead singer of Faces, his songs being maybe one or two of the works they’d play. Their shows were packed with band work, blues classics, and covers of modern classics [I’d highly recommend the Coast to Coast cover of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy, as the band plays it beautifully]. Faces was to Rod Stewart's name what Fleetwood Mac is to Stevie Nicks: they were the image, but they are in the band. This is not a backing band, this is Faces and their lead singer.
What now? They’re sometimes being labeled as Rod Stewart and The Faces. Oh, that’s fine. Mick Jagger and his Rolling Stones has been the incorrect terminology used through the 70s and into the early 80s, and that has never stuck [probably due to the fact that any rational and sane person looking toward that band would see the face being that of Keith Richards and the see that of Charlie Watts is who the band belongs to, but that’s a different topic for a different day.] The band would continue to tour and work on music, many members even having solo ventures during these years. 1973 would see the release of Ooh La La, what would stand as their last complete album. The album, reportedly, was a pain to make. Stewart, seemingly adopting more from his Jeff Beck lessons, was becoming difficult and temperamental. He’d not show up, rewrite songs for no reason, and walk with the air he was above the band. Ronnie Lane said the album was his favorite of their four, as he felt in creative control, as ‘the boyfriends’ had suddenly become the, well, faces of Faces. It was their writing style and work that gave them their biggest hit, and who is to disagree with the consumer? The album's title track is unique, and not just for being their only title track, as it features Wood on vocals. Stewart claimed he couldn’t do the song justice with his [though that didn’t stop him at all in following decades], and Lane couldn’t get it right. It was Wood and his imperfect, human vocals that made the song.
The song, penned by the Ronnies’, is a conversation between a grandfather and grandson about life, heartbreak, and relationships. The first verse is the grandson speaking of his grandad, realizing his pessimism towards life and woman had come from years of experience. “for love is blind, and you’re far too kind, don’t ever let it show”, the grandad reminds. The chorus is floated through by Wood, “I wish I knew what I know now/ when I was younger [stronger]” The next verse transports you backstage of a can-can show, the confidence boost of being desired before the fall from grace, being left “twinkling with the stars.” The grandad has the next line: “you’ll have to learn just like me / and that’s the hardest way”. The chorus repeats again as Wood plays the song out.
Wood cannot sing like the others in the band. He draws words out, his voice has cracks and imperfections, it seemingly one that’s lived a thousand lives, yet still young and hopeful, just like the man behind it. The voice does a wonderful dance between the grandad and grandson, Wood makes the song more believable than anyone else ever could. Similar to his guitar playing, his bass work, his writing style, or his fashion it’s offbeat and… it fits. The song stands out against any of their other work not just due to Wood being a new voice to their catalog, but because of the door it seemed to crack, one where the band could, instead of being a sloppy rock and roll band, fit into the mold Stewart was beginning to make for himself and other songwriters of the day. The delicacy of the words, the softness of the music, but still being just heavy enough to be rock and roll. Ooh La La is the perfect Rod Stewart song, yet one he said he could never pay justice to.
For as great as their music was, nothing really sits anywhere near Ooh La La. Is it Wood’s voice? The message of life at the core? The simple, pulled back, imperfect instrumentation? What is it about this song that makes it feel so timeless yet so perfectly of its time? It’s a song that has transcended a time and place, a certain feeling or emotion. Steven Van Zandt said upon inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "They made some of the most soulful, beautiful music anyone's ever made." and it rests true here. The song I'm discussing here could easily be considered one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It is. Ooh La La is lightning in a bottle, I suppose. Rarely can a song be penned so perfectly that no matter how many times you try to redo it you will never capture the essence of the original, imperfect piece. It seemed as though this is where the band had finally seemed to realize what they were good at. What could be their niche, but it came at the tail end of their final album, destined to never be credited to the potential it opened for the band.
Ooh La La would fall into obscurity as Faces trudged on. They would survive another two years before being ripped apart at the seams. It was Stewart’s successes of Smiler and Atlantic Crossing that tapped him out of the band. To Lester Bangs, Ron Wood would confide he saw a future with Stewart [musically, however with them who knows] yet adding to the end of the sentiment “does he? [see a future with me.]” Wood, well, I think we all know he would go on to be The Rolling Stones longest standing lead guitarist. Ronnie Lane had quit before the break up, his solo career already started before the falling out. Kenney Jones, who’d been drumming for the band since their days as ‘Small’, would act as Keith Moon's replacement in The Who for about a decade. Ian Mclagan, another original member, would join The Stones as well, acting as their keyboardist for live performances during their late 70s and early 80s, and having a decorated musical career well after as well. Testu Yamauchi, who had taken up bass after Lane’s departure, [and had previously worked with Free, also as a replacement to their departed bassist, Andy Fraser] would work on countless records before retiring in the 90s. Faces, all things considered, did pretty damn well for themselves, just not together.
In 1996, long after their breakup, Wes Anderson would choose their song to be a centerpiece of one of the most pivotal scenes in his film Rushmore. The song? Ooh La La. The once unknown and overlooked track was beginning a new life, people discovering this band that had been unknown despite featuring so many huge names.
There's that infamous story, the one of the girl who walked into a record store in the 70s, commenting on a Beatles record that she had no idea Paul McCartney had a band before Wings. That, in its own unique spin, is Faces. So much to love, yet relatively obscured by the shadows of the titans it produced and forgotten under the weight of the names that contributed to its formation.
Yet, amongst all the names, the drama, and the hidden gems, Ooh La La still stands out to me. It’s the gateway to what could’ve been, had things just been a little different. They hit the jackpot, and no one noticed, not even them really. I suppose it is easier in retrospect to say the band was a powerhouse who burned out just as they came into their own as opposed to just writing them off as another wannabe glam rock band following in the footsteps of their bluesy and glittery predecessors. Maybe.
Yet, things can only be labeled as right or wrong by time. Was it good they split, or secretly the worst choice they could’ve made? Was the trojan horse disguised as bountiful solo work hiding inside itself the loss of one of the best bands we never quite knew? We’ll never know. As the song goes, you have to learn, and that’s the hardest way.
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