Representatives of Rod Stewart and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea have denied reports that the Faces are reuniting after more than 30 years for an album as well as a tour with Flea on bass.
Stewart's spokesperson told Billboard that "there are no plans for a Faces reunion tour this year." A spokesperson for Flea told Billboard the musician "knows nothing" of a Faces tour.
Guitarist Ron Wood, a member of the Rolling Stones since the Faces split up in 1975, reportedly told the U.K.'s Daily Mirror that he and Stewart wrote an album's worth of new material during a Christmas vacation, and that Flea would be participating in an upcoming tour. But the online version of the piece has since disappeared from the Daily Mirror Web site.
Rumors have swirled since the fall that Stewart, Wood, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones were planning to tour again. The musicians reportedly rehearsed last year with Stewart touring bassist Conrad Korsch filling the role of Ronnie Lane, who died in 1997. But a recent report in the New York Post suggested the members didn't get along during the process and that a tour seemed unlikely.
Keyboardist McLagan is already booked for a spring North American tour in support of his new album, "Never Say Never," due March 3 from 00:02:59 Records.
There have been a handful of near-Faces reunions since the band broke up, including at a 1986 Stewart concert at London's Wembley Stadium. The surviving members have performed together in various incomplete incarnations in recent years, such as when Wood and McLagan joined Stewart at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 2004.
(China Daily/Agencies January 23, 2009)
