"I’ve never been so content in all my life," singer Rod Stewart says in a Rolling Stone podcast.
"I mean, apart from the financial side of things, lovely houses, I know that’s all materialistic stuff, but I have the most gorgeous wife, and I have eight wonderful children, and two little ones. It’s just fabulous."
Asked about the knowledge gleaned in his mature years, he quips that the kind of wisdom he passes on is mostly 'football wisdom.' He has an astro-turf pitch for his youngest boys, who are 12 and 7 in which the three can kick around.
"The most wonderful thing at my age is playing football with my kids, " says the genial rocker who has no intention of retiring.
His recent album, Blood Red Roses contains a version of the Irish ballad Grace, concerning Grace Gifford and her love for the 1916 rebel Joseph Mary Plunkett, which the singer first heard sung by Glasgow Celtic fans.
Rod's knees are good, as it happens even at 74 years of age, he had a stem cell injection to ease the pain with one. The football passion dates from the early days, when 'the only two things he could do were play football and sing.'
"I got a chance to be a Pro Footballer, I didn't think I was particularly good. I did it because me dad wanted one of his sons to be a footballer. I was the last one so I gave it a try but I wasn't any good."
The interview also covers Stewart’s keen interest in the TV series Breaking Bad in which Jesse Pinkman is his favorite character.
The interviewer urges Stewart to reunite with old pal, ace blues-rock guitarist Jeff Beck - "my voice and his guitar is a match made in heaven," he says. The singer also analyses songs from what the music paper describes as the `overlooked' Blood Red Roses.
His aim was to write "age-appropriate" lyrics and the song Cold Old London, he declares was about getting tired of "shagging and drinking."
Rod Stewart will play dates in December in Dublin and Belfast and an earlier date in Cork in May.
