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Rick Parfitt announces retirement from Status Quo

By | Published on Friday 28 October 2016

Status Quo

Earlier this year, Status Quo announced plans to hang up their electric guitars and only play acoustic shows after one final full-scale tour. However, with the first of those finale electric shows due to take place tonight in Belfast, guitarist Rick Parfitt has said that he is actually bowing out from the group altogether with immediate effect.

Parfitt has had three heart attacks since 1997, the most recent and most serious in June this year shortly after playing a show in Turkey, leaving him clinically dead for several minutes. Despite making a recovery, his health has not returned to a point that would mean he was able to play the upcoming tour. And although it was hoped that he would return for any subsequent acoustic shows, he has now said that this will not be the case.

“I don’t think I really want to”, he told Classic Rock. “In my heart I’m a rocker, I’ve always been. If I’m going to make music it’s got to rock. There would probably have been room for me if I decided I wanted to [be part of those shows], but I’m not a great fan of the whole acoustic malarkey. It doesn’t float my boat. What I am disappointed in is missing the last of the band’s electric shows”.

On the current state of his health, he added: “As the weeks pass I’m better and better. I don’t know whether I will be able to improve on that because I feel as well as I did when I fell over. So I can’t complain. I’ve just passed my driving test – which was incredibly stressful at my age – but I’m mobile again now, so that’s a big difference”.

He added that it had been frontman Francis Rossi’s decision to bring the band’s full-on touring days to an end and switch to acoustic performances, which he had argued against prior to his latest heart attack. As for the future of the group, he said: “Francis will do what Francis will do. I shall not say anything to the contrary because I don’t want any bad feeling. After 50 years of travelling the world together that’s the very last thing I want”.

Parfitt will be replaced by Richie Malone on the ‘Last Night Of The Electrics’ tour, which runs into December.



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