The veteran rocker, who plays Ipswich Regent with Status Quo on November 11 and 12, is keen to see Norfolk and Suffolk came out of the dark ages by doing things the French way.

"East Anglia needs one decent arena," said Rossi, who has enjoyed 41 years in the rock business and 39 alongside Rick Parfitt as the face of Quo.

"I've got a real problem with East Anglia. I hate the venues. France used to be Third World for touring but even that's ahead of the East of England. France is a great place to tour, the road system and arenas are fantastic and have left England so far behind it's unbelievable.

"We were talking about it in the band the other day. The East of England really is a disgrace. Get yourself a big arena and you'd get all the big groups from America over.

"You lot in East Anglia should take a leaf out of the French books and start blockading ports. We might moan about them but they know how to get things done."

Rossi has plenty of experience to draw on, having played Norfolk venues as diverse as Thetford Forest, Blickling and Holkham Halls, Norwich City FC and the UEA. Add to that the likes of Portman Road and the Regent in Ipswich, Cambridge Corn Exchange and Southend Cliffs Pavilion and you can see what Rossi is getting at.

"I love playing the big arenas: Birmingham, Brighton, Portsmouth, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Plymouth, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool – they're all over the place apart from East Anglia."

Rossi pointed out several French towns, little bigger than Diss, which boasted magnificent concert halls and insisted his reasons for enjoying playing the big dates is not selfish or the band being big-time Charlies.

"We put on the same set no matter what the venue. But at somewhere like Ipswich it's one-two-three, turn, to stop falling off the stage.

"You can get a great atmosphere in the small places but you have to work so hard as a band. It takes so much out of you and the heat brings fatigue and the shows suffer, even more so at our age," said Rossi, who is 58. Parfitt is 59 and Andrew Bown, who has been part of the Quo since 1973, 62, with 'youngsters' John Edwards and Matthew Letley chalking up another century between them.

"At 16 when I first got into the business, I never even thought about still doing it at this sort of age," said Rossi, who as the pony-tailed frontman has rocked in front of about 25 million people at more than 6,000 live gigs (including 40 Wembley dates) since forming the Spectres in the mid-1960s.

"Then, 25 was old-man territory. When I got to that, life ended at 30 and I thought no way would anyone still be going in a group after that but nowadays it's different and there are quite a few of us old rockers about."

So what is it that keeps them going. Drugs and alcohol played their part in the past but Rossi now admits to getting just as big a buzz from taking the kids to the cinema and having a cup of tea.

"We're just a bunch of guys travelling around the world who are extremely lucky.

The money is okay, obviously, but at the root of it is just the fact we're all insecure and need to be constantly proving ourselves. We all just want to get up on stage and say 'look at me', we need constant reassurances.

"If musicians were that confident in their own abilities, they'd stay at home and be boring.

"It's just a job to me at the end of the day. I'm in at 9.30am and sometimes I'll be standing up there thinking 'it's hard work, why do I do it?'.

"On tour I get so absorbed in the job I don't have a clue where I am. It's like living life in a bubble, you are completely insulated from the outside world."

Rossi cheerfully admits his life does not include sight-seeing, despite the tremendous opportunities the lifestyle offers.

"For me it's all about the gig and my life tends to be bus to concert.

"Andrew and John like a bit of the cultural thing and take time to have a look around. "I can't do that, I just want to get to the gig and start setting up. Rick will tell me to do my own thing and meet up at 7pm for the gig but I'll be there hours before that. I just want to get on with it."

Speaking exclusively to the Diss Express as the latest Quo tour rolled on through France into Germany, having visited passport control in Austria, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Holland and Finland since June, ahead of their 32-date UK tour from November 8 until December 21, Rossi said he loved playing gigs as much now as he did as a raw teenager in the 1960s.

"I used to get a real buzz out of playing the small venues but that was all part of getting up to the big arenas," said Rossi, who has since clocked up four million miles on the road, the equivalent of 23 years away from his South London home.

Quo's first Number One came in 1968, since when they have sold 118 million units and set records galore; 64 hits, 106 Top of the Pops appearances and 33 hit albums, including the newly-released In Search of the Fourth Chord.

And Rossi is sure there are still plenty more to come, despite their latest single being called The Beginning of the End.

"There's no clues in the title about us," he said. "It's like Burning Bridges, just a few lyrics about life and relationships. You never know whether you are just starting one or finishing one."

As for the title of the new album, In Search of the Fourth Chord, that is very much tongue in cheek.

Quo have long since become indifferent about the 'three chords only' label and Rossi said it was little more than a joke now with few of their detractors knowing the difference between a chord and a ball of string.

"People talk about the band that can only play three chords but anyone who knows about music knows that is clearly not true," said Rossi.
"But all publicity is good publicity and while people are talking about that band that can only play three chords, it means they're still talking about us."

Rossi admits Quo do stick to a largely tried and tested format for their tour set list.

"We do mainly old favourites with just a few from the new album. We tried a major change in the set about six or seven years ago but it was a big mistake and just didn't work. We stick to what the fans want now. It's like an engine that just needs a bit of tweaking and tuning now and again."

So after 40-odd years of rock, what does Rossi listen to in his own time?

"Every couple of years we'll go through our catalogue and look at what judgements we made and how they look now," he said.

"I don't often listen to my own albums, if I listen to anything it will be Pavarotti's Greatest Hits, which is one I've been playing for a while now – obviously my Italian roots coming through."

Not quite the choice of someone living the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, but that is a myth in itself, according to Rossi, who questions whether sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll is any different for the stars and their fans.

"I've never really lived a lifestyle any different to the average man or woman in the street . Come Friday all they want to do is get dressed up, go out, pull and get some drugs – whether it's alcohol or tobacco.

The only difference in rock is that some people try to do that every day of the week and that's why so many of them are now dead."

Long live rock 'n' roll!

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