When Small Faces soulful dynamo frontman the late Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie , drummer Kenney Jones, bassist Ronnie Lane, and pianist Ian McLagan picked up relative unknowns, singer Rod Stewart and bass player-turned-guitarist Ron Wood, both from the Jeff Beck Group.

The Faces, as they were now called, were known as much for their happy go lucky attitudes and a playful swagger to their music as for their endless trips to the pub. Rod Stewart explains:

"God, we used to drink...and that only came about because we didn't think we were very good! Look at it: you had two guys out of the Jeff Beck Group that had been fired, and you had the leftovers from the Small Faces, five losers if ever there were five losers, all thrown together! So we used to get really drunk and do the best we could, and it worked. That looseness and jangliness of all the music. It really worked!"

The Faces would eventually hit paid dirt with "Stay with Me", the worldwide hit from their 1971 album A Nod is as Good as a Wink.... It would catapult the quintet from abject poverty to Top of the Pops seemingly overnight. But according to Stewart, Woody, and Jones In the Studio, the parallel success of Rod Stewart's solo career would be too hard to stomach for some of the band. By the end of 1975 it would be over.