{"id":32123,"date":"2025-04-19T05:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T05:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/32123\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T05:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T05:27:08","slug":"i-dont-expect-him-to-know-who-steps-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/32123\/","title":{"rendered":"“I don\u2019t expect him to know who Steps are\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ian \u2018H\u2019 Watkins of Steps<\/a> has revealed that he has a \u201cbizarre\u201d friendship with Ronnie Wood<\/a> of The Rolling Stones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The singer, who shot to fame with Steps and their hit tracks \u2018Tragedy\u2019 and \u2018Deeper Shade of Blue\u2019, shared the update during a new interview with The Sun newspaper\u2019s Bizarre column<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the discussion, he revealed that he is actually relatively close with the 75-year-old rock veteran, although doesn\u2019t think he is aware of Steps\u2019 existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m great friends with Sally, Ronnie\u2019s wife,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cI\u2019ve known her for, like, 20 years. And then Sally ended up \u00admarrying Ronnie! By coincidence, they have twins and I have twins, and they were born like a month apart. So very early on, I would FaceTime them quite a lot and we meet up quite a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots of comparisons, but Ronnie performs in stadiums and we do mere arenas,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t expect Ronnie to know who Steps are. But whenever I see him, he\u2019s like, \u2018H!!\u2019, I\u2019m like, \u2018Ha\u2026Hi Ronnie\u2019. It\u2019s kind of bizarre.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a lovely, lovely man. We\u2019ll teach him some moves!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RonnieRonnie Wood of The Rolling Stones performs during the final night of the US Hackney Diamonds \u201924 Tour. CREDIT: Gary Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u2018H\u2019 was a part of the dance-pop group Steps \u2013 alongside Faye Tozer, Claire Richards, Lee Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott-Lee \u2013 from their inception in 1997 up until 2001. They did reunite in 2011<\/a>, however, and dropped both a documentary and a reunion tour in 2012. They came together in 2017 for more tour dates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The singer has also been involved in musical theatre over the years too, starring in productions including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The two worlds also overlapped when Steps helped create the jukebox musical \u2018Here And Now\u2019, which included many of their tracks.<\/p>\n

As for Ronnie Wood, The Rolling Stones shared \u2018Hackney Diamonds\u2019<\/a> in 2023 \u2013 marking their 24th studio album and first body of new material since 2005\u2019s \u2018A Bigger Bang<\/a>\u2019. It included guest appearances from Lady Gaga<\/a>, Elton John<\/a>, Paul McCartney<\/a> and Stevie Wonder<\/a>, and featured the last recordings of the band\u2019s late drummer Charlie Watts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ronnie Wood would then speak to NME<\/a> about the \u201cexplosive\u201d songs on the album and how they would translate live. \u201cI have complete faith. We could play the whole album, you know what I mean? But [Mick and Keith] will go, \u2018Oh no Ron, that\u2019s so ambitious\u2019. We\u2019re not gonna forget the back catalogue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The band would go on to play 20 huge concerts in North America last year<\/a>. Reports claim that 880,000 tickets were sold for these gigs and the tour generated approximately $235 million (\u00a3185.1m) \u2013 placing it at Number Six on the highest-grossing music world tours of 2024<\/a>. Since then, rumours have arisen claiming that they have scrapped plans to bring the tour to the UK and Europe.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a four-star review of \u2018Hackney Diamonds\u2019<\/a>, NME described it as an \u201cabsolute barnstormer\u201d, adding: \u201cBut if \u2018Hackney Diamonds\u2019 does round off the most successful career in rock music ever, it wouldn\u2019t be a bad place to leave it. A natural end, but definitely not a normal one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian \u2018H\u2019 Watkins of Steps has revealed that he has a \u201cbizarre\u201d friendship with Ronnie Wood of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,3020,453,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-32123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-pop","11":"tag-rock","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114362977431465963","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}