Ian ‘H’ Watkins of Steps has revealed that he has a “bizarre” friendship with Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones.
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The singer, who shot to fame with Steps and their hit tracks ‘Tragedy’ and ‘Deeper Shade of Blue’, shared the update during a new interview with The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column.
In the discussion, he revealed that he is actually relatively close with the 75-year-old rock veteran, although doesn’t think he is aware of Steps’ existence.
“I’m great friends with Sally, Ronnie’s wife,” he told the outlet. “I’ve known her for, like, 20 years. And then Sally ended up marrying 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.”
“There’s lots of comparisons, but Ronnie performs in stadiums and we do mere arenas,” he continued. “I don’t expect Ronnie to know who Steps are. But whenever I see him, he’s like, ‘H!!’, I’m like, ‘Ha…Hi Ronnie’. It’s kind of bizarre.
“He’s a lovely, lovely man. We’ll teach him some moves!”
Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones performs during the final night of the US Hackney Diamonds ’24 Tour. CREDIT: Gary Miller/Getty Images
‘H’ was a part of the dance-pop group Steps – alongside Faye Tozer, Claire Richards, Lee Latchford-Evans and Lisa Scott-Lee – from their inception in 1997 up until 2001. They did reunite in 2011, however, and dropped both a documentary and a reunion tour in 2012. They came together in 2017 for more tour dates.
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 ‘Here And Now’, which included many of their tracks.
As for Ronnie Wood, The Rolling Stones shared ‘Hackney Diamonds’ in 2023 – marking their 24th studio album and first body of new material since 2005’s ‘A Bigger Bang’. It included guest appearances from Lady Gaga, Elton John, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, and featured the last recordings of the band’s late drummer Charlie Watts.
Ronnie Wood would then speak to NME about the “explosive” songs on the album and how they would translate live. “I have complete faith. We could play the whole album, you know what I mean? But [Mick and Keith] will go, ‘Oh no Ron, that’s so ambitious’. We’re not gonna forget the back catalogue,” he said.
The band would go on to play 20 huge concerts in North America last year. Reports claim that 880,000 tickets were sold for these gigs and the tour generated approximately $235 million (£185.1m) – placing it at Number Six on the highest-grossing music world tours of 2024. Since then, rumours have arisen claiming that they have scrapped plans to bring the tour to the UK and Europe.
In a four-star review of ‘Hackney Diamonds’, NME described it as an “absolute barnstormer”, adding: “But if ‘Hackney Diamonds’ does round off the most successful career in rock music ever, it wouldn’t be a bad place to leave it. A natural end, but definitely not a normal one.”
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