Leo Sayer is in need of a tissue. He’s eating a chocolate-covered ice-cream and his face and fingers are a bit sticky as a result.
‘Sorry about this,’ he says, retrieving a Kleenex from a box on his desk.
‘Sorry about the unshaven look, too.
‘I only flew in from the US a few days ago, you see, and I’m still getting over the jet lag.’
Ah, so that would explain Leo’s casual sweat pants and T-shirt attire, his general bright-eyed bushy-tailedness, and the eating of ice-cream at what is around 2am his time – that being Australian Eastern Standard Time, some nine hours ahead of British Summer Time.
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Thanks to the miracle of Skype, though, it’s as if global time zones don’t exist.
We can see and hear him as clearly as if we were in the room.
In fact, we can almost taste his choc ice.
The famous halo of curls is not quite as luxuriant as it was in his 1970s heyday, but it’s still clear to see why the wife of Adam Faith, his then-manager, dubbed him Leo rather than call him by his real name of Gerard, because she thought he looked like a little lion.
The tag stuck.
‘The hair’s still mad and big and curly,’ he laughs.
‘My dad died with a full head of hair, so I have that legacy.’
Since 2005, Australia is the place Leo and his Italian-born partner Donatella Piccinetti have called home.
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The couple met in the mid-1980s, shortly after Leo divorced his first wife, Janice.
At the time, Donatella was in the restaurant trade.
These days, she manages his business affairs. Partners in every sense, then.
But they have never married.
‘We made a conscious decision not to,’ Leo explains.
‘Marriage can feel like putting a burden on each other and sometimes kids go with that, too.
‘So we don’t have children, either.’
Leo and Donatella moved Down Under to make a fresh start.
They lived in Sydney for 10 years, but in 2015, decided they wanted a quieter home life to come back to after spending so much time on the road.
‘We’re away so much, it made sense,’ Leo adds.
‘So, we moved to a little village about an hour-and-a-half’s drive south of Sydney in the area known as the Southern Highlands.
‘We’re as high up as the Cairngorms in Scotland, so it can get chilly at night.
‘But our village reminds me of the villages in Sussex where I was brought up.
‘I don’t get homesick for the UK because it looks like where I lived as a boy.’
They found a secluded Italian-style cottage with an acre of land, and a barn that Leo converted into his studio.
‘The cottage is very cosy – especially during the Australian autumn and winter months, which we’re heading into now.
‘There’s nothing better than curling up with a good book and sitting in front of the fire on winter evenings.’
It’s a far cry from the mega-star mansion with swimming pool and security gates that you might expect from a music legend.
‘It’s very rural,’ Leo continues.
‘Our garden at the back of the property almost runs down to a nearby river.
‘It’s quiet apart from birdsong from the king parrots and hummingbirds.
‘I love the silence, and the stars in the night sky are incredible.’
Idyllic as it sounds, with its similarities to home, there are still some things he misses about good old Blighty.
‘I do miss Marks & Spencer sandwiches,’ he admits.
‘And proper Cheddar cheese.
‘Also places like the British Library in London with all those books, the Tate, the British Museum – I could spend my life in that place.
‘I still love Britain. Of course I do.
‘I come back most years during the northern hemisphere’s summer months.
‘In fact, I’ll be there when this article comes out.
‘I’ll have just started my UK tour, but when you get used to living in a largely classless society like Australia, it grates a bit when you return to one where class is still such an issue.’
Leo shot to fame in the 1970s with hits such as You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, When I Need You, One Man Band and Moonlighting.
He also sold a total of 30 million albums worldwide.
Managed by 1960s pop star-turned-impresario Adam Faith, Leo had the world at his feet.
By 1977, he was living the dream in Los Angeles and had number ones on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Hollywood, he hung out with superstars.
He’d have coffee with the likes of Bette Midler, spend time with Paul McCartney at Tower Records, and, after chatting on the phone to Elvis, had been invited to stay with him not long before ‘The King’ passed away.
‘Years later, I began to think I must have dreamt the whole thing,’ says Leo.
‘But I happened to meet Ginger – Elvis’ girlfriend at the time of his death – and she said, “Elvis had been so excited at the idea of spending a few days with you.”
‘I had tears in my eyes when she said that.’
As the 1980s dawned, Leo’s star began to wane – although he never stopped making music.
Mid-decade, around the time of his divorce, he discovered that manager Adam Faith had ripped him off to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Leo sued, settling out-of-court in the early 1990s, yet he bore Faith no lasting grudge and attended his funeral in 2003.
‘Maybe I should have dumped him earlier, should have questioned him more and listened to him less,’ he muses.
‘But he made it happen for me. Adam gave me such confidence, opened doors for me and believed in me more than I did myself in the early days.
‘I was naïve, and there comes a time when someone like that takes advantage.
‘They just can’t help themselves. I’m a survivor, but that’s because I’ve had to be.
‘You develop a thick skin as a result.
‘I’ve been written off as a songwriter and performer more times than I’ve had hot dinners, but you’ve just got to persevere and wait for the ball to bounce back.’
Right now, it’s bouncing pretty steadily for Leo.
Writing, recording, touring and travelling is what he continues to do with total gusto.
‘I’ll never stop working,’ he tells us. ‘I just love it too much.
‘I’m as creative as I was when I was younger.
‘Maybe even more so, in fact, because the more you do it and the longer you do it for, the better you get at it.
‘It’s easier to write and record songs.
‘Having a studio at home, I can write, record and produce my releases all by myself – like I did with my latest album Selfie.
‘Working alone doesn’t bother me. But I enjoy touring, too.
‘It’s not as crazy as it was in the 1970s, but still a lot of fun.’
Leo turns 71 later this month – isn’t this kind of punishing touring and recording schedule a tad tiring for a man of his vintage?
‘You can’t keep going in the same way you did when you were younger,’ he admits.
‘My old mate Mick Jagger is finding that out at the moment.
‘I remember hanging out with Mick back in the 1970s and him commenting on how neither of us could keep still. It’s all the adrenaline.
‘Anyway, like me, Mick has had stents inserted into his heart. I have three of them.
‘I also had knee surgery a few years back, which has made a big difference.
‘No more pain or hobbling about!
‘I don’t exercise as such, but I walk a lot, and when I’m on stage I must run the equivalent of five miles!
‘I don’t feel my age, though, I’m still a big kid at heart.’ ■
HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR SUNDAY?
■ Up with the lark or lie-in?
If I’ve been working the night before – which I often have – then a lie-in.
Sleep is valuable and I need to store it up.
Sometimes, when I’m at home, I’ll have what I call a ‘semi’ lie-in.
I’ll get up around 7am, make myself some tea, have a quick look around the garden and then go back to bed.
■ Hungover or fresh as a daisy?
Fresh as a daisy. I don’t get hangovers.
While I love a beer and enjoy a tipple of my favourite Japanese whisky, I know when I’ve had enough.
Everything in moderation.
■ Pub roast or Sunday lunch at home?
I tend not to eat lunch because a midday meal makes me want to sleep in the afternoon.
I have breakfast and then maybe snack on some corn chips and houmous, followed by an early dinner at six or seven.
That’s enough for me.
Donatella is an amazing cook, so I prefer her food to anything I might get in a restaurant or pub.
■ Action-packed or chilling out?
It depends what I’m doing. There are no set rules.
My day of rest is more likely to be a Monday than a Sunday.
When I’m working then it will be busy.
When I’m at home for the day, I may lock myself away and work on the autobiography I’m writing.
Or we might see friends and go for a walk in the beautiful countryside that surrounds our home.
■ Sunday night at the movies or box set at home?
If I have to choose, it’s more likely to be watching something on Netflix .
But, you know, Donatella and I are old school. We like reading books!
