Francis Rossi has suggested Rick Parfitt's partners caused problems in Status Quo.

The 76-year-old frontman felt people resented the close bond he had with his late bandmate - who died of sepsis in 1976 - and claimed his pal's wives and girlfriends tried to stoke a rivalry between them.

He told The Times newspaper: "Rick was tormented, really. Management didn't like how close we were, nor did anyone else in the band. Then wives and girlfriends come along, saying, 'You're the talented one. It's not him, it's you.'

"Have you seen Spinal Tap? Every band has a Jeanine.

"It happened to the Beatles. [Yoko Ono] is screeching her f****** head off and McCartney must have been looking at Lennon, going, 'Are you all right in the head?' "

Francis believes Rick - who married three times, to Marietta Boeker, Patty Beeden, and Lyndsay Whitburn, and was also romantically linked to glamour model Debee Ashby between his first and second marriages - was disappointed by fame and success.

He said: "He came up to me on the bus one day and said, 'I should be able to buy any car I want.' I said, 'Rickie, you do.' Then he went, 'Yeah, but I should have a boat and a plane.' 'You do.' 'Yeah, but then you've got to pay tax, haven't you?'

"You have to be obsessed, you have to be willing to learn and improve all the time, and Rick wasn't. I think he was following his mother's dream, actually."

And the Down Down hitmaker believes Rick wished he was a different sort of music star.

He explained: "Rickie would look at a picture of Keith Richards passed out on heroin and go, 'Isn't he great?'

"Rick aspired to live someone else's rock'n'roll dream, perhaps because he learnt his craft in cabaret and people ribbed him for it.

"There was a time when he passed out on the M3 on Rohypnol. A copper woke him up and said, 'You've just had an accident, sir.' He was happy there, because it was not reality."

Meanwhile, despite his decades of success, Francis admitted he has never been satisfied with his achievements.

He said: "No. I want more. Not in a materialistic way but why do I keep trying? Where do I think I'm going at 76?

"People say to me, 'Isn't it great you've got the studio to make music?' Yeah, and it's great w****** but I like to have sex with somebody else sometimes.

"I want people to like me, to like the music, and it never satisfies. The album goes double platinum and you think, why didn't it go triple platinum? I'm still chasing the carrot."