Ian McLagan has been asked to teach a few lessons in music schools over the years, but the answer is always the same: “Never.”

For Mac, former Faces and Small Faces organ player, rock and roll cannot be coached. He thinks talent schools churning out stars are ruining the business.

“There is not much in the charts that I would listen to, but I’m knocked out by The Strypes.

“I saw one TV show and I screamed, ‘Oh, how fantastic, somebody is doing it’.”

The man who joined the Small Faces in 1965 knows how the young Northern Irish lads will be feeling.

“I know the energy they have got. They are top of the milk.

“It reminds me of the Small Faces, not so much the music, though it’s very similar, but their attitude, their look and their energy. It’s infectious.”

McLagan’s got the bug. He admits, “all the s**t that is going on. I’m sorry, people miming, dancing on stage, light shows, explosions... wait a minute, these are four guys making music, raw and from the heart.”

The idea someone can go to rock school to learn to dance and mime is anathema. There are too many wannabee Beyoncés.

“It’s all about the music. I never got into rock and roll because I was going to make any money or meet girls. It was about the music and it still is... although I do like meeting girls and making money.”

The man with an entire section of his website devoted to jokes likes to crack them. He’s not joking when he says the Faces might still deliver on promises to reform.

“It’s Rod who is talking about it now. I want to believe him. Ronnie Wood, Kenney Jones and I are ready. If Rod wants to do it then we will do it and it will be great. We need our singer for f**k’s sake – that is what has been missing. I hope he means it and we do it next year.”

The appetite has grown since Faces super fan Mick Hucknall fronted a few comeback shows between 2010 and 2012.

“I had people on Facebook saying we are not going to see the Faces with Mick f**king Hucknall. Well, they missed out and those that weren’t sure were very convinced.”

McLagan has fronted his own group, Bump Band, since 1979, but Small Faces fans know 2015 is a big year: their 50th anniversary.

“Kenney [Jones] and I are going to do something. I’m not sure what yet. Obviously there is no Ronnie [Lane] or Steve [Marriott], but we’ve got a lot of friends who like the Small Faces and a whole bunch of people who might join us on stage.”

McLagan’s Small Faces playing debut was on Sha La La La Lee. It began a run on the charts culminating in All Or Nothing, which knocked The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby off number one in August 1966.

“We knocked them off once but they had been at number one so many times that it never did much for me.

“With the Small Faces every day was a new adventure. We never argued. We were always focused. We loved to play together. We’d listen to music in a car, we’d get to a gig, play, and sometimes we would get back to London and I’d have an organ in the corridor and Ronnie would have his bass and we’d just play. It didn’t get better than that.”

It wasn’t all fun. Lane and Marriott never saw a penny from their record label, Decca.

Lane’s first publishing cheque arrived two weeks after he died. It went to Trinidad and Tobago and he lived in Trinidad, Colorado.

“His widow called me up and said, ‘you’ll never believe this: the post office has called from the Caribbean and there is a letter here for you.’” He knew the duo were top-drawer – even if he never really warmed to some of their best material such as Itchycoo Park.

“I didn’t like singing ‘it’s all too beautiful’ because I didn’t feel that. Years later I read the lyrics and I realised what Ronnie is writing about: privilege and education and Oxford and Cambridge universities.

“He didn’t have money or education. He found beauty in a little patch in the East End of London.”

Dominic Smith An Evening With Ian McLagan The Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street, Brighton, Monday, July 14