Status Quo have remained among Britain's best-loved bands for the past four decades with their uncompromising rock sound. They really do live up their name.

On Sunday, Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt and co rock back into Calderdale with a special winter tour, delighting their vast army of fans with an array of songs from the 1960s to the present day.

But there are some things in the world of Quo that are new, exciting and unusual, timed perfectly to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their first hit single, Pictures of Matchstick Men.

Actors, musicians, footballers and other celebrities – including US rocker Alice Cooper, TV presenter and comedian Harry Hill, Liverpool FC players, GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips, Rolf Harris, the cast of Coronation Street and Quo themselves – have created their own version of a classic Quo single or album cover in aid of the Prince's Trust.

Their artwork will go under the hammer at Bonhams auction house in London on Wednesday, November 5 – open to invited guests only – but online bidding for the celebrity creations began last week on the Prince's Trust website.

Income from the auction and some of the proceeds of a book marking the band's 40 years of hits will go to the Prince of Wales's charity, which helps disadvantaged young people improve their lives.

Quo played at the trust's first fund-raising concert in Birmingham in 1982.

Frontman Francis Rossi, a father of eight from two marriages, is delighted with the plans. The band are even releasing their first festive single, It's Christmas Time, this winter – their 75th UK single.

The rocker, who will be 60 next May, says: "Rick and a friend have come up with it. I did find it very embarrassing but it is an extremely commercial piece."

But he doubts it will be at the top of the tree on Christmas Day, believing that honour will go to the winner of this year's X Factor.

"I love watching the auditions for the show," he says. "Then someone wins, and they think it's going to be like winning the lottery – but that's when the hard work begins. One single is not a career."

Francis, a typically garrulous Geminian, met Rick in the 1960s but it was not until 1967 that their Quo partnership began. The following year the psychedelic sound of Pictures of Matchstick Men made the British music charts, and the rest is history.

Hit song followed hit song, from the pop sound of Ice in the Sun in the late 1960s to the band's 1970s heyday when they produced some of their most memorable tracks – Paper Plane, Caroline, Down Down, Whatever You Want and Rockin' All Over the World.

They've been together now for four decades and "it don't seem a day too much"... they jokingly tell journalists that their relationship is "like being married but without the sex". Francis, whose boyhood heroes were The Everly Brothers, has passed his love of their sounds to a couple of his offspring, while another son's tastes in music range from Frank Sinatra to The Kooks.

Francis bemoans the fact that many radio stations now play a certain type of music, remembering when Quo sounds were played alongside tracks like Grandad by Clive Dunn and Grandma, We Love You by the St Winifred's School Choir. "I didn't like them but I still defend their right to be out there," he says.

From the relatively modern crop of bands Francis admires Take That for their staying power. He says they have done "supremely well" and he also likes rock band Muse.

But whether either outfit will still be touring, attracting huge crowds and chaotic scenes at the stage door after as many years as Quo, remains to be seen.