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| Hannalee |
The magazine that is. It's quite long, so I shall be posting it in two parts as my typing finger is coming out on strike.
LAST ORDERS
Ron Wood is a creature of rock and roll.
From 16 his life has been measured out in
Soundchecks, shows and all-night comedowns.
Now under doctor�s orders to give up drinking and
Smoking, he faces a different future. �God, it�s
hard. Every night at nine I think �Where�s the gig?��
Interview by David Hepworth
Photograph by Rankin
Interviewing individual Rolling Stones invariably involves feet mark. Jagger uses all his well-learned politesse to ever so slightly intimidate. Keith summons interviewers to his tent in the middle of the night like an ancient warlord. Charlie Watts cares so little for scribblers that he gives the impression that he would have no compunction in bolting at a second�s notice like one of his thoroughbreds. Only Ron Wood, eternal social agent, honest broker, flesh presser and glad-hander, who totters towards new arrivals with the grin of an over-friendly guard dog, refuses to hide behind his celebrity.
Approachability is Ron�s thing. I have seen him do much the same on Stones video shoots. It�s no surprise to see that everyone knows him but he gives the uncanny impression that he knows everyone back. I have seen him unfreeze the difficult atmosphere in Bob Dylan�s dressing room backstage at Madison Square Garden in 1986 by simply walking in and hugging everyone in sight, the un-huggable principal included. Stars are by nature territorial creatures but Ronnie carries no threat to anyone, which may be one of the reasons he has never been out of work since leaving art school to join The Birds in 1964. That�s forty years of continuous employment with The Creation, Jeff Beck, The Faces and The Rolling Stones as well as sessions with everyone from Bob Dylan down.
However, on this occasion no less than six assorted PRs, record company personnel, personal assistants and Men Who Loom have been assembled in and around this �1,000 a night suite at the Park Lane Hotel to ensure that the small amount of press that is being done to publicise the Faces retrospective box set Five Guys Walk Into A Bar does not misfire with obvious consequences for world peace.
It was in the years between 1968 and 1975 when he was in The Faces with Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones, that Ron Wood�s public image was first set down. The mental picture has a number of components: a guitar, a rooster�s haircut, a jawline from a Victorian illustration, a Marlboro Light cigarette and a glass of something alcoholic. It is an image he has shamelessly played to the hilt ever since. Operating a guitar with a cigarette clamped in the jaw is bound to make both playing and smoking doubly difficult but this does not discourage him one whit. The last time I met him, to record a radio show in the late �90s, he was celebrating his new residency in Ireland by taking to the national drink with public relish. He arrived carrying six cans of Guinness and was followed a few paces behind in case he should suddenly run out. Earlier this year he told the Daily Mirror that his intake has been eight pints of Guinness, a couple of bottles of vodka and a bottle of Sambuca. That�s not at Christmas. That�s every day.
Whereas most of us would sink gratefully into a slumber before we could take on alcohol in such quantities, Ronnie Wood�s gregariousness shades into hyperactivity. I have seen him many years ago in the middle of a Stones tourso full of stimulants he appeared to crackle like a balloo which had been rubbed vigorously against a sweater. Up until the recent Forty Licks tour he and Keith Richards appeared to have gradually morphed into the one shaggy-haired, scarf-bedecked, smoke-extruding, guitar-wielding, bejewelled rock and roll quadruped, an impression heightened by their habit of leaning on one another, both metaphorically and actually. They were the boys who had gone over the school wall at the age of 15, the dire predictions of their teachers ringing faintly in their ears as they vanished into a dream of perpetual adolescence. Theirs was a life with no thought for the morrow. They were getting away with it.
But in the period leading up to that tour something changed. While Keith would approach the bar on the Stones� jet and ask for a screwdriver (�and you may as well throw the whole tool kit in�) Ronnie was publicly on the wagon, following dire medical warnings and a spell in The Priory. Guinness was asked to stop delivering supplies to the pub in his back yard in County Kildare. He subsequently spent time in the Cottonwood Clinic in Arizona. As of now he is officially clean and sober although he has failed to keep his promise to give up his thirty a day smoking habit by St Patrick�s Day.
Considering he has endured the same vicissitudes as the rest of his generation, Ron Wood is markedly less bitter than most. He relishes describing his old handlers Peter Green and Mickie Most as criminals � �I can call them what I like now they�re dead� � and, a little light joshing of his old partner Rod Stewart aside, he doesn�t have a bad word to say about anyone, not even Tony Newman, the drummer of the Jeff Beck Group who forced their split two weeks before the Woodstock Festival.
[Edited by Hannalee] |
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| Joey |
Great Article ..........................
Thanks So Much Hannalee . |
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| Monkey Woman |
That's a great read and a beautiful pic! Thanks a lot, Hannalee! |
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| Hannalee |
Here's the interview proper:
You joined The Faces in 1969 and thirty five years later here you are still talking about them. Bands really are like marriages, aren�t they?
They are. Like Mick and Keith say, the only difference with bands is that you can never get divorced. I�ve spent the afternoon with Kenney. I�m still getting on with my old mates except that some have fallen by the wayside and some live in America. There�s a lot of warmth but there was always some tension too. There was always a bit of that but it was mainly brought about by rumours and the girls we were going out with at the time. There�s a tendency to say �You�re abover all this and you should really go and do that.� That�s what brought The Beatles to a close, wasn�t it? Mick Jagger had asked me if I would join The Stones but neither he nor I wanted to break The Faces up. Rod got a lift to our Rainbow show with Elton who said �Ron�s leaving to join The Stones�. So that night they wouldn�t talk to me, even on stage.
Do you feel The Faces didn�t get the credit they should have?
Yes. Our handling of ourselves business-wise was not good. Rod had a tack on it but not the rest of us. 99% of musicians just want to play a good gig but have no idea how to handle the financial side at all. Kenney was saying earlier that when he joined The Who that was the first time he realised he�d joined a business where everyone knew what was going on. We�ve got Mr LSE (Jagger) who has a really good insight on what�s going on musically, financially and every in and out. I�ve only just got my head above water after the Harrington Club bullshit. (Ronnie and his wife Jo fronted a Kensington members club which was supposed to combine the facilities of a health spa � steam rooms and reflexology � with drinking and eating on the lines of a traditional restaurant. The Harrington Club declared bankruptcy last year.) I lost everything investing in what I thought was a harmless thing to do. I didn�t know the bloke who was running it was using my ex-manager as a complete arsehole and using all my money and consequently draining me of everything I had.
Everything?
All my miney had gone. It was pure oversight on my part because I put all my faith in my ex-manager, thinking that he had read the small print. If he said sign this I would sign it. What happened was suddenly one day he said to me �I fucked up� and I said �What do you mean? I lost eight million! A sorry would come in handy.� I�ve only just got my head above water recently after the Forty Licks tour. Luckily I�d been into rehab and that made my outlook on life a lot brighter. If I�d been drowning my sorrows and getting stoned and ignoring everything I don�t think I could have pulled out. I�d only just lost my mother a couple of years before that. Then I lost Chuch Magee, my guitar roadie, who had been with me for thirty years. He just lay down and died at a Stones rehearsal. Last year I lost my brother Ted (a musician like Ronnie�s brother Arthur). These things are sent to try us.
So it�s been a sobering up process in lots of ways.
If I slip once in a while it�s because it�s so hard. I�d given up cigarettes before I went into alcohol treatment. Then you get in there and everybody�s smoking and so you�re back on the fags. This is what I need to stop first of all. I have COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) which is the beginnings of emphysema. The drinking�s going to ruin my family, split me up with them, but the cigarettes are going to ruin my health.
Is it easier on the road?
You still have to keep focussed on all the chords going around your head and the city and the travelling and the size of the venue and the press and the meet and greets. It�s lucky that I have the other talent where I can just paint and be on my own. I�m very fortunate that Andrew Lloyd Webber is my patron. He�s given me an exhibition at the Drury Lane Theatre. That�s my gallery.
Is it difficult to come off these big tours and settle back into a normal life?
God, it�s hard. Even though The Stones stopped tpouring over a year ago every night at nine o�clock I�m thinking �where�s the gig?� It never gets out of your system. I�ve always been a night person whether I�m straight or bent. When I first cleaned up and didn�t have anything for like a year I still couldn�t get to sleep before seven in the morning. Since I joined a sensible group with plans and newsletters under your door and sound checks and set lists it�s much easier to be on tour. With The Stones I live a much more sensible day. I know I have to be at the soundcheck at three o�clock, I know I�m going on stage at nine and I know that between now and then I have to keep it together. After the gig, that�s when I want to get ripped. That�s the hardest part. I suppose it�s just a question of growing up.
When are you going to retire?
I�m going to paint till the end and play till the end. It sounds corny but I will rock till I drop. It�s like Howlin� Wolf. He died plugged into a kidney machine on stage. I�m going to be sixty in three years. I still feel twenty nine.
What have you got planned for the next year?
I keep my hand in. I�m going to do some stuff with Kelly from the Stereophonics and The Charlatans. I�m already designing songs for my next solo album and I�m working on an album with Rod Stewart called �You strum and I�ll sing� which he asked me to write the music and words for which is quite a challenge. I�m always game for a Faces reunion whereas some people aren�t. Rod and I did Stay With Me at Madison Square Garden a couple of months ago and we took the roof off. He knows how popular these songs are.
[Edited by Hannalee] |
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| Hannalee |
I hadn't heard the bit about him having a exhibition in Drury Lane. I must give it a look in.
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| Scottfree |
Thanks Staggerlee.. |
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| Nellcote |
I've got Miss Judy's Farm on full tilt as I write this..
Oh man, Woody has got it.
I know I'll get grief from the Mick T camp, however,
what a pedigree.....
It's the little touches that count...
The solo on Miss You, the background gitar on Shattered, pedal steel on Far Away Eyes, solo on Emotional Rescue, I could go on, however, simply put, no modern day Stones without him.....
Here's hoisting the best non alcoholic beverage towards
Ronald Wood....Keep Rockin!!
"I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger...." |
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| glencar |
He's the bomb! |
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| Saint Sway |
great read - one of the best articles I've read in a long time
thanks for sharing |
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| BILL PERKS |
I LOVE WOODY CUZ HE'S HONEST AND WILL TELL YOU LIFE IS A STRUGGLE NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO IN LIFE.HE'S JUST GOTTA KEEP TRYING. |
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| Hannalee |
quote:
Scottfree wrote:
Thanks Staggerlee..
I'm neither bad nor a man... 
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| Scottfree |
quote:
Hannalee wrote:
I'm neither bad nor a man...
Thanks..... |
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| T&A |
wonderful interview....thanks for posting. |
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| gypsy |
Thanks for posting the interview. I like Woody...he's very talented...and anyone who is much beloved by Keef has got to be a great person. |
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| Steel Wheels |
I wish Ron the very best. He's a good soul who loves life and having fun. Please be well Ronnie! |
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