Around now, with a tour coming up, was the first time it really hit me. I'd reached the end of the rope. I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no stuff (heroin). That was the biggest fear. I'd rather clean up before I went on the road. It's bad enough cleaning up by yourself, but the idea of putting the whole tour on the line because I couldn't make it was too much, even for me.

Bill had given up smoking cigarettes and we were told the police would never bust our houses as they had Stones homes in England. It was like pressing a button - I've never seen anhobody smoke hash like him - he woud have a joint before his morning cup of tea. And quickly he was chain-smoking pot, because Bill has a very addictive personality. He got completely into it, but his life changed from being very organized, predictable and rigid into a slide. If he'd had one or two joints a day it might have been a different story, but this was all the time! The change was extreme and after a year of substituting pot for cigarettes he realized he'd become too laid back and unproductive. He went and buried his remaining hash in the garden and said: That's it! It was amazing he could give up just like that - but that's Bill. He said he would never try cocaine or stronger drugs because if he liked them he would do that all the time too.

I nearly saw Mick and Keith have a fight in a seafood restaurant in Seattle. Keith was really pissed off 'cause Jagger had thrown this beautiful leather jacket into the audience at the end of the gig. At the dinner table they were yelling across at each other. After that I don't think Keith lent Mick anything to wear onstage.

It's something to go to places you've been like Seattle, which we haven't played since '66 and see it better now than it was then. More people came to see us there than when we worked there last. San Francisco... was... the people were just... dare I say, the vibrations were just SO GOOD. We've always had strange times there. Altamont, yeah, everyone knows about. But Oakland too. It was just the start of the tour then (1969) and we played poorly and Keith blew two guitars... but this time we just had fun. So far, the only problem on the tour's been with the monitors. I can't hear what I'm singing or what the band's doing. We'll keep on changing the program all the time though to stay interested. But you can't really tell yet what's gonna happen, can you? I mean, California doesn't have anything to do with the rest of America, does it? The truth of it is... the tour hasn't even really started.

Charlie: You always play the same licks more or less. So it kind of depends on the crowd as to how good the show is going to be.

Mick: Did you see men leaping on stage the other night? Great big men they were too. With clenched fists... shouting. I've had to stop doing that one - the clenched fist. I still like to point though. That's a gospel thing, like signifyin' - it's putting the power right on them. I see weird things out front some nights. The guy begging me to whip him during Midnight Rambler. Pleading for it and grabbing at the belt. His eyes... Another held up a burning cigarette to catch my attention, then crushed it in his palm and held it up, all black with ash and fucked up. Weird, eh?

Keith: America's looser this time. I've been telling everyone that. Last time they sat and stared, real stone freaks. They're more stoned this time but... maybe it's just that school is out. We only ever see this country in November and December.

The Washington concert was pretty frightening and a bit weird. it's difficult for me to say what it was like for the people who were there, but I guess it sounded alright to the people who were there, if you were no further than halfway back. There was trouble in front, people sitting on the stage, grabbing at your legs, getting tangled in the mike cables... Just a few loons, really, aamong the 40 000, but still, I couldn't do my thing. .. I would have liked video blowups or something because there was no way for me to reach all them people, it being night and me unable to see them. It felt even bigger than Hyde Park, where there were more people, but at least it was daylight.

On this (tour)... the audiences have been good, haven't they? In Knoxville and such it might be a bit quiet, but they have listened and gotten up at the end and responsded when we wanted them to... what can you say, good audiences. A bit of crying now and then for Sympathy for the Devil, which I can't remember anymore. Of course, we might do a long version of it for Nixon.

One night we were bored in Toronto. So Keith and I got out the Yellow Pages and looked up escort services. We called up an agency telling them we were two businessmen dealing insurance from Omaha in town for a convention (laughs). We said we needed two lady escorts for dinner. We told them to send over two of their finest. We even taped the conversation. These chicks show up expecting guys in three-piece business suits. When they saw us they were taken aback. It ended up as a mild evening of ligthweight debauchery.

Peter Rudge: With the Stones you'll meet Mick's little gang - the Truman Capotes and the Princess Lee Radziwills. Then on the other hand you'll meet Keith's little gang - the Kenneth Angers and William Burroughs. You can be exposed to every aspect. You can meet anybody, and that tends to rub off. People want to meet you to get to the group. Everyone acts like guards for the Stones. Because they're that little jewel in the middle of the ocean, everyone gets possessive about it and defensive.

Mick Taylor: 1972 was the tour where we became star celebrities and the toast of New York high society.

Keith (1973): Personally I just don't want to know about 'em. I mean, how they get in there and why they're there in the first place, I don't really know. It's a difficult thing to handle anyway, because it starts with things like, Oh, Truman Capote is going to come along and write something on the Stones and he comes along and brings along Princess Lee Radziwill and some other socialites from New York and you're surrounded by those people. I mean, all those jet-setters must be loud or something. They seem to be on this massive ego trip anyway, which I just don't want to know about. All I can say is those people will not be around a second time. There's no way they're going to be in our company ever again.

Mick: The whole business was very exaggerated. After all, there were only two people on the tour, and they were only there for a couple of days. I mean, REALLY.

Mick Taylor: It got a bit pathetic. I'd been on the road before and knew what it was about; surrounded by hangers-on and a lot of phony people. That's a side of the business. What I always liked about the Stones was their ability to see the funny side and never take it too seriously. It's a very absorbing occupation. And it certainly takes a lot out of you. But anything you love is a 24-hour thing. It was very hectic and chaotic, but it was fun. I don't know anyone who's ever been associated with the Stones and never recovered (laughs).  But it takes a long time.

Bobby Keys (c. 1979): To me the Stones were the pinnacle. Once you get there where do you go after seeing the view from Pompeii? But I was a guest. It was their gig. But the Stones have that aura. They have a free lifestyle, as free as anyeone would want it. If you can handle it, fine. Obviously I found it hard. It got the best of me once or twice. It wasn't them that did it, I was to blame. It was easy to get past the press notices but it was hard to get past the lifestyle.

Charlie: I got off the plane in '72 and said No fucking more because I don't actually like touring and I don't like living out of suitcases. I hate being away from home. I always do tours thinking they're the last one, and at the end of them I always leave the band. 

Because of what I do I can't play the drums at home so to play the drums I have to go on the road, and to go on the road I have to leave home and it's like a terribly vicious circle that's always been my life.

Charlie: When I go home I switch directly to normal 'cause that's the way I like to live. I can go from one or the other where Mick and Keith do it slower. I indulge in crazy hours when we record or when we're on the road. The hours are conducive to making music and the way we live on the raod. But there is another world out there which is great. I like to see both sides, but you can't without knocking yourself out so I live one or the other.

Keith: I cleaned up for that tour. But not for the whole tour. I did take a bit (of heroin). Playing wasn't quite as much fun on smack. But that's a difficult one 'cause it's not always true.

It's coming OFF the road and dealing with the withdrawal and expenditure of energy that does it. That absolute cut-off after two or three months on the road is difficult to adjust to. Coming back to a completely different rhythm was hard. And I found that smack made it very much easier for me to slow down, very smoothly and gradually. Otherwise I'd find I'd be glad to get home but I was still so hyper. I really wanted to enjoy relaxing at home. But I'd spend months wanting to enjoy, trying to enjoy but I couldn't. The one thing I can't handle very well is that sudden change in pace of living. I can handle it through slowing down or speeding up; that's easy. But I just haven't got any brakes. And THAT became the easiest way to put my foot down and just whew...

It was actually quite nice. We had this little chalet and we used to ski to the front door. We had the drugs and a good connection in Geneva, and we had friends in Geneva, and we used to drive around in Ferraris and Bentleys... It was fun. We always had people in the house and friends would come and visit us.

Another reason for us not doing old songs (onstage) is that Decca have stopped us from releasing new live versions of material recorded on their label. A whole live album with Stevie Wonder on it recorded on the American tour has been scrapped because they've ballsed that up. They've got those songs for six years or something. I mean, if we're recording a liev show with old numbers on it, we just can't put the motherfucker out in the first place because recordings of those songs belong to them until 1976 or whatever.