I got pretty frustrated about five years ago. I'd always been aware that I was no Jack Bruce or Stanley Clarke, but I was feeling really cramped by the material we were doing and what was left for me to actually perform on. I wanted to play with some different musicians and instruments... The Rolling Stones have gotten so big that it's just not practical for us to mess about and experiment with new instruments. If you want to mess on piano, Billy Preston or Nicky Hopkins is there. If you want horns, you have to have a horn section...

Well I lost that frustration I'd been living with for two or three years. After I'd done those two albums I felt very difrerently about playing and recording with the Stones. I became much more confident and unafraid of experimenting int he studio, rather than sticking only to the safely solid. I could experiment more and see what the guys thought... 

I don't mind Bill doing one album but I don't see the point of copping it a second time. You don't make the same mistakes twice. You can print this 'cause I told him. Do the same thing again and people question your motives. Bill is a great bass player. With Charlie, he's a great rhythm section. But it's the Mick Taylor syndrome. OK, you're a guitar player, but that's not enough. Then you also want to be a great songwriter. Suddenly it's not enough to be a musician. It's the case of someone who can do something REALLY well insisting they can do   lot of others things well. And they can't. There's no point in forcing it.

Yeah, I don't know why everyone keeps asking me that. I've said it so many times I don't know what to do about it. Yeah, he's got his badge, and his membership card... (H)e better not (perform with Rod Stewart this summer), as long as he's in our group. 'Course he can't.

It was nice to work with Ronnie this last tour. He's good for the band, I think. I mean what can I say? We did the whole tour with him, and then we finished the album, and then Rod Stewart announced he was splitting the Faces, and then he left. And then Ronnie didn't have another band to go back to, did he? Fortunately, he had a job. Otherwise he would have been on the bloody dole line. Eh?

Maybe. It's not yet set... (It would only be) for a few gigs. But it is an important year, 200th anniversary, I mean we'd only come back to help America with its celebrations. I always thougth we'd play in '76.

Keith: I wasn't even involved with the Black And Blue thing, but I thought it was quite funny. Trouble is, not many people have a sense of humor - especially institutions. Individually, some people may have a sense of humor, but as part of an institution they have difficulty translating it into the proper perspective. So they just end up like another load of protest marchers with bees in ther bonnets and don't realize how funny they look. Goddamn it, a large percentage of American women wouldn't be half as liberated if it wasn't for the Rolling Stones in the first place, and people like us. They'd still be believing in dating, rings, and wondering whether it was right to be kissed on the first date or not, depending upon who it was. 

Mick: Yeah, we had a lot of trouble with that particular poster... Well, there are a lot of girls into that, they dig it, they want to be chained up - and it's a thing that's true for both sexes. I don't see why (we can't use it to advertise a record). It's a valid piece of commercial art, just a picture.

You put a record out and then you get the feeling everybody's disappointed with it. Then two years later you bring another record out and you suddenly realize that they're all holding this other record up and saying If only it was as good as this one. And I know it's not because we're ahead of our time because that's not ever what we're trying to do, it's not avant-garde, no, that's not it. It's just that when you've been around as long as we have, people have got their own fixed idea of what they want from the Stones and it's never anything new, even though they do really want it, they still compare it with this big moment in the backseat of a car fifteen years ago and it's never as good as then. 

There's so much nostalgia connected with it that you can't possibly fight, so you have to sometimes let the record seep into their lives, let them have a good time with it first. Because a lot of the time with records it's the experiences that people have been through while that record's been playing that makes it special to them. It's our song, darling. And the longer you've been around, the harder it is to fight that one, 'cause you got so much other stuff which is somebody else's song darling. And although they're interested and they'll buy the new record, it doesn't mean as much to them as the one they heard that magical night when they screwed fifteen chicks.

It depends on how you measure (success). We sell about 2 million albums worldwide. It's nothing compared to Fleetwood Mac, and if we'd been a bit more aggressive, perhaps we could have sold more. But life goes up and down. Some people sell 20 000; we sell 2 million, so that's not bad.

The only thing different about it is usually that we're doing it with a new album, so we play a lot of different songs. We can play Hey Negrita, Crazy Mama, we can play that one - Hot Stuff, we played that on rehearsal last time, Cherry Oh Baby. We'll certainly do Fool to Cry. Memory Motel might be a bit long, people might bet bored... start shuffling their feet.

(It's t)he right kind of chemistry. MORE right than Brian. Mick Taylor is basically a cold fish. I like him, he's a great guitar player but basically he's the type of guitar player that should be in a band with only one guitar player. Woody's made for two guitars but he just hasn't had the chance to do it till now. Woody's strength, as is mine, is to play with another guitar player. None of that virtuoso clap trap. NOW it's starting to come out.

Well, I have to stop at some point, this Rolling Stones-on-the-stage-jumping-about. I suppose when you just feel it's ridiculous. I mean, when one has still got all the energy to do it, I don't see why you shouldn't do it. This whole thing is adolescent. Any kind of maturity is purely accidental. It doesn't really feel very much different to me than when I was 21.

Mick: I don't think (Keith becoming a junkie) was inevitable. And I hardly think the band had anything to do with it. It's very difficult to say if it was personal or the band because they're very much intertwined.

Charlie: I'd hate to be responsible if it's the Rolling Stones that have driven him to drugs. I hope he didn't have to do that to keep the pressure going. I don't think it's the Rolling Stones. It must be Keith. Whenever I've asked Keith about drugs, he's said he likes them.

Bill: (I)t seemed that Keith got more insecure when he should have got more confident, as he was becoming a better musician and songwriter. On the surface Keith seems to be confident but he is insecure and he hates people to be aware of that.

In the old days when Keith was heavily involved with drugs, he couldn't be bothered to talk with you. You'd say hello and he'd act like he had nothing to do with you and walk away. So I'd think, Well, fuck him. Another day I wouldn't say anything and Keith would say, Hello Bill, how are you? I'd be so shocked and surprised that he actually bothered to say hello.

One misconception about me is probably the drug thing. I've never done anything that I really considered to be dangerous to myself. I know my own limits and capabilities. People looking in go: But you were a junkie for 10 years. What about shooting-up smack? What about all those escapades? But I never personally felt that I was endangering myself. I'm not that dumb... Actually, I would take drugs quite responsibly: a nice fix at breakfast, one for elevenses and another one at teatime. It was like breaks at the cricket, or something. The times I fucked up was when I scored from people I didn't know and the stuff was laced with strychnine. I'm lying on the bed, and people are going: Well, he's still breathing... It was a bit Edgar Allen Poe-ish; a bit like being bured alive. You could hear every word they were saying, but you couldn't say anything back to them because you were paralysed.

John Lennon did that, too. He seemed to be in competition with me over drugs, and I never really understaood that. Was he a Rolling Stone in Beatles clothing? That's interesting - you might have something there. I think the Stones behaved like he'd like the Beatles to have behaved, and he felt constricted.

That first night, after we went out for dinner, we all got in the limousine and that's when Mick really got to me. He pressed his knee to mine and I could feel the electricity. And then Mick came back to the house in Holland Park with us and he was so much fun jumping around and joking. He was leaping on the ping-pong table and getting tea and, you know, spilling things. And Bryan was real fanatical about the house. Plus Mick had invited some other people over and Bryan was getting sort of freaked out about the whole thing. I'd go into the kitchen to fix some more tea and Mick would follow me and then Bryan would follow HIM. He was real jealous that Mick was flirting with me. And I tried to behave myself. 

But finally Bryan got really upset and said I'm going to bed. He stomped off and everyone started to leave. And Mick tried to kiss me when he was going out the door but I didn't let him. Mick called a couple of times and then when he was back in London again he called some more. Bryan would never call him back and I didn't dare because I was still engaged. I had my ring and everything. I thought that was the end of it.

Keith was very calm and very protective and very normal and loving. He just said, Forget it. And everybody else told me the same thing. They all said, Forget it. Look after your other children. I am sure that the drugs had something to do with it. And I always felt very, very bad about the whole thing.

Mick's got to stop slapping paint all over his face to that absurd Japanese theatre degreee. Mick's getting older and he's got to find a way to mature if he's gonna do what he does. He's got to stop running around the stage and getting himself out of breath in the first ten minutes. He's got to get in front of that fuckin' mike and SING. Goddamn it, if you're gonna do a 2-hour show you can start off real easy. You've got all the time in the world. You don't have to give it all away at once. I pace the music but I can't pace Jagger.

What (people) dug about the first two or three albums is fine, but that's the stuff the band knew back to front. That's what the original band WAS and DID. That's the problem with all those people relating to Satisfaction or whatever. They just want to drag YOU back. Or rather, they want you to drag them back, which is even worse. Every time we tour there's a few people we have to convince by hauling millions of people into an auditorium and saying Ya Hoo Pumph... And they all say Well, they can still do it. That's not really the point. What matters is the kids. Especially over the last few years there's been this whole bunch of new ones creeping in that weren't around in 1973. In America, there were a whole lot of 13-14 year olds that were really into it. It doesn't matter that they don't know the last eight years of the band. So what? Because this isn't THAT band anyways. It's a little bit of the band but not all of it. We're another band now.

It's Knebworth Park, you know, with beautiful grounds, and 200 000 people on that land is no sweat at all. It was nothing to do with the band's last concert. I mean, I'm surprised that so much weight was put on It's their last concert at THAT time. 'Cause it'd been going on before then, and it's going on now, right?

I don't put out wild pictures of me and whoever I'm going out with. I try to avoid going to openings as much as I possibly can. Even before I was married, with girls I was seeing or living with - most of the stories were completely untrue, and it's hopeless trying to tell people that it's not true. I don't tell them anything I'm doing, what I'm reading, where I'm going. They don't know anything about my private life. I have no respect for people who earn their money peeking through keyholes. This takes in most journalists.