I would never have dreamt of living there before because I never used to like the whole vibe of the place. But it's much more mellow now and I could definitely see myself living there.

I was in Los Angeles, and (producer Steve Bing) loves to hear me play. He said, Hey, Ronnie, do you fancy taking this studio? I booked the House of Blues for you. Do you want to make some tracks? And I said, Wow, I wasn’t planning on it. And he said, Oh, I just love the way you play, man, come on, please, get out there. I said, Well, I’ve got a few ideas kicking around in the back of my head. So I went up with Bernard Fowler. Steve Bing said, I’ve got Jim Keltner up there, and Ivan Neville. I rang up Flea, who had said, If you make an album, I’ll be on it with you. He was in town, and then me and Bernard went up, and we cut “Spoonful.” That was really spontaneous. It just happened in one or two takes. We took it all from there. I had these phrases in my head, like I don’t think so and I also had Why’d you wanna go and do a thing like this for? I’d just left home at the time. So I started to put melody to some of these words…What we would do is sit in my hotel room and plan it in the afternoon, and go up in the studio and make ‘em in the evening...  I’ve been so busy with my art and with the Stones and everything. I thought I’d take a break, you know, and try and have a bit of downtime. But I was being followed by the press everywhere, and I had no private life. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I thought, well, to make a solo album now, unplanned, is perfect. It gives me something to do. It keeps me busy, which I love to be, and it keeps me creative. I was turning out a lot of paintings at the time, and then I turned the painting off for a bit and I got into the total music vibe.

I want to say how honored I am to be presenting this award tonight. Just in case you're wondering how this came about, I am the founding member of the RMEP, which is the Rock star-Movie star Exchange Program. Tonight, Sir Ben Kingsley will be singing Brown Sugar at the Grammys. Sir Anthony Hopkins is in a recording studio with Amy Winehouse and Dame Judi Dench is gamely trashing hotel rooms somewhere in New York City. We're hoping that next week Sir Brad and all the Pitt family will be performing The Sound of Music at the Brit Awards.

With British acts doing so well at the Grammys last week, it’s proving to be a great period for home-grown talent right now. And what is so refreshing is the different styles that have been recognised — Coldplay, Duffy, Adele and Radiohead make up an eclectic bunch, proving there’s a lot of fresh British talent out there. I like that these acts have paid their dues in the way we had to. There is certainly an upsurge of diverse Brit acts breaking through in the US and overseas — good to see it. Long may it continue.

I remastered all the Rolling Stones albums, one after the other, basically. Some of them I remastered eight, ten years before for a previous record company (Virgin), and when I listened to them again, I thought some of them were great, and some of them were really not very good. And then you start analyzing (the mixes) again, That sounds like a real mess. Well, I can't do anything with that, there's no bass, no vocals, it's just a mess, a disaster. And some of the mixes were just messy, there's no clarity. I love the idea of remixing some tracks, just to see what they sound like, but to be honest, I didn't remix any of these tracks for (these releases). I only listened to (them) for the sonic quality. You get drawn into the performance, but you're supposed to be listening to see if it's as good as the previous mastering. Because you're cutting for so many different platforms - the CD's got so much more clarity than the one you mastered before, because of different bitrates. Then you've got MP3 and other, better-sounding digital things. You get drawn in by certain things you've never heard, but you're not supposed to be listening to that. (laughs) Not really.

Cinemas and live venues like the Granada where the Stones played in the early days, learning our craft on the way, are the lifeblood of our cultural history. They helped launched British popular music on to a world stage and should continue to function as places of entertainment and enjoyment.  It's heartbreaking to hear about such a beautiful, important historical building and centre of entertainment being lost to the local community. I fully support the campaign to keep it open and provide film, music and the arts for generations to come.

You can't give into temptation all your life, otherwise you'd have no through line; you'd never get anything finished. But it's absolutely no fun at all unless you give into temptation some of your life. If you never do, you're really boring and dull.

 I’m trying to gather the boys together. One way or another, I’ll get them back in line.

Mick: Universal wanted to rerelease Exile, and they asked me if there were any tracks that we didn't use when we released it originally. And I said, Well, I doubt it very much. One, 'cause I thought we probably used most of the tracks anyway, 'cause it was a double album. And secondly, 'cause I couldn't really be bothered. But then they said, Please, will you look? I was quite surprised to find the tapes in such a good state. They all had to be baked in ovens (to) last forever. 

I added bits and pieces here and there. I added some percussion. I added some vocals. Keith put guitar on one or two. I added some acoustic guitar and some other things. Charlie didn't need to come in. The drums were all perfect... In the spirit of Exile we added some girl background vocals on Tumbling Dice and Shine a Light... 

Keith and I listened to it. We picked things that we rather liked. And then I started doing research on my own and I found out that quite a lot of these pieces were not really not from the Exile period at all. They were either earlier or later. Some of them much later.

(With Following the River), I just started from nothing... The core tape of it was the piano and the drums, bass, and guitar. There was no top line or lyric. I started from scratch - I mean, that's what I do, and I've done it many times before. And it's daunting in the beginning, but after a while you get into it.

Keith: (My initial reaction was) I don't know, putting out an old record? And then they sort of made the point that Hey, it's avery interesting album, it has a sort of aura about it.

It's all very good. I saw Mick and Charlie last week. Everything is great. (Will the Stones tour next year?) Let's hope so, yeah!

It would have been great. Universal - I had to think which record company we were with - Universal suggested we play the whole album from start to finish, but some of them are quite difficult to do, unfortunately. Ventilator Blues has never quite worked, see, there's a difference between playing a song and performing it, and Mick is a performer. Ventilator Blues doesn't give him much to go on. A few songs, like Hip Shake, you could do in a club quite easily, but when you get out there in front of 50 000 people - well, it's not quite one of those, isn't it? You're better off doingAll Down the Line. Or Tumbling Dice, that's very popular.

I would never take Mick's recollection of anything seriously... That is why Mick can never write a book. He can't remember anything. I mean, he once, many years ago, was going to write a book. And all I got was a load of phone calls. What we were doing August 14...? Because he doesn't remember a thing! Especially the nuances. He's going to spin you a yarn. He doesn't feel he's under any obligation to tell you the truth.