Ronnie Wood Just Feels Like Playing

By Jonathan Clarke

Monday, 07 February 2011 15:50

The first time I saw Ronnie Wood it was in a non-concert setting, sometime back in the ‘80s. It was like a scene out of a How To Be a Rockstar movie.The place? Outside of a Manhattan club. The obligatory stretch limo pulls up, Ronnie steps out of the car in full rockstar regalia: tight jeans, leather jacket with scarf, guitar around his neck, cigarette in one hand and martini in the other. I’m pretty sure not a drop was spilled, either.
Ronnie is best known as lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones since 1975 when he replaced departing guitarist Mick Taylor. At the time, Ronnie already had an impressive musical resume, coming from The Faces with Rod Stewart, The Jeff Beck Group and The Birds (the English group). But with The Stones, he was part of that band’s second and third resurgence, playing lead guitar on seminal albums like Black And Blue, Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, Tattoo You, Undercover, Dirty Work and Steel Wheels all the way through to The Stones’ last studio effort, A Bigger Bang. All the while, Wood has released a total of eight solo albums, including his most recent effort, I Feel Like Playing.
Not only is he the lead guitarist in The Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band in the World, Wood is also quite the renowned painter, a talent he realized at an early age. As a child, his drawings were featured on a BBC TV program called Sketch Club, where he won several competitions. Wood calls this period his “awakening to art.” He went on to paint some icons of pop culture, many of them rock legends like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. His works have been exhibited at shows and galleries around the world. Several of his paintings, one of which was commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, are on display at London’s Drury Lane Theatre. Wood and his sons Jamie and Tyrone own a gallery in London called Scream. He was also recently inducted into the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio where close to 70 of his paintings are on display.
Wood even has his own radio show now. His problems with substance abuse have been well documented over the years. In fact, he is helping his son Jesse go through rehab at the time of this writing. Ronnie himself has been to rehab facilities at least seven times, most recently in 2010. This was the culmination of his leaving and divorcing his wife Jo and picking up with a Russian girl Ekaterina Ivanova (reports say she is somewhere between 18 and 21 years old) that he met at a London club. The relationship was short-lived and included a headline-making incident where Wood was arrested for a “domestic incident” with Ivanova. The two parted ways shortly thereafter and lately he has been seen around New York and other parts of the world with a new woman, Brazilian model Ana Araujo. With his new solo album out, rumors of The Stones writing, recording and possibly touring this year, and with his numerous recent appearances in the gossip columns, I was lucky to have the opportunity to sit down with Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer “Woody” to catch up on everything.

JC – It’s a great title to the new album, I Feel Like Playing, because if you’re a guitar player, you always feel like playing, right?
RW – Well, one of the times I came out of rehab (laughing) I did a painting because, basically, I just felt like painting and I went on a roll straight away and did, like, 50 paintings. [English artist] Damon Hirst set me up with all these easels, brushes and canvases so I guess I was inspired. So I took it from there and when I was in Los Angeles, Steve Bing [film producer and real estate mogul] said, “Hey, Ronnie, I’ve got The House of Blues for you and Jim Keltner [legendary drummer] and Ivan Neville up there for you.” And I had already been speaking with Flea [of the Chili Peppers] and Bernard Fowler [Stones’s background singer]. So I said, “Okay, I don’t really have anything planned” but I said, “Let’s go in and record “Spoonful,” ” which was a huge influential song for me growing up when I heard Howlin’ Wolf sing it. [“Spoonful” is a classic blues song written by Willie Dixon and also made famous by Cream). So from there, I just started going with these catchphrases I had been using like, “Well, I don’t think so,” and “What you wanna go and do a thing like that for?” and just put these words to music and before I knew it, I was well on my way to having a full album with these songs and music I’d been kicking around for years, like “Forever,” “100 Percent” and “Tell Me Something.” There are no fillers on the album. In my opinion, they’re all crackin’ on. “Sweetness My Weakness” is a reggae-flavored one, so [there are] lots of different things on this album.
JC – And you mention Bernard Fowler, who I’ve spoken to a few times and he had mentioned to me the last two times I saw him that he was working on your new album and I always asked him, you know, “How’s Ronnie doing?’ So, I’m gonna ask you now: How are you doing, given everything that’s been happening? You look great.
RW – I feel great. I have a new focus now. I’m seven months into sobriety. I’m feeling really great.
JC – I see you like Red Bull.
RW – Well, not quite sure I am sober. I’m drinking so much of this my head is blowing up.
JC – I read your autobiography, Ronnie. Such a great read.
RW – It was meant to be called Your Father’s Yacht actually, because it was the name of the pub in my garden in Ireland and that was my Dad’s favorite saying. If I ever did anything wrong, he would say to me, “Where do you think you are? On your father’s yacht?”
JC – I gotta tell you. After reading your book, I’m convinced you have nine lives.
RW – Yeah, I couldn’t believe a lot of it myself. You know, did I actually do that and survive?

JC – Tell me about The Faces reunion you did recently.
RW – We did three gigs and they were with Mick Hucknall [Simply Red] on lead vocals because Rod Stewart had too much going on at the time. And Rod was supportive of it; I got some wonderful emails from him. Mick Hucknall did very well and you wouldn’t think the lead singer of Simply Red would sing like Rod Stewart, but he did. He blew a lot of people’s minds. And he told me he didn’t know how Rod sang like that for so many years in those keys that he sang in.
JC – So on your new solo album, an all-star cast. Slash, Flea and Billy Gibbons [ZZ Top] among many others. The usual suspects, as your manager told me.
RW – Yeah, the album came together in a few months really, and I was just trying to find a record company to put it out and I found one, Eagle. It’s great because I can go into their publicity department, their art department and, you know, go and crack a whip and say “Come on, get this together!” And, you know, at least give it a fighting chance on the charts. What charts? I know. This business is nothing like the way it was when I was growing up. We used to have these great music TV shows in England like Ready, Steady, Go and Top of the Pops and in America, Dick Clark and Soul Train. Things are just not as precious as they used to be as far as new music. Now it’s all in your face, immediately.
JC – You have certainly lived a great deal of the history of English rock and I hear you have a radio show now?
RW – Yes, it’s called Absolute Radio in England and Europe and I do programs on a theme that I pick and [I] play my early influences. You can get it at my website in America.
JC – Okay, so pretend you’re on your radio show and a caller calls you up and asks you to tell a story about The Beatles, the first story that comes to mind.
RW ¬– I had never met John Lennon before, so I was here in New York sometime in the ’70s and I was staying at the Plaza Hotel. So he came and banged on my door. I opened it up and he says “Hey Ron, I’m John, this is Yoko, you’re Ron…” and he kept going round like that forever and I said, “Very nice to meet you, John. Come in.” And Charlie Watts was sitting in my room with an old phonograph player with a 78 record that he had just bought as a collector’s piece. So we put it on. Keith was also in the room. Then we get a call from hotel management asking us to turn that noise down, please! And it was just this old-fashioned record player. It was so funny. So we all end up getting thrown out of our room for playing this wind-up thing. Then John said, “What we gonna do now?” So we all ended up going down to Atlantic Studios to record. And we recorded a load of stuff until John passed out. He had to be carried out. It was all a blur back then.
JC – Rolling Stones 2011? Album? Tour?
RW – We are due very soon to have our summit meeting to decide what the hell is going to go on. Everyone’s pretty excited with their own projects at the moment and excited about talking about the future, but no solid plans at the moment.
JC – Ronnie, thanks so much and best of luck.
RW – Thanks for having me.