Ron Wood talks about Jimi, Rod, Keith and Moony

The guitarist of Rolling Stones Ron Wood in his long career he has done and seen every color. In 2010, as reported by Loudersound, he told some anecdotes about some of his most memorable encounters.

Jimi Hendrix

We shared a house in Holland Park, Pat Arnold’s house, he gave me a basset hound called Snoopy who shit everywhere. Then Pat said, ‘Either the dog goes or you two go.’ Jimi replied, ‘Why don’t I go and you keep my dog?’ He was rather quiet as a roommate: always under the influence of Quaalud. He was smoking pot. Very relaxed. He would sit and play the guitar with his right or left hand: his ambidexterity drove me crazy. If I try to play with my left hand it’s like giving a guitar to a child. We’d take out the acoustics and trade blues riffs, sometimes to warm him up before a show. He always said, ‘I don’t like my voice.’ I replied: ‘Don’t worry, your guitar will solve everything’. He was a very sweet man. I remember him coming out of Ronnie Scott’s the night he died. He had his arm around a girl and I yelled, ‘Hey, Jimi, say goodnight!’ I was in tears when I found out the next day. I couldn’t believe it.

Rod Stewart

The last time I saw Rod he was really nice to me. He made me and my girlfriend have a wonderful evening. We had dinner with his family at his Celtic House in Hollywood. It’s very Hollywood, with effigies in the garden, columns, gushing fountains. It’s a truly over-the-top mansion, just as you might imagine. Rod likes to show off his wealth, such as his collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. He often asks me, ‘Is that okay? Did I buy the right painting?’ I’m like, ‘Rod, buy what you want, you know what you like.’

Keith Richards

When I first brought Keith home, he was high and collapsed on my dad’s couch in the living room. My father came down at seven in the morning, opened the curtains and Keith shouted at him: ‘Fuck you!’. My father immediately replied: ‘No one swears in my house!’ and ordered him to come out. Ever since then Keith has had enormous respect for my father.

Keith Moon

Moony always came to play with us when we were in the Birds.

I always told him, ‘Keith, you should only take one Valium, not the whole bottle.’ He did that with stimulants and downers, he took everything. He gave me my first Mandrax when they first came out, when they were really powerful. He said, ‘Take two of these.’ We were at the Speakeasy. I had my Jaguar XK150 outside and I was with my first wife, Chrissie, and my manager, Billy Gaff. We’d already had a few whiskeys, so even though he’d given me two, I only took one. It started to kick in before I got to the bottom of the stairs, by the time I got to my car I was already gone. I ended up driving straight over Marble Arch and straight over Hyde Park without making the loop. I ended up in a stable with barely enough room to fit the car and no one could get out. We had to get out of the roof. After that I don’t remember anything anymore. I was sick. I don’t know how I got home, it wasn’t great advice from Moony. He always led me astray, but my mother thought he was a gentleman. He always wore a jacket and tie and served her brandy, she said, ‘What a polite gentleman that Keith Moon is.’