a rocker at ART
From sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll to marriage, sobriety and pastel ’n’ oils: the extraordinary life and times of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.
A Rocker At Art
The darker parts of Ronnie Wood’s life read like a long list of things you shouldn’t do. In Hollywood he freebased cocaine; he was rescued off the coast of Rio de Janeiro from a burning boat ahead of a Stones concert on Copacabana beach; in the Caribbean he was almost implicated in a serious cocaine bust, and on more than one occasion he’s had to jump out of the way of Richards firing his handgun.
Many of his friends, including Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and Amy Winehouse, were killed by drugs and drink, his good mate John Lennon was murdered, and long-time pals David Bowie and George Harrison died from cancer. And yet, despite a life of extreme rock ’n’ roll excess, Wood has just turned 73, is still going strong and is now a father of young twins.
The first question that has to be asked — and it’s a question he must have asked himself: “Ronnie, how are you still alive?”
“Ha ha ha, well, I got clean! My life’s better now.” Were you ready to clean up? “Yes I was. I don’t have any bitterness or anger. I’m wiser now; I had a great time and I still do, but in a different way.”
Today we’re talking via Zoom (Ronnie’s in the “vulnerable” age group) and, sitting in his rural Hertfordshire painting studio, he looks remarkably well. He still has his trademark inkyblack woodpecker hair and is wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Addicted”, along with a slimline silver necklace. He’s extremely upbeat but, having known him a little for a few years now, he’s been like this every time we’ve met.
“This is my morning face, my morning energy.” Only a man who has spent a lifetime of nights playing live music to millions would think that 3pm is morning.
After many years of hard living, this decade has seen him sober up and, in 2012, marry theatre producer Sally Humphreys, whom he first met when he was hanging an exhibition at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where she was working backstage. Their twins Gracie and Alice have just turned 4. He enjoyed the Stones’ two-year-long No Filter world tour, which ended last year, has released new music with them and he continues to develop his work as a painter.
The late, much-revered Brian Sewell, art critic of the Evening Standard, described Wood as “an accomplished and respectable painter”. Lucian Freud, Sir Peter Blake and art historian Edward Lucie-smith have all praised him and Tommy Hilfiger is a collector of his work.
Most of this is covered in a recent Sky Arts documentary, Somebody Up There Likes Me, from movie director Mike Figgis, in which Wood admits to being puzzled by his age — as he has felt 29 for the last 40 years. Life flashes past you when you’re having a good time, I observe, and ... “I’ve had a very, very good time,” he finishes in laughter.
He’s not the only one in his family noticing the passage of time, though. “When I told the girls they wouldn’t be three ever again they just ... ” and he tightens his fists into his eyes and pretends to bawl.
He has spent lockdown with Sally and the twins, going for walks close to their home and posting video messages on his Instagram account in support of fellow recovering addicts and anyone suffering with mental health issues. The couple celebrated the twins’ birthday with two giant cakes from Costco and a private visit to the grounds of his local stately home, Ashridge House, with the girls dressed in their Frozen costumes. He has also been doing an awful lot of painting, including an exclusive work auctioned in aid of NHS workers, which sold for £17,000 [$33,000] at Bonhams.
Wood has been painting ever since he won a prize on a BBC television show as a child. After school he followed his older brothers, Ted and Art, to Ealing Art College and initially considered a career in theatre set design before being seduced into the pop music scene of early-60s London.
For many years he has managed to sneak away from the hectic schedule of Rolling Stones tours to quietly enjoy the world’s greatest galleries, from the Hermitage in St Petersburg to the Prado in Madrid, sometimes after hours. In his cottage studio he is surrounded by paintings of ballerinas, brightly decorated Rolling Stones set lists (some of them published in a book in 2018) and paintings of his two most famous gangs, the Stones, whom he joined in 1975, and Faces from 1969.
“The studio is a mile from my house, so I