10 things we learned from Ronnie Wood’s Desert Island Discs

Ronnie Wood is a guitarist, artist, harmonica player, party-starter and peacemaker. He’s been in The Jeff Beck Group, The Faces with Rod Stewart, and for the past 50 years, The Rolling Stones.

But on Desert Island Discs, it’s Ronnie the storyteller who takes centre stage. From canal boats to rocking back rooms, from jamming with John Lennon to ‘rearranging’ hotel rooms, Ronnie’s journey is as colourful as his paintings.

Here are 10 things we learned from his Desert Island Discs…

Weekends at 8 Whitehorn Avenue, the West London council house where Ronnie grew up, were loud and raucous. “It was the party house. We used to have a piano wedged by the front door. People would climb underneath and over it to get in. Everyone brought a barrel or a keg, we’d be rocking in the back room, Dad playing his harmonica, telling stories and jokes.”

The house had a crack right through the middle of it, and Ronnie’s mum had a theory about how it had appeared: “We just went over the top one too many times.”

2. He taught himself drums when no one was looking

It turns out Ronnie’s first love wasn’t the guitar. “My brother Ted had a drum kit underneath the stairs,” he tells Desert Island Discs presenter Lauren Laverne. “When my parents were at work and I was home, either on sick leave or doing a dodge from school, I’d get the drums out and play all afternoon, then pack them away before anybody got back.”

But the neighbours noticed. “They said, ‘There was an awful crash and banging coming from the house all afternoon, Mrs Wood.’ And my parents said, ‘Was that you, Ronnie?’ I said, ‘No, I had nothing to do with it!’”

3. His roots are on the water — and he still keeps a boat

Ronnie’s parents, Arthur [known as Archie] and Lizzie, were born into the canal boat community. “It was a hard life for them transporting wood. They used to call me Young Timber and my dad Timber. My brothers and I were the first ones to be born on dry land since the 17th century.”

He’s kept the link alive, and now owns a boat named for his mum’s side of the family. “I have a boat to this day called The Grandad Dyer.”

4. He started on the kazoo and the washboard – and made his stage debut at the age of nine

Ronnie could play almost anything he picked up. “My brothers had a room full of instruments, like a Santa’s workshop for me. The washboard was actually my first instrument.” He was nine when he first performed on stage in his brother’s band: “It was at the local cinema, between two Tommy Steele films. There was a live band between movies, and there was me on the washboard. That was my first experience of butterflies in the tummy. Once I got over that I thought, ‘This sounds like a really good job, I'm gonna pursue this.’”

Ronnie Wood in the Desert Island Discs Studios

5. He has always been an artist as well as a rock star

Long before the Stones, Ronnie had a brush with fame as an artist. He started drawing at the age of four, “because my brothers, during the war they were down in the air raid shelters with no entertainment, so they would draw.” They eventually became commercial artists for the daily papers.

Ronnie followed their example. When he was at school, one of his drawings was selected to be on the BBC’s Sketch Club with Adrian Hill. “It was on every Friday night. They said, ‘this one is from Ronald Wood from Yiewsley.’ I actually won a few times and Adrian Hill invited me to be a special guest artist at his exhibition. I made the local papers and it was like, ‘Wow, this is a dream!’”

Later he studied at Ealing College of Art, like his brothers – and rather than choosing a guitar as his luxury item, he picks a huge chest filled with his painting materials.

6. The Faces were so wild they had to adopt false identities

Life with Rod Stewart in The Faces was one long knees-up. “The song Had Me a Real Good Time summed us up,” Ronnie laughs. “We’d hand out wine or champagne, get the whole audience on the same wavelength.” But hotels weren’t keen on the riotous atmosphere. “The party would continue back at the hotel, so we weren’t allowed in any hotels. We used to have to check in as Fleetwood Mac.”

7. He joined The Rolling Stones by chance

Ronnie’s entry to the Stones happened at a party sitting on a sofa between frontman Mick Jagger and guitarist Mick Taylor. “Mick Taylor leaned over and said, ‘I’m leaving the band.’ And he got up and left. Mick [Jagger] looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God, what am I gonna do? Would you join?’ And I said, ‘I thought you’d never ask!’”

8. He’s the Stones’ peacemaker and steps in at the first signs of tension

“I just don’t stand for any messing around,” he tells Lauren. “If I see something that’s going to be destructive, I nip it in the bud.”

When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards stopped speaking in the eighties, it was Ronnie who fixed it. “Mick was saying, ‘He hates me.’ I said, ‘No, he doesn’t. In 15-minutes the phone’s going to ring. It’ll be Keith and you’re going to speak.’ Mick said, ‘I don’t think you can make that happen.’ I rang Keith: ‘You’re going to call Mick right now.’ He did. Mick rang me back and said, ‘Wow, we actually patched it up!’”

9. Beatles versus Stones? Not for Ronnie

The famous rivalry between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones didn’t exist for Ronnie. He always had a close relationship with George Harrison – “a lovely man” – and Ringo Starr, and he picks Paul McCartney’s song Maybe I’m Amazed as his eighth disc on the show.

“I'm very close with Paul. We have lots of dinners together.” Paul was even best man alongside Rod Stewart at Ronnie’s wedding in 2012.

Ronnie also met John Lennon in New York once. “He knocked on my door with Yoko. We went down to Atlantic Studios and played the night away. Wonderful time.” What happened to those tapes? “Good question. That studio was remodelled or rebuilt so the tapes were just lost.”

10. He always has a surprise in his top pocket

Ronnie’s dad was a born entertainer, often telling stories and jokes at the house parties he hosted. He always kept a harmonica in his top pocket – a habit that Ronnie has now adopted, as he proves when he pulls it out to serenade Lauren in the studio.

He also wants to sneak it onto the desert island in addition to his luxury. “You wouldn't even know about it. Just don't count the harmonica, otherwise I'm not getting washed up!”