Ronnie Wood has revealed it all about his early years in his new memoir 'How Can It Be.'
50 years on from his first appearance in The Birds, the legendary Rolling Stones and Faces guitarist has unearthed just that a journal charting his emergence onto the mid-60s music scene.
His outrageous diary documents the early years that transformed him from weedy west London schoolboy to international music icon.
The 67-year-old musician reveals a tense early rivalry with fellow Londoners The Who, who he called 'the bastards', and with guitarist Pete Townshend in particular.
Strapped for cash and desperate for gigs, Wood admits that as a teenager he used to steal guitars from London music shops, often claiming he was just 'borrowing them for my brother'.
Years later and with his Stones millions in the bank, he went back to pay for his youthful indiscretions and to apologize to shopkeepers who weren't exactly over the moon to see him again. One called him "that big-nosed pr**k who nicked the jazz bass."
Perhaps the oddest revelation to come to light was the "gay franternity" between several of the managers of leading British rock bands at the time, including the Beatles' Brian Epstein and Kit Lambert of The Who.
Wood claims he and his bandmates would make a point of leaving their men-only parties early in order to "let the fellas get on with it.
