Sunday, May 19, 2024

Jefferson Starship drummer John Barbata dead at 79

Jefferson Starship and Jefferson Airplane drummer John Barbata has died aged 79. The musician is reported to have passed...

Latest Posts

Slash: Guns N’ Roses are ‘trying’ to make a new record

Slash has confirmed Guns N' Roses are "trying" to make a new album. The 58-year-old guitarist has been busy...

Dua Lipa changes choreography after ‘slipping’ on sweat

Dua Lipa has had to change her tour dances because she keeps "slipping" on her dancers' sweat. The 28-year-old...

New Kids On The Block singer Jordan Knight no longer listens to albums

New Kids On The Block singer Jordan Knight has confessed he no longer listens to albums - despite the boy band veterans...

Willow Smith’s ‘place of healing’

Willow Smith was in a "place of healing" when writing her new album. The 23-year-old singer/songwriter 'Empathogen' record features...

Ronnie Wood’s stepson recalls young drug use

Ronnie Wood’s stepson started taking drugs when he was just nine years old.

Jamie Wood used to help himself to cannabis cigarettes he found around the house after the parties thrown by his mother Jo Wood and her then-husband – who raised him from toddler age – and moved onto cocaine and heroin as a teenager.

He said: "Mum and Dad (Ronnie) used to party a lot and you could always smell cannabis in the house. It would waft up the stairs and when I was nine or ten, I’d run downstairs and find ashtrays full of joints and help myself, then stash them behind the microphones.

"It was part and parcel of my upbringing. Drugs were normal in my family but outside they were demonised — no one would let their children come to my house after school."

Jamie – who overhauled his lifestyle after suffering a heart attack in 2017, aged just 42 – thinks he went off the rails because of his family’s constant travelling.

He said: "’The problem was, I went to 17 different schools in three or four different countries. Whenever I had friends, they suddenly got taken away."

When the family moved to Wimbledon, south west London, Jamie fell in with the wrong crowd and was introduced to harder drugs, but finally felt like he belonged.

He said: "I took heroin and cocaine. I was bad. I was partying hard."

The entrepreneur insisted Ronnie and Jo knew about his drug habits and though he received warnings from the guitarist and his bandmate Keith Richards, no one ever helped him to quit.

He told the Daily Mail newspaper: "Mum and Dad always knew about the drugs but were pretty aware that I was going to make my own decisions.

"I remember being 16 years old when we went on this holiday to Antigua. At this point I was doing drugs every day. I was sitting in my room and I get this knock on my door and it’s Dad, who’s come to chat to me about drugs.

"He said, ‘Do what you gotta do and have fun doing what you do but don’t let the drugs control your life. You control the drugs!’

"Stones band member Keith Richards also was aware of how hard I liked to party. He pulled me aside once and said, ‘Jamie, there is a difference between itching your a*** and tearing it to pieces.’

"I definitely had a few accidental slight overdoses as a kid. Although having plaque build-up in my artery and it causing a heart attack was probably more due to consistent smoking."

Jamie quit hard drugs when he was 20, but continued to use cannabis for many years afterwards, which resulted in friction with Ronnie when the 73-year-old musician got sober a decade ago.

Jamie said: "[Ronnie] went full AA, he liked to preach.

"I got upset with him — the biggest drug-taker in the world was telling me what to do. I didn’t take too kindly to it.

"I did recently apologise and tell him he was probably right and that I was in denial about the cannabis, but I thought he could have handled it better."

Jamie – whose biological father is clothing boss Peter Greene – believes Ronnie and his current wife Sally will offer a much better upbringing to their four-year-old twins Alice and Gracie than he and siblings Jesse, Tyrone and Leah had.

He said: "I’m sure he will do a better job this time round! I’m really happy for Ronnie. Sally is an awesome mum and the twins are great."

Latest Posts

Slash: Guns N’ Roses are ‘trying’ to make a new record

Slash has confirmed Guns N' Roses are "trying" to make a new album. The 58-year-old guitarist has been busy...

Dua Lipa changes choreography after ‘slipping’ on sweat

Dua Lipa has had to change her tour dances because she keeps "slipping" on her dancers' sweat. The 28-year-old...

New Kids On The Block singer Jordan Knight no longer listens to albums

New Kids On The Block singer Jordan Knight has confessed he no longer listens to albums - despite the boy band veterans...

Willow Smith’s ‘place of healing’

Willow Smith was in a "place of healing" when writing her new album. The 23-year-old singer/songwriter 'Empathogen' record features...

Don't Miss

Bruce Dickinson brands Iron Maiden’s concerts ‘a magical ritual’

Bruce Dickinson has described Iron Maiden's concerts as "a magical ritual" that is "almost shamanic". The frontman of the...

Bruce Springsteen opens Kilkenny gig with rousing tribute to Shane MacGowan

Bruce Springsteen surprised gig-goers by kicking off his Kilkenny gig with a moving tribute to his late friend, Shane MacGowan.

U2’s Bono insists Coldplay are ‘not a rock band’

Bono has defended Coldplay and insisted they are not a "rock band". The U2 frontman was interviewed by BBC...

Ariana Grande is back in the studio

Ariana Grande is already back in the studio. The pop superstar has posted a cryptic snap from her "happy"...

Childish Gambino drops penultimate album under stage moniker

Childish Gambino has released the album 'Atavista'. The finished version of his 2020 record, ‘3.15.20’, which comes with the...

Stay in touch

To be updated with all the latest news, offers and special announcements.