The Rolling Stones have “cut back” on their backstage rider requests.
The legendary rock’n’roll band’s longtime bass player, Darryl Jones, 62, has been performing with the ‘Start Me Up’ group since the nineties, and he says they no longer have big asks for their backstage area, such as huge gaming rooms, but there is still plenty of food to chow down on, including 80-year-old guitarist Keith Richards’ favourite, the humble shepherd’s pie.
Darryl – who replaced Bill Wyman, 87, after he retired in 1993 – is quoted by the Daily Star newspaper’s Wired column as saying: “It’s changed over time, there used to be a huge snooker room.
“They would make a room out of curtains and things.
“We had the banks of video racing games, where you sit, that was around for a while.
“They kinda cut back on that stuff now.”
He added: “Keith still has what he loves, shepherd’s pie. There’s so much food backstage, me and the keyboard player have our own rider.”
Meanwhile, Metallica were allegedly told not to look at frontman Sir Mick Jagger when they supported the Stones.
The heavy metal legends were the special guests at two of the legendary rock’n’roll band’s concerts at Oracle Park in San Francisco in 2005, where a personal assistant allegedly told the ‘Nothing Else Matters’ rockers to not make any eye contact or talk to the 80-year-old music legend.
Speaking on an episode of the podcast ‘Club Random with Bill Maher’ last year, drummer Lars Ulrich recalled: “So we’re sitting backstage, and – and this is in no way a judgment on the Stones, this is really more about us – at one point a personal assistant or whatever comes and says, ‘Mick Jagger’s gonna walk through here in a couple minutes, he’s going over to his private gym in his truck, and he’s going to warm up before the show. When he walks through here, please don’t make eye contact with him or talk to him.'”
Mega Stones fan Lars, 60, was devastated that he couldn’t speak to his heroes and was only allowed a photo opportunity with Mick and co before going on stage.
He said: “I had dreams, like, I thought, we’re gonna play with The Rolling Stones and you know where I’m gonna spend my whole time, is in Keith Richards hotel room, sitting at one of those legendary parties ’til nine o’clock in the morning: I’ll be the last one to leave! It wasn’t exactly like that.”
The Rolling Stones will kick off their latest tour, in support of ‘Hackney Diamonds’, in North America in April.