UNDER no circumstances, I am informed shortly before our interview begins, may I ask Bill Wyman, founder member of the Rolling Stones, about his career with the Rolling Stones. That's unless the question relates directly to Wyman's photographs, which have been worked over by a series of artists for a new exhibition. The photographs are of the Rolling Stones.

Perhaps because my response to this is not as cool, calm and collected as it should have been, the interview takes place with the unusual situation of Wyman, not only the Stones' former bassist but also the celebrated author of Rolling With the Stones and Stone Alone, chatting away while his manager, the gallery owner and its press officer hover over us, presumably to cart me off at the first mention of Mick Jagger.

In the event, Wyman turns out to be a cheerful soul who is perfectly happy to talk about his time in the band that made him famous. It would be hard not to. His photographs, which have been worked on by the cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and the portraitist Pam Glew among others, are evocative, intimate portraits of life inside the most mythologised rock'n'roll phenomenon of all time.
"I'd be taking pictures constantly," says Wyman as we pass through his catalogue of images, which capture Brian Jones looking tired in the back of a taxi, Keith Richards stripped to the waist and shadow-boxing, and Mick Jagger in a fedora, pensive and uncertain. "Mick would say, 'Knock it off, Bill, for Christ's sake'," he says. "They got sick and tired of it. Charlie (Watts) was always very sweet."

At the time of the interview, the artists working on Wyman's photography were yet to complete their pieces, but a similar exhibition featuring reworkings of Terry O'Neill's photographs give us an idea of what to expect. Pam Glew overlaid O'Neill's famous portrait of Terence Stamp and Jean Shrimpton with a bleached-out Union Jack, while the ballpoint artist James Mylne highlighted and emboldened a photograph of Sean Connery as James Bond. "I've been a friend of Terry's for 30 years, and when I saw what all these artists had done to his photos I couldn't believe it," Wyman says. "I told him it was great. So he had a word with the gallery about my photographs. That's how it came about."

It marks a burgeoning interest in art that began when Wyman, with the rest of the Rolling Stones, became a tax exile in southern France in 1971. "I wasn't the slightest bit interested in art when I was a kid, but I started making friends with the great artists in France, including Chagall and Cesar," he says quietly. "Artists dedicated things to me in books. Chagall used to send me hand-painted new year's cards."

Wyman has been taking photographs obsessively ever since he got his first proper camera in 1966. "I take pictures all the time. I might take a picture of a lady sitting with her little boy in the park. Having a picnic." Wouldn't this lady wonder why Bill Wyman is taking a picture of her?

"I always take them from a distance, so generally I get away without them seeing me. I only get objections in places like Morocco and Fiji, where they think you're stealing their soul. Strange stuff like that."

Wyman hardly ever takes photographs of people looking at the camera. "It's the best way," he says, pointing at a picture of Keith Richards larking about in a farmhouse during rehearsals in 1981. "See? Not looking at me." He turns the page. "Not looking at me. When people are aware of you, they change."

We come to a picture of Brian Jones, thoughtful and engaged in an LA recording studio in 1966. "Brian was either a sweetheart or a bit of a nightmare, but I really liked the guy," says Wyman, the only Stone apart from Charlie Watts to attend Jones's funeral in 1969. "What he put into those early records was amazing. At Olympic Studios there would be all these instruments lying around and he would find a dulcimer or a glockenspiel and use it on the next track, turning a mundane song like Ruby Tuesday into something special. He was very talented until drugs took over -- as they do."

Elsewhere there are pictures of Jagger, Richards and Watts staring out of tour buses and sitting in hotel rooms, and they reveal a side of rock'n'roll life rarely highlighted: the boredom. Under one sharp image of a smiling Charlie Watts is the line the drummer used to describe 25 years in the Rolling Stones: "Five years of work and 20 years of hanging around." Does Wyman agree?

"That's what it's like. You have two days of flying in a plane to the town, getting off at the airport, limousines, the hotel, you've got kids on the landing so you can't leave your room, and you sit around watching TV because that's all there is to do. I used to take photos of the rooms. You do the gig and for two hours on stage it's fantastic, but then you go back to the hotel and you're bored to death. You come down in the morning and the whole thing happens all over again."

Besides taking photographs and keeping a diary, Wyman had another way of dealing with the boredom of life in the Rolling Stones: table tennis.

"I beat the Spanish ex-champion without knowing who he was. I played John McEnroe." How did that go? "He beat me 26-24. I said, another round? He said no."

It turns out that this is merely one of a long list of Wyman's achievements. "My interests are varied, I don't know if you know that. I've written seven books. I've got my own band. I did charity cricket for 12 years with Eric Clapton and all those people. I took a hat-trick at the Oval." He reels them off in unwavering monotone. "I've got my restaurant, Sticky Fingers, which still has the best burgers in town. I found 300 coins on a Roman site they never knew was there. I got the very first Apple computer in England in 1979. I work morning, noon and night. I only take breaks for the toilet, cups of tea and dinner. My feeling is that I'd better get it done while I can."

It's all very impressive, not least because Wyman is 76, but there is one achievement we haven't talked about. In November Wyman joined his old band for their 50th anniversary concerts in London, for the first time since leaving in 1992. How was it to play Honky Tonk Women and It's Only Rock'n'Roll (But I Like it) with his old band again?

"It was fun . . . in a way," he says, his changing inflection denoting reservation. "In December 2011 Keith called and said, 'Come on mate, why don't you have a jam with us?' Then they asked if I'd be interested in getting involved in the band for special occasions. I thought I would get quite heavily involved, so when they said they only wanted me to do two songs I was a bit disappointed. I only had one rehearsal and no sound-check, so I winged it. It was great, but I didn't want to go to America for two songs."

If we're not meant to be talking about the Rolling Stones, somebody forgot to tell Wyman. We come to a handful of photographs taken during Rock and Roll Circus, the Stones' BBC project from 1968, which wasn't released until 1996. "Mick didn't like it."

An interview that wasn't allowed to be about the Rolling Stones has rarely strayed from the subject. Wyman's time as the bassist in the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world is simply too big a shadow to crawl out from.
The Times

[www.theaustralian.com.au]

Yeah I need a press secretary to deal with difficult situations...

Client - "Excuse me, but I'd like to talk about our current project."

Manager - "Uhm, we're not fielding questions on your project today."

as we all know Bill was far from bored on the road.

Great read, thanks for sharing it.

"Wyman Wins Wimbledon!"...the headline from 1966 that never happened because Mick and Keith liked Bill's amps.

It's always good to have Bill's perspective, whether you agree with it or not. He's the one responsible for restoring a bit of humanity to Brian's image. Bill also strays from the company line, which is always healthy. Sure, he comes off as a bit insecure, but then again I've always liked him because he seems the most real. He performed that Ringoesque task of humanizing the group, especially with the three bouffants of Brian, Mick & Keith up front. And with all the accolades coming the groups way, Bill was an afterthought, even though many in the know understood what a massive talent he really was on bass.