Bill Wyman said he still dreams of being on tour with the Rolling Stones, even though he left the band over three decades ago.
And he added that he’d quit two years earlier than official records say he did – and it had taken his colleagues that long to accept his decision.
The Stones will commence a new North American tour tonight (April 28), but 87-year-old Wyman reported he’d be in one of his three homes (two in the U.K. and one in France) when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood hit the stage.
“The weird thing is ever since I’ve left, up until the present day, I still dream I’m on tour, like we’re in a dressing room or we’re in a hotel,” Wyman told the Mirror in a new interview. “I still dream those dreams, and I dream of other friends like David Bowie. They’re all very nice but very confusing.”
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Discussing his departure, Wyman reported: “I left in 1991 – but they would not believe me! They refused to accept I had left. It wasn’t until 1993, when they were starting to get together to tour in 1994, when they said, ‘You have actually now left, haven’t you?’ And I said, ‘I left two years ago.’ They finally accepted it, so they say I left in 1993.”
He explained: “I just had enough. It was half my life and I thought, ‘I have got other things I want to do.’ I wanted to do archaeology, write books, have photo exhibitions and play charity cricket. I used to read about ancient cultures while I was on the road, and take photos as well. I just had this whole other life I wanted to live.”
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An avid collector – especially of memorabilia relating to British cartoon character Rupert the Bear – Wyman said he’d kept a large amount of material relating to his musical career. “I’ve got a library that I created of everything that has happened to me. I wanted to keep an archive of the Stones to show my son I was once in a band.”
And while he and his former colleagues have nothing to worry about in financial terms, he recalled that it wasn’t the same when they started out in 1960. “There was no money for a year or more,” he said. “We used to play gigs for £2… we were a blues band and the blues was not popular. … Those lucrative years came much, much later.
“We first went to America in June, 1964 and nobody had heard of us.”
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
