Ronnie Wood: I helped raise Ronson

Ronnie Wood was astounded when Mark Ronson made it big, as he recalls him as a little boy who used to sit on his lap.

The Rolling Stones rocker is good friends with Mark's father Laurence Ronson and spent a great deal of time with the superstar DJ when he was growing up.

He's delighted with how well Mark has done, although Ronnie has a hard time accepting the 36-year-old is now grown up.

"I helped raise him! Me and his dad Laurence used to stay up late round at Laurence's house and this little kid would be on the stairs. We'd be playing music and getting high and the little kid would clocking it, and it was little Mark," Ronnie recalled. "Years on down the road there was this huge star, good-looking guy, and it turned out to be little Mark! 'Come and sit on my lap', it used to be."

Ronnie's problems with alcohol and drugs have been highly publicised and he has completed many stints in rehab.

He began working with The Rolling Stones in the early 70s, joining the band properly in 1976 following the break-up of his previous group Faces.

The 64-year-old musician was actually asked to be in The Rolling Stones several years before, but feels lucky he didn't know about the offer.

"They rang up once when I was rehearsing with The Faces in Bermondsey [UK], and [Faces member] Ronnie Lane picked up the phone and said, 'No, Ronnie's quite happy where he is'. Five years later I found out... I wasn't ready for it though, I'd have been a junkie or OD-ed or something," he told British newspaper The Independent.

Ronnie went on to explain why he thinks he made it through drug addiction alive. Although he used to take illegal substances he claims he never fully gave in to them.

"I had a kind of cut-off switch. People would be teasing you, 'Come on, have some more,' and I'd pretend to take the pill and throw it away. They would carry on and bl**dy end up in hospital but I always had the sense in the back of my mind, no matter how out of it I was, of the body's ceiling," he explained.