JEFF BECK - BECK: 'NO REGRETS ABOUT TURNING DOWN THE STONES'

BECK: 'NO REGRETS ABOUT TURNING DOWN THE STONES'

Guitar great JEFF BECK will never regret turning down the chance to be a part of the ROLLING STONES - because he'd be dead by now if he had signed up.
Beck and Peter Frampton were on the shortlist to replace Mick Taylor in the band in the mid-1970s, but the Brit decided he couldn't cope with being part of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' group - and declined the offer to be a Stones star.
The vacancy was eventually filled by Ronnie Wood.
Beck tells The Word magazine, "I had this flash that said, 'Don't do it, you'll never get on with Mick and Keith musically because you're heading in a different direction'.
"There's the crossroads. If I'd turned left I'd have been a multi-millionaire Rolling Stone - and dead.
"Not that I wouldn't want to experience some of the things that went on with them but I was into speed and detail and gung-ho playing, and the way they were drinking I just don't think it would have worked. I thought, 'This is a life of booze and women. Who needs that?' So I caught the next plane out."
The new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee also turned down the chance to tour with Jagger a decade later.
He recorded with the singer in the mid-1980s but backed out of his 1988 solo tour.