“Keith still has what he loves: shepherd’s pie”: The Rolling Stones have reportedly “cut back” on their rider requests

Back in the day, The Rolling Stones relished being waited on hand and foot. However, it seems they’ve become far less demanding as they’ve entered into old age.

Speaking to the Daily Star in its Wired column, bassist Darryl Jones reflects on how the group have “cut back” on their rider requests. “It’s changed over time, there used to be a huge snooker room,” he recalls. “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.”

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While the younger, hot-blooded Stones would take advantage of their celebrity status, their requests have reduced in recent years, Jones explains. “Keith still has what he loves: shepherd’s pie,” Jones says. “There’s so much food backstage, me and the keyboard player have our own rider.”

The Stones might be settling down, but that’s not to say they didn’t have strange requests long after their heyday. In an interview with Bill Maher on the Club Random with Bill Maher podcast last year, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich revealed that the band were told not to make eye contact with Mick Jagger when they supported the Stones at two of their Oracle Park shows in San Francisco in 2005.

“So we’re sitting backstage, and – and this is in no way a judgement 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,” Ulrich remembers [per Loudwire].

“I had dreams, like, I thought, we’re gonna play with The Rolling Stones and I’m gonna spend my whole time in Keith Richards hotel room, sitting at one of those legendary parties ’til 9 o’clock in the morning: I’ll be the last one to leave!” he continues. “It wasn’t exactly like that.”

The Rolling Stones will be setting off on their Hackney Diamonds tour later this year. The tour will see the rockers hitting 16 cities across the United States and Canada. Tickets are available through The Rolling Stones’ official website.