We began the 80's in a prison on the island of St Maartens after being caught up in a drug ring whilst just trying to have a holiday. We return home safely and bought a place in Greenwich Village in 1981, on Bedford Street. The madness that we'd known in LA had followed us to New York and Miami, we couldn't shake ourselves loose from it. Part of that is my fault because I have trouble saying no to people. I ended up with a string of dodgy managers as was my norm and lost a load of cash. We still had time for fun though.

On 21 August 1983 my son Tyrone was born. Jo and I were blessed with another bundle of joy, a boy with an extraordinary nature who is calm, beautiful, a great judge of character, a shining light in the Wood clan. We had kids, loads of them, and got married in 1984.

My years in New York were filled with jams of the finest nature. The studio I had built in the basement was like an earthing ground. There was a code that you'd have to tap in at the top of the stairs to get beneath the surface. Once I had tapped that code in and closed the door I could enter my own subterranean world, which often was not a very good thing because I'd get trapped down there with all sorts of unearthly people. Most of the time, though, I was playing with the best. The Stones met in Amsterdam in October 1984 to discuss recording a new album that would be called Dirty Work, and there was obvious real tension in the air between Mick and Keith because Mick was in the middle of doing his first solo album, She's the Boss. I found it really difficult as these two are the spine and organs of the band. The way Charlie sees it, Mick and Keith are not just brothers, they're 'brothers who always disagree.' It took a long while and eventually I managed to drag the two of them into talking again. I was seriously relieved, not just because it meant the band wouldn't have to suffer any more, but also because I know how important those two are for each other and for everyone else.

In December 1985, Mick, Keith, Bill, Charlie and I suffered what could be the most emotional loss that we as a group had ever gone through, when Ian Stewart died at just forty-seven years old. I'm not saying that Brian's death didn't affect them, but Brian was out of the band when he died, and Stu was always very much the heart of the Stones. We weren't touring much and things were touch and go for a while.

Not touring with the Stones for all those years meant I could work with other musicians at my lesiure. I took Keith round to Bob Dylan's house as he had a gig planned. We hoped it would be a worthwhile trip. It was better than that. It was Live Aid. There were 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London, and 92,000 where we played at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, plus 1.5 billion people watching on live television in a hundred countries, all to help raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.

The show closed with Bob Dylan, backed by Keith and me. On the stairs up to the stage, Bob turned to us and said, 'Let's do 'Blowin' In The Wind.'

I said, 'What?' He repeated, 'We'll do 'Blowin' In The Wind,' and by then it was too late to argue with him because we were onstage.

I couldn't believe it because that was the only song of his we hadn't rehearsed.

Right in the middle of the song, one of Bob's guitar strings broke. I saw it, thought fast and took off my guitar and handed it to him, leaving me there in front of all those people, playing air guitar. I reached behind and was handed the broken down remains of an axe that I could busk with a slide on. When we finished our last song we turned around to find to our surprise the entire cast gathered behind us, breathing down our necks.

Straight after my birthday in 1986, I joined Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles in New Orleans for a concert taped at Storyville Hall for an HBO special. Fats, Jerry Lee and Ray each played their biggest hits and then, at the end, everyone joined in and we jammed together. And then came the Bo Diddley. We called ourselves the Gunslingers and spend eighteen months in 1987 and 1988 playing the States, Japan and Europe. The tour was a highlight of the Eighties but when we returned to New York, Jo and I were beginning to get homesick and beginning to get skint again. We were thinking about moving back to England when we were confronted with the seedy, non-glamorous side of New York. We saw, up close, the violent side. We moved home.

The house in Wimbledon was smaller than anything we'd ever lived in, but there was a studio at the end of the garden. That was my hang-out and I spent most of my time there. It was lovely being home. My kids were swamped by family and friends, Jo and I rekindled old friendships and rolled back into London life. Life was sweet and we were welcomed back into open arms. The Stones were called to a meeting at the Savoy Hotel on 18 May 1988 ­ the first time in two years we had all been in the same room. Keith and Mick agreed that it was time to tour again with everything in place, and the tour laid out, we called our usual press conference and announced Steel Wheels putting the Eighties well and truly behind us.