Charlie Watts "held" the Rolling Stones together.
The Rolling Stones in 1986
The drummer sadly passed away last month at the age of 80 and his bandmates Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood have paid tribute to their late friend, as they remembered the iconic musician for all he was - both on stage and off stage too.
In a tribute to the late musician, Mick said: "Charlie held the band together for so long, musically, because he was the rock the rest of it was built around. He brought this beautiful sense of swing and swerve that most bands wish they could have. We had some really nice conversations in the last couple of years about how all this happened with the band.
"We had a lot of wonderful times apart from playing music together. We used to go and watch cricket. And when we’d get together, we didn’t talk about music. We talked about art, which he knew a lot more about than I did. It’s a huge loss to us all. It’s very, very hard. But we had wonderful times, and Charlie made some wonderful music."
Keith also heaped praise on his good friend for his "incredible sense of humour".
In an interview posted on rollingstones.com, he added: "Charlie had an incredible sense of humour. And my joy was I loved to crack him up. If you could hit that spot, he wouldn’t stop, and it was the funniest thing in the world. He kept that humour to himself unless you sparked it. And then it could be painful to laugh."
And Keith feels he and Charlie bonded over their disdain for "the crassness of showbiz and its demands".
He shared: "The thing that Charlie and I had from day one was we would cringe at the crassness of showbiz and its demands. Charlie would run a mile rather than do a promo. In a way, the difference between Charlie on stage and the person is in the way he dressed."
Tagged in Charlie Watts Keith Richards Sir Mick Jagger