I should have left the Stones ten years earlier

An infamous relationship with teenage model Mandy Smith in the Eighties did little to dispel an image of a guitar-toting, womanising clich many automatically tag to the band's members.

But Wyman really isn't as this would suggest. In fact, his mild-mannered chat and obvious joy of the life he now leads are just the first of many surprises, as he promotes his new album.

Probably the biggest surprise is his main regret. "I think now that maybe I should have left (the Stones) in the early-Eighties instead of the early Nineties. In the early Eighties I had had three top 40 singles in England and a lot of other countries in the world. I had done a movie score, two lots of movie music for Italian films and I was involved in lots of other things."

Other things were under way; a band, Willie and the Poor Boys, was gaining some success, there was a book and an idea for a restaurant. And this varied life is reflected in Wyman's activities now. His latest book, Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey, is due out in the autumn along with an accompanying two-part television documentary.

"I've been able to do things I could never have done otherwise, musically and other projects - books and television things, restaurants, family. There are a lot of things I do now - archaeology, astronomy. I love a variety of subjects and I always have, but I never had time to do them before, until the last eight years."

After leaving the Stones, there followed months of friction with his former band members, but Wyman has now settled into a professional and personal life that obviously makes him very happy, including a second chance at family life.

His son, Stephen, was only eight months old when Wyman joined the Stones and the demands of being in a world-conquering band had a negative effect. "I missed all his childhood and it doesn't seem that important at the time, but it's a very important thing. I missed all those wonderful moments - his first steps, when he first started to talk. But, you've got a career to do, as most people have."

However, since marrying designer Suzanne Acosta in 1993, he has been able to learn from his mistakes in his dealings with his three daughters Katharine, six, Jessica, five, and Matilda, three. "I was able to do all these things with my three daughters, I had a second chance."

And his relationships with the Stones members are better than ever.

"Charlie came round for tea yesterday," he says. "I see Mick a lot, I see Woody a lot. I don't see Keith much because he lives in America and I don't travel that far much. I've jammed with Mick and Woody in the last couple of months, and Dave Stewart."

But before rumours of a reunion start, he quickly adds: "There is no possibility of me rejoining, because I'm not interested in that, but we stay friends on a different level. That's pretty healthy and I think we probably get on better than we ever did."

It wasn't until two years after leaving the Stones that he decided to get back into music. "I just didn't want to know anything about music. I had done it for 31 years with the Stones and for three or four years before that - 35 years was enough."

So when he came back to music, it was a case of finding something different. Gathering a band around him, he started playing old songs, regardless off their history, and Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings were born.

When the first album was a success, it was a surprise to Wyman and his record company grew from there.

The new Rhythm Kings double album, Double Bill, was recorded in eight days, a rare achievement.

"It's unheard of in this day and age. But with this band I can do that, because the musicians are so talented."

Many of the tracks were completed in the first or second takes, leading to a recording filled with the enthusiasm of a band playing a new song. "If you are a musician, you do have fun playing a song for the first couple of times. We always cut very quickly and that comes across on the record."

Guest musicians on the album include George Harrison and Chris Rea, who join an already accomplished line-up.

The last album went to number one in the jazz and blues chart, making somewhere in the 50s in the national charts, something Wyman believes is a big achievement without radio airplay. "That's something to make you think there are people out there who really want to hear something like this and they can't on the radio."

The album itself is "pretty much what we've done on our past three CDs - a mixture of music, mostly roots music from the Twenties upwards to the present day. Well, to the Seventies anyway. I've got four great singers in my band, all singing different styles so I can cover about eight different styles of music, which is very pleasant. You've really got to have the right people for it. I can cover blues, jazz, everything - soul, gospel - and it's really nice to do something like that in this day and age. Of course, we get no airplay, but, still..."

Wyman is more than content to step back into the scene he loved before the Stones became a stadium band, playing smaller, more atmospheric venues. "It's just a joy to play small places again like we did when we began. We all played little clubs, pubs, little venues. The biggest we do now are small concert halls, up to 2,000 people. They are right close up to you and it's like the old days. You get an atmosphere in the place and it's all sweaty and a lot of fun."

Live performance in general is still a huge pleasure to Wyman, who obviously delights in the musicians surrounding him, such as Georgie Fame and Terry Taylor. "It's such a pleasure to do it, because of the variety of music. That's why we are so appealing when we do our live shows. It's great to play live and you are always surprised because everyone plays great and I think the audience are surprised because of the quality of musicianship."

Wyman's first gig was before his Rolling Stones days, at London's Starlight Ballroom in 1961. "I played bass through a tape recorder because I didn't have an amplifier. You just managed with what you had, the same as old blues people did - they made their own instruments. You just had to get what was available. That's a great inspiration."

As he talks eloquently and intelligently, you realise just how different the real Bill Wyman is from the stereotype rocker.

"It wasn't until I started doing interviews when I had that hit with Rock Star (Si Si, Je Suis Un Rock Star, 1981), interviewers and people on television and radio were suddenly saying 'Oh, you do speak, then' and 'You've got a sense of humour, I didn't know that' because I never did interviews - it was always Mick or Brian in the early days and then Mick and Keith. Me and Charlie used to sit at the back and talk about football or whatever. It was only when people first started talking to you they realised you were a different person to what they anticipated."

* The new Rhythm Kings double album, Double Bill, is out this week on Papillon Record