Rolling Stones to start rehearsals

The group celebrate their 50th anniversary next year and guitarist Keith Richards has fuelled speculation they will perform live after admitting they have made plans to work together - though he is unsure if frontman Sir Mick Jagger will be there.

He said: "We're just going to play a little together, because we haven't played for three or four years. You don't necessarily want to rehearse or write anything - you just want to touch bases. That's a good start: me, Charlie [Watts] and Ronnie [Wood]. Mick's welcome, and I'm sure he'll turn up, but right now we just want to get our chops down."

While the 'Brown Sugar' hitmakers have not put any plans for their anniversary in place yet, they are hoping to get out on the road.

Ronnie told Rolling Stone magazine: "I just hope we can perform live. It'd be great to see if that old spark is there."

While Keith - who has a strained relationship with Mick - is unsure if the singer will turn up to rehearsals, the frontman recently revealed he has been writing "a lot" of new material for the band.

He said: "I have been writing a lot for the Stones. I mean, when I write, I go, 'Yeah, that could be a good Stones tune' or, 'That's not really going to work for that'.

"I did some sessions with Charlie recently where I just played some songs I'd written, and of course I wrote more when he was there.

"I'd start making them up, so that was good fun, so we had a really good time doing that."