Richards: I snorted my dad's ashes, and they went down well

Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones' guitarist, has claimed he snorted his father's ashes during a drugs binge.

In an astonishing admission that might surprise even his fellow band members, who have become used to his wild and eccentric behaviour, Richards said he could not resist snorting the ashes while high on drugs.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," said the 63-year-old in an interview with NME. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a s***. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

His father, Bert, died in 2002, aged 84.

Richards, described by friends as a wonder of modern science because his body has stood up to so much drug abuse - he was once addicted to heroin and was a very heavy drinker - also spoke about the dangers of drugs and his near-death experience: "It was when someone put strychnine in my dope. It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, 'He's dead, he's dead!', waving their fingers and pushing me about, and I was thinking, 'I'm not dead!'"

An acquaintance recently said he had a "constitution like an ox, he can swallow enough booze to sink a battleship and appear virtually unaffected"; and another once said that only two things would survive a nuclear war - coachroaches and Keith Richards.

The guitarist, however, spoke about life and death: "I've no pretensions about immortality - I'm the same as everyone else - same as you, same as everybody, I'm the same old b*****, just kind of lucky."

He also warned other rock stars not to emulate his fabled drug-taking. "I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he said.

Richards also joked about how he had outlived doctors who had warned him to stop his excesses. "Some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral. The obit columns are of quite an interest to me these days. I don't trust doctors. It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general level, no, I wouldn't trust 'em at all."

Richards predicted that Pete Doherty could be the next drugs casualty - and said that Doherty should leave the supermodel Kate Moss alone. "I don't know the man, all I know is he's pushing his luck and there it is, but so is Kate, who I know very well."

The Rolling Stones will kick off the European leg of their A Bigger Bang tour in June. Earlier this year it was revealed that the Stones earned about £77m a year.

Last year, their touring was interrupted when Richards reportedly fell out of a palm tree while on holiday in Fiji. He underwent brain surgery after the accident. "But that's the way it is," he said. "I mean, s***, Keith Richards has got to do everything once."