LONDON - Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father's ashes along with cocaine, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool's joke," said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the Rolling Stones.

Doherty declined to say any more about why Richards made the statement in an interview with NME, a pop music magazine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," the 63-year-old guitarist was quoted as saying.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared … It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

On the Net

Rolling Stones: http://www.rollingstones.com/home.php

NME: http://www.nme.com/