Was it a joke or did Keith Richards really get a buzz off dear old dad?

Words were flying Wednesday over a report in British music magazine NME that the Rolling Stones guitarist snorted his father's ashes, cut with cocaine.

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, shown in 2006, says his father's ashes are safely buried under an English oak.
(Associated Press)

Richards is denying it and a Rolling Stones spokesman said the NME reporter misconstrued a joke.

"It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fool's joke," said Bernard Doherty, a spokesman for the British rock band.

On the official Stones website, Richards, 63, has a posting saying Dad is safely planted under a tree.

"The complete story is lost in the usual slanting!" he wrote.

"The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!"

NME isn't so sure. The remark was "no quip, but came about after much thinking" by Richards, it said on its website.

"He didn't offer the information, I had to ask him a couple of questions to get the information out of him," said interviewer Mark Beaumont. "He didn't come straight out with that."

In the interview, Richards was quoted as saying: "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father."

"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.

Richards' explanation of his words?

"I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn't take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide."

With files from the Associated Press