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It's hard to believe there was a time when the Rolling Stones weren't the world's biggest rock 'n' roll band. But when the fresh-faced group arrived in the United States in 1964, they were almost completely unknown to American audiences. They had released only one single: a cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," with the Lennon-McCartney penned track "I Wanna Be Your Man" as a B-side. Over the next two years, however, the Stones rose to become pop's biggest new band — the racy, sexually charged counterpart to the squeaky-clean Beatles.

The group's tour manager, Bob Bonis, was there to document their ascent, snapping over 2,700 candid photographs of the guys goofing off in the studio, swigging beers by the pool, or dozing off in a hotel room in front of the telly. Those pictures have never been seen — until now. The new book The Lost Rolling Stones Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive, 1964-1966 features many of these rare images, plus a foreword by drummer Charlie Watts. (Historian Larry Marion also wrote and researched the book.)

"We were happy to have him take photographs," writes Watts. "More than forty years after they were taken, seeing ourselves recording at Chess Studios, or rehearsing for The T.A.M.I. show, brings back so many fond memories."

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Keith Richards and Mick Jagger — who have endured a volatile relationship as the creative forces behind the Stones — rehearse at RCA Studios in Hollywood, September 1965.

Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, and Mick Jagger rehearse at Hollywood's RCA Studios, September 1965.

Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, and Keith Richards lounging at a Savannah, Georgia, hotel in May 1965.

Charlie Watts, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, and Bill Wyman tune up before an appearance on the Sixties variety hour The T.A.M.I. Show in 1964.

After their first U.S. tour, the Stones returned to Europe for some West German shows in September 1965. At this one in Munich, Brian Jones was introduced to his future girlfriend Anita Pallenberg, who would go on to leave Jones and have three children with Keith Richards.

Mick Jagger chats with James Brown on the set of the The T.A.M.I. Show. In a testament to the Stones' meteoric rise in the States, Brown opened for the band at this taping in 1965.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards goof off on the lot of a Los Angeles studio in 1965. Richards referred to his bizarre facial expression as a "nanker," where you turn up your nostrils, pull your eyelids down, and make inhuman noises.

Jagger fuels up in a Hollywood studio, September 1965.

Jagger (pretending to be asleep) catches the Stones' 1964 television appearance on The Red Skeleton Hour in the midst of their second U.S. tour.

Keith Richards gives Charlie Watts a trim before an appearance on the television show Hullabaloo in 1965.

Keith Richards and Bill Wyman at an unidentified bowling alley in 1965.

Mick Jagger recording at Hollywood's RCA Studios, September 1965..

The Stones at a promotional shoot in Los Angeles in 1965.