2013
Give me one more shot
2013
Give me one more shot
January 7, 2013: The DVD/Blu-ray of the documentary film Crossfire Hurricane| Keith Richards & Mick Jagger (January 2013): On being nominated for best live act at the Brit Awards
Keith:
Onstage is where we belong. When I’m up there with Mick, Charlie and
Ronnie, everything is rocking, so a big thanks to Brit fans and the
Brits nom! |
| Mick Jagger (January 2013): If you start me up...
We're
not gonna do (the) Coachella (festival), because it's too early. There
was a rumour we were gonna do that one, but it's very early, Coachella.
It's April or something, isn’t it? And we're not gonna be ready to go
by April. But we're not gonna stop. |
| Mick Jagger (January 2013): The Stones at the Glastonbury festival?
Well, I'm just looking at what offers are coming in for this year and sorting them out. I hate announcing things when they're not booked. People are always like, Yakety yak, you didn't do that in the end, and I say, Well, yeah, we never really announced it! All I'm doing at the moment is sifting through the possibilities, looking at the dates and how each one can fit in and so on. And then we'll see what we can come out with. There are other things in the world, you know, apart from Glastonbury! But then again, Glastonbury is very important. It seems to be very important to my children – highlight of their year! But is it going to be rainy on the Sunday? Isn't it nearly always rainy on the Sunday? |
| Mick Jagger (February 2013): Prince Rupert Loewenstein spilling the beans Call me old fashioned, but I don't think your ex-bank manager should be discussing your financial dealings and personal information in public. It just goes to show that well brought-up people don't always display good manners. |
| Ron Wood (February 2013): Let's get cracking! Wouldn't it be nice (to play Glastonbury?)... We've got a meeting next month and that's going to be my first question to them. It's something I've always been interested in. I'm going to twist their arms. I've got lots of high hopes this year, now that we're all rehearsed - let's get it cracking this summer. |
| Ron Wood (February 2013): Rehearsals in April I have four big paintings to finish before the end of April, when we start rehearsing again. |
| Bill Wyman (February 2013): The short-lived reunion with the Stones It was fun in a way... I thought I would get quite heavily involved, so when they said they only wanted me to do two songs I was a bit disappointed. I only had one rehearsal and no sound-check so I just winged it. It was great, but I didn't want to go to America for two songs. I think they understood. Well, Charlie Watts did! |
| Ron Wood (February 27, 2013): Hoping for Glastonbury Keep your eye out because you know I want to do some more (live shows) and I know that the boys do too. I want to do (Glastonbury) badly, but I've no idea yet... I know we're the best live, so I just hope we get it. |
| Charlie Watts (March 2013): Mellowed Stones There's no sort of going to bed at five in the morning. It's quite normal to wander down the corridor and go to bed at 5:00 in the morning when you're young. None of us do that. We try to do it, but by 2 AM we're (gone)... 'We are exactly the same really, as people, except we're mellower. We don't really hang out a lot together, we never have done, except in the very early days when we kind of lived together. |
| Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood & Charlie Watts (March-April 2013): Glastonbury confirmed Mick: Can’t wait to play Glastonbury. I have my wellies and my yurt! Keith: We all had such a ball last year, and the energy between the band is so good. We can’t wait to play Glastonbury, see you on a summer’s day in England! Ron: I've been using all my persuasive charm on the boys for a few weeks now. Really pleased to be doing it. Can't wait to be getting out on that stage at Worthy Farm. Charlie: I don't want to do it. Everyone else does. I don't like playing outdoors, and I certainly don't like festivals. I've always thought they're nothing to do with playing... But that's me, personally. When you're a band...you do anything and everything. But Glastonbury, it's old hat really. I never liked the hippie thing to start with. It's not what I'd like to do for a weekend, I can tell you... The worst thing playing outdoors is when the wind blows, if you're a drummer, because the cymbals move... it really is hard to play then. |
| Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (April 2013): 50 & Counting: Part 2 Mick: 50 & Counting has been pretty amazing so far. We did a few shows in London and New York last year and had such a good time that we thought Let's do some more. It's a good show. Lots of the classic stuff everyone wants to hear … with a few little gems tucked in here and there. The stage is shaped like lips and goes off into the venue so I get to run around in the crowd. It's great fun to be able to get that close to the audience. Keith: From day one at rehearsals it sounded so fresh. You could tell that everybody was dying to get their teeth into it. It was like Open the gates, let us out! 'Cause man, it is the life and blood of us to play in front of people. |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): Running the rehearsals We let Mick call the shots up to a point and then either Ronnie, Charlie or me might say, Hey, but don't forget this or let's take this down a notch and tempo. 'So it's a sort of free for all, but I mean basically Mick calls the shots, because as I say we're working with a front man here and he's got to feel comfortable. 'Rehearsals are about Mick feeling really, really comfortable that the band is right there - no matter what he does and that's what we do, we jump around like a safety net.. |
| Charlie Watts (April 2013): The driving force Well, you wouldn't do it if Mick didn't want to do it. You've got to have Mick and Keith, but the driving force is Mick. If he's enthusiastic, he'll push everyone along. Keith's much more laidback about it. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): Controlling the performance addiction I think people do generally get addicted to being on stage. It's like an adrenaline high that's what attracts you to performing really, the high of performing. 'But I think as you go on, you can, control it a bit better. So I like to think that I'm not addicted to it, but I'm not sure if that's a 100 per cent true. |
| Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts & Keith Richards (April 2013): A new Rolling Stones album in the near future? Mick: It would be nice to have a new album, but people don't like the new album when you play it on stage (laughs). They glumly look at you. OK, it will be over in a minute. It's not a good excuse, but it's the truth and has to be said. I have a lot of songs and I’d love to do some more recording with the band. But we’re going to get through the tour first and then see what happens... I'm working all the time, doing songs and writing. I hope there will be another Stones album. It would be good if there was. Charlie: There's nothing yet. I've lost track with the record industry world, I don't get it any more. It's gone beyond me. The last single I thought was very good, but things don't mean anything any more. They're just tacked on the end of a reissue – and that ends up selling more than a new album... People say you need a new album out when you go on tour. Well, we did that on our last tour, and I don't know if the record sold. I suppose, as Mick says, it gives us something different to play on stage. It's not Brown Sugar again. Keith: The time to record a band is once they've been on the road a while so they're hot. We'll think about that while we're doing this. The world needs more Stones records. So do I. |
| Charlie Watts (April 2013): The short tour It's a very short tour for us. It's only 18 shows. It's nothing. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): The scalpers I’m very much against the secondary ticket market. I don’t know anyone who isn’t. We have a lot of secondary market problems in the U.K., it’s really bad there. And lots of artists are starting to participate in it, because they put the tickets up at a certain price, then the tickets get marked up by the secondary sellers and someone else gets twice as much as you. Personally, we don’t participate in it. That’s the view we take. I think it should be illegal, and in the U.K. it would be very easy to stop it. It’s a very concentrated operation you could stop immediately. It’s a bigger problem in the U.S., more difficult to contain, but they don’t even try. It should be made completely illegal. If people don’t like it, don’t complain to the artists. Each state should make secondary reselling illegal. |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): Mick Taylor for the 50th I don't know how much the guys really think about (the 50th anniversary). At the same time, you realize that the big 5-O does put a certain spin on things. Probably one of the reasons that Mick Taylor is going to be along with us is because we just thought it should be a bit of a celebration of any Stones that still want to join in... There are usually four, five, six guitar parts on the records. To have a third cat with us who knows the stuff, it's going to be interesting... (T)o have Mick Taylor there as well, it just gives us a chance to maybe make the stage show sound a little bit more like the records. |
| Keith Richards & Charlie Watts (April 2013): The last time? Keith: Do you know how many times that one's been asked? Who knows, honey? If the guys are flying and rocking and everybody feels good, I don't see why they wouldn't do 51 and Counting, 52... But at the moment, we're well aware that we're getting up there. Charlie: You do now seriously have to look at your age, because if this goes on for another two years, I'll be 73. But I say that at the end of every tour. And then you have two weeks off and your wife says, Aren't you going to work? |
| Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (April 2013): Part 3 in the fall? Mick: Not that I'm going to talk about this afternoon! But (laughs) looking forward to (this tour) and then might have a bit of a summer holiday, after Glastonbury. And see what happens in the autumn... (It)’s helpful to do these things in bite-size pieces, so you’re not feeling there’s this dreadful endless thing of being on the road. Keith: I'm not saying there won't be but if I had (information) I'm told not to talk about it! (laughs) There's always surprises with the Stones... With the Stones, it's kind of like a juggernaut. Once it gets rolling, you never know quite where it's going to end up. But I see these nine dates as a promising beginning. (Let's) leave an air of mystery about it... |
| Bill Wyman & Mick Jagger (April 2013): A short-lived reunion Bill: It was great for five minutes because that's about as long as they let me play. I thought I was going to get quite heavily involved because I was led to believe that throughout the year by them. Keith in particular made me think that I would be a large part of it but when it came to it they told me they only wanted me to do two songs. It was fun but I regretted not playing more... When they asked me to go to America for two weeks to do three shows there, I said for two songs? No thank you. We still have a relationship. We send Christmas and birthday presents. They are like family. Jerry Hall is a great friend of my wife's and all the kids knew each other growing up. Our lives are still intertwined but it's social - it's not business any more... Although I am involved in business with them because all the projects they do usually involve me so I'm always asked for historical information. Mick: I'm not trying to punish him (by having had him play only two songs)! I was very happy to see him. I don't know, really, what he wanted, to be honest. |
| Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (April 2013): The Twins in 2013 Mick: I've found Keith to be pretty hardworking and friendly, so it's been going OK. Keith: We've come to an understanding. It's a perfectly balanced brotherhood.... Obviously, we wouldn't be working together if there wasn't a smooth relationship. Brothers fight like cats and dogs and then everything's smooth. It's smooth right now. |
| Keith Richards & Mick Jagger (April 2013): The Stones at 70 Keith: (W)e have to pace ourselves a bit. Of course age comes into play. But if you've got a frontman like Mick Jagger, and he's raring to go, let's go... Physically, these guys, you can't really knock 'em. It's all skin and bone and muscle. There's not a lot to go wrong. Mick: If I'm going to do this really well, I have to do quite a lot of preparation. I have to do things vocally, and things physically. Because it's quite a physical show. You have to build up to that . . . you can't really burn a candle at both ends for that tour period. Or, at least, I can't. It's really boring. Honestly, for athletics, it must be hell. They're doing 10 times what I'm doing. I like going out and having a good time but you can't do much while you're preparing for a show. I'm quite serious about it. You have to be physically fit, mentally alert, vocally strong. It's dull and repetitious. The only thing I enjoy is the dance rehearsal. I rent a dance studio and loon around in it. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): Rock & roll vs. blues on a chair (Muddy Waters) only (sat on a chair onstage at the end of his career) because he got into a car crash. If you watched Muddy at Newport, he was all over the stage... One remembers him, as Keith says, as the guy in the chair, but he really wasn't that a lot of his career. But you know, rock and roll is different than the blues. It's not the same thing at all. Blues played in a chair is fine, but rock and roll is not really meant to be played in a chair. (Will there come a time when I will do that?) Probably not. I don't think so. I might do it to amuse myself, but I don't see it happening. But then you never know what's going to happen to you, do you? |
| Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (April 2013): A world tour? Mick: We've got lots of other possibilities in the rest of the world, but we haven't booked anything. And we don't really have a big stadium stage at the moment. We could get one. Keith: I wouldn't want to push the band too hard. But I would like to see 'em maybe get round the world one more time... (We chose an arena tour) so for once we're not subjected to nature's wonders. The band feels we can do a better show indoors in a controlled environment. That's not always true. The ambiance of outdoor shows and that sense of chance — what's God going to throw at you, wind, rain or sleet — adds to a certain connection with the audience that you don't necessarily get indoors. |
| Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (April 2013): Fans' wishes and the setlist Mick: I worry a lot. You see that post, I hope they do Wild Horses, and then we do some obscure ballad, perhaps not brilliantly. Then you see, It was really good, that obscure ballad, but actually I wanted them to do Wild Horses. We have so many ballads and we only do a couple in a show. I do think we'll do one or two obscurities. Keith: It’s a good question. We kind of throw all the songs in a pot, in a way. For the last shows, for instance, because it was so obviously a 50th (anniversary), we decided to throw in a few much earlier things than we would normally do. This has widened up our thing, and we can carry on doing that. And also be a little bit more experimental on the setlist side. It’s sometimes difficult to get Mick to change a groove once it’s good and once it’s hooked. I’d like to throw in three or four different songs at least a show in different places. But at the same time the show develops during rehearsals. Since I’m not going to be rehearsing until next Monday you’ll have to wait and see what happens (laughs). |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): Ticket prices: the Stones are not out to soak you It’s the price of living and it’s the state of the economy. Actually, we’ve taken a deal on this tour which is substantially lower than another one we were offered. We’re not out to soak people, for Christ’s sake. It’s just what it costs to put it on and to pay everybody and to make a profit. It’s a business, but after all these years I don’t think anybody seriously thinks that the Stones are out to soak you. |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): Evolution and rock stars The weak will fall by the wayside and the good ones will always be remembered. A lot of guys get up there because they want to play for the people; it's up to the people whether they want those guys to stick around or not. We have several generations behind us now, which is quite amazing, and maybe well worth me remembering to say when I reach the gates of purgatory. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): He's so cold! I think it's kind of cliché, really. People like to pop-analyze others, put them into boxes and say, Oh, Keith's so passionate, and Mick's cold and dispassionate. People aren't like that in real life. Keith can be as cold and dispassionate as almost anyone I know. I don't mean that as a criticism, because you have to be sometimes. People have different natures. Talking about yourself as a person, not just as part of a band, I don't know where to separate or not. I have to be analytical sometimes, outside of music, then I have to be feeling as well. I have to see other people's points of view. If I'm talking business with someone, I try to see their point of view. You step back and analyze it. You don't need to be emotional with these things. But that doesn't mean that I'm not passionate about the musical side of it. I can be really emotional about it. You have to be all things at once. I get very excited about designing stage sets and things like that, graphics and merchandise. I work sometimes with Charlie on them, and we get very excited about these things. I have lots of different roles within the Rolling Stones, and then I have roles outside of the Rolling Stones that have nothing that have nothing to do with the Rolling Stones at all. So I don't want to be pigeonholed that I'm one thing. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): Mick and the Family Stones My relationship with my brother is a brotherly relationship, and it's nothing at all like my relationship with Keith, which is more like someone you work with, completely different. With a brother, you have parents in common. You have families in common. We don't have that, Keith and I. We work together. It's nothing to do with it being a brotherly relationship. I suppose if you didn't have a brother you might say that it was like being a brother. But being in a band is another kind of relationship... (I)f you work with someone for that long, it makes a lot of bonds, it makes a lot of memories and things you can relate to from your past. Oftentimes, when you have long relationships with people, you have reference points that you can evoke, if you wish. You have relationships with everyone in the band, and then also you have relationships with people in the periphery of the band, so it's a very large kind of group. But it isn't a family. |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): The Stones and the Twins in 2013 Sometimes I'd look at it and say, This damn band is broken – but not unfixable. But none of us, not me or anybody else, ever discarded it in the junkyard, but it was like, Yeah, it's a bit broken, and it'll take a bit of work to, you know, to get it into shape again. That's what we've done the last year, is we've knocked the thing back into shape and into far better shape than I'd hoped for. We know we're damn good and we have some weird desire to make it better. Everybody's still here, which is obviously an important ingredient. With any band that has been around, even for a few years, not everybody likes everybody all the time. But maybe you have a need for that conversation to continue, and music is the one way you can do that. It's stronger than any of the other things that can get in the way. It would be a miracle, wouldn't it, in 50 years for two guys to get along, let alone three or four? At the same time, I don't want to overemphasize the differences between Mick and me, because that's all you hear about. You never hear about the 98% of the time that we're pretty much in sync and know each other and know what we want to do. But my main communication is through music. Call it a gentlemen's agreement, or something like that. It's unspoken and it's unsaid, but I do notice that once we start working, then a lot of the sort of barriers or whatever you want to call them do tend to disappear. |
| Mick Taylor (April 2013): Back in the fold I didn't realize how much I missed being with them until we played again, to be honest. Once I got on the stage, I felt completely at home and very much in my element. |
| Ron Wood (April 2013): Drug-free weaving It's some kind of magic, the reassurance of the clarity that I now have. I find that I'm playing far less now, but the stuff that I do play has far more meaning. That's the big reward. We all see it, especially in the rapport with Keith. He and I have this kind of unwritten thing of, 'Yes, that's what we've been trying to say, rather than eyes down and meet you at the end, the way it used to be – drug-fueled. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): The luminosity Why do the Rolling Stones endure? I always say, because they're successful. Because people still like them. However much we might like to do it for ourselves, if nobody wants to see you, then we probably wouldn't do it. But you ask me what we mean to ongoing and changing audiences, I don't know what we mean. I haven't got a clue. I do think our sort of longevity, standing up for being long-lived, rather than being any good – I'm not saying we're not any good – but that longevity adds an extra sort of layer to the appeal. Adding a patina to the piece of old furniture. Because you've been around for 50 years, it does add this kind of . . . this luminosity, if you want. But in some ways, it's a kind of a disadvantage, because then you're tempted to rely on it, you know? |
| Charlie Watts (April 2013): Mick onstage Mick is the best frontman going.... Being out there, he's the best. He takes it deadly seriously, as well; he keeps himself together. He looks great – everything you could want. |
| Kim Ritzer, Green Valley High School Choir director (May 2013): High schoolers join the Rolling Stones onstage When I announced it to the kids, I think their parents were more excited than they were because some of them didn't even know who The Rolling Stones were. |
| Keith Richards (April 2013): Twin love Mick and I can get there, and it usually happens via music. There's moments when you realize, God, man, I love you, baby. That can happen onstage a lot. I watch Mick and I'm still astounded. I have to watch out that I don't become the audience from behind, because when he pours it on, he still amazes me. That's another reason I love to do this. |
| Mick Jagger (April 2013): Still in the same key When I'm onstage, I'm not just singing. I want to do a performance, as well, so that's waving my arms around and running around, and I'm dancing. That takes 50 % of your breath power, so my challenge is how to balance that with my vocals. You don't want to be out of breath when you do the ballads. That's the kind of balancing act. I have things that I can do at home for keeping my voice together. I do karaoke singing, and I write songs a lot, and I do demos and sing them. I'm very lucky, in a lot of ways, because – I'm not trying to sound bigheaded – I do all the Rolling Stones songs in all the same keys as they always were in, so my higher end is still there, maybe better than it was, because I don't smoke anymore and I don't drink as much and whatever. |
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