They're the kind of character that wants to be in front of the lights, the cameras, the audiences and is generally called a show-off in school, before they become (laughs) anybody, you know. They're out there, you know, with the flashiest clothes or trying to make jokes or talking to girls or whatever... They're the show-offs.
(The
Rolling Stones are) wiry little blokes. They don't look
like much. But
they're as tough as nails, man. They've got energy to
burn, and they know
where to put it now.
I
don't know what the Rolling Stones are. For that you
should talk to someone
else other than me. I don't know what they are. To me,
they're friends
of mine. They are whatever you've read and they're worse
and they're better.
The Stones can get away with whatever they want. They're universals. They're Gods, they ain't even immortals anymore. They're whites makin' black music. Everybody black digs the Stones. Everybody white. And they even got the Chinese and the Mexicans, too. Do ya understan' what I'm talkin' about?
Like
the speed of light in physics, Proust's grandmother in Remembrance
of
Days Past, like Muhammad Ali, Picasso and Einstein,
the Rolling Stones
are the constant against which all others are measured.
They have defined
what a rock band is.
The
whole
thing with the Stones is the groove. They might settle
into a groove,
they might start to get a groove going but what they're
looking for the
whole time is that fuckin' ROLLING STONES groove. It
drives you fuckin'
nutty 'cause they are SO good but they can sound like the
WORST fuckin'
band in the world. Keith can be out of tune, Charlie will
miss a beat,
everyone will play too loud, and Wyman will give up in
frustration. But
when they do get a take, everything converges into one.
Only
rock and roll? The Stones are the proof of the form. When
the guitars and
the drums and the voice come together in those elementary
patterns that
no one else has very quite managed to stimulate, the most
undeniable excitement
is a virtually automatic result. To insist that this
excitement doesn't
reach you is not to articulate an aesthetic judgment but
to assert a rather
uninteresting crochet of taste. It is to boast that you
don't like rock
and roll itself.
I
think the great thing about the Stones is the simplicity
of it - that slightly
ragged rhythm that always sounds like it might fall apart
by the next bar,
but never does. We always have scrappy endings; we play
with a kind of
pulse that fluctuates between being slightly behind and
slightly in front
of the beat, but it swings like that. And it works for us.
I hate bands
that play on eighths or sixteenths; there's no feel there,
nothing seems
to be coming from inside them.
The
Stones present a theatrical-musical performance that has
no equal in our
culture. Thousands and thousands of people go into a room
and focus energy
on one point, and something happens. The group's
musicianship is of a high
order, but listening to Mick Jagger is not like listening
to Jascha Heifetz.
Mick Jagger is coming in on more circuits than Jascha
Heifetz. He is dealing
in total, undefined sensual experience of the most
ecstatic sort. Wagner
was interested in the idea of total art - total effect,
total experience.
The Stones are doing something similar. They have created
something that
is much closer to a complete experience than any other
public entertainment
available. It is compelling and it is very satisfying.
I'm
sure there are people who are better than I am, there must
be, because
I'm not very good. But I don't really care. The Rolling
Stones have never
said they were the best rock and roll band or the
greatest, ever.
When
the Stones come out from under their rock and hit the
touring trail - a
phenomenon that happens, regular as clockwork, every 3
years - what they
do is something that transcends mere music. You don't get
a concert so
much as a rock and roll happening, an electrical storm of
fevered emotions
and jagged - I'm tempted to say Jaggered - nerve ends.
People talk about
the various tours, '69, '72, '75, '78, and now '81, as
milestones. There's
no other band I know, not the Who, not Led Zeppelin, or
the Grateful Dead,
can do this. So maybe the Stones really are the best rock
band in the world.
It depends what you judge them on.
I've
decided that every night there's another world's greatest
rock and roll
band, because one night somebody has an off gig, and some
other shit band
has a GREAT gig. That's one of the great things about rock
and roll - every
night there's a different world's greatest band. We've
been maybe a little
more consistent, for whatever reason, mainly when we're
going together
on a tour and also because we've managed to stick
together. The chemistry
- that's got nothing to do with musicianship. It's got to
do with personality
and characters and being able to live with each other for
20 years.
World's
greatest rock and roll band. And what you realize now is
that they invented
the style, you know. Nobody else can do that style. That
kind of white
blues style, R&B style, as derivative as it seemed in
1965 - Oh,
it sounds just like the Chess studios - well, in
fact, it sounded just
like the Rolling Stones.
(The
greatest
rock and roll band in the world is) just a
stupid epithet.
It just seems too Barnum & Bailey to me - like it's
some sort of circus
act. The first time we heard it said was to introduce us
every night
(note: in 1969). So I used to say, Will you
please not use that
as your announcement? It's so embarrassing. And what
does that mean? Does
it mean the best, the biggest, the most long-lasting? You
know?
They
love music so much. That energy comes from being addicted
to music, that's
the central passion. They have to want to dig playing to
continue and continue
and continue.
When
they walk onstage they're not just musicians, they carry a
lot of history
with them. You see their talent, but you are also watching
that reputation
and they know it. They work hard to live up to it. They
don't slack, they
don't coast, they don't pretend they're big enough so they
don't have to
do much. They go out and give it 110%.
People
overestimate the Rolling Stones. I don't think we're as
good as people
say. Lots of people think we're great but sometimes we're
not. We're a
GOOD band. (Mick
is then asked
which band is better). Ah-ha!
(laughs) There's not many people BETTER!
I'm
not proud of achievements. Pride can come just before a
fall, you know,
and all that. I'm not particularly proud of - some of the
things the Stones
have done have been great, some have been rubbish. That's
the way life
goes. That's the lot - I chose it and I could have sort of
got out of it
at any time. But I'm still in there. And I wouldn't be
there if I didn't...
enjoy it.
Our
strengths are Charlie Watts' drumming, whatever it is
that's made it possible
for us having stayed together, and the fact that we all
ike incredibly
different types of music but can somehow fuse them
together into one thing.
There aren't many drummers like Charlie who can play rock
& roll and
various other things and still swing, which is the basic
thing. That goes
for the rhythm section as a whole.
Most
Rolling Stones albums have been varied... I think it's
really interesting
to play in a band like that. It's not the times... There
is a whole, weird
sort of... What I was trying to explain earlier on is that
we all change
around our instruments, for instance, you know. Like...
apart from the
drums and everything. But, you know, everyone in the band
has a go at something
else. And that you come up with different sounds - like Indian
Girl
compared to Emotional Rescue is very different
- it could
be another band! You know what I mean? I think... I find
that interesting.
And I think that's one of the things about this band which
is... If it
does anything good about it - I think that's one of the
really good things
about it. 'Cause everyone has a go. It's real English
amateurism, really,
when it actually comes down to it... It's always been like
that.
We
are uncapturable live. You gotta be there. The funny thing
is, when you
know you're recording, you can always guarantee that the
Stones will not
deliver. It's typically perverse. Either we try too hard,
or something
went wrong early on, and we're like, Oh, screw it....
That is why
it is live. All you can do is make a recording of it. It's
like movies:
Everybody's getting splattered, blood and bones flying
about. But it all
just sits there on the screen; you can't smell it or taste
it. That's the
difference between the vicarious and the real. You gotta
be there. All
I can say is, buy a ticket - if you can find one (laughs).
I
think the Rolling Stones have always been mostly stable;
they've got a
terrific history, a long tradition. It's very steeped in
all kinds of things.
The Rolling Stones are a very admired band, much copied
and so on. And
very flattering - it always is.
There's a certain chemistry applied to a particular band, as long as they can hold it together, that comes through work. What I'm trying to say is that there's something intangible about the Rolling Stones.
The
Rolling Stones managed to achieve something that is very
difficult. They
create music that is beautiful, exciting, lazy and rude,
all at the same
time.
The
thing with me and Keith is that we just have a go at
things. And sometimes
they work. I mean, analyzing it all after is another
thing; that's for
somebody else to do. We just enjoy playing it, and I just
follow what he's
doing.
The
Rolling Stones are basically a two-guitar band. That's how
we started off.
And the whole secret, if there IS any secret behind the
sound of the Rolling
Stones, is the way we work two guitars together.
On
many contemporary recording sesions, musicians are put in
compartments
to minimize leakage... and the result is a compressed
sound that fills
every niche. Stones records are virtual opposites, roaring
with heavy artillery
but airy and spacious as well. While every sound counts,
the spaces, the
holes, are no less important. The band's raw materials may
be the deceptively
simple basics of rhythm and blues, but with the doubled
parts, the radical
mix, and the air crashing around like a cyclone, the
effect is complex,
even abstract... Rough edges on double guitars may be as
important as seamless
overlaps. An "extra" guitar part - mixed far in the
distance to work on
subsconscious levels - may be as essential as obvious
elements. As co-producer
(credited or uncredited) on virtually every record, Keith
Richards has
proved to be both a master of the bold stroke and a subtle
colorist, evoking
not only the thunder and lightning but also a sky to put
it in. For the
Rolling Stones, atmosphere is everything. For many the
sound and fury of
the band is a transcendental experience. Although the
musicians are gifted,
the songs excellent, and the recordings finely tuned, the
effect is not
so much that of hearing sophisticated technicians
processed through state-of-the-art
technology. It's more like hearing the world's greatest
garage band in
the world's biggest garage.
Ambience...
is one of my favorite things. All the stuff that I cut,
whether it's with
the Stones or the Winos, it's all room sounds. I've got
ten microphones
up in the sky - (waves arms) here, there, bring this one
in, that one.
The room is the important thing... You get a feel. It's
almost instinctive;
it's not something that you can guide technically and say
for sure that
this is going to work. But you can get a feel within five
minutes of walking
around a room:
Is
that
a big enough space? Is the ceiling high enough? You give a
couple
slaps to hear where the echo returns, where it returns
from, and how quickly
it
returns. No room should defeat a band.
(The
Stones' music) has such strong sexual connotations. It's
basically music
to fuck to.
(My
music is not about precision). It's about chaos. I suppose
it reflects
my life and probably everybody else's. Nothing hits you
quite where you
expect it. But you've got to hold it together, right? It's
very hard to
explain, but I try to do the same thing with the lyrics
that I do to the
music - a juxtaposition that kind of slams you the wrong
way here, and
then suddenly it's in the right place. It's just like
life. Nothing happens
quite when you think it's supposed to or when you want it
to, but when
it does, you've got to roll with it.
It took years and ultimately it took playing music with the Rolling Stones, actually playing bass with them just during the sessions and between songs and everything like that, to understand what goes on in that band. The Rolling Stones, they really listen to each other. They're quick to react, as they are in conversation. It's a highly conversational band. The exchange musically between the players, it's jocular and it's loose and it's quick. Just as their conversational répartée is like that, so is their playing. And whatever goes on interpersonally between any of them, I believe it evaporates when they start playing. And they're loose. It reminds me so much of Miles Davis. Miles Davis was the jazz example, that band that he had around (the early '70s) that had Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter and Tony Williams. It's loose, it's floating on this incredible drum thing that's happening. And confident and a little cocky. And it's the way you should play rock and roll. You know, without self-consciousness, without being stiff, without showing off.
When a band has stayed together this long, there is a certain secret professional pride in that. But I don't think any of us would go around saying that - certainly not to each other, or even to ourselves. I guess there's just a thing in our society about decades - numbers that end in zero. I don't know why.
How
long can we go on? Forever. We'll let you know when we
keel over.
The
Rolling Stones were always loose enough to be on the verge
of breaking
up. That gave them enough tension to keep it together.
There was enough
space between the Stones, enough arguing, enough fuss for
them to be able
to say, What are we gonna do? Might as well stay
together. It's
always been that kind of relationship.
Keith
and I have been friends for a LONG time. We've known each
other since we
were 6 years old which, I'm not going to tell you, is a
LONG time ago...
I've been friends with CHARLIE for 20 years. It's
difficult to analyze
WHY,
you know, why us? You don't know. And, as someone said to
me, those friendships
last over the other ones, you know, with women and all
that. So the band's
been going on longer than any marriage or involvement I've
been in.
Come
to think of it, maybe the reason why the Stones are still
going is because
we've always been sufficiently aware of what's going on to
be influenced,
but not so that we slavishly follow trends.
This
is one of the things we're proud of, to keep a band
together this long
and still deliver new things. We're not on a nostalgia
trip. We're not
playing for people who remember when they got laid to one
song in the 60s.
We're trying to connect then with now and keep going.
You
can't get off on (recording and playing with the Stones)
the whole time.
It's like you can't be fucking the whole time. Because it
spoils it for
the times when you REALLY want to do it. You have to work
yourself up to
the moment when you really give yourself up to the
feeling. That's what
being in a band is all about, whether it's been together
30 years or 3
weeks.
We're
out on a limb all on our own - nobody's kept it together
this long. It's
like one of those old maps where there are dragons, and it
says END
OF THE WORLD. Where is it? You don't know. You're
supposed to fall
off here. We have no road maps, no way of knowing how to
deal with this.
But everyone (wants) to do it... I'm very proud of this
career, as long
as it's gone. Still, it's the old story - who's gonna get
off this bus
while you're still feeling good about it?
(P)eople
always question (why we continue to do it), it's very odd
but people question
it all the time that why you should do it, you know, it's
like, people...
I don't know why, people think in their own lives, if they
work, you know,
in an office, or whatever, they think well if I made lots
of money I wouldn't
do any work at all. And I think that's how they approach
what you're doing
in this kind of... - but it isn't like that, you know,
when you're in a
different kind of career. I'm just trying to explain why
people always
question why you would wanna do what you do. I mean it's
not really like
having a regular job, you know, because you stop for an
incredibly long
time. Like a year you don't do it, you don't go on stage,
say for a year,
or very little bursts here and there. And then you spend
like you do four
shows a week or something. It's very very hard work, but
it's also quite
rewarding and it's very exciting... It's not really a
workadays job. It
isn't really like that at all.
(Performing)
is a great thrill. It's my vocation It's what I do. If I
can do it well,
I enjoy it. And if I can't do it well, I'll make sure I do
it better.
I
could see why some people may think we're phoning it in
after all this
time. But playing the music we do, and playing it with
these guys, Jumpin'
Jack Flash can be a new song to me every night. I mean, we
don't need to
do it to feed our families. We don't need to do it to
prove anything. And
nobody wants to be the first one to get off a moving bus.
Nobody
in the band ever talks about (the band's longevity)
amongst themselves
or puts their finger on it. I think some of it is just
what you do, and
if you don't do it, you go nuts, and the other is how far
can it go, you
know. We still feel we're getting better and we have
things to offer you
know, and we ain't The Beach Boys, some nostalgia band,
you know what I
mean. There's plenty of nostalgia, obviously, after all
these years involved,
but I mean we don't rely on it alone. I mean our main joy
is to make new
songs - nostalgia (laughs) in a way it's ah... and
nobody wants to
get off the bus, because it's still going, you know. It's
very difficult,
you hurt yourself getting off buses when they're moving.
Do not alight
while moving.
Of
course, I don't know the answer to our longevity. One
of the important
things is that we always had such amazing appreciative
fans. If they
didn't exist to keep this afloat, the Rolling Stones
wouldn't exist.
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.
(Why
have we lasted so long?) ’Cos we’re damn good and we
genuinely love
what we do. We do it for ourselves. And I don’t mean that
money-wise —
of course, you don’t mind getting paid — but that is not
the driving
force behind this band. Sometimes I wonder, What do you really want to
do, Keith?
You can sit at home, do a bit of painting or writing or
whatever. But
there’s a certain magnetic thing that says what I really
want to do is
play with Charlie Watts and Mick and Ronnie. That’s the
force that’s
indescribable. You put this bunch into a room with a
couple of
microphones and some instruments and something is going to
come out.
I'm
timeless now, I'm beyond time. But also on the other hand,
to us it's another
tour and this is what we love doing and it just happens to
come 40 years
after we started... We're not here for nostalgia, we're
not here to light
the birthday candles or anything like that. But it's very
nice to be 40
years old in the band. (Laughs) I'm a lot older in real
life, (touring)
keeps me young.
(Other bands that didn't last long are) not really bands. They’re groups. We’re a band. And a real band sticks until it dies! These bands, they become big, but they’re generational. Just for their one decade. They literally go when their testosterone goes... I mean, we work hard, no one takes it for granted. We’re still looking to make our best record and put on our best show. The Stones have managed to be part of life without being passé.
I
must say the resilience of this band, all the crap
that’s happened to
us so many times, doesn’t stop the fact that we will
keep going. Just
as long as we’re here. It’s not even a point of honour.
It’s just a
case of what else are you going to do? We’re probably
more solid than
ever. I’m looking forward.