50 Licks Page 25

  PETE FORNATALE: Yeah.

  MICK JAGGER: And I don’t like that. And when I’m off the road and when I’m not working I don’t want anyone to bug me; but you can’t really expect them not to. They still want you to sign bits of paper and be nice to them and so on. Sometimes you don’t always want to be nice; you know, you want to get on with your own life. And when you’re with people you don’t always want to have to be nice to the people at the next table and be gracious and you want to turn your back and say “go away,” (laughter) but then you count to five and you say, “HELLO, and how interesting that your son is also at the concert. The End.”

  PETE FORNATALE: (laughter)

  MICK JAGGER: It doesn’t sound very difficult, but after a while it just gets a bit monotonous, you know, to be like that and that’s when you see these stories of celebrities standing off and getting annoyed with camera people . . . It’s kind of natural ’cause they do bug you. You know, they stand outside your house, or whatever.

  PETE FORNATALE: I’ve always thought that one of the good things about celebrity is that it probably gives you access to meeting people of stature or creativity that you might not have had the opportunity to do otherwise.

  MICK JAGGER: Sure.

  PETE FORNATALE: Is there anyone left in that category for you?

  MICK JAGGER: Who I’d like to meet? Well, there’s loads of people. I mean, I just like watching people work in other fields to see how they handle themselves. It is interesting, you get to meet people. I like talking to the sort of people who were in power at one time or in power now; about how they handle their particular problems and so on. And, you know, they do sometimes give you the best seats at the restaurant as opposed to sitting next to the kitchen.

  PETE FORNATALE: (laughter)

  MICK JAGGER: I’m not denigrating being famous—it has its fun moments.

  PETE FORNATALE: That’s great. Let’s see if we can bring it full circle. I’m just going to ask you—design is not something new to the Stones. Obviously, there have been images portrayed of the group, throughout the group’s career. Now I’m just guessing, but when you look back at old pictures of yourself, some you’re going to want to put back in the drawer and never look at again, and others you’re gonna want to keep out there because you still think it says something relevant about you at that time of your life. Either through album covers or photos, can you do that for me; and pick a couple of lasting images of the Stones that still say something today?

  MICK JAGGER: Well, I think the early pictures that David Bailey did of the Rolling Stones from the first album covers and so were very formative for the band’s image . . . I can’t imagine how many photographs there are. I mean, things are very important in the beginning. [As for later images,] I suppose the Sticky Fingers cover that wasn’t a photograph of the Stones was also a very good piece that Andy Warhol did. It’s always good to have something that’s a bit groundbreaking, and that causes a bit of a stir, as well.

  PETE FORNATALE: The tour has just been fabulous and the future of the Stones seems limitless. What’s left? What’s left to achieve from your perspective?

  MICK JAGGER: Well, I enjoy doing other projects, I enjoy doing stage design and clothes design. I enjoy doing music, obviously it’s what I like, but I like to stretch myself in other areas. And I’m interested in other things as well. And I think the Stones will always be an important part of my life, but I’m interested in doing different things outside the Stones. And, for instance, the thing we were starting to talk about, the fashion thing, and other things, too. But, I think the Stones will keep going for a while yet.

  PETE FORNATALE: It’s almost the ’90s. What’ll you do right after the tour?

  MICK JAGGER: It’s in the hands of the gods. I know I can’t predict the future (laughter). But ’89’s been pretty good so far.

  PETE FORNATALE: It’s been great.

  MICK JAGGER: Thank you.

  And that was it. Almost a half hour with Mick that felt more like two minutes. As we were packing up our gear and getting ready to leave, I thought about the question I had asked him concerning his celebrity and how it gave him the opportunity to talk to talented and interesting people that he might otherwise have never had the chance to meet and hang out with. I knew exactly what his answer meant. Even though I was on a much smaller and lower rung of the “celebrity” ladder, I got the chance to meet and hang out with Mick Jagger and it was priceless.

  CHAPTER 46

  IN ANOTHER LAND

  BACK IN THE ’80s, I wrote, co-produced, and voiced a syndicated radio feature called Rock Calendar. Its purpose was to highlight a specific rock ’n’ roll event that took place on every calendar day of the year (365 shows; 366 in leap years). Knowing that a number of those dates would involve the Rolling Stones, I set my sights on talking to the group member who would most enjoy the task of sifting through the band’s history. After a little research, by process of elimination, I knew that it wasn’t going to be Mick or Charlie, and for a whole set of different reasons, probably not Keith or Ron either. It became a no-brainer to choose Bill Wyman. He had even described himself as the group historian, so that is exactly where we began the conversation:

  BILL WYMAN: Yeah, I am, because I’m the only one who really cares about it; no one else gives a damn, really. Charlie Watts gives his gold records away to his chauffeur or to the taxi driver who brings him to the airport; he doesn’t care about those things. So I’ve compiled this whole mass of stuff which I store in various places and refer to occasionally because it really pisses me off every time a book or article comes out the dates are wrong . . . the facts . . . everything’s wrong! And one of these days I’m going to put the record straight. [He did in his 1990 book Stone Alone.]

  PETE FORNATALE: You had a solo hit in 1981—“(Si, Si) Je Suis un Rock Star”—tell me about that experience.

  BILL WYMAN: It’s really exciting—it’s like the first time we as a group had a hit; everything feels new again. We all have our insecurities and doubts about whether we as individuals are as good alone as our position in a famous band implies we should be. We all feel this way—Mick, Keith, Charlie, Ron—so you always try to do something outside the band to build your confidence and assuage those doubts. I’d attempted that before with two solo albums, but they were done much more for the fun of it, and to learn a bit about producing and arranging.

  PETE FORNATALE: Both of which got a lukewarm reception.

  BILL WYMAN: Yeah, after that I said, “Let’s just forget about this. I’m not meant to be doing solo stuff.” I didn’t want to face that same non-response again. But then this song came up and I did a demo and everybody said, “You’ve got to record that.” So I did . . . reluctantly I might add!

  PETE FORNATALE: Why have you not written more for the Stones?

  BILL WYMAN: Firstly, I don’t think I write songs that are appropriate for the band. And secondly, we record once every eighteen months or so; and Mick and Keith have such a tremendous amount of material that there really isn’t room left over. Woody gets a bit in here and there, but he lives in the same country as they do, so he hangs out a bit more; I live in the south of France.

  PETE FORNATALE: What about the rumors about Mick and Keith erasing each other’s tracks on various albums?

  BILL WYMAN: The story is that Mick and Keith are the producers. They work together on the basic tracks but from then on they work separately and form their own opinions. So you end up with various mixes that Keith’s done as well as alternate mixes that Mick has done of the same material. At that point they haggle out which versions of each tune are best. I’ve never heard of them erasing each other’s tapes (laughs)—it’s more a question of fighting it out over which version of any given song will appear on an album.

  PETE FORNATALE: Let me ask you some impressions about your fellow Stones. Mick?

  BILL WYMAN: Alright, Mick. It’s difficult because I know both the public image and the real person and they both merge into his
character for me—the sublime and the ridiculous! (laughs) He is totally different in public than he is in private life. Unfortunately, he seems to think—as most of us probably do—that there’s a way you react in public and a way you react at home. Sometimes he carries his public persona over into his private life, which gets to be a real pain in the ass because you know he’s full of shit. So you have to remind him and bring him down . . . Come on, Mick! And then he comes back to normal.

  PETE FORNATALE: How does it manifest?

  BILL WYMAN: His voice changes, for one thing, and he starts talking with that pseudo-Southern accent. And sometimes in private he starts using a very rough, Cockney accent, which is also not his real voice. It’s actually more like the way Charlie and I talk, dropping the Hs and all that. He never talked like that before, because he came from a middle-class family and went to middle-class schools. I’ve got interviews with him on radio and television from the ’60s where he’s talking like the Queen does—“Oh, well, it’s quite interesting to . . .” He’s getting a bit like Peter Sellers: I don’t think he knows which one is the real Mick Jagger (laughs). It keeps the mystery going.

  PETE FORNATALE: Keith?

  BILL WYMAN: Shy, introverted. He’s very nice, really. He can be a real bust, though (laughs). If he’s in his regular mood, he’s great. But if he’s in a bad mood you can’t be in a good mood with him, because he kind of dominates the mood of the room. Maybe he had a hard couple of hours at home or his car broke down, or he lost his favorite cassette and he doesn’t really want to talk, so you just leave it for a few hours and then he’s alright. As I say, he’s very introverted and to overcome that he makes the appearance of being very carefree and brash, flailing his arms and rubbing his hair when he comes into the room. He’s a bit insecure I think.

  Except for the first three years of the band he’s always been a little bit difficult to relate to. Maybe because we’re totally different people. For instance, Keith will come into a hotel room and in fifteen minutes it looks like it’s been a gypsy camp for the last twenty years. He just makes things look like that. He throws things around. I couldn’t live like that. I could stay in a hotel room twenty years and it would still look like it did the first day I got there. And Woody’s exactly the same as Keith!

  PETE FORNATALE: Well, Woody then?

  BILL WYMAN: I think he’s getting too much like Keith. And one Keith’s enough. To have a Keith in the band is great, but to have a Keith and a Keith Mach Two gets a little strange for me. Musically, he’s fine. But it’s like Keith and the shadow, in a way. Woody wasn’t quite like that when he joined.

  He was just all fun and games and laughing. He united the band much more when we were kind of drifting apart personality-wise. It’s very frustrating to be in the same band that long because what you liked in 1963 you don’t necessarily like in 1981. So there’s a lot of things that get left out, that you can’t deal with in the same band. That’s why Woody does solo albums, and Mick Taylor probably got really frustrated, and Brian Jones, too. So Charlie has to play with a jazz band, and I had to do some solo albums and some producing, and Mick did movies. You do have other things that you want to do. When we all came into this band, we probably never thought it would last more than two or three years and suddenly it’s a third of your life. That’s the whole thing about leaving after twenty years, because it’s enough for me. No matter how great it is. Wonderful to do, and be in that band, but I’ve got so many other things that I want to do in my life, I don’t want to still be going out on a stage in a wheelchair in ten years’ time.

  Bill Wyman, backstage at Sullivan in 1965

  PETE FORNATALE: Charlie said once that he hated rock ’n’ roll. Do you buy that?

  BILL WYMAN: He probably said something like “I don’t like rock ’n’ roll” but he didn’t mean he didn’t like rock ’n’ roll music. He meant he didn’t like all the things that go with rock ’n’ roll—living in a hotel, constant traveling, etc. He much prefers to play jazz, where he can just get dropped off at a club and jam with some people and then go home. That’s a lot of what he does now. But I know he does like rock ’n’ roll music as well because he listens to a lot of it, a lot of new wave stuff and everything. English papers are terrible that way. They abbreviate what you say and précis it down to such little pieces that it becomes totally different from what you intended.

  PETE FORNATALE: As far back as 1969, there were rumors that Bill Wyman was leaving the band or being forced out of the band or fired by Mick. Do you have any comments on those stories?

  BILL WYMAN: The thing I said about retiring? Yeah it escalated into something amazing. What actually happened was the guy said, “How long do you think the band is gonna last?” And I said, “Well, probably a couple of years.” We’ve been saying that since ’62. So he says, “How long do you think you’re gonna go on?” And I answered, “Well, if we do last a few more years we’ll be at our twentieth anniversary in December of 1982 and if the band is still functioning then—which it may or may not, I don’t know—then I think that would be a good time to stop, while we’re still up there, and then start to do something else. Because you can’t play rock ’n’ roll forever.” Then that escalated into how I was quitting the band on that day in ’82 and I didn’t like Mick and Keith and so on. I felt a bit rotten, you know, the way it was put, it looked like I was being bitchy . . . and we’re not like that.

  THE MVP OF THE SECOND HALF

  The Rolling Stones new promoter for the 1989 tour was Torontonian Michael Cohl, who had worked with the Stones on a local level going back many years but never for a prolonged period. Cohl had figured out a way, through what he called package touring, to eliminate all the various middlemen and expand the concert business. He guaranteed the Stones a reported sum of 70 million dollars. All along, Cohl suspected he might just be setting the price for Bill Graham, but in the end the band chose Cohl, and a string of sellouts later proved that Cohl and the Stones were a match made in heaven.

  One of the hallmarks of the Stones’ tours in the last quarter century has been their ability to take something that should be impersonal—the stadium concert—and turn it into something intimate and memorable, an intergenerational concert experience that is truly one of a kind. They’ve done this not only through the energy of their performances but also through creative staging, lighting, superior sound, special effects, and the use of video. Michael Cohl has played a big role in all of this.

  In a famous 1989 interview, Keith famously said the Stones were at the beginning of the second half. Michael Cohl just might be the MVP of the second half.

  I can only add two addenda to this. The first is that following the afternoon I spent with him gathering facts and stories for Rock Calendar, I could never, ever think of him again as “the quiet Stone.” And secondly, something he said to me as we were wrapping things up has only become more poignant in the years since:

  BILL WYMAN: See, I can never buy a Stones album, put it on, and just listen and say, “Wow! That’s good” or “That’s bad,” because before it even goes in the shops I know the whole thing by heart . . . It’s like I’ve never seen a Rolling Stones concert, which might be a good kick one day . . . (After I leave) I just might do that!

  The actual self-imposed end of Bill Wyman’s tenure with the Stones came about twelve years after our conversation. He was quoted as saying he left because he had developed a fear of flying and because he didn’t see anything new happening in the future. Richards seemed in denial about Wyman’s departure, at least jokingly so, “No one leaves this band except in a coffin,” he opined.

  CHAPTER 47

  NEW FACES

  THE FIRST POST-WYMAN effort was 1994’s Voodoo Lounge. The process of replacing half of their rhythm section wasn’t easy. The Stones interviewed dozens of bassists to fill Wyman’s shoes.

  INTRODUCING DARRYL JONES

  When did you first hear that the Stones were hiring?

  DARRYL JONES: A friend of mine c
alled me on the phone and said, “Bill Wyman is leaving the Stones.” He found Mick’s management’s number and I called. Whoever I spoke to said nothing was going to happen immediately, but they’d add my name to the list. Then I spoke to someone in the camp after I got the gig who told me, “You know, your name was already on the list.” I had met Mick very briefly when I played with Sting.

  Darryl’s choice of beverages may have helped him land the gig. Darryl told us that when he was playing with Miles Davis in New York, he spent a lot of time hanging out in Irish pubs, drinking Guinness. By coincidence, all the bassists who auditioned for the Stones were offered a Guinness by Ronnie Wood, as a kind of icebreaker, maybe even a test. Most declined.

  DARRYL JONES: Ronnie said, “Great to meet you. Do you want a Guinness?” I said, “Sure, I dig Guinness.”

  Darryl’s time with the Stones was off to a great start! As for the audition itself?

  DARRYL JONES: I was happy to be there and was looking forward to playing, no matter what the outcome. I walked in and saw Keith and Mick. Then Mick said, “Listen Darryl. If you don’t know the songs, we’ll teach you the songs, and then we’ll have you audition. From the beginning they created a really relaxed atmosphere. That they were that loose and that willing to really give me a chance made a real difference.

  The final call about the band’s new bassist would belong to Charlie—an unprecedented position of power within the band for him. But Charlie and Darryl were a natural fit, both personality-wise, and musically.

  DARRYL JONES: I think my work with Miles Davis didn’t hurt that.