MICK JAGGER: “I Can Get It Up, But I Can’t Get It Down”

Of course, Mick Jagger was talking about flying the twin-engine Cessna which had brought him into the Marine Air Terminal in New York's LaGuardia Airport from Montauk, 120 miles away at the eastern tip of Long Island and which, he said, he had piloted himself. "We were stacked up for half an hour, circling at 1800 feet. We just missed the twin towers [of the World Trade Center]."

Jagger had flown in to do four interviews, Casually, on the eve of the Rolling Stones" latest assault on America. And, in fact, he exhibited some of the feeling of a general on the eve of battle. Dressed in a red and white striped velour t-shirt and tan denim pants, Jagger seemed at ease, but he wasn't giving out much information^ about specific Stones strategy and tac-j tics. Though you couldn't tell what was^ really going' on behind his mirror sunglasses, could any man with those lips be completely dishonest? Sure.

The Stones were living in Montauk, Mick said, "rehearsing. We're breaking Ron Wood in. He knew some of the songs,, but not all of them. I mean, you think you know "em, but I sometimes firld that I can't remember some of the words. Or I don't know all of the chords."

The Stones would be doing some new material this time, but he wouldn't be too specific about just what. "We never played a lot of songs from the last two albums. The last album, we haven't played any of "em on stage. So we have to do those." He later acknowledged that the band would probably jblay a pair of songs from the Stones unfinished Munich recorded album, and hinted at "Fingerprint File" as one of his Selections from the last album. Spies in Montauk talk about a Stones recording—and possible live version of— "Shame Shame Shame," the Shidey hit from last winter, but none of it was definite.

I've been asked if this is the last tour since I was 19 years old.

The next new Stones album—after the Atlantic and ABCKO repackaging due shortly—won't be out until fall. "Unfortunately, the record is a bit of a problem, because we were right in the middle of the record when we had to find a new guitar player. So our session got into a mix-up between auditioning guitar players and actually recording. I'd like to do a couple, maybe two things that we haven't put out, just to see if they come off. We've been playing them, and we'll do "em, because they sound good."

The addition of Ron Wood came as no real surprise to Stones watchers, but Jagger says that it was something of a surprise to him. And, of course, the extremely temporary basis of Wood's relationship to the Rolling Stones confused everyone. "I thought of trying to get someone permanently, to start with," Mick explained. "With a band, you can get a really good guitar player, but on the road that's not enough. The guy has to fit in with you and he musn't be overpowered. Doing a tour of America with the Rolling Stones is not easy, for an inexperienced person. The guy is going to be under all kinds of pressure.

"So we thought about several people and then Ronnie said Tft do it if you like." And I said, "All right."" He says these things in the broadest English accent imaginable, utterly bored in tone."If we'd never played with him, Keith and me, we maybe never would have thought of it. But as we both played with him on his album, we thought of it. And it's easy to get on with him." Wood is on some of the tracks on the new Stones album; also present there were Harvey Mbndel and Wayne Perkins, proving that some of the replacement rumors were based on more than imagination.

Jagger seemed stunned when I asked it there were specific reasons for the Stones doing this tour. "That's like me asking you if there's a specific reason for you doing an interview with me. I mean it's my job, it's my vocation...no musician is beyond that, no musician is until they get too old. That's my vocation, or my pleasure."

Nor, he insisted, would this be the group's final tour. "Last time we toured, they said the same thing. It isn't going to be the last tour...it might be, but it's not been planned to be. I hate that question. I've been asked that question ever since I was 19 years old."

He wouldn't even allow that the Stones weren't as tightly knit as a unit as they once were. "I see enough of "em, I tell you. I've been living with Charlie and Keith, and before that Mick Taylor, I was living with them almost all the time, every night. And Ronnie Wood for a year. Bill would remain a bit separate, that's true."

Jagger did acknowledge that the Stones would like to do something a bit more unexpected in their "75 show. "I want to do that. You just get this feeling that you're doing what people think you should do. Yeah, I think you should do the unexpected sometimes. But there's value in repetition as well. The ..magic of repetition," and here he smiled, "is a very difficult subject."

Jagger has been in the U.S. almost continuously since Goat's Head Soup. That has led to speculation in some quarters that he might be thinking of becoming an American; he was even rumored to be seeking out Montauk real estate agents, in pursuit of a home for he and Bianca and the kid. "I'm not sure I'd be allowed to move here permanently," he said. "I might be able to. I haven't asked. I like America very much., it's a good place, but I like Europe too. I'm afraid that England at the moment is...without sounding... well, if I did fifty shows I'd get the money from one of them if I lived in England. Which may sound fair or unfair, but that's the situation. I don't need it, but it just sems to me slightly off. Maybe they should give me two shows—which would double me up. But it's difficult to live there right now, because the tax is 94 percent."

Impefmanence seemed the order of the day, as Jagger took time to discuss what he would like the Stones to do after their current tour of America and South America. "I want to play places that are uncharted rock "n" roll territory," Jagger said. "Much as I love America, a lot of America we never played in—we've never played Wibhita. But I'd like to go to Asia, I'd like to go to India, I'd like to play the Middle East. I'd like to play more in Eastern Europe. All those places, there is zero money, you know, but you are hoping to break even, if you can. Which is a concept most people who run rock "n" roll tours can't grasp, because what's the point of spending a year touring and earning no money when you could be back in America, earning riioney. But that's what I would like to do. There's a demand for it,and it's a demand that's not being met."

Jagger mentioned a few other places he'd like to play—Israel, Indonesia— but he seemed most excited, even after all the rebuffs, about playing Russia or China. "In Russia," he explained, "we've tried very hard. And we've received a lot of rebuffs. But there's a genuine demand for, Jthe band in Russia, that I know. In China, though, I Should think there's absolutely zero. In Russia, there's a genuine knowledge of Western music—jazz, rock, all types. Eastern Europe, everyone's been over there, all the English bands go there, but they're severely restricted. They wouldn't let us in, we're gonna freak "em out with some fucking weird show.

"Thing is, if we went to Russia, I'd like to go with Stevie Wonder, you know, and a whole bunch of people, not just the Rolling Stones. We'd do like a week in Moscow, and we'd take everything—all the techniques we've learned, dll the lights, everything we've learned about different types of music. And we'd just show them what we've done and if they don't like it, too bad. But at least we've done it, you know? Those countries I'm not just thinking about for the Stones but for the whole...music of now, which in some sense we can help."

Enthusiastic as he seemed about promoting the "music of now" in Russia, Jagger was more reluctant about admitting the influence the Stones have had on the careers of such acts as Ike^and Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder, who have toured with the group in the past. He wouldn't say specifically, however, that that sort of influence was what led to the several groups who appear on the "75 tour— the Eagles, Little Feat, Rufus and the rest—being selected.

Jagger did add that playing^ outside North Apnerica and Western Europe had dragged the group into a political situation he wasn't fond of. "It's very difficult. You get into, politics as soon as you start wanting-to go to, say, Indonesia. It's a problem because the governments are so volatile and they can change. They relate to us mubh more as a part of American culture, we might as well be Americans. They don't see the difference, we're just white Anglo-Saxons in Brazil or Peru."

And millions of Americans would be proud to claim them. ®