“No Stones In ’77 & No Sex Pistols In ’78!”

"The trouble with Pete [Townshend] Is he thinks too much."

[As you recall from last month, our Keith conversation was progressing famously; so much so, in fact, that our correspondent was coerced to take a (perfectly natural!) washroom relief. But more words were yet to exchange. Bear in mind that this interview occurred prior to the trial of October 23-24, in which Keith was judged guilty of possession of heroin without intent to sell, and subsequently given a year’s probation and sentenced to arrange for a Rolling Stones charity concert for the blind.-Ed.]

CREEM: Last year a number of British punk bands delighted in putting the Rolling Stones down. However, Stateside the New Wave still showed respect, going as far as to publicly acknowledge both their inf luential and inspirational debt.

KEITH RICHARD: In America they kept the line going, whereas in England it seemed that the one and only objective was to break the line. Well there’s no way they’re gonna achieve that because they’ve got far too many connections with us.

Many of the English punk records sound like our early records, and that sound is very hard to achieve nowadays. But it seems to be the sound many of them were aiming for.

We did them on a two-track Revox in a room insulated with egg cartons at Regent Sound. Under those primitive conditions it was easy to make that kind of sound, but hard to make a much better one. Today the new bands are having to work against environment, sophisticated technology ...24 track studios.

So, what happens is that you end up with someone like Glen Matlock— who in terms of songs has been one of the biggest forces behind the English punk movement—bringing Ian McLagen into the Rich Kids’ line-up. So straight away, there’s a direct connection with the Small Faces.

Like I said, there’s no way you’re gonna break those connections...that line. Sure, you do get concerted efforts like the Sex Pistols, but that was studied. It was as much Malcolm McLaren as Andrew Oldham was our early high-powered publicist.

McLaren’s a smart cookie. He pushed Rotten as a fourth generation singer-you-love-to-loathe Jaggeresque figure, and it paid dividends. But in terms of publicity, his coup was installing Sid Vicious in something resembling your role—wasted public enemy number one.

Yet they tried to pretend that they weren’t. Unfortunately for the . Sex Pistols, it all happened much too early in the band’s career. Things escalated so quickly. It’s no wonder they found it impossible to hold things together.

It was a shame it happened like that because I’m very interested to see what Johnny Rotten does. I really do think he’s a good performer. The only problem is, he’s now in the unenviable position of trying to follow himself. How do you follow the Sex Pistols? Like Mick Taylor, I’d be very surprised if Rotten’s new band ever gets out of the studio and onto the road. Nevertheless, I hope he makes it.

To a point McLaren’s strategy worked in that it gained the Sex Pistols instant notoriety, but in other ways they suffered from the kind of cheap sensationalist publicity that was more concerned with their personal exploits than with their music.

Sure it was sensationalized...wasn’t ours? Once it comes it comes.. .cheap, expensive, mid-priced, jumbo-sized and you do what you do and that’s all there is to it. The last story I he,ard about Rotten was really great—that he was taking a fiver off everybody s who interviewed him, because he | claimed McLaren’s got all the money] .2 Charlie Watts has been quoted as I saying: “If you want to talk about the u Rolling Stones you should talk to Keith, who, I think, embodies the whole Rolling Stones image. I’m not saying he puts it on or anything—he just is that image. ’’Mostpeople would agree on that score...so how do you rdact when you see someone like, say, Patti Smith going to extreme lengths to subjugate her own personality and project herself as a painfully earnest female Keith Richard?

As far as chicks are concerned I’m very easy on ’em. Take it from me, it’s very ■ difficult to be a chick singer... a rock ’n’ roll performer. Once they get started there’s a certain amount of pressure, a certain amount of bullshit that goes down and you find that it’s very hard to avoid it. OK, so in a way Patti Smith plays up to it a bit...the only thing of her’s that I’ve really • heard is this fast thing...the single “Because The Night”...and apart from the image angle and the publicity I haven’t really taken any notice of her.

But you must pick up rock magazines, watch television and see yourself cloned time-and-time again by kids you’ve never ever met or heard of?

You’re right. Strange innit?

So is the spikey-haired punk cut, which is a modification of your bird’s nest.

Well, good luck to ’em [laughs].

Not so long ago it was reported in the British press that you’d banned Anita [Pallenberg] from attending punk gigs in New York.

I didn’t actually ban her. What I did say was, if you’re gonna drop by some clubs to hear bands there’s much better music to listen to than that. But at the same time, through Anita, I met a few young musicians who proved quite interesting to hang out with...but it was all typical New York.

However, when the daggers were drawn and the punks were putting in the verbal boot, the Stones didn’t compromise themselves—whereas, it seemed Pete Townshend was offering vague excuses, publicly bemoaning the fact that he’d turned 30 and saying that he was afraid that maybe he was out of touch. He felt the need to reply.

The trouble with Pete is he thinks too much.

But Townshend wasn’t the only one. Paul McCartney also seemed extremely suspicious of these new kids.

Since rock ’n’ roll is only 22 or 23 years old, nobody knows at what age you can do it any more. Whereas, the artists that we...the Stones... respect and admire—some of the best ones are still going strong. They’ve still got a lot to offer.

I saw Muddy Waters at The Bottom Line earlier this year and for me it was a revelation. He’s still a vital force, and he conducted himself with supreme dignity. He was an object lesson to anyone who feels they’re washed up at 30.

I agree. Mick and I jammed with Muddy just last week. Not only that, he’s one of the best things in The Last Waltz movie. Music...rock music that is...isn’t very old and those musicians who moan about being passed it are just a bunch of old women. It’s that side of therp that’s taking over and blurring any perspective.

Age has very little to do with it; it’s your mental outlook.

Some Girls has as much vigor as the first few Stones albums. The only difference is it has got 15 years of experience to back it up.

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.

Let’s set the Stones aside for a moment. What about the rumors of a half-completed solo album that you recorded with the late Gram Parsons?

Gram and I didn’t cut anything together in the studio. There’s a lotta cassettes laying around featuring the both of us, and I did a couple of studio songs by myself that he’d shown to me, but we never did get around to making an album.

How much of an influence did Gram Parsons exert on you?

A great deal, because he was both an authentic musician and a very nice guy. Anything that Gram was involved in had a touch of magic about it. That was the very first thing that attracted me to him.

I first saw him with The Byrds when he was virtually a second or third stringer, but nevertheless he stood out. He was brilliant. And just when it seemed that he was really gonna get it together, he popped it.

For a time the two of you iuere inseparable. His death must haue come as a great shock.

It was, because Gram was one of my closest friends. Unfortunately many of my closest friends have died suddenly. It’s like they’ve always been very compulsive people and Gram was no exception. Maybe it’s the attraction of opposites?

While they were with me, I could always hold ’em down...I could take care of Gram. But once he’d moved back to L.A. or whatever to form his own band, I started hearing stories... oh, shit.

Would you agree that of all cities, Los Angeles is the worst for feeding off a person’s weaknesses?

You’re damn right. Hollywood is the end of the line for so many people. It’s a killer and if you’re weak you can be sure it’ll get to you. It’s like when we were rehearsing in New York, we tried to find John Lennon and get him back into the scene. I mean, what the fuck is Lennon doing farming cows in upstate New York... what’s that all about?

Everyone reacts to a particular situation in a different manner. The music business has obviously got the very best and the very worst of everything simply because nobody needs a diploma to work their way into this industry on any level.

All you’ve got is what you’ve got, and for some people the fact that it’s all down to what you are and what you Can do—along with timing and other intangibles...unfortunately, that’s something many people never get right.

Though the Stones haue tried as hard as anybody not to lose contact with their public, Mick Jagger has often come in for harsh criticism due to his jet-set connections.

That’s Mick, he just likes to gallivant all over the place. But people only hear the parts when he turns up somewhere flash, where there’s reporters and photographers hanging out. They don’t know about the other half of the places he hangs around.

So people just hear about his muchpublicized high life. They rarely hear about his low life [laughs], and as far as I’m concerned Mick can get lower than anybody else I know.

Mick’s not dumb. He knows that only a certain side of his social life is going to make the papers and he’s learned to live with it.

Talking about misconception, don’t you feel that ouer the years people haue often misconstrued some of the Rolling Stones’ attitudes and motiues; such as your ouert chauuinism, the tongue-in-cheek S&M ads for Black And Blue and the title track on Some Girls?

I wasn’t even involved with the Black And Blue thing, but I thought it was quite funny. Trouble is, not too many people have a sense of humor— especially institutions.

Individually some people may have a sense of humor but as part of an institution they have difficulty translating it into its proper perspective. So they just end up like another load of protest marchers with bees in their bonnets, and don’t realize how funny they look.

Goddamit, a large percentage of American women wouldn’t be half as liberated if it wasn’t for the Rolling Stones in the first place, and people like us. They’d still be believing in dating, rings and wondering whether it was right to be kissed on the first date or not, depending upon who it was.

As things like Some Girls corroborate, the Rolling Stones haue neuer put reality into soft focus.

We write our songs from personal experiences...[laughs], OK, so over the last 15 years we’ve happened to meet extra-horny black chicks— well, I’m sorry but I don’t think I’m wrong and neither does Mick—I’m quite sure of that.

It’s like the old stunt guys used to try on to pull certair. chicks. Tell them to watch out for themselues because your friend has a real bad reputation —and the chances are that instead of putting them off they’ll become intrigued and the chances are that your friend will score.

Sure.

Euen more so than Zeppelin’s macho image...

...that’s a bit damaged now...

Women still consider the Rolling Stones to be extremely dangerous?

Correct. There is this attraction and you can’t turn around and say it isn’t so. It exists and I’m fully aware of it but we’ve only played up to it in as much as we think that it still says something for us or we can treat it as a good laugh. If you can’t take a joke... have a good laugh, then you shouldn’t be here in the first place.

It’s Mick’s sense of humor that allows him to take his sexual arrogance and narcissism to extremes without really damaging his credibility.

Well, Mick has no fear of audiences and that’s what has always made him great. As a band, we’ve got complete confidence in his showmanship, so you can play it down or play it up depending upon the mood and the atmosphere.

"Keith and I are two of the nicest people we know. -Mick ■ I"

Speaking of playing up...on stage, you are playing much more lead guitar than you’ve done in the last few years. When Mick Taylor was in the band, you seemed to concentrate on rhythm sound.

Mick Taylor is the kind of musician who automatically begins playing lead lines the moment you count in a song and what’s more, keeps on going until the song’s finished. So that way, there was a much more defined part to play —lead guitar and rhythm guitar. It was more obvious then than it has ever been.

But your ego hasn’t been that of the usual guitar hero. We’ve spoken about this before, but it’s a fact; lead guitarists have the worst egos in the world... much worse than either singers or drummers.

Certainly...[laughs]...much worse. Isn’t it terrible?

But going back to the very early days, you never seem to have shown any desire to play more than two or three chorus solos.

Never had the need to. I still consider myself a part of the basic rhythm section. OK, so I play more lead now simply because of the songs we’ve ended up doing on our current road show.

Also, with Woody in the band, the lead and rhythm thing isn’t as cut and dried as it used to be with Mick Taylor.

With Woody, I’m able to suddenly take over the lead and once he hears what I’m doing he’ll automatically drop back. The same thing works the other way. That’s the kind of interplay I enjoy and the good thing about it is that it works.

[Enter Mick Jagger]

During the early ’60s the Rolling Stones started out covering R&B standards and, having personalized the style, b'egan writing their own material in the same mode. Though to date you’ve only covered one bonafide reggae song [Eric Donaldson’s “Cherry Oh Baby”] and written one of your own [“Luxury”], you seem to be incorporating many of the reggae studio devices in selected Stones material. Apart from “Hot Stuff” and “Miss You” having backing tracks that could be easily transformed into dub versions, Mick, you included a talk-over segment halfway through “Hot Stuff”?

Richard: It’s like when we went to Jamaica to cut Goats Head Soup. Everyone immediately assumed the Stones are gonna do a reggae album. But influences come through so much slower than that.

Jagger: We already knew the reggae things—we just didn’t wanna do it at that juncture...

Richard: More important, we didn’t think we were capable of doing it.

Jagger: Exactly. We weren’t capable of doing it on record as good as we would have liked.

Richard: ...and we didn’t have the experience of living there and integrating with the local music scene —the whple Roots thing.

Jagger: I don’t wanna cut off anybody...yer know, The Stars Of Music ...but...the Stones have liked just about every kind of music that’s come up.

We started out liking blues...and we wouldn’t play nuthin’ but that and Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley—and we were knocked for that...and we were knocked for writing our own ballads, which were hits...and we were knocked for writing our own gospel songs like “The Last Time” ..been knocked for almost everything.

Currently, we’re gettin’ knocked for doin’ “Far Away Eyes”. Not so much in America, but abroad...where they don’t really understand count-ry mus-ic.

But there’s so much tongue-incheek humor evident in the treatment of “Far Away Eyes”.

Jagger: Well, you tell that to the Ger-mans. They don’t understand that in Germany!

So what’s new! Many people didn’t altogether appreciate the way the Stones personalized contemporary country music on “Sweet Virginia”?

Richard: Trouble is, a lot of audiences don’t appreciate that it can work on more than just one level. Well that’s their hard luck!

Jagger: Obviously, we can’t play country music like authentic Chicago bluesmen. We do our best, but we can’t copy—that’s not the idea. And so it comes out the way it does...er, different!

But like 1 said, isn’t that the attraction?

Jagger: Maybe! It’s inevitable that it’s gonna turn’ out the way it does unless you’re slavishly trying to copy the original. When we first started the Rolling Stones, we began by slavishly copying songs note-for-note, but even SP [laughs] the au-then-tic spund wasn’t cpming put.

To return to the subject of the Stones’ current reggae influences, don’t you agree that either with or without the vocal, the instrumental track hints at the possibilities of Stones-styled dubs?

Richard: I knpw what ypu mean... I’ve heard the discp-cut pf “Miss YPU” just once in an acutal disco and both the bass and drums are very strong on that count.

Jagger: [Laughs] As I am the vocalist, I do like to hear a bit of vocals.

/ thought you were the new guitarist?

Jagger: [Laughs] Third guitarist if you don’t mind...but yes, there’s a whole section on the disco version of “Miss You” where there’s no vocal at all.

Richard: ...and the amount of thump from Bill and Charlie is quite amazing. Jagger: We didn’t intentionally set out to make a dis-co record. To me, it’s just like...that bass drum beat and my falsettos just fit nicely around the bass part. Vocally, it’s more gospel, because nowadays disco records are much more repetitive...you know, “J wanna dance and shake my booty ” repeated 89 times!

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But even the disco cut of "Miss You” has a very warm sound, whereas the majority of disco records are detached and impersonal, cold and thoroughly calculated.

Jagger: Well, we had it re-mixed so it would sparkle and have more bass. We’re not that stupid!

Richard: Actually it’s the first time we’ve done it this way. We just sent the tape to a guy [Bill Clearmountain] whom I’ve never met at all, but who is experienced at mixing disco cuts.

As you no longer employ an outside producer, did you feel that it was a safe move to hand over the tape and let someone else — a stranger— tamper with it?

Jagger: The worst thing that can happen is that you don’t like it and re-do it...

Richard: However, in this instance it worked extremely well...

Jagger:We also did a mix of Keith’s song “Before They Make Me Run,” which sounds real good.

Richard: It’s a lot different from the one on the album, but it was too late to substitute.

Jagger: There’s some real nice guitars on the re-mixed yersion.

Mick, in the past you’ve told me you didn’t have sufficient confidence to play guitar in public. So what prompted you to play on this tour?

Jagger: [Coyly] Keith taught me when I was a little boy.. .Joking apart, two guitars is enough in a band—most bands get by on just one. But by the same token, a lotta bands have used three guitars effectively, and as long as all three don’t play together; too much it has interesting possibilities.

When I’m singing I tend to stop playing at the beginning of a number, so it just sounds normal. Then when 1 start playing on the chorus it can give that extra lift. I dunno if Keith and Woody agree with this, but I think it enables them to solo together while knowing that I’m playing the bottom rhythm parts and so nothing is lost.

Richard: 1 hat’s right. The reason why we got into the three guitars on this album is because Stu wasn’t playing any keyboards during the Paris sessions—he was either somewhere else or didn’t feel like it or wasn’t into it.. .or probably the piano wasn’t any good!

Jagger: Well that’s what Stu told me.

Richard: So there was just five of us in the studio. The way we always lay new songs out is, whoever has written it plays it over so as to familiarize the rest of us with the basic tune and chord sequence...so, by the time we’ve run many of the songs down, Mick has got his bits off dead right.

And so, from the very beginning we’ve worked the songs out for three guitars. But we said to Mick, if you’re gonna do it1 on stage th>n you’re gonna have to tone it down and do three or four guitar numbers at a time.

Jagger: It’s impossible to play just one number at a time on guitar. It’s like Keith coming up to the mike to do “Happy,” it’s really hard to warm up on just one number.

Richard: Yeah, if I wasn’t singing on those other numbers with Mick then I'd find it difficult.

Well, the program is expertly paced.

Jagger: I’m glad to hear that. I really like our current set because we’re playing lotsa new numbers. And 75 per cent of the new numbers go down very well at most gigs.

The Rolling Stones seem to have been totally rejuvenated both on the record and on stage.

Jagger: Tell that to the Manchester Evening Guardian or whatever...Some of the British reviews have been un-be-lieve-able...things like “Death Knell For The Stones!”...

Richard: Who's she?

Jagger: 1 mean Some Gir/s is our biggest album in years and some of those provincial newspapers...the least said the better. You sometimes wonder if they’ve actually heard the bleedin’album

Richard: A lotta reviews are influenced by whether or not they got in the room with you.

Jagger: This is the standard of journalism over here. When we started this American tour some of the papers used to give out a set list of songs that we played on the ’75 tour accompanied with criticisms of each number...most of which we never played at all this time out. They’d write that the Rolling Stones started off with “Honky Tonk Women."

Richard: False.

Jagger: ,.. played “Get Off Of My Cloud” ..

Richard: False...

Jagger: It was obvious that the guy never went to the concert. He probably sold his tickets, wrote it at home and hoped we did the same show as before.

Richard: Arse-holes!

Jagger: Tell yer what 1 have noticed on the Southern dates—and that is the audiences seem to be very young indeed...Which reminds me of that really great quote by Johnny Rotten...no, it was The Clash...“NO STONES IN 77” and No Sex Pistols in 78, eh! Hold on though, when you think about it, you gotta admit that it’s very funny...typically English. Really.

Richard: From whatl can see, that whole thjng hit its demise when it tried to get out of England.

Jagger: But in the beginning, it had a lot to do with the press...

Richard: ... and that English attitude of once you go abroad you are turning your back on the English audiences. It’s very psychological.

There were a lot of interesting new bands in England during the ’76-77 period, but unfortunately only a few could successfully transfer their live stance to record.

Richard: A lot more of what happened in 77 was more theater than actual music.

Jagger: Yeah. But we didn’t really make any gas-out records in early 77 either. We were just fuckin’ around. But we had ’em in the back of our minds and by the time we reached Paris we’d stored up a lot of songs which we then began to write. When we were doing the mix-downs for Love You Live, we’d tell the engineers to get on with the mix while Keith and I and whoever was around just started playing new material.

Richard: That’s true. While we were in Paris Mick and I wrote more songs together than we had done in ages.

Jagger: And those who like the album all say it’s the best since Exile, right?...Well I did like Exile very much. It was like four single-sided albums—hopefully something for everyone. It wasn’t really meant to be played all at once. But people didn’t understand, especially the English reviewers. They seem to have this weird idea of The Rolling Stones as being this band and we’ve never been that band, but they imagine we are. We can do that band if we wanna...

So what’s to become of the Rolling Stones record label? Will it be exclusively for your own releases?

Jagger: Well, we’ve got Peter Tosh and we hope to sign up other people as they come up. To be honest, we don’t expect to sell millions and millions of Peter Tosh albums, but we’lLdo our best.

Peter Tosh being on Rolling Stone Records and supporting on selected American tour dates could motivate many kids who otherwise wouldn’t listen to reggae?

Jagger: Hopefully yes, but that’s not the reason we signed him. See, he got us involved rather than vice-versa. Basically, the Tosh band are rhythm players and use synthesizer lines to play lead and harmonies. So there we all were up in Woodstock, Tosh didn’t have a lead guitarist. Keith and Woody were available and so Tosh suggested that why don’t they play on a couple of things? Keith and Woody are very familiar with the whole reggae thing so it turned out really good.

Have you contemplated issuing a Stones’ single complete with a dub? "Miss You" would have been ideal even though the rhythm isn’t reggae.

Richard: [Laughs] Andrew Oldham used to do that with us years ago.

The production seems so much brighter than before.

Jagger: Well...Keith and I are one of the...yer know, two of the nicest people we know.

Seriously, the studio was really great to work in and thfe engineer, Chris Kimsey, was on top of things so Keith and 1 didn’t have to work too hard during the actual cutting—we just worked hard on the mixing. And what you have is the basic sound that came off the original tape.

We had all these tracks and so Keith and I agreed that the first ten to come out completed would be the ones on the album. That was the only ay we could do it.

You seem very proud of this new album.

Jagger: Naturally—and why shouldn’t we be!

Reprint courtesy New Musical Express.