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| Ten Thousand Motels |
As in politics, so in a rock group
By Ludovic Hunter-Tilney
Published: April 4 2006
Financial Times
When Bono, in an outbreak of shameless flattery at the Labour party conference two years ago, compared Gordon Brown and Tony Blair with John Lennon and Paul McCartney, he surely meant the Lennon and McCartney of prime Beatles song-writing years, not the feuding Lennon and McCartney of the band’s acrimonious break-up.
But reports that relations between the chancellor and the prime minister have sunk to a new low suggest the analogy carries more weight than Bono intended. When rock groups are successful, they offer a picture of talented individuals (and a drummer) working to-gether towards a common purpose, literally singing from the same song-sheet. But behind an outward show of unity the typical band is a seething pit of personal and professional rivalry.
This combustible mix can be an inspiration – the reservoir of spite, envy, resentment and competing ambitions euphemistically known as “creative tension” – but it can also test a band to self-destruction, as when Lennon shattered The Beatles by getting Phil Spector to produce Let It Be without McCartney’s knowledge.
As in politics, so in rock: it boils down to leadership. Who is in charge, the charismatic frontman or the brooding lead guitarist? The answer is rarely as plain as Lennon liked to claim – “I started the band. I disbanded it. It’s as simple as that,” he said of The Beatles – for the group dynamics of a band are as mysterious and impenetrable to outsiders as in a marriage. But nonetheless I suggest there are three categories of rock band government.
First there is the dictatorship, the band ruled with a rod of iron by a single un-bending ego, as exemplified by James Brown, who used to fine his backing band for playing wrong notes, or Mark E. Smith, the Sir Alan Sugar of grumpy punk rock, who has fired more than 40 musicians from his band The Fall during its 30 years. “It’s a bit like a football team,” he has explained. “Every so often you have to get rid of the centre-forward.”
The second category of leader is the fragile, wayward visionary: Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, for instance, or Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. Both men used their bands to flesh out their highly idiosyncratic musical ideas; both fell prey to mental illness and were forced to abdicate as frontmen.
Pink Floyd’s post-Barrett reinvention was remarkable but they suffered another succession crisis when Roger Waters, a more autocratic style of leader, polar opposite to Barrett in temperament, became too controlling. His feud with David Gilmour, Barrett’s replacement, was one of rock’s most bitter, culminating in Wat-ers’ failed legal bid to force the band’s dissolution in 1986. Behind the scenes of Pink Floyd’s chilly, operatic psychedelia were power struggles to make a boardroom blush.
The final category of leadership is the partnership, an arrangement that lies at the core of the greatest bands. Lennon and McCartney, Page and Plant, Strummer and Jones, Morrissey and Marr: rock has a marvellous tradition of dual leaders.
An inherently unstable relationship, the best song-writing duos are made up of two individuals who complete something lacking in the other: Mick Jagger’s business nous and Keith Richards’ outlaw spirit, for instance. It makes for an inherently unstable and competitive pairing, as shown by Richards’ fury when Jagger accepted a knighthood in 2003.
“I don’t want to step out on stage with someone wearing a coronet and ermine,” Keef complained. “It’s not what the Stones are about, is it?” Sir Michael’s riposte was straight out of the school playground: “I think he would probably like to get the same honour himself. It’s like being given an ice- cream: one gets one and they all want one.”
Yet the Jagger-Richards bandwagon rumbles on. Both men now accept their mutual dependence. Unlike their old rivals, Lennon and McCartney, the Glimmer Twins have made themselves into model leaders. |
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| Break The Spell |
As proven with the Jagger / Richards partnership, sometimes your opposite helps balance you out and keep you squared. If you learn to embrace the differences instead of fight over every little detail, sometimes they can play to your advantage. |
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| gimmekeef |
Mick needs the limelight and loves the money.Keith needs to play and loves the money..A perfect partnership! |
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| Ihavelotsajam |
Well, it can be argued that Keith doesn't want the limelight, but loves to play. But there's no reason to think Mick doesn't like both the limelight and to play. |
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