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Stones get mouthy as tour looms
by Hugh Dougherty
Sir Mick Jagger is "a fairy", Keith Richards has a "big mouth", Ronnie Wood is playing his first gig sober - and Gordon Brown is a "greasy sod".
Welcome to life inside the Rolling Stones, the band which is refusing to grow old gracefully.
The group, uncharitably called the Strolling Bones for their combined age of 235, is beginning another tour and preparing to release another album, marking 40 years of what even Sir Mick and Richards admit has often been a tense set of relationships.
The four have revealed that, despite being grandfathers, they are still happy to unleash verbal broadsides on each other - and even their fans.
As they rehearsed for their tour Richards revealed in The Times how he likes to puncture the ego of the band's lead singer. "Mick's got an ego," he said. "But then, what do you do with lead vocalists? They're fairies. You've got to let them have their head and them rein them in."
And Sir Mick, whom Richards described as having the "hide of a rhino", shot back, saying the man known for his years of drug abuse - a phase Richards now describes as his "experiment" - had a "big mouth". Sir Mick added: " He [Richards] likes to make out he's still a very rebellious 59-year-old. That's all right, that's the role you play."
Richards said that the relationship between the two, which began 50 years ago when they met at primary school, has been stretched almost to breaking-point down the years. He said Sir Mick "took a lot of the burden" during his drug-taking "experiment", adding: "So when my famous experiment finished I rushed back and said, 'Hey Mick, I got burned, let me share the load a little more,' and instead I got the cold shoulder."
While Richards is now free of drugs, Ronnie Wood is marking the tour, which starts in Boston on 3 September, by ending years of heavy drinking. "I'm looking at life through a straight viewpoint now," he said. "That was my first gig the other night that I'd done straight and it was a real eye-opener."
The only man to escape the verbal fisticuffs was drummer Charlie Watts, at 61 the oldest Stone. Richards, who said he was "blessed" to have worked with Watts, reserved his scorn for Chancellor Gordon Brown, whose tax reforms forced the band to postpone their UK appearances. "I could have murdered him at the time, greasy looking sod," said Watts.
The four are expected to make millions out of the latest Forty Licks tour, but it does not mean they are uncritical of their fans. "A lot of Americans think we're American," said Sir Mick. "That's how detailed they are. |
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| Soul Survivor |
I'm sick of these articals puting the Stones down
This one is, just not in a direct way |
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| Nasty Habits |
It sounds like the Stones are putting each other down rather than the article. But, yeah, they might have said something warm and fuzzy about each other after airing their same old gripes, and the writer chose not to include it.
Mick and Keith have nothing but love for each other and don't have a weird relationship at all.
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| FotiniD |
I don't think the Stones are putting each other down. The comments Keith and Mick are making about each other are definitely not like what they were in the eighties. Reading the Times article I couldn't help but crack a laugh with Keith's comment about singers as "fairies" and I don't think he meant it with bad intention at all! Then this article twists the whole thing round just to bash the Stones. I'm fed up of these articles, really. Who needs them? No imagination, nothing new, just the same old ramblign about the "old" Stones and all that useless stuff.. Let's just not pay attention to it. |
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| sonicrock |
most of this article forget about the most important, the music, let s just care of that in two days the ll got us rocking who cares the rest?? |
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| fmk438j |
is that true about americans thinking the stones are natives? |
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| Boomhauer |
No, the people who write the article only put the pieces when Mick and Keith are having their "LOVE/Hate" relationship. Of course they are not going to talk about their great friendship they have. |
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