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'STORY' TELLER WYMAN LEAVES NO STONE UNTURNED
CHICAGO SUN TIMES
December 22, 2002
BY MIRIAM DI NUNZIO STAFF REPORTER
"Pop music was never meant to endure, but the best of the rock 'n' roll born in the sixties survives well."
Bill Wyman - from Stone Alone--The Story of a Rock 'n' Roll Band
He'll forever be known as the one who walked away. In 1992, after three decades with the Rolling Stones, bassist Bill Wyman called it quits, and never looked back. At least when it came to performing with his bandmates.
What Wyman did do was publish his autobiography Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'n' Roll Band (1997, DaCapo Press), which detailed the creation and rise of the band up through the 1960s. That book was based on Wyman's day-to-day journals that he's kept for most of his life. And while Wyman has returned to music periodically since leaving the Stones (to record special events albums and to perform with his own band, the Rhythm Kings), it wasn't until early 2002 that Wyman returned to the topic of the Stones with a project that became Rolling With the Stones, (DK Publishing, $50), a coffee table visual tour of the band based on Wyman's personal archives of memorabilia--much of which has never been written about anywhere, nor previously seen by the public.
Wyman has been an obsessive keeper of all things Rolling Stones--nearly every press clipping along with photographs, expense reports, cab fare receipts, dry cleaning receipts, concert programs, posters, guitars, clothing, hotel reciepts, ticket stubs, post cards, album covers, 45s, empty liquor bottles, golf clubs, costumes, concert set lists and so forth--from the most mundane everyday items to priceless collectibles.
A self-proclaimed Renaissance man who left the crazed world of rock and roll to pursue other interests such as art, photography, philosopy and literature, Wyman is currently married to Californian Suzanne Accosta. The couple are proud parents of three little girls, Katharine Noelle, 8, Jessica Rose, 6, and Matilda Mae, 4. (Wyman also has a grown son, Stephen, from a previous marriage).
Wyman, who turned 66 in October, talked to the Sun-Times the day after his birthday and just days before the release of his newbook.
Q. What made you decide to do another book on the Stones?
A. I just wanted to do a different kind of Stones book. There are about 300 of them out there, and apart from about a dozen of them they're all pretty awful. They're just full of scandal and invented stories, and I got a bit fed up with it really. They don't portray the band as it really was and the things we achieved. So I wanted to do something very picturesque. I was originally going to do a second book, starting with the '70s and going into the early '80s, which was planned for this year. But the publisher and I decided to do a book in the same format as the blues book I wrote [Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music's Heart and Soul, 2001, DK Publishing] with maps and lots of pictures, and all sorts of cool visual stuff. So there's about 3,000 illustrations and photos in the book.
Q. How did you decide what items to include?
A. The hardest thing was not what to put in but what to leave out. I've probably got 30,000 visual items and I had to get that down to about 3,000. Then of course on wordage I've got about 7 million words [laughs]. I just gave Richard [co-writer Havers] a skeleton of the band's entire history, things that were important day by day with dates and such, and then we built from that.
Q. Just how organized are your archives?
A. They're all catalogued and cross-referenced. I'm a bit odd like that [laughs].
Q. What's the most unique item you have?
A. It's unique because I've got two of them and I know of only one other one somewhere in the world. And that is the original, full-size, 13-inch square, 3D picture which we used on the "Satanic Majesties" album. The one we ended up using on the album was a 5-inch square. I've also got a guitar of Brian Jones' from 1967, a gold Gibson. And I've still got my homemade bass, which I made in 1959, which is quite unique.
Q. Was it hard to revisit all the ghosts of rock memories past?
A. It was hard when I did the first book, because the '60s was the time when we worked everyday--morning, noon, night--doing interviews, recordings, shows in the evening. And this went on 350 dates a year. Going back through all of those memories for that book, I mean, there's always things you put in the back of your head that you don't want to visit again, like Altamont. So I really got all that stuff all sorted out when I did that book. I had a few strange dreams for a few months and stuff like that. So when I did this one it didn't personally get to me.
Q. Why should we believe that this new book really tells it like it was?
A. Well, again, all of it comes from my diaries, which I wrote every day. Other books [about the Stones] cut and paste things that have been incorrectly reported and reprinted for years. For example, in the '70s, I did an interview in London but I was living in France at the time and they asked me, "Where is your home nowadays?" And I said, 'A place called Vence.' In the interview they typed Venice, and ever since then in all these books and magazines it says I had a house in Venice. And that's the sort of thing that just gets carried on. People don't know you and they purport to write a book or invent a good headline from what they think they know about you just to sell copies.
Q. What's the biggest misconception about the Stones that this book clears up?
A. Probably Brian Jones' death. But I thought I cleared that up in Stone Alone. Books came out saying he was murdered and all that, and they sold an awful lot of copies and it became this big scandalous thing. I didn't want to make this book about scandalous things because it's all been done to death. I wanted it to be much more humorous and fun and interesting. We follow the Stones as well what was happening in the world at the same time.
Q. What was the reaction from the Stones about this book?
A. I sent the book to them last Monday on their tour, and they're on the road so I haven't heard back yet. But on my birthday there was a [voice mail] message when I got back from work and it was from the guys wishing me a happy birthday and they were all yelling and shouting in the background and all that. So I don't think they would have done that if they didn't like the book. [Laughs]. I would have just got, 'You pisser' or something like that, if they didn't like it.
Q. You write about the time you refused to go backstage and meet Elvis at one of his concerts. Why?
A. I went to the show because I loved his early years. I didn't really like it when he started to do his films. It was 1973, and I went to one of his shows with the Led Zeppelin guys. They all went backstage afterwards, but I thought meeting him would just spoil this image I had of him in my mind. I'd met many stars over the years that I'd admired from afar and 90 percent were just exactly what you'd expect and some even better. People like Marvin Gaye and the Supremes were just really really nice people. But I met Chuck Berry and he was a nightmare, and he really spoiled the whole [image] thing for me. He was like a god to me at the time I met him, and he turned out to be the nastiest piece of work. So with Elvis, I didn't want to be disappointed. So I avoided the situation and I've been very happy about it.
Q. You're pretty straightforward in the book in terms of all the drugs and the sex.
A. I always believe in the truth. Then you don't have to remember what you lied about. It's harder to remember lies than it is the truth, now isn't it? Some eminent person like George Bernard Shaw or someone like that said that.
Q. How does it feel to be a dad at age 66 to such very young children?
A. My little girls are great. It's a new avenue in my life. I should be doting on my grandchildren but instead I'm doting on my children which is even better. I work from home so I see them probably more than the average father. I pick them up from school. I'm seeing them all the time, whereas in the '60s when I joined the band, I had an 8-month-old son and I looked around one day and he was a teenager. I missed all those lovely moments, like the little drawings they make and leave for you when they go to school.
Q. So contrary to all the stories over the years, you're still close with Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ron?
A. Oh absolutely. We go to each others' houses for dinner, we always have. I mean, after I left, for just the first couple of months they were a bit pissed off at me because I'd left and didn't want to return. After that we just became like family and it's been nice ever since. My kids play with Jerry and Mick's two younger kids. Charlie comes by. I see Woodie at events. I'm godfather to his daughter. It's just like a big family thing. It's social now, not business. Or work. So it's very nice.
Q. Who do you remain the closest to?
A. Charlie. He's my best mate, always has been. He calls me up from Argentina or wherever they are on tour and says, "I turned around to say something to you and you're not there--again." [Laughs] And I just say to him, "Well it has been about eight years, Charlie."
Q. For the billionth time, do you ever miss being a part of the Rolling Stones? A. Not at all. I never was one of them for love of the adulation. I always tried to get back to normality after the shows, go home or whatever, or the hotel.
Q. But isn't the book just pure Bill Wyman adulation?
A. No. The book is really my pride in being in the band all those years and for what the band achieved. That's all I've tried to portray--what we did achieve and how hard it was. But it was great and I was very proud of it. I just didn't want to do it anymore. I'd done it 31 years of my life and it was wonderful but I wanted to move on and have a new family, get into all the projects and other things that interested me. Whereas the other guys probably have less interest in other things as I do. I love archeology and photography and art. And I opened a restaurant and so on. I have a very varied life and I like it like that. Music is just a part of it. So when I left it was just to move on to some other things in my life before it was too late really.
Q. You still keep your fingers in the music business the Rhythm Kings.
A. I do a bit of music, but once again, I do it differently because the Rhythm Kings play different kinds of music. We play jazz, blues, soul, rock, gospel, rockabilly, jump music like Cab Calloway, sometimes reggae, sometimes folk. We play gigs for very little money; I've got a 10-piece band playing little places. It's just for the fun of playing music to an audience, the same as it was when we started the Stones. I enjoy it very much now because there's no pressures of needing a No. 1 album or anything like that. So you can relax into doing it, instead of having this enormous pressure and an entourage and a corporation moving you around.
Q. Are the Stones the greatest rock band ever?
A. They're certainly a great band. I don't think we ever thought we were the greatest rock and roll band in the whole world because we always admired other people. But many people attested to that, so that's the way it's kind of become. They probably are one of the best live bands ever; we always were from day one. I wouldn't say we were the greatest songwriters in the beginning. I thought the Beatles were better than us, especially in the beginning before Mick and Keith really got the swing of it. And the Beatles were one of our favorite bands anyway. We were like best friends. Even though the media always portrayed them as being our enemies and there was this war going on, and it was nothing like that. But the media has to sell papers. You understand that, don't you? [Laughs]
Q. What does the book say about Bill Wyman?
A. That I'm a loony collector. [Laughs] I just started collecting all this stuff for my son actually. I had an 8-month-old son and I thought when he grows up I can show him a few things to show him I was in a band once and we made a record and went on television a couple of times or something like that. Because no band at that time, including the Beatles or The Kinks or bands like that, ever thought we'd last more than two years, maybe three. So I thought I'd keep a few things that he could take to school one day when he was older. You know, for show and tell and such.
Q. You're quoted in the book as saying "bass comes from your head and out your fingers."
A. That's what's true for me. Because when I'm out on stage I'm not thinking about what I'm playing. I just play and sorta watch what's going on, and I always did it that way. That's why I always stood in the shadows in the back or off to the side. I just used to watch this madness going on with these guys on stage near me and this audience in front, and just took it all in, so I never paid attention to the playing. It just happened.
Q. Why did you keep all the most mundane stuff, like receipts?
A. In an interview in Los Angeles on the radio the guy said what blew him away were all the receipts for the clothes I bought [laughs]. Because whenever I do anything I end up at the end of the day with a bunch of receipts and tickets from restaurants, or letters, and I just dump them in a file. And they stay in the file and I forget about them. And 30 years later they're still in that file. But I don't particularly stop and say, 'Oh I've got to keep that.' I just dump everything in there. And years later, when you decide to write a book, it's all there.
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| Strange_Stray_Cat |
hi parmeda |
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| parmeda |
Hi doll...Merry Christmas! |
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