¶ Bob Spitz (Rolling Stones Biographer) joins the Chuck ToddCast
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start your subscription today. That's thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants for life when you visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code well. The beauty of being in the world of independent media these days, into my own
podcast is that guess what. Sometimes I'm gonna do interviews and things that just interest me and my generation, if you will, But also what I do think, frankly, what cuts across cultural lines. And there's no sort of bigger
¶ How long have you been thinking about writing this biography?
cultural touchstone for those of us of a certain age, And I'll get to that in a minute. Then the Rolling Stones, And there's a terrific new biography. It's not that it's not it's not then it's not as conventional of a of a rock band biography as you might be used to reading. This one's by Bob Spitz. He's my guest today. It's it's fantastic. It's sort of it is.
It's just it's not fan service. And I don't mean that it doesn't respect everything that the Stones have done and all that, but it really is sort of trying to tell the story. And I think answer a question that I have still in my head today is who are the Rolling Stones and what are they now? What have they been? What did they want to be? And I say this, they're releasing a punk rock album almost
at the time. It's almost as if Bob you your biography and they're focus on releasing new music when hand in hand.
Yeah, they're doing this form Chuck, I mean, I'm so I'm so poised.
I mean, in all seriousness, right when you found out they were released in new music and you have this coming out, I mean, you're at least your publisher must be ecstatic.
Well, well, you're doing handstands here in the apartment, so everything worked out great for us.
¶ Keith Richards biography was a phenomenal book, but only Keith's view
So let's just talk. Look, you've written biographies about other rock bands. The beauty of this one is ever is well, not everybody's alive, but the key figures are alive.
Right.
The Beatles is a tough one because you know, one of the most important parts with John Lennon was was was was you were getting them through his spouse. I guess it's probably the fairest way to talk about it. So let me just say, how long have you been thinking about this? And and and when did when did you know you had the right frame.
To write this book? Chuck? I mean, you know, I had written the Bob Dylan biography. I got to the Beatles in the nick of time. I did read Zeppe One. There was only one band. It was completing Mount Rushmore, and and it really give me a pause because the other bands had been together for maybe ten years, and so it was a nice concise story. But this was
a sixty five year honesty. And so you know, I have to think long and hard about it and how I would be able to tell that story in any kind of a given page count.
Well, and you also had two of the biggest names. They've told their own versions of this story. I mean,
¶ The Stones longevity as a group makes them more compelling
I mean, I'm sorry. The Mick Jagger memoir was something else, right, we learned a lot more. Actually there was not, I mean the exees me, not the Jagger Keith Richards. Sorry, I was conflating and I didn't mean to Keith Richards memoir was something else. I mean, how you know, I'm and Jagger's been in charge of his story, uh for quite a bit. So was that a challenge a help both?
No, it was, it was It was a great help. I mean, look, Keith wrote a fabulous book. That guy pulled no punches. I was shocked.
I didn't think that was the book we get out of Keith.
Yeah, he's completely unshouldered, you know, happy to tell you anything you ask him. But that book is a myopic book. It's one man's view of what was happening at the time. And I felt that the Stones were part of our lives enough that they needed a really objective book, say
the way Robert Carroll might write about Lyndon Johnson. So that meant that I had to talk to, you know, two hundred people who were colleagues of theirs, friends of theirs, family members, wives ex wives, and really trying to put the story together and at the same time give it a narrative so that you weren't going to be bogged down in it, you were going to want to turn the pages. And that was my biggest challenge.
No, and I think trying to, you know, get at what they're trying to. I mean, you know, I feel like you tackled this like a person rather you know
¶ The Stones gave us the foundation of the rock and roll sound
that here you're it's a group that's also its own entity, right.
It is its own entity. And and really the entity is Keith and Mick, you know, Uh, the entire enterprise depends on their rapport. And that really, you know, is something to look at. All groups that I've considered writing about dissolved after a number of years, you know it was.
That actually is what makes it compelling as a journalist. What went wrong? Why did it end? And in fact, it's why somebody wants to buy the book, you know, you know constant when why won't let Zeppelin, you know, get together? Why couldn't you Jason Bonham, you know, be the be the glue? What what happened between Jimmy and Robert?
Right?
Like it is with the Stones, you didn't have that they and I you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something. There's you know, the Stones. It's funny that you did them for right, Like, if you think about it, right, Dylan led Zeppelin, the Beatles all felt more innovative than the Stones, and yet the Stones endurance is what's made them innovative.
Well, absolutely, they're endurance. But you know, the Stones, what
¶ There is no rock and roll today, musicians are producers now
the Stones gave us is rock and roll. The Beatles at the time the Stones came about, We're doing two and a half minute pop songs for girls. You know. It developed into much more than that, of course, but the Stones did something different. They took the Blues and they hot wired it and they gave us a rock and roll sound that is the foundation of everything that came after it. It was a garage band sound, and that's what everybody built on. That's what led Zeppelin build on.
I mean, Fleetwood, Mac build on. Everybody built on that kind of garage band sound. And I think, you know, everybody was calling the Stones the greatest rock and roll band of all time. I shied away from that a confession, and I was a Beatles guy in that great debate.
This feels like Lebron versus Jordan, by the way.
Yeah, exactly right. But the truth of the matter is the Stones really laid the groundwork for all of this that came afterwards, and I was fascinated to watch how they did it. You know, not you mentioned punk before, Yes, the Stones The Stones survived disco, they survived punk, they survived grunge. All those people passed by the wayside. Mick and Keith are eighty three years old and they're about to go on tour again.
Let's go to the issue of rock and roll. So what is rock and roll now? And it's and to me this debate is always more intriguing to me right after you have the rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees and all this stuff, and you're like, wait, we've now defined rock and roll as just countercultural, that it's more of a vibe than a sound.
There isn't even rock and roll these days. I mean what the kids are making today. They're not music makers. They're producers, they're performers. They're not in control in the studio. They're not writing you know, original.
¶ In their 80's, the Stones are still keeping rock and roll alive
And electric guitar Bob, I knowess it.
I think the only person who's out there, you know, making rock and roll is Bruce Springston. And aside from that, I.
Would argue there is some country that is that is called country that when I hear it, it sounds more like that it's been inspired by rock.
Yeah, probably true, Chuck, But but you know what, my daughter who's thirty two, listens to the music that you know I turn off, of course, the same way my parents turned off Elvis what I will. But you know she she listens to people like BTS and and Taylor Swift and they're they're doing something different. Do I like it? Yeah, it's not for me. It's time for me to step aside. Like Joe Biden, I'm going out. Well.
I only asked that because if if rock and roll had it continued to evolve, would there be room for the Stone still?
I think so? Yeah. You know, look, people still go to Stone's concerts, and when you hear those opening chords to start Me Up or Jumping Jack Flash or Brown
¶ The Stones flirted with being political, then backed off
Sugar or Satisfaction, those three.
I think I was just going to say, I think I've been to three of those three. I think I've probably been in like ten Stones concerts, and I think three of those songs have started multiple versions of Stone's concert.
And you can't get off your you have to get off your seat. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a BTS fan or you know you're you're a country fan. Those Stones songs are killers, and that's what keeps that that music alive and keeps them going. Plus, you know, those songs are kind of rebellious. They have that arrogance attached to them, and every generation adopts to that. So
¶ Their lack of taking a stand actually helped them endure
I I kind of understand how they sustained all this career.
One thing to me that seemed different, and you tell me and push back if you think this is wrong. I don't think you'll be shy about that, which is sometimes I've felt as if the Stones didn't have anything to say, they were just more interested in their music. And I think this would probably be what John Lennon would say, right, And maybe I'm channeling that. But you know, where the Beatles, there was always something they were trying
to say. Even led Zeppelin at times, you know, they were trying to say, I say this, I think Brown Sugar is an important cultural song that that that that that did matter for interracial relationships at a time when it was ill illegal in many states in this country. So I don't want to say they never were quote unquote political, but I've never they were, certainly less so than Dylan were the Beatles, right.
Well, they flirted with it, you know, they did straight fighting man, and Nick thought that was you know, a real revolutionary take and then they kind of decided not to do that anymore. So, you know they I think they put that beside them and then they started to make straightforward rock and roll. Their lives got in the way, you know. Then these are guys who grew up fast and grew up hard, and they are they are just consummate rock and rollers. They just want to They just
want to play music. That's it. I don't think that they really think too much about any kind of message.
¶ The Stones became great friends with the Beatles
Well, and it's funny. I think maybe that's what makes them endures.
Yes, exactly, because they they're not taking a stand right.
And they're well, they're also not trapped in a moment in time even though you I think, let me ask you this, do you think they could have they would have if they needed nineteen fifties and sixties post war Britain's culture in order to thrive.
Oh, absolutely, no doubt about it. Look, it was a rebellious music that they were making. They were supposed to toe
the line coming out of World War Two. All these guys were groomed if they weren't going to college like Nick was, but people like Keith were destined to work as klirks for the railroad or in a factory until art schools came about, and that was the foment of all this music, all this thought, those art schools where the kids were just bringing their guitars in and making music, and they rebelled against that English you know, that tired
¶ Mick Jagger & Paul McCartney explored joint business ventures
English society, and the music did it.
Let's talk about was it a rivalry with the Beatles.
And not in the least. No. I mean, these guys loved each other. They were great. The Stones came to see the Beatles. Well the other way around, I'm sorry.
The Beatles came to see the Stones when they were just starting out in the Crawdaddy Club, and they walked in in black leather jackets and parted the crowd and stood right in front of the stage as the Stones performed, and the Stones looked down and there were there were the four Beatles, but they all went back to this hovel that the Stones lived in and forged a friendship that lasted for as long as the Beatles lasted. When the Stones couldn't make a hit after their first song
came out, who bailed them out? Well, the Beatles bailed them out. John and Paul came into the studio and wrote I Want to Be Your Man, and the Stones have their first record, and they were friends throughout their entire career. They socialized together, they rooted for each other. They made sure they didn't release albums at the same time.
At one point, I guess in the late sixties, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger got together over at beer and they decided that they were going to throw in together. It would be the greatest company in the world. Yeah. I wrote about it in the book because it was
¶ Without Paul or Mick, both bands may not have been financially viable
a kind of a novel situation that people hadn't heard about before. And Paul leased a brewery in Camden Town and it was going to be Beatleston's headquarters and they were going to open a hotel, have their own studio.
My goodness, sounds so very twenty first century of them. I mean, that's a visionary I mean, by the way, you probably could start that today and you'd have a whole bunch of baby boomers wanting to vacation there.
You bet their own record label. It would all be together. And I guess, you know, Alan Klein kind of threw the hand grenade in and blew it up. But for a while, they both wanted to do it, and who better than Mick and Keith Keith Mick and Paul. Paul was the guy who kep pushing Beatles Beatles, keep the
¶ Mick & Keith seemed like a strange marriage, but they made it work
Beatles together? And Mick who was really the brains behind the rolling Stoney Chuck so interesting that after nineteen sixty seven the Stones never have another manager. Who's their manager? It's Mick, right, Mick is their manager. He negotiates every record contract, every concert tour with every promoter, designs the stage, works out the merchandising, negotiates for all of their travel,
and tells the guys what they're going to do. It is that London School of Economics three semesters never gone through it that you know, it's fantastic. I mean the guy is other Roadblade. Well.
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¶ The music kept the band together, they love to play and perform
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the code toodcast. Well, both Paul and Mick, where I guess, had a little bit more of a you know, they let me and let me ask you this way. Without Paul and mickwould either the Beatles or the Stones been financially successful?
Yeah, maybe not, that's that's a good question. Paul was the one who pushed back against Brian Epstein's terrible deals, brought his father in law and to negotiate new contracts.
Uh.
And of course Mick did the same thing. Unfortunately he brought Alan Kleinen and for a while it looked good, but then it didn't look good and he got rid of them. But the two of them really were the
¶ You have to see the Stones in concert to truly appreciate them
guys who kept those groups financially fluid.
Mick and Keith. Ah, Yes, how does this relationship survive? Because it it wasn't It's not. I mean, they I don't want to say oil and water, but there's it. It does seem like an odd pairing. The more you learn about both of them.
Look, it's a marriage, and sometimes it's like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, you know, and sometimes it's good. The great thing about their relationship is that they have different tasks. You know. Mick is the libidinous peacock, the showman, and Keith is the riffmaster, and they don't compete, they really don't. Keith is happy to let Mick be the front man, and for most of the time when they're on the road, when they're working, the bad boys stay out of trouble.
But there was that period in the mid nineties when it almost fell apart when Mick decided he was going to make a solo album and tour without the Stones but sing Stones songs, and Keith was furious and he
¶ They've had countless "Farewell Tours" and always come back
wanted to blow up the Stones. At that time, those guys didn't speak. Keith's slagged Mick off and the press he referred to him as I remember that. Yeah, he always referred to him as her Majesty or Brenda, because Keith had walked past a bookstore on Rude Rivelli in Paris and there was a fiction book by a woman
named Brenda Jagger, so became Brenda all the time. But you know, when they weren't talking to each other, when it looked like it was all going to be rend asunder, Keith married Patty Hanson, and who stands up for him? Nick stands up for him as best man, So you know, go figure. I mean, these guys shouldn't have been in the same cage together, but they continue to find a way to work together. And it's the music that keeps them going. These guys loved to play, They love to perform.
I saw them at Sofi Stadium in California about a year and a half ago, and there was a presentium out from the stage jump that was at least two blocks and Mick danced on that thing for two and
¶ Mick has kept in great shape, his father was a fitness celebrity
a half hours. And I had to jab my wife's in the ribs and say, you're go get it an eighty two year old man, I am.
It's always a marvel at at watching Nick at a concert. Look, I will confess. So my first Stones concert was nineteen eighty nine. It was Steel Wheels and my friends and I were really excited because the opening band was going to be Living Color on our side of the coast. It was a clever thing the Stones did, and you know, I want to talk to you about this sort of how they would help other bands. I think it was Guns n' Roses was the West Coast opening act. Really
Living Color was the East Coast opening act. And my friends and I we loved Living Colors a little, you know. It was they were a unique thing and African American
rock band. There wasn't a lot in that space and at the time my feelings on the Stones and then you see their performance, and to see The Stones in concert is to finally appreciate them in a way that no album, no listening to them on the radio like they were, I think are better as an experience than just simply showing up in your music feed.
Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. They know how to electrify an audience. That's always been their secret. And
¶ Fans pitted the Beatles vs. The Stones, but the bands never did
you know it's those rifts that Keith comes up with that just they're ferocious and the minute, the minute the riff starts, mix starts and one mix starts, he entertains and you can't take your eyes off them. It is a whole experience that I agree with you doesn't come off records in the same way.
No, it took me, you know, at that time I'm an eighteen year old, you know. That's when I was like, oh, I get it. You know, the Stones just felt like a buck Jesus, these guys that, by the way, Stele Wheels was their last concert tour. That's how they build it as that. That one was a farewell tour, the first of four. How many farewell tours did they did? They finally gave it.
Up, right, Yeah. You know they started asking Mick in nineteen sixty six, is this your last tour? And they've asked them that after everyone since. In two thousand they asked Keith, is this the end? And he said the end? This is the beginning of the second half. Here we are twenty six years later. I mean, you got to start taking these guys seriously, you know, it's it's incredible.
No, the and endurance should mean something, yeah, right, if you're able to get to your fourth generation of fans pargably right, you know, that's that's that's saying something. I mean, I guess Mozart has everybody beat, but outside of Mozart, right, you know that's about it, you know.
I mean you have to wonder how they have endured physically, because, as you know, Keith is not a queen living guy.
And well, the joke is that he must have been ingested so much stuff it like counteracted with each other and somehow made him bionic.
Right perhaps, But I think what happened is these two guys went down to the same crossroads that Robert Johnson went down. They made some kind of pack with the devil,
¶ How did white British kids embrace the blues more than American kids?
and you know that that is what has kept them going all this time. But you know, Mick Mix stays in shape. I mean, this is a guy who his father was the Jack Lane of the UK. He had a television show like Richard Simmons, and he would say, okay, Mike show them how to do one hundred push ups, and Mick would fall to the floor and do one hundred bushops. Mike show them how to do chins. Mick would do chins and he's been doing that ever since.
Last night. I talked to an audience of two hundred people and I said, Mick, you know that Mick has a twenty seven inch waist. Let's see a show of hands of how many of you here have a twenty seven inchwh My god, and nobody raise the Mick has
¶ American GI's left their blues records behind in the UK
a twenty seven eighties. How tall. He's about five eight, it's five bigges.
You know, he comes across taller on stage.
They do a good Yeah, he's not. But he's a wiry little guy. You know. When he was a great athlete. He a great athlete with a sense of self, even from twelve years old. He ran a track meet when he was fourteen and somebody said, how did you do, Mick? Did you win? And he said, saad, how I've won? How did my hair look? And that's Mick in a nutshell. You know, he has to look good. He has to be great on stage. So I'm just.
Curious if the Beatles in the Stones were so what did did they? Did they embrace the idea of marketing against each other?
They didn't market against each other. I think they you know, they made sure they wouldn't compete with their music.
But the fans sort of felt that, right.
Oh they did. I mean that what I mean they're called Beatles versus Stone.
Right, That's what I mean. So it's like I've always felt like the fans of both have really strong opinions about this. And in a weird way, what your burst the balloon you're bursting here is like it's almost like was it was it all for show?
Yeah, it could have been. Look Andrew Oldham, who was their only manager, an eighteen year old cocky kid, decided
¶ Chuck Berry was a massive influence on the Stones becoming rock
that the Stones were going to be the anti Beatles. They were going to look different.
He thought it was a good marketing gimmick.
Oh absolutely, So he made sure that they didn't bow after songs, they didn't wear suits, they had no respect for the promoters who hired them. That they would be insulin. They would be known as the bad boys. And you know, the Beatles were completely opposite. So of course there were different camps, and there always has been, and then there
were different camps when it came to music. I can't tell you how many people I know who think that the Beatles much more sophisticated music puts the Stones to shame.
And then the argument, that's the argument that my musician friends.
¶ Charlie Watts was the heart and soul of the band
Would make exactly, and I'm a musician and I've made that argument. And then there are the Stones people who say it's only the power of the music. Step aside. Beatles fans, you don't know what you're talking about. This is rock and roll. The beauty of it is that it all works together. You know that these two bands gave us songbooks in the sixties that have endured for sixty five years, and Chuck will outlive you and me. It's the music of our generation and generations that succeeded it.
Why did a bunch of British white kids embrace the black inspired American blues better than American white kids.
Yeah, it didn't happen in America at all, And in fact, even after the Stones broke out with blues, American kids couldn't figure it out. It happened because of the American gis. The American gis when they were in the UK listened to R and B and blues records, and when they left the UK after the war, they left their records
behind and the kids grabbed a hold of them. The other thing that really did it is that the blues artists, the old Mississippi Delta and Chicago blues artists, they couldn't get gigs and the United States, you know, they could
¶ Charlie loved jazz, only played rock because it paid the bills
play some chicken shacks, but they couldn't play the white clubs. The UK embraced them, so they went over to the UK and there were plenty of places for these people to perform, and so the kids got to see them and they kind of grew up with that music. And then, you know, leave it to the Stones to say we're going to play blues music. That was a big fight early on. Are we a blues band or we're going to play rock and roll? And there were people in the band who didn't want them.
I would assume Keith still thinks they're a blues band.
Right, oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, And Brian Jones, you know, was a gas that they would play rock and roll. And the sixth Stone, Ian Stewart, who was with them for thirty five years, refused not only to play to play rock and roll, but he wouldn't play any song with a minor chord in it. He just said, when you're playing songs with minor chords, I'm not part of the band. Wow yeah, because he was riding true blues, three chord blues.
So what what is the tipping point? What's the tipping point that sort of mix it. We're a rock and roll band?
Had two words, Chuck and Barry. When they discovered Chuck Berry, they found somebody who had taken the blues to another dimension.
¶ Charlie and Ian Stewart kept the band in line
Chuck sang the blues, but he with a rock and roll beat. And then the Stones took what Chuck did and they hotwired it and they jacked it up, and so you can see the progression right there. Chuck was the middleman and the Stones took it and ran with it.
Let's talk about Charlie, because you seem to think that this is this has changed the band a lot, not a little. Explain.
Well, you know, Charlie kept the beat, sure, but Charlie, Charlie was the heart and soully.
He kept more than the beat on stage is what it's sort of what you imply.
Absolutely he was the heart and soul. I mean, whenever things were about to implode, Charlie would cut through it all. And he was a man of such few words that just three or four words would put these guys in their place. And he had this dry wit. Charlie was such an unusual guy. He was completely straight.
He w by that. When you say completely straight.
¶ The effect of losing Charlie Watts on the Stones
He didn't up until he was fifty five, never even smoked a joint, didn't do it. Wow.
So he was just a very when you say straight and narrow, that's what you're mean in there.
Well, but there's more to it than that. When all the guys after every gig went out and picked up girls or groupes. Charlie went back to his hotel room. What did he do in his hotel room? He drew every hotel room to scale that he spent the night in. That's how Charlie spent the night after gigs. He was impeccably dressed. He had two hundred and fifty Savile Rowse suits.
With That is always what you Charlie was Charlie's luck. That was sort of very interesting.
His shoes were always shot. He hated rock and roll, he was he loved jazz. He just played rock and roll because it paid. It paid the bills. And here's some other unusual things about Charlie. He had one of the greatest collection of vintage cars any person. I mean, it would make Jay Leno drool. But Charlie didn't have a driver's license and never once drove one of those cars, so he would.
Just collect like they were matchbox cars. Huh exactly.
He would just get down to his garage, sit behind the wheel and kind of talk to the cars.
Did he ever learn to drive?
Never, never learned how to drive, never drove him. But he had maybe thirty of the most gorgeous cars you could ever say. He was also a man who raised Arabian stallions. Did he ever get on one? Never?
Once?
He just liked to have them. Yeah, he was an unusual guy, but he kept Micking Keith well balanced. And there's a great scene in the book where Mick crosses the line with Charlie and it's one night in Amsterdam, and Charlie Dexham in a very big way.
¶ They keep playing because it sustains them as humans, not for the money
Charlie was the only person Mick would listen to.
Right absolutely, or Keith. Actually no, it was Ian Stewart who would is the only person who everybody in the band could listen to when they were screwing around backstage, when they couldn't get on stage. Ian Stewart would say to them, get your asses on stage. It's time to go.
He said a few other words that I can't mention here, but they would listen to him right away, and Charlie and Stu would get that band hop in and that's what they needed, you know, Mick to keep the wheels running and Charlie and Stu to keep them in line. And that worked for a long time.
Do you think without Charlie they can still feel creative.
Oh, that's a very good question. That's a good you know, I'm not sure that Charlie was an impediment to their creativity. There were several songs, more than a handful, that Charlie couldn't figure out how to play. And Jimmy Miller, who was one of their early producers, the producers of the great albums Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, Jimmy was a drummer, and Jimmy played the drums on a lot of those songs on the album. So I think that when Charlie died it gave them they took
¶ Does it bother Keith that everyone sits down when Jagger isn't performing?
a deep breath. But unlike when John Bonham died and the guys weren't talking to each other and and.
It just it ended it next.
Day, that was it. But when Charlie died, they took a deep breath. But the stones had to go on because these guys just they not only did they want to play, but they liked each other at that point, and so life was good, and they thought, we'll do it for Charlie. You know. In the next night after
Charlie died, they still decided to play. They played. I believe, I'm not sure, but I think it was in Saint Louis, and the lights went down and there was nothing but Charlie's drum kit on stage, and the place went dessert.
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¶ Modern music doesn't emphasize live instrumental performance
am a customer. Daryl Jones and Chuck Level Are they still the new guys?
Hey? What he is the new guy and he's been with him for fifty years they still call him the new guy. But yes, sure, Chuck is definitely one of the new guys. I think that a lot of people don't recognize the fact that they're in the Rolling Stones, that the rowing Stone os will always be micking Keith and of course what he now Ron would But I think some of the guys who were sidemen just can't take on that aura. They're not the bad boys. I'm sorry, they're not.
The bad But then the Stone stop being bad boys sometime in the mid nineties.
There's still they still played to that image. You know, you see ry.
Sir, But I guess you know, I don't know when you're getting into fights, that's bad boys. You know, when you're not speaking to it. You know, in some ways, like after they healed their last rift, that it became and that's where there's always let me put another way, there's always like, are you guys still performing because you like performing or you're still performing because you want the checks to keep rolling in?
Yeah, well I think that they don't need money. Believe me, they don't need money, none of them do. But I think when they stop performing, you know, as Keith would say, bring in the pine boxes.
I want the bear they're Bear Bryant. I mean, you know, I always think about Bear Bryant, right and these with these older folks and like, and I think I'd be the same way. I'm like that guy died as soon as he stopped working. I don't you know, I fear that's me. So I wasn't king of get it. I was in Keith's apartment one time and I asked him that question, and he took me by the shirt. And when Keith takes you by the shirt, you just go
with it. He dragged me down the hall into his living room and he pointed to a photo of Muddy Waters, photos of Muddy Waters and BB King that.
Were on his mantelpiece. He said, see those guys, those guys played until the very end into their eighties, and and that's that's what we're doing. I will never stop playing.
¶ What is the Stones' place in the music universe?
That's me and I believe him. You know, when you see Keith play on stage, take your binoculars next time, because you'll be sitting, you know, in the next state. And and look at Keith's face. He grins the whole time he's on stage. He loves what he does.
So one of the hallmarks of some Rolling Stones concerts are when Mick takes a break and Keith plays his stuff.
¶ They've come to understand themselves as the greatest rock band
Yeah, mix mix having a blood transfusion.
Probably, I was just gonna say, I mean, I'm like, God, bless him, he needs a break, right, Does it bother Keith that everybody sits down?
I don't think so. Keith is Keith is so bewildered by the fact that he can sing. You know, for years he didn't sing, and he found his voice. He made that album, you know, and that first solo album, and it took off and he realized, you know, I can step out and do a couple of songs. And when I saw them last time, he sang beautifully. I mean, I've enjoy it.
But it is a different style. I mean, he really is a blues guy. I mean to me, when you the solo album, you realize this is not a And I think that's probably why the crowd they hear the blues and they think, okay, this is sit down, frankly, to be to be totally you know, past the joint around music, not get up on your chairs and you know,
¶ Secret to the Stones longevity?
yelling screen.
Could be that exactly right. Yet you know, just watching people, they do sit down. But boy does he get a hand when he stops, maybe because he stops saying who knows you?
I think it's the I do think it's like the the true diehard who love guitar right like and that you know, to me, that's like this lost art is I fear the guitar that that we're just not appreciating great guitars anymore.
Yeah, that's I mean, when Jeff Beck died, that really blue hole and guitar or masters and Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are still around, but you know, it's getting swim out there.
Jack White is certainly great, and I don't want to take anything away from him. I mean, he's at least in the it feels like he is always paying homage to those guys, you know a little bit.
But what we don't have our guitar innovators anymore. That's the problem. There's no Jimmy Hendrix, you know, and Jimmy Page, who really kind of invented a way to.
Think synthesized music killed it is that what killed the electric guitar.
Absolutely everything is a push button right now. People who are are coming up these days aren't encouraged to play an instrument. They're encouraged to sing and let the producers do the orchestration, and they push buttons in the studio and that's it breaks my heart. What can you do? It'll change again?
Well, this is why the experience. I mean, look, I actually am a believer that the one thing AI is going to drive us towards is to be appreciate in person and live. And when you get our Stones concert and you see that there's a small orchestra he said,
¶ The Stones wouldn't participate in an extended "Dead & Company" style
you know, and a lot of brass back there. You know, I couldn't tell you how I was a french horn player and got a scholarship playing the french horn and when I went to the that was that was when the Stones brought out a french horn player or you Can't always get what you want and didn't didn't do it on a on a sacks, which I could have, you know, which you know, because it's hard to get you know it.
It was.
It was one of those that for me it was like, oh, the French horn can play rock and roll. I've been trying to tell my friends that it was. Yes, I felt seen, you know, it was this moment as you know, eighteen year old kid, I was like, wow, I feel seen as a french horn player.
Well, you know, I'm let's tell you that. Al Cooper,
¶ Mick is about to have great grandkids, and has a 30 year old girlfriend
who played that french horn or Can't Always Get told me that the reason he did it is because he came in the studio and Mick couldn't figure out a beginning to.
That story to start the song. Yeah, right, and.
Cooper Cooper like you played french horn at the University of Bridgeport where he was in school, and he said, I've got the instrument, I know exactly what I'm going to do with this, And guys like you who played french shorn were all of a sudden cool guys. Trust me.
¶ Next project is a book about John Lennon's second act
I was able to participate in a few house party bands because I whipped out the french Shorn. Let's go. You can't always get what you want. I finally have my I have my reasoning.
But what do you do for an encore?
Well, I know that's the that's the problem. There's there's there's a couple of other small trust us as frenchhorn players, know, like all five rock songs that you have gone on that front? What are they?
So?
What are they?
You know?
What do you whatether are they? Are they a rock band? Are they more than a rock band? Are they a cultural I mean what is their place in the music universe?
Hey? Look? In nineteen sixty nine when they went on tour, their MC introduced them as the greatest rock and roll band in the world, and Mick went backstage and said, listen, don't ever do that again. That's just that's freaking embarrassing. Don't do it. And the guy looked him in the eye and he said, Mick, either are yarn what's it going to be? And Mick said, okay. So for the last forty years they've been introduced as the greatest rock and roll band in the world, and I think that's
¶ Beatles had an aversion to talking to the press
what they have come to understand they are. They're not a blues band anymore. They do play the blues and it's in their blood it will always be the foundation of it. But they are, without a doubt the greatest rock and roll band in the world. And it's the sound that gives us everything else that everybody aspires to. It's that it's rocket it's garage band, it's honkey talk, it's it's the Rolling Stones.
So the Stones endured led Zeppelin did not Beatles, did not.
Hey the Everly Brothers brothers, for God's sakes correct?
And is it is is the sort of the norm that there's only a Most groups can only handle ten to fifteen years and the Stones are an outlier? Or did the Stones have have a recipe that if other bands had followed it, Led Zeppelin would still be playing today.
¶ If Jagger had been killed & Lennon lived, would the bands switch trajectories?
Although I don't know if Robert Plant's voice could handle it, but still.
Yeah, no, well Robert and Jimmy were never going to appear together again. But no, I think that I think that this the Stone serving normally and and bands can't endure. It's like marriages only have so much time together and after a while you either say, you know, okay, we're not going to have sex anym or but I love you and I can go with you for the rest of your life, or you say, yeah, we're done righty, you know, and that's it. The Stones stopped having sex together.
But they love to play rock and roll, you know, they're Yeah. I don't think bands can you grow up and you grow apart. You know, they start as kids.
Most bands do, and that's why they break up usually is somebody becomes an adult and somebody doesn't want to be an adult exactly.
The Beatles are a prime example. They grew up and they grew apart, and so that's what happens, you know, or or you just you don't have that spark anymore. Yeah, the Stones, God bless them, man, I don't know how they did it.
Do you imagine? Let me you know, I think some of us thought the Grateful Dead would stop touring when all the members of the Grateful Dead died. And I know they all haven't died yet, but some key members have and now it's Dead in Company.
Yeah.
Do you imagine in thirty years there is you know, relatives of the Rolling Stones who continue to play under the banner Rolling Stones, a lah Dead in Company. I mean, is this how sustaining it could be?
If they did that, Keith would rise from the ashes. And as Keith always says, you want to see the blade, Keith would show him the blade. Absolutely not, they would. The Stones would never participate in anything like that. I don't think it would ever happen. Plus, you know, there are not a lot of males in that family, so he's like Marlin and he's Marvelin. I think it's about sixty years old now, so.
You know we're probably talking about grandkids or grandphews.
You know, Mick is about to have great grandkids. But he's also got a thirty year old girlfriend, So you know, listen, it's the secret sauce pal.
Everybody loves a rock star. That's what it turns out. Nick would just be a creepy old man if he couldn't start me up. Exactly exactly, Bob. You must be having a great time. What's left? Who's left?
The profile? Yeah, I'm working on a really interesting book now, can you share it? Yeah? Sure. It's going to be about John Lennon's second act, from the breakup of the Beatles until his tragic death. I think he's an interesting person to look at, like the Stones, like the Beatles, A lot of writers have tried to do it. I think I have a really good insight into it, and I believe the family is going to allow me to be the first person to have access to John's files, his diaries, his journals seen.
You know, obviously your your relationships. Doing the Beatles book is bearing some fruit.
I thought they'd never talked to me again. Apparently they like it, you know, strange.
Well, maybe we've come around and people want, you know, they want the story told.
You know, Chuck. In nineteen ninety seven, the New York Times sent me to Wandon to talk to Paul McCartney to do a profile. And while we were talking, I said, there's one crappy biography of the Beatles and it's a joke. And he said, you know, we gave hundred Davies a story that was we made up half of it to protect our girlfriends and our wives and our family members, and what was just entering his fifties and I was there at the right time, and I said, is that
the way you want to go out? You want to leave that story behind you? And so he allowed me to be the first person. There was a there was kind of a dictum among Beatles family and friends that if you talk to the press, you were out, you were finished. So for forty years, nobody had ever talked to who were in themates of the Beatles, And so I would go there and ask them to speak to me and they'd say, well we can. I'd say, call Paul and they'd come back and say, boy, do we
have stories for you? And I was just the lucky guy at the right time.
Well, I uh, there'll be a lot of people interested in that one. You know, Lennon is one of the amazing what ifs?
What amazing what if? Yeah, exactly, and I'm hoping people are interesting.
I'm then let me close with the question I told you before we started that I was going to close with, Since you're going to work on Lennon, if it's Mick Jagger that gets killed and John Lennon lives are the Beatles, the Stones and the Stones the Beatles, chuck.
It would only depend if John could work with Paul, because we've we had ten years afterwards of John putting his own stuff out, and I just I think.
That I'd like to believe that those live aid concerts, farm maid concerts, right, all that stuff in the eighties, there is no way Paul would not have been able to talk John or vice. They would have done something.
Together, perhaps, but I don't know if they would have created music together. I think after the White Album they learned that they could write their own things and come into the studio under the banner of the Beatles, and so Paul wasn't there to smooth John's rough edges, and John wasn't there to sandpaper Paul's schmaltzy songs. And that's what they needed. And I think had they learned how to work, if they could continue to work together, yeah,
they would have endured. They would have been great together. But you know, it's like Rogers and Hammerstein, and you know, at a certain point, you know, it just doesn't happen anymore. Mick and Keith God bless the man they figured out how to do this.
Well, look, you didn't just write a book about a band. You also, you know, wrote about the last sixty years of American culture. And by the way, it is fascinating that American cultures and rock and roll is basically only one one actual American had an influence on it, at least that you've written about, which is Bob Dylan.
That's right, that's true. Uh. I mean, you know, Springsteen's around, he's pretty great. And the Beach Boys and Elvis Els.
No, I mean, yeah, my friend Tony Kornheiser, you know, believes that without the Beatles, that the the.
That that the.
Jeez, I just that Brian Wilson and that it would all they would be bigger perhaps, And it's not as if the Beach Boys aren't big, but that that their sound would have been seen as more innovative had it not been for the innovative sounds of the Beatles.
No doubt. But we have the Beatles, we had, we had the Boys, we had Bob Dylan, we have the Stones all at one time, and they begat everybody else, The Hollies, the Kinks, yes they did, the Yardbirds, It was when I was growing up. It was music every minute and you couldn't get away from it. It was fantastic.
Well, I've always been obsessed with the with the with the band family trees, right, the Yardbirds, beget the led Zeppelin and the Clapton stuff, and all the different all the circles that all how how close it was that some of these same bands might have had different members.
And they all knew each other, and they you know, they all socialized, and they they were on triple and quadruple bills with each other, and and you know, fed each other, and everybody wanted to be better than the other guy, and so they worked harder, and they gave us this incredible let's say, twenty twenty five years.
Of I do I feel like you're almost describing Bird versus Magic, or or you know, or Wilt versus Bill, or you know where the Jordan versus Lebron And yet here they were. I mean, what a what a you know to to almost put it all together.
It's right again right.
Anyway, as Bob, this was so much fun, and thanks for producing these books. I just you know, The Stones is one of those I like I said, I I feel like I appreciated them later in life sort of. You know, I was a led Zeppelin guy before I was a Stones guy, Okay, And and so there was this you know idea, well, that's yeah, that's radio rock and roll. Led Zeppelin was you know, if you were really a rock and roll right, you.
Know that was that was how of course? Yeah.
And yet the older you get, the more you realize Stones did something pretty impressive.
Yeah they did, and they're still doing it.
They're killing they still are, right, my friend, I appreciate this, my pleasure.
It was great at it. Hey,