This was originally posted in The Australian on June 15th:



It’s the week of release for the deluxe edition of Sticky Fingers, the album that in 1971 transformed the Rolling Stones from rock’n’roll outlaws into world-conquering stadium rockers. In his diner-style restaurant of the same name in Kensington, west London, Bill Wyman — bassist for the Stones from 1962 to 1993, part-time archeologist and photographer, author, metal detector enthusiast, leader of R&B band the Rhythm Kings and recently reinvigorated solo artist with a new album Back to Basics — is recalling his short-lived, ill-fated reunion with the Stones for two concerts at the O2 arena in London in 2012.

“I jammed with Charlie [Watts], Keith [Richards] and Ronnie [Wood] in a studio in Battersea nine months before the gig. Mick came on the third day,” says Wyman, in a characteristically flat tone, as he sits in one of the booths in Sticky Fingers beneath a wall decorated with Stones tour posters and concert photographs. “And they were getting over-friendly, Keith in particular. I invited Keith and Patti [Hansen, Keith Richards’ wife] to the house for dinner and he was all over me. He gave me a scarf with all these skeleton things on it and he kept hugging me, saying, ‘Man, it’s great to be back.’ And the talk was that I’d be heavily involved when they did their next thing.”


Wyman — who no longer has the cadaverous, crow-like air of a Rolling Stone but who now looks like your average 78-year-old millionaire, albeit one with hair — documents the frustrations that followed. They began when he was told he could only play two songs at the O2.


“And they wouldn’t tell me which two,” he says, managing to sound both indignant and unemotional at the same time. “It really disappointed me. I said, ‘Why don’t you let me do the last five, and then your guy [Darryl Jones, who replaced Wyman as the Stones’ bassist] can do the encore?’ No, no, no. So the day before the rehearsal I’m going through 50 Stones songs, thinking they’ll want me to do my signature ones like Miss You and Jumping Jack Flash. Then they tell me I’m doing Honky Tonk Women and It’s Only Rock’n’Roll.”


The torments didn’t stop there. “Two days later I went to the O2 for the soundcheck. I had to use his [Jones’s] amplifier and he plays completely differently from me. He plays with his fingers, hard, I play with my thumb, lightly. I didn’t have time to check out his amp settings. Then Mick says, ‘We’ve got to rehearse with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and this girl [Florence Welch] and there’s no time for a soundcheck — for you.’ In the end I just went on stage, plugged in and hoped for the best.”


What was the reason for such treatment at the hands of his former brothers in arms? “Maybe they were punishing me for leaving the band,” offers Wyman, to cries of protest from his personal assistant, who’s sitting at a table nearby. “They never wanted me to leave. When I came off stage and went to join my wife and daughters in the pit, the bass player started doing Miss You! He’s playing all my parts — and not as well as I thought he should. He’s playing the octaves as single notes. And then Mick starts saying what a great bass player he is, right in front of me. ‘Look at Darryl, isn’t he fantastic?’ goes Mick.”

Wyman shakes his head. “They never forgave me for leaving.”


He left the Rolling Stones in the first place after feeling that his contributions were going unheard. And Back to Basics is something of a late-career high. Conversational songs sung in a cockney baritone like What & How & If & When & Why and Stuff (Can’t Get Enough) recall the dry wit of Ian Dury, alongside that of Wyman’s own self-deprecating hit of 1981, Je Suis un Rock Star. He’s got a way with a down-to-earth tune, even if his sole contribution to one of the Stones’ original albums, the whimsical In Another Land from 1967’s psychedelic disaster Their Satanic Majesties Request, does not rank among their classics.


“It was a closed shop and there was no way in,” says Wyman on the Jagger-Richards stranglehold, established in the mid-1960s when the band’s then-manager Andrew Loog Oldham recognised the pair as the creative force within the group. “That was [Sticky Fingers-era guitarist] Mick Taylor’s frustration. He couldn’t get into the songwriting and any contribution he made wasn’t given credit, same as me. He left. I swallowed my pride and carried on.”


In his book Stone Alone, Wyman writes how he and Brian Jones came up with the iconic riff for Jumping Jack Flash, not something they received credit for. “I wasn’t given the opportunity to do my apprenticeship in the way Mick and Keith were,” he says, with stone-faced composure. “They wrote dozens of really poor songs until they started writing good ones. We’d be in Chicago or somewhere and they’d ask if I had anything. I’d run through a tune, they’d say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll come back to you on that,’ and then go and work on one of their songs for a week until it had gone from a country ballad, as Satisfaction was, into something really commercial. It was frustrating.”


Wyman was always an odd fit. Older than the others, he rarely hung out with them and he was never interested in drink and drugs. He did, however, enjoy phenomenal success with women. He didn’t have the dangerous sensuality of Mick Jagger, nor the ragged charms of Keith Richards, yet Wyman, unhappily married to his first wife Diane from 1959 to 1969, slept with hundreds of female fans throughout his time with the band. What was his secret?


He tackles the question with sober consideration, as if being asked about the inner workings of the Bill Wyman Signature Metal Detector. “When I first went to work in 1960, as a clerk at a diesel engineer’s in Streatham Hill, a friend of mine took me back home and showed me how to develop film,” he explains. “He also said, when I told him I wasn’t getting on well with my wife: ‘I’ll tell you one lesson to take with you through life. With women, no matter who they are, no matter what they do, always treat them like a lady and you won’t go wrong.’ Since then I’ve been respectful to every girl I met. I was never rude. I never kicked them out like I heard other people did. I was always nice to them, even when they weren’t quite what I thought they might be.”


Despite such niceness, Back to Basics does feature a song called Seventeen, about a model who tries to break into acting and finds herself being described by Wyman as “a has-been” at the tender age of the title.


“That’s a rewrite of a song I did in 1980. We had a birthday party at the restaurant and this American model came along, I was introduced to her — I won’t mention names — and she wasn’t as attractive as I thought she was on screen. Seventeen is a bit cruel. It’s about moving on from being a model — I had loads of model girlfriends — to being in movies and how sometimes it’s not successful. Kelly LeBrock was one of my girlfriends and for her it was great, but most of them fail. My wife Suzanne [Accosta] was a model and she always talks about how badly they were treated by photographers. They’d go and do a shoot and be treated like a piece of shit, basically.”


Having a song on the album called Seventeen seems to be asking for trouble, considering Wyman found himself in something of a scandal when in 1989, aged 52, he married 18-year-old Mandy Smith. They were rumoured to have been together four years previously. Wyman appears to read my thoughts. “At least I called the song Seventeen,” he says, before Smith’s name has a chance to be mentioned.


The womanising days ended many years ago. Married to Accosta since 1993, living with her and their three teenage daughters in their houses in Chelsea and Suffolk, Wyman has matured into a faithful family man with age-appropriate interests, including metal detecting and archeology. Does he have any regrets about leaving the Stones?


"I’ve never regretted it,” he says, bringing an hour’s conversation to an end. “The past 20 years have been the most prolific of my life. I found two Roman sites they never knew existed. I’ve found Iron Age coins. I’ve opened events for the British Museum. I’ve opened the Castle Museum in Norwich, one in bloody Newcastle. Done photographic exhibitions around the world. Now it seems like this album might do quite well.”


Then, as if to make peace with three decades of frustration at the hands of the Rolling Stones, he concludes: “Makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it?”
By Will Hodgkinson

With many thanks to The Australian

There was something similar in the Saturday times last week.

What a bunch of nice guys Mick is. And Keith. Geez.

Terrible how they treated Bill, Mick T and Brian.

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Brstonesfan
Terrible how they treated Bill, Mick T and Brian.

Yup.

Satisfaction originally a country ballad? Now that would have been something to hear. I wish they'd just kept the tape rolling all the time and recorded their rehearsals working up songs back then.

Thank you for staying Charlie Watts, you were in a similar position as Wyman and you stayed and I appreaciate you staying very much.

It's not really new, they have always been like that. If they wanted to invite Bill and Mick on stage, they have to do it very friendly but not like they did it! Mick is not very nice but Keith is tougher than Mick, I remember seeing Mick crying outside the studio, after a night of recording for dirty work in Paris. Surely a huge dispute inside the studio.

To be fair; he made his own choice.

Usually I'm inclined to be charitable because interviews such as these are often heavily edited, but oh please...not one mention of how lucky he was or what a privilege it was to be a part of one of the world's best and most successful bands. His comment about Keith being overly friendly makes it sound like Keith was being creepy. Perhaps he was just genuinely glad to see Wyman and spend time with him. Yes, he probably should have been given more opportunities to participate in the writing of songs, but from what I have read, in the early days, Bill and Brian were often out together persuing women while Keith and Mick were back at the hotels writing songs. I'm sorry, but I can't feel sorry for Bill Wyman.

Bill makes it sound as if Keith promised him substantial involvement in that tour.

which he never really wanted, did he?

he's obviously moved on. but he was definitely luck to be with them, and they were lucky to have him.

The treated him the same as Mick Taylor, vengefully and childishly, which is why I am no longer a fan of this band, at least in its current configuration.

Bill created a great foundation for the Stones music.
He was no doubt surprised that when he ripped out that foundation it did nothing to the band.

They did some foundation repair with Mr Jones and Suck On The Jugular was born...

Don't be mad Bill.
Bill, why you mad?

You can genuinely tell how gutted he was to not be involved more in the 50th gigs, can't blame him really. None of us know what was promised or whether wires were crossed. They're a complex bunch of personalitys always have been and always will be.

I like Darryl but don't understand why Mick fawns over him, he doesn't excite me as a bass player at all.

Bill's just tryin' ta get some spotlight on his new album ....



ROCKMAN

Wait...there was a new album mentioned?

You really think mick and keith chose to sit in hotelrooms and write songs? Oldham obviously created his own Lennon Mccartney and obviously relied hesvily on motown hits. Jagger/richards is a brandname used on their songs micks songs songs with defining contributions by jones wyman taylor cooder preston wood hopkins etc. Business.

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Redhotcarpet
You really think mick and keith chose to sit in hotelrooms and write songs? Oldham obviously created his own Lennon Mccartney and obviously relied hesvily on motown hits. Jagger/richards is a brandname used on their songs micks songs songs with defining contributions by jones wyman taylor cooder preston wood hopkins etc. Business.

It sure didn't look that way in Charlie Is My Darling...

And it was Keith that brought the music obviously.

A very interesting feature which I read with interest. When all is said and done, I still miss Bill from the Stones line-up and still think that one day he will walk out on stage at the beginning of a show and play to the end. Then I wake up! Bill remains the best bass player the Stones ever had and he is there on all the classic tracks, something Daryl Jones for all his technical ability will never emulate.

The complete article posted here .... [www.iorr.org]



ROCKMAN

I'm not sure Bill is really as browned off as this interview suggests. He has a churlish turn of phrase but I get the feeling he is happy with his choices overall. He didn't like touring at the point he left, he had a young family and a changed lifestyle and he seems, overall, to preserve cordial relationships with the Stones, particularly Mick away from the press. He's playing the type of music he wants to these days - not a bad life for the oldest living Stone.

No coincidence this is coming out ahead of his new album.

Amazing what people will say to sell books and albums.

Love Bill, but he quit the band.
You don't get to script it when they graciously invite you to join them again.

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latebloomer
His comment about Keith being overly friendly makes it sound like Keith was being creepy. .

If Keith used that line from This Place Is Empty on Bill, I'll swear I'll never listen to that song again.

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treaclefingers

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latebloomer
His comment about Keith being overly friendly makes it sound like Keith was being creepy. .

If Keith used that line from This Place Is Empty on Bill, I'll swear I'll never listen to that song again.

Bill already did that anyway...

No coincidence this is coming out ahead of his new album.

Amazing what people will say to sell books and albums.

YEP ....



ROCKMAN

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treaclefingers

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latebloomer
His comment about Keith being overly friendly makes it sound like Keith was being creepy. .

If Keith used that line from This Place Is Empty on Bill, I'll swear I'll never listen to that song again.

No, but Bill must have liked to use it. According to June Shelley, it was one of his favorite activities.

I remember Keith saying in an Interview of gettting Bill back and yes it sounded Not like doing 2 songs. And htw - it is ridicoulous to choose a song with a bass doing nothing during the first verse. Why didn't they do HAD IT WITH You with the muted Bass?

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24FPS
"I’ve never regretted it,” he says, bringing an hour’s conversation to an end. “The past 20 years have been the most prolific of my life. I found two Roman sites they never knew existed. I’ve found Iron Age coins. I’ve opened events for the British Museum. I’ve opened the Castle Museum in Norwich, one in bloody Newcastle. Done photographic exhibitions around the world. Now it seems like this album might do quite well.”

Brilliant afterlife. Pursue your passions. I can totally relate to his activities.

I think what cheeses Bill is he wasn't allowed to recreate the Stones sound that a lot of fans obviously miss. Maybe Mick J. didn't want the fans to think they were missing something. There's no reason in the world they couldn't have put together the classic lineup with Taylor and Wyman for Bitch. Then again, Mick might have felt pressure to do more with them. Not letting Bill play Miss You, maybe his finest moment, and then praising an inferior bass player in front of him, is a little low.

Inferior is laughable

Bill is great and perfect for 60/70s Stones but if you can't tell Darryl is dumbing it down to play the part you haven't been watching...or listening