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Am I the only one with the feeling that Mick's far more honest and far less "Chesire cat" than he was in the past. When you read interviews yo'd always have the impression he was wrapping himself in a fog of semi-lies, half-sincere "confessions" and straight PR.
I was just thinking the same thing but then again who knows which Mick showed up to the interview.
Let's hope you're not that dim.
Brilliant isn't it?
For the Stonesmembers Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 19:35 by TheflyingDutchman.
I know, but they never acknowledged it. For example they always seem to forget that Taylor was a splendid rhythm player as well.
I assume you are refering to DickTaylor, or have I missed something? ..Speaking on behalf of my self...Who are the Stonesmembers anyway?
Zoe Ball isn’t quite the youngster she appears to be - she’s 50 in November!
Perhaps you missed what Mick said - "I’ve been in Europe..."
Presumably Patrick Doyle was just reiterating that nebulous information.
BTW, the actual comment was "Isolating at home in the European countryside..."
[www.rollingstone.com]
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Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
bye bye johnny
()
Date: September 3, 2020 22:03
Goats Heads Soup heavy of course, but Mick and Keith talk with Rolling Stone's Patrick Doyle about a few other things as well.
--
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on ‘Goats Head Soup,’ Life in Lockdown, and Why They’ll Never Quit
The Rolling Stones revisit one of their most misunderstood LPs for an epic reissue – and tell us what it would take for them to get onstage again
By Patrick Doyle
September 3, 2020
Mick Jagger got a call from his label recently with some news: While working on a reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1973 album Goats Head Soup, the crew found some unreleased tracks. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, no,’” Jagger says. “Unreleased tracks, to me that always means a lot of work. It’s like, ‘Things that you didn’t like and didn’t finish!’”
Jagger’s mind changed when he heard the music. “Actually, it’s not bad at all,” he says. Soon, isolating at his home in the European countryside, he wrote new lyrics to “All the Rage,” a rocker he’d started writing 47 years earlier. “You finish [tracks] like you would if you recorded them last week,” says Jagger. “ ‘Where are my maracas? Surely I must have my maracas around here.’”
Goats Head Soup emerged from a period of deep uncertainty for the Stones. After their successful tour for Exile on Main Street, they’d splintered across the world; a few months later, in late 1972, they reconvened in Kingston, Jamaica, to cut a set of dark grooves that sounded like nothing they’d ever released. There were drony experiments (“Can You Hear the Music?”), strung-out ballads (“Coming Down Again”), and snarling rockers (“Dancing With Mr. D”). Critics didn’t like it at the time, and the Stones quickly dropped many of the songs from their live set. “It’s not an album that’s revered as much as Exile on Main Street in people’s minds,” says Jagger. “I suppose including me.”
Keith Richards remembers exactly where he was when he started writing the album’s biggest hit earlier that year: in the bathroom of a rehab clinic in Switzerland, where he’d gone to kick his heroin addiction. After three of the most painful days of his life, a melody came to him and grew into “Angie,” a tender ballad inspired in part by the name of his newborn daughter with Anita Pallenberg.
Jagger knew “Angie” was a hit as soon as he heard it while visiting Richards in Switzerland, where he’d arrived with his own set of songs. After a decade of close collaboration, Jagger and Richards were living in separate countries. Richards had fled Nellcôte, his home in the South of France, due to a drug bust; the bandmates’ U.S. visas had expired; and they could no longer live in England due to tax issues. “When we cut Exile, we were still in each other’s pockets,” Richards says. “By the time of Goats Head, Mick had married Bianca. Charlie was living in France. In other words, we had become exiles. We were all over the place. Mick and I had to learn to write stuff apart.”
They chose to record in Jamaica in part because “it was one of the few places that would let us in,” Richards says, not entirely kidding. With Billy Preston joining them on piano, the band “worked like maniacs” from midnight to 10 a.m., says Richards. Jagger jokes that the Stones may be the only band to make an album in Jamaica with “not the slightest influence of reggae on any of the tracks.” Instead, he notes the funky combination of Richards’ and Mick Taylor’s guitars with Preston’s electric piano: “The fashion at that time was playing that clavinet with the wah-wah stuff,” he says. “It’s not Herbie Hancock, but it gives it that certain push.”
The Stones knocked out the basic tracks for Goats Head Soup in a week. On the new box set, you can hear them let loose on an instrumental jam for “Dancing With Mr. D,” featuring guitarist Mick Taylor’s piercing slide attack. There’s also an early version of “Heartbreaker,” featuring Preston and pianist Nicky Hopkins pounding away over the song’s hypnotic horn line. “Of course Billy Preston was in there, as well as Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart,” Richards says. “We had this funk thing going that hadn’t dawned on me so much until I re-heard it recently.”
The sessions had a spontaneous feel: “A lot of tracks weren’t worked out much before we got in there,” Richards adds. “Some of them are maybe an hour old.” One of his favorite songs is “Winter,” which he calls “a Mick beauty.” Jagger wrote the song about missing a lover while stuck in the countryside. Taylor, who left the band a year later, provides a searing, melodic solo. “I always liked the way Mick picked out those pretty melodies around the tunes,” Jagger says. “He was very good at that sort of thing.”
The next summer, when Goats Head came out, “Angie” went to Number One, putting the Stones back on the charts alongside David Bowie and Elton John. Jagger told Rolling Stone at the time that the new album was more focused than Exile, but he won’t go that far today. “I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums,” he says now. “You gotta take that with a pinch of salt.”
Richards sees Goats Head as the beginning to an important chapter in his life, when he fell in love with Jamaica. “That was ’73, the year Marley and the Wailers put out Catch a Fire. That’s also the year the soundtrack of The Harder They Come came out. I remember being in Jamaica, there was a feeling in the air. Jamaica was starting to make a mark on the map. After the sessions, I just moved back and I stayed there for months.” Richards bought a house on the island’s north coast. “And that’s where I met all the guys and eventually turned up on the Wingless Angels,” he continues, mentioning the reggae group he’d go on to release an album with in 1997. “It became my second home, you know.”
When 2020 began, the Stones were looking forward to a big tour. With those dates off due to Covid-19, they’ve been staying busy in other ways. At his home in Europe, Jagger has been working on documentary projects, plus writing new music and keeping in shape. “I’ve been singing quite a lot, and I’ve been exercising quite a lot, so I’m keeping that bit together,” he says. “I’m not in such a bad position. Can’t feel sorry for yourself. But yeah, I miss performing.”
“I really enjoyed that last tour, it was a great trek,” Richards says of the band’s 2019 dates, which came just weeks after Jagger had heart surgery. Still, the singer proved he was in top form, and the band played rarities like “Harlem Shuffle” and “She’s a Rainbow,” ending the tour with a dramatic, rain-drenched gig in Miami. “I was very disappointed in March when we said, ‘Uh oh, this thing’s looking bad,” Richards says. “A week later, they started to say, ‘We’ll cancel the first few gigs.’ And I said, ‘I have a feeling. Nah, this thing’s too big for us. It’s too big for anybody, you know?”
The guitarist has been hunkered down at home in Connecticut this summer. “It’s not very often, we do go drift out and stop by a sidewalk cafe,” he says. He, of course, wears a mask. “Oh yeah, I’m a masked man,” he says. “I mean, it’s what you have to do. I wear mine in bed!” He’s been listening to Bob Dylan’s Rough & Rowdy Ways (“Bless old Bob. I mean, I love his new album, man”) and working on new music himself. In late April, the Stones released “Living in a Ghost Town,” their first original release since 2012. “We had it in the can,” Richards says. “I spoke to Mick around March. I said, ‘Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know.'”
Jagger says that song “was part of a group of songs we’d recorded quite recently. It just seemed to fit the times. When I went back to my lyric book and looked at it, it was a song about being a ghost after a plague. Obviously I threw in a few more current lines, and then redid some of the vocals and I redid bits of my guitar and stuff. Now I’m singing on some of the other ones that we did from that time period, finishing those off, too.”
The band is considering putting those songs out soon. “I think we have five, six, or seven tracks we’ve slowly been putting together,” Richards says. “Right now, seeing if this thing’s going to go on, maybe we should think about putting them out in another way.”
Jagger wonders about future of live music, especially in the U.S. “The larger point, really, is — in the short, medium, and long term — how is everyone that performs live going to function in the future? We don’t know. In Europe, we’ve had small-scale concerts. We’ve had socially-distanced concerts. You can see [concerts] starting in some parts of the world — New Zealand, Australia and so on. But … as far as the U.S. is concerned, we don’t really know what the future holds. So many people are out of work, losing money. Is it ever going to be the same again? Will it be always different? We just don’t know at the moment.”
Jagger says he’s looking forward to stepping onstage with the band again, whenever it happens. “We might be playing to very few people,” he says. “Even though we might be lucky enough to have sold tickets, we might not be able to play to them all at once.” He says he’s open to the Stones playing a socially-distanced concert: “Yeah, I suppose if that was the way of the world, of course.”
Richards has his eyes on the future, too. “I hope, like everybody else, there’s a very good vaccine as soon as possible,” he says. “And a change of regime wouldn’t be bad. Let’s leave it at that, man.”
Retirement is still not an option for the band, he adds. “You might call it a habit,” he says of playing live. “I mean, that’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, ‘Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?’ You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? So it’s like that. I really can’t imagine doing anything else.”
In 2022, the Stones will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of their first shows. Richards hopes it’s an occasion they mark onstage. “I hope we’re all there, man,” he says. “It’s something to look forward to.”
[www.rollingstone.com]
--
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on ‘Goats Head Soup,’ Life in Lockdown, and Why They’ll Never Quit
The Rolling Stones revisit one of their most misunderstood LPs for an epic reissue – and tell us what it would take for them to get onstage again
By Patrick Doyle
September 3, 2020
Mick Jagger got a call from his label recently with some news: While working on a reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1973 album Goats Head Soup, the crew found some unreleased tracks. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, no,’” Jagger says. “Unreleased tracks, to me that always means a lot of work. It’s like, ‘Things that you didn’t like and didn’t finish!’”
Jagger’s mind changed when he heard the music. “Actually, it’s not bad at all,” he says. Soon, isolating at his home in the European countryside, he wrote new lyrics to “All the Rage,” a rocker he’d started writing 47 years earlier. “You finish [tracks] like you would if you recorded them last week,” says Jagger. “ ‘Where are my maracas? Surely I must have my maracas around here.’”
Goats Head Soup emerged from a period of deep uncertainty for the Stones. After their successful tour for Exile on Main Street, they’d splintered across the world; a few months later, in late 1972, they reconvened in Kingston, Jamaica, to cut a set of dark grooves that sounded like nothing they’d ever released. There were drony experiments (“Can You Hear the Music?”), strung-out ballads (“Coming Down Again”), and snarling rockers (“Dancing With Mr. D”). Critics didn’t like it at the time, and the Stones quickly dropped many of the songs from their live set. “It’s not an album that’s revered as much as Exile on Main Street in people’s minds,” says Jagger. “I suppose including me.”
Keith Richards remembers exactly where he was when he started writing the album’s biggest hit earlier that year: in the bathroom of a rehab clinic in Switzerland, where he’d gone to kick his heroin addiction. After three of the most painful days of his life, a melody came to him and grew into “Angie,” a tender ballad inspired in part by the name of his newborn daughter with Anita Pallenberg.
Jagger knew “Angie” was a hit as soon as he heard it while visiting Richards in Switzerland, where he’d arrived with his own set of songs. After a decade of close collaboration, Jagger and Richards were living in separate countries. Richards had fled Nellcôte, his home in the South of France, due to a drug bust; the bandmates’ U.S. visas had expired; and they could no longer live in England due to tax issues. “When we cut Exile, we were still in each other’s pockets,” Richards says. “By the time of Goats Head, Mick had married Bianca. Charlie was living in France. In other words, we had become exiles. We were all over the place. Mick and I had to learn to write stuff apart.”
They chose to record in Jamaica in part because “it was one of the few places that would let us in,” Richards says, not entirely kidding. With Billy Preston joining them on piano, the band “worked like maniacs” from midnight to 10 a.m., says Richards. Jagger jokes that the Stones may be the only band to make an album in Jamaica with “not the slightest influence of reggae on any of the tracks.” Instead, he notes the funky combination of Richards’ and Mick Taylor’s guitars with Preston’s electric piano: “The fashion at that time was playing that clavinet with the wah-wah stuff,” he says. “It’s not Herbie Hancock, but it gives it that certain push.”
The Stones knocked out the basic tracks for Goats Head Soup in a week. On the new box set, you can hear them let loose on an instrumental jam for “Dancing With Mr. D,” featuring guitarist Mick Taylor’s piercing slide attack. There’s also an early version of “Heartbreaker,” featuring Preston and pianist Nicky Hopkins pounding away over the song’s hypnotic horn line. “Of course Billy Preston was in there, as well as Nicky Hopkins and Ian Stewart,” Richards says. “We had this funk thing going that hadn’t dawned on me so much until I re-heard it recently.”
The sessions had a spontaneous feel: “A lot of tracks weren’t worked out much before we got in there,” Richards adds. “Some of them are maybe an hour old.” One of his favorite songs is “Winter,” which he calls “a Mick beauty.” Jagger wrote the song about missing a lover while stuck in the countryside. Taylor, who left the band a year later, provides a searing, melodic solo. “I always liked the way Mick picked out those pretty melodies around the tunes,” Jagger says. “He was very good at that sort of thing.”
The next summer, when Goats Head came out, “Angie” went to Number One, putting the Stones back on the charts alongside David Bowie and Elton John. Jagger told Rolling Stone at the time that the new album was more focused than Exile, but he won’t go that far today. “I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums,” he says now. “You gotta take that with a pinch of salt.”
Richards sees Goats Head as the beginning to an important chapter in his life, when he fell in love with Jamaica. “That was ’73, the year Marley and the Wailers put out Catch a Fire. That’s also the year the soundtrack of The Harder They Come came out. I remember being in Jamaica, there was a feeling in the air. Jamaica was starting to make a mark on the map. After the sessions, I just moved back and I stayed there for months.” Richards bought a house on the island’s north coast. “And that’s where I met all the guys and eventually turned up on the Wingless Angels,” he continues, mentioning the reggae group he’d go on to release an album with in 1997. “It became my second home, you know.”
When 2020 began, the Stones were looking forward to a big tour. With those dates off due to Covid-19, they’ve been staying busy in other ways. At his home in Europe, Jagger has been working on documentary projects, plus writing new music and keeping in shape. “I’ve been singing quite a lot, and I’ve been exercising quite a lot, so I’m keeping that bit together,” he says. “I’m not in such a bad position. Can’t feel sorry for yourself. But yeah, I miss performing.”
“I really enjoyed that last tour, it was a great trek,” Richards says of the band’s 2019 dates, which came just weeks after Jagger had heart surgery. Still, the singer proved he was in top form, and the band played rarities like “Harlem Shuffle” and “She’s a Rainbow,” ending the tour with a dramatic, rain-drenched gig in Miami. “I was very disappointed in March when we said, ‘Uh oh, this thing’s looking bad,” Richards says. “A week later, they started to say, ‘We’ll cancel the first few gigs.’ And I said, ‘I have a feeling. Nah, this thing’s too big for us. It’s too big for anybody, you know?”
The guitarist has been hunkered down at home in Connecticut this summer. “It’s not very often, we do go drift out and stop by a sidewalk cafe,” he says. He, of course, wears a mask. “Oh yeah, I’m a masked man,” he says. “I mean, it’s what you have to do. I wear mine in bed!” He’s been listening to Bob Dylan’s Rough & Rowdy Ways (“Bless old Bob. I mean, I love his new album, man”) and working on new music himself. In late April, the Stones released “Living in a Ghost Town,” their first original release since 2012. “We had it in the can,” Richards says. “I spoke to Mick around March. I said, ‘Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know.'”
Jagger says that song “was part of a group of songs we’d recorded quite recently. It just seemed to fit the times. When I went back to my lyric book and looked at it, it was a song about being a ghost after a plague. Obviously I threw in a few more current lines, and then redid some of the vocals and I redid bits of my guitar and stuff. Now I’m singing on some of the other ones that we did from that time period, finishing those off, too.”
The band is considering putting those songs out soon. “I think we have five, six, or seven tracks we’ve slowly been putting together,” Richards says. “Right now, seeing if this thing’s going to go on, maybe we should think about putting them out in another way.”
Jagger wonders about future of live music, especially in the U.S. “The larger point, really, is — in the short, medium, and long term — how is everyone that performs live going to function in the future? We don’t know. In Europe, we’ve had small-scale concerts. We’ve had socially-distanced concerts. You can see [concerts] starting in some parts of the world — New Zealand, Australia and so on. But … as far as the U.S. is concerned, we don’t really know what the future holds. So many people are out of work, losing money. Is it ever going to be the same again? Will it be always different? We just don’t know at the moment.”
Jagger says he’s looking forward to stepping onstage with the band again, whenever it happens. “We might be playing to very few people,” he says. “Even though we might be lucky enough to have sold tickets, we might not be able to play to them all at once.” He says he’s open to the Stones playing a socially-distanced concert: “Yeah, I suppose if that was the way of the world, of course.”
Richards has his eyes on the future, too. “I hope, like everybody else, there’s a very good vaccine as soon as possible,” he says. “And a change of regime wouldn’t be bad. Let’s leave it at that, man.”
Retirement is still not an option for the band, he adds. “You might call it a habit,” he says of playing live. “I mean, that’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, ‘Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?’ You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? So it’s like that. I really can’t imagine doing anything else.”
In 2022, the Stones will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of their first shows. Richards hopes it’s an occasion they mark onstage. “I hope we’re all there, man,” he says. “It’s something to look forward to.”
[www.rollingstone.com]
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
jbwelda
()
Date: September 3, 2020 22:59
They actually used that photo with Keef flaunting his needle marks. Thats wild.
jb
jb
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
black n blue
()
Date: September 4, 2020 05:25
Thanks nice post, my folks are 94, and 93 and say FU to a mask.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
Koen
()
Date: September 4, 2020 06:40
Quote
black n blue
Thanks nice post, my folks are 94, and 93 and say FU to a mask.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
bye bye johnny
()
Date: September 5, 2020 22:02
Extended Q & A from Mick's Rolling Stone interview:
Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music, the Stones’ Next Album, and More
“We’re in the never-never land,” Jagger says from his home in the European countryside, where he’s been writing, recording – and keeping in shape for the next tour
by Patrick Doyle
Mick Jagger onstage in Manchester, England, in June 2018. Andrew Benge/Redferns/Getty Images
Mick Jagger was supposed to have a very different 2020, playing sold-out stadiums on the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour. But he’s not letting the pandemic slow him down. Isolating at home in the European countryside, he’s been writing, recording, and working on documentary projects. “Can’t feel sorry for yourself,” he says. He’s also spent a lot of time looking back: The Stones just released a huge box set celebrating 1973’s Goats Head Soup, one of the band’s darkest and most misunderstood LPs. Jagger and Richards recently went deep into the making of the album; here is the extended Q&A with Jagger, where he talks about the future of live music, the next Stones album and more.
What have you been up to during this time?
I’ve been in Europe, in the country, and I’ve always had outdoor-space access. I’m feeling really sorry for some of my friends who don’t have as much, or can’t get out, or if they do get out, it’s a bit fraught. Every time I read the American newspapers, it looks just horrific.
What do you think will come of all this?
We’re in the never-never land. I mean, all we can say is that looking, analyzing it, some places are better than others and are doing better, but you’ve got to look at it from a global perspective. It’s awful. And we can’t see into the future. But we can learn from other people’s mistakes, and we can learn from other people’s successes.
What have you done with your days to occupy yourself?
Well, I have been able to go out, so that’s been a great thing for me. The weather’s been lovely. It hasn’t been, like, the middle of November and rainy. That would be depressing. It was a beautiful spring, and that was amazing — I’m normally not in my place long enough to watch the blossoms unfold. And then I did a few bits of work here and there. I finished off that “Ghost Town” track. Then I finished off these extras for Goats Head Soup, which I did at home. And I’ve been finishing off more tracks that we recorded before that we hadn’t finished. I’m doing some of that now. I’m writing some new songs and getting along with some documentary projects for different things. A few movie things I can get on with. You know, you try to keep yourself busy, because there’s quite a lot of downtime. But I still try to enjoy that as much as possible, like a lot of people.
Does this make you appreciate performing more?
I mean, I love performing. I’ve been singing quite a lot, so I’m trying to keep that bit together, and I’ve been exercising quite a lot, so I’m keeping that bit together. Yeah, I miss performing. But I’m not in such a bad position. And I do have other jobs to do, so you can’t feel sorry for yourself. The larger point really is: how, in the short, medium and long term, is everyone that performs live, and in fact even in cinema and so on — how is it going to function in the future? How are are we going to function?
Well, we don’t know how it’s going to function. In Europe, we’ve had small-scale concerts. We’ve had socially-distanced concerts. You can see [concerts] starting in some parts of the world, New Zealand, Australia, so on. But as far as the U.S. is concerned, we don’t really know what the future holds. So many people [are] out of work, losing money. Is it ever going to be the same again? Will it be always different? We just don’t know.
Well, last summer was incredible. It’s going to be a big moment when you guys step back onstage again.
We might be playing to very few people. Even though we know we might be lucky enough to sell tickets, we might not be able to play to them all at once.
Would you play a socially-distanced concert?
Yeah, I suppose if that was the way of the world, of course.
Where does Goats Head Soup fall in the Stones catalog in your mind?
Well, you know, it’s not an album that’s as revered as Exile on Main Street, which preceded it, in most people’s minds — I suppose including me, though we do songs from it onstage. We do “Angie.” We do “Heartbreaker.” We sometimes do “Dancing with Mr D.” We’ve done that a couple of times. I should have the list in front of me. I should be better informed of my own work.
“Silver Train,” “Winter.”
Yeah, we haven’t done “Winter” or stuff like that. There’s quite a few things we haven’t done. It’s not an album we do that many songs from. I mean, it’s a different kind of album. It was more or less done in one place, in a relatively short space of time, as opposed to Exile, which was very spread out time-wise. And so it is a different-sounding record. It’s got some good things.
You guys had made Exile, toured it, and you went straight back into the studio.
Yeah. I remember we wanted to go to L.A. to record, but we had some visa problems at the time, so we decided to record most of it in Jamaica. A couple of things, I think, were done in London. They said to me, “Well there’s unreleased tracks there.” And I remember thinking, “Oh no.” Unreleased tracks to me, that always means a lot of work. It’s like, “Things that you didn’t like and didn’t finish!” I’ve got a bit of a negative thing about them. But then you start listening to them and going, “Well, actually, it’s not bad at all. I don’t know why we didn’t finish it.” We were just being lazy, you know. You finish them like you would if you recorded them last week. Finish the vocals, or redo bits of them. “Where are my maracas? Surely I must have my maracas around here….” Stuff like that.
So you went back into the studio and finished “Scarlet” and “All the Rage” and “Criss Cross“?
Yeah. Actually not as much work as some of the ones I’ve done on previous releases. “All the Rage” didn’t really have much vocals, so I had to write that, basically. And obviously do the vocals. But “Criss Cross” and “Scarlet,” I didn’t do any vocals for. I just did some stuff at the end [for] my fade-out vocal. “Scarlet” is a bit of an odd one, because it wasn’t really recorded for Goats Head Soup. It was just a song that we had knocking around. I remember doing it with a couple of other people, in addition to the version that was found.
How did Jimmy Page wind up playing on “Scarlet”?
I spoke to him the other day. I said, “I’m sure we did that at Olympic.” He said, “No, no I remember it really well. We did it in Ronnie Wood’s basement.” And I said, “Well, that’s weird, why isn’t Ronnie on it, then?” Ronnie’s not a shy guitarist or bass player or anything. He said, “No, we definitely did it in Ronnie Wood’s basement.” He remembered it really well. So that’s me, Keith, and Jimmy….
What were your your days in Jamaica like? How was the process different from Exile, the mood and the overall feeling?
Laughs. It’s hard to remember my mood from 1973. I can’t remember what my mood was at breakfast. I mean, it was a different situation, because we weren’t in a basement of a house. We were in a real studio, which was run by this guy called Byron Lee from a band called Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. They used to play reggae, they used to play everything. They played calypso. They toured through the Caribbean and he had this studio, which is very different from living in a house. It was a bit probably a bit more disciplined in that way. I mean, we worked really hard and did long hours and stayed up really late, but we had probably a bit more discipline than we did on Exile.
And there we were with our Jamaican record, with not the slightest influence of reggae on any of the tracks. I think we consciously steered away from it: “We’re in Jamaica. We’re not going to make a Jamaican-influenced record.” We went all the way on that one.
There’s some interesting rhythms, though. It feels like the playing is a little more free.
Yeah, I mean, the rhythmic stuff, like the stuff on “Criss Cross,” that’s Billy Preston and Nicky [Hopkins]. The fashion at that time was playing the clavinet with the wah-wah stuff, and that gives it this certain push. It’s not Herbie Hancock exactly. [You can hear it] on “100 Years Ago” and then “Criss Cross,” which we just re-finished. But they’re a slightly different vibe, and “Heartbreaker” too.
Do you remember writing “Heartbreaker“?
Yeah, vaguely. I don’t really remember it that clearly. I remember writing the lyrics, and I think Keith and I contributed to the music thing of it, the chord structure and stuff. That was about heavy-handed policing, and someone said to me the other day, “That’s funny. That reflects on now.” I said, “Well, when has policing not been heavy-handed?’ I mean, that was very much part of the moment.
Mick Taylor’s playing is wonderful on “Winter,” which is a pretty beloved deep cut among your your fans.
Yeah, I like that song, it’s really nice. Mick and I just jammed on that, like, twice and that was it. And then we did the nice little subtle string arrangements through the end of it later. I always liked the way Mick picked out those pretty melodies around the tunes. He was very good at that sort of thing.
How do you look back on Billy Preston’s contributions?
He was very distinctive. As I said before, the stuff that he did with us in various ways when he played the organ, it always gave it that gospel feel. And then of course, you have Nicky playing such pretty piano on “Angie,” which was very much a part of that song, the piano part. And the guitar part.
Bob Dylan said “Angie” was one of his favorite Rolling Stones songs.
I’d love to hear Bob do that sometime. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?
Did you expect “Angie” to be a hit?
Yeah. I thought it sounded like a hit record to me at the time. I mean, you never know, but you get this feeling: “Well, if there’s gonna be a hit on this album, that’s going to be the one.” And it was very successful, and it’s still in our stage repertoire.
“Silver Train” is another great deep cut. When you’re listening back to this record, do pictures come to your mind of things that happened in the studio? Does that happen, all this time later?
Yeah. I remember “Silver Train,” I think we recorded in London, and I remember Mick and I jamming on that. That was just a jam we managed to make into a song in the end. It started off as a jam rather than a song that was pre-written. And then, these tracks like “Hide Your Love,” which at the time I remember thinking, “Oh that was a throwaway song.” Then you find … my memory was doing it once in Olympic, which I probably did, with me playing piano on it. And I don’t even remember who plays piano on the record…..[[i]pauses[/i]] This says piano on track seven, and there is no track seven. I’m just looking at it on Wiki. [[i]Laughs[/i].] My memory was completely wrong. We’d done a completely different version of it, which is, I think, on this extended album.
Do you think of Goats Head as a particularly druggy album?
Druggy? Was it a druggy album? It’s not got a lot of druggy subject material, apart from perhaps “Coming Down Again,” but you’ll have to talk to Keith about that. I mean, my guess is that could be a drug reference. [[i]Laughs[/i].] But the rest of it … there’s a drug reference in “Heartbreaker,” but I wouldn’t really characterize it as the most druggy Stones record.
At the time when it came out, you said you felt closer to this album, you liked it more than Exile.
I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums. You gotta take that with a pinch of salt. “Course it’s better! This album, if you liked Exile, this is even better!” I can imagine myself saying that.
It’s thought of as the end of a certain era, I guess, because it was the last album you made with Jimmy Miller producing. And it’s one of your last albums with Mick Taylor. Did it feel like the end of a certain chapter at the time?
No, no. You just get on with it, day by day, you know? Our main concern at that point was, could we go to the U.S. and get visas. When we were in Jamaica, it was all a little bit weird. And then of course, we did, we went to L.A. It was just day-to-day life. We weren’t really taking that in until later on. I wasn’t thinking about anything like that.
Is “Living in a Ghost Town” a precursor to a larger album you’re working on, or was it a one-off release?
It was part of a group of songs we’d already recorded various places quite recently. It just seemed to fit the times. I went back to my lyric book and looked at it. It was a song about being a ghost after a plague. Obviously I threw in a few more current lines and then re-did some of the vocals and I re-did bits of my guitar and stuff. Now, I’m singing on some of the other ones that we did from that time period, finishing those off, too.
Do you have any idea when you guys might release another record?
I don’t know. I guess it depends. I don’t know when we’re gonna get together at the moment. We don’t know when we’re going to get together and record. It’s got to be in safe circumstances and all that stuff. I’m sure we’ll get together soon, but I’ve got to finish off the stuff we’ve already done. So that gives me an opportunity now to get that out of the way. It sounds good. It’s pretty varied. A bit of all kinds of different kinds of music in there.
Thanks Mick. I hope to see you on the road next summer.
Hopefully! Thank you so much.
[www.rollingstone.com]
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-05 22:07 by bye bye johnny.
Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music, the Stones’ Next Album, and More
“We’re in the never-never land,” Jagger says from his home in the European countryside, where he’s been writing, recording – and keeping in shape for the next tour
by Patrick Doyle
Mick Jagger onstage in Manchester, England, in June 2018. Andrew Benge/Redferns/Getty Images
Mick Jagger was supposed to have a very different 2020, playing sold-out stadiums on the Rolling Stones’ No Filter tour. But he’s not letting the pandemic slow him down. Isolating at home in the European countryside, he’s been writing, recording, and working on documentary projects. “Can’t feel sorry for yourself,” he says. He’s also spent a lot of time looking back: The Stones just released a huge box set celebrating 1973’s Goats Head Soup, one of the band’s darkest and most misunderstood LPs. Jagger and Richards recently went deep into the making of the album; here is the extended Q&A with Jagger, where he talks about the future of live music, the next Stones album and more.
What have you been up to during this time?
I’ve been in Europe, in the country, and I’ve always had outdoor-space access. I’m feeling really sorry for some of my friends who don’t have as much, or can’t get out, or if they do get out, it’s a bit fraught. Every time I read the American newspapers, it looks just horrific.
What do you think will come of all this?
We’re in the never-never land. I mean, all we can say is that looking, analyzing it, some places are better than others and are doing better, but you’ve got to look at it from a global perspective. It’s awful. And we can’t see into the future. But we can learn from other people’s mistakes, and we can learn from other people’s successes.
What have you done with your days to occupy yourself?
Well, I have been able to go out, so that’s been a great thing for me. The weather’s been lovely. It hasn’t been, like, the middle of November and rainy. That would be depressing. It was a beautiful spring, and that was amazing — I’m normally not in my place long enough to watch the blossoms unfold. And then I did a few bits of work here and there. I finished off that “Ghost Town” track. Then I finished off these extras for Goats Head Soup, which I did at home. And I’ve been finishing off more tracks that we recorded before that we hadn’t finished. I’m doing some of that now. I’m writing some new songs and getting along with some documentary projects for different things. A few movie things I can get on with. You know, you try to keep yourself busy, because there’s quite a lot of downtime. But I still try to enjoy that as much as possible, like a lot of people.
Does this make you appreciate performing more?
I mean, I love performing. I’ve been singing quite a lot, so I’m trying to keep that bit together, and I’ve been exercising quite a lot, so I’m keeping that bit together. Yeah, I miss performing. But I’m not in such a bad position. And I do have other jobs to do, so you can’t feel sorry for yourself. The larger point really is: how, in the short, medium and long term, is everyone that performs live, and in fact even in cinema and so on — how is it going to function in the future? How are are we going to function?
Well, we don’t know how it’s going to function. In Europe, we’ve had small-scale concerts. We’ve had socially-distanced concerts. You can see [concerts] starting in some parts of the world, New Zealand, Australia, so on. But as far as the U.S. is concerned, we don’t really know what the future holds. So many people [are] out of work, losing money. Is it ever going to be the same again? Will it be always different? We just don’t know.
Well, last summer was incredible. It’s going to be a big moment when you guys step back onstage again.
We might be playing to very few people. Even though we know we might be lucky enough to sell tickets, we might not be able to play to them all at once.
Would you play a socially-distanced concert?
Yeah, I suppose if that was the way of the world, of course.
Where does Goats Head Soup fall in the Stones catalog in your mind?
Well, you know, it’s not an album that’s as revered as Exile on Main Street, which preceded it, in most people’s minds — I suppose including me, though we do songs from it onstage. We do “Angie.” We do “Heartbreaker.” We sometimes do “Dancing with Mr D.” We’ve done that a couple of times. I should have the list in front of me. I should be better informed of my own work.
“Silver Train,” “Winter.”
Yeah, we haven’t done “Winter” or stuff like that. There’s quite a few things we haven’t done. It’s not an album we do that many songs from. I mean, it’s a different kind of album. It was more or less done in one place, in a relatively short space of time, as opposed to Exile, which was very spread out time-wise. And so it is a different-sounding record. It’s got some good things.
You guys had made Exile, toured it, and you went straight back into the studio.
Yeah. I remember we wanted to go to L.A. to record, but we had some visa problems at the time, so we decided to record most of it in Jamaica. A couple of things, I think, were done in London. They said to me, “Well there’s unreleased tracks there.” And I remember thinking, “Oh no.” Unreleased tracks to me, that always means a lot of work. It’s like, “Things that you didn’t like and didn’t finish!” I’ve got a bit of a negative thing about them. But then you start listening to them and going, “Well, actually, it’s not bad at all. I don’t know why we didn’t finish it.” We were just being lazy, you know. You finish them like you would if you recorded them last week. Finish the vocals, or redo bits of them. “Where are my maracas? Surely I must have my maracas around here….” Stuff like that.
So you went back into the studio and finished “Scarlet” and “All the Rage” and “Criss Cross“?
Yeah. Actually not as much work as some of the ones I’ve done on previous releases. “All the Rage” didn’t really have much vocals, so I had to write that, basically. And obviously do the vocals. But “Criss Cross” and “Scarlet,” I didn’t do any vocals for. I just did some stuff at the end [for] my fade-out vocal. “Scarlet” is a bit of an odd one, because it wasn’t really recorded for Goats Head Soup. It was just a song that we had knocking around. I remember doing it with a couple of other people, in addition to the version that was found.
How did Jimmy Page wind up playing on “Scarlet”?
I spoke to him the other day. I said, “I’m sure we did that at Olympic.” He said, “No, no I remember it really well. We did it in Ronnie Wood’s basement.” And I said, “Well, that’s weird, why isn’t Ronnie on it, then?” Ronnie’s not a shy guitarist or bass player or anything. He said, “No, we definitely did it in Ronnie Wood’s basement.” He remembered it really well. So that’s me, Keith, and Jimmy….
What were your your days in Jamaica like? How was the process different from Exile, the mood and the overall feeling?
Laughs. It’s hard to remember my mood from 1973. I can’t remember what my mood was at breakfast. I mean, it was a different situation, because we weren’t in a basement of a house. We were in a real studio, which was run by this guy called Byron Lee from a band called Byron Lee and the Dragonaires. They used to play reggae, they used to play everything. They played calypso. They toured through the Caribbean and he had this studio, which is very different from living in a house. It was a bit probably a bit more disciplined in that way. I mean, we worked really hard and did long hours and stayed up really late, but we had probably a bit more discipline than we did on Exile.
And there we were with our Jamaican record, with not the slightest influence of reggae on any of the tracks. I think we consciously steered away from it: “We’re in Jamaica. We’re not going to make a Jamaican-influenced record.” We went all the way on that one.
There’s some interesting rhythms, though. It feels like the playing is a little more free.
Yeah, I mean, the rhythmic stuff, like the stuff on “Criss Cross,” that’s Billy Preston and Nicky [Hopkins]. The fashion at that time was playing the clavinet with the wah-wah stuff, and that gives it this certain push. It’s not Herbie Hancock exactly. [You can hear it] on “100 Years Ago” and then “Criss Cross,” which we just re-finished. But they’re a slightly different vibe, and “Heartbreaker” too.
Do you remember writing “Heartbreaker“?
Yeah, vaguely. I don’t really remember it that clearly. I remember writing the lyrics, and I think Keith and I contributed to the music thing of it, the chord structure and stuff. That was about heavy-handed policing, and someone said to me the other day, “That’s funny. That reflects on now.” I said, “Well, when has policing not been heavy-handed?’ I mean, that was very much part of the moment.
Mick Taylor’s playing is wonderful on “Winter,” which is a pretty beloved deep cut among your your fans.
Yeah, I like that song, it’s really nice. Mick and I just jammed on that, like, twice and that was it. And then we did the nice little subtle string arrangements through the end of it later. I always liked the way Mick picked out those pretty melodies around the tunes. He was very good at that sort of thing.
How do you look back on Billy Preston’s contributions?
He was very distinctive. As I said before, the stuff that he did with us in various ways when he played the organ, it always gave it that gospel feel. And then of course, you have Nicky playing such pretty piano on “Angie,” which was very much a part of that song, the piano part. And the guitar part.
Bob Dylan said “Angie” was one of his favorite Rolling Stones songs.
I’d love to hear Bob do that sometime. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?
Did you expect “Angie” to be a hit?
Yeah. I thought it sounded like a hit record to me at the time. I mean, you never know, but you get this feeling: “Well, if there’s gonna be a hit on this album, that’s going to be the one.” And it was very successful, and it’s still in our stage repertoire.
“Silver Train” is another great deep cut. When you’re listening back to this record, do pictures come to your mind of things that happened in the studio? Does that happen, all this time later?
Yeah. I remember “Silver Train,” I think we recorded in London, and I remember Mick and I jamming on that. That was just a jam we managed to make into a song in the end. It started off as a jam rather than a song that was pre-written. And then, these tracks like “Hide Your Love,” which at the time I remember thinking, “Oh that was a throwaway song.” Then you find … my memory was doing it once in Olympic, which I probably did, with me playing piano on it. And I don’t even remember who plays piano on the record…..[[i]pauses[/i]] This says piano on track seven, and there is no track seven. I’m just looking at it on Wiki. [[i]Laughs[/i].] My memory was completely wrong. We’d done a completely different version of it, which is, I think, on this extended album.
Do you think of Goats Head as a particularly druggy album?
Druggy? Was it a druggy album? It’s not got a lot of druggy subject material, apart from perhaps “Coming Down Again,” but you’ll have to talk to Keith about that. I mean, my guess is that could be a drug reference. [[i]Laughs[/i].] But the rest of it … there’s a drug reference in “Heartbreaker,” but I wouldn’t really characterize it as the most druggy Stones record.
At the time when it came out, you said you felt closer to this album, you liked it more than Exile.
I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums. You gotta take that with a pinch of salt. “Course it’s better! This album, if you liked Exile, this is even better!” I can imagine myself saying that.
It’s thought of as the end of a certain era, I guess, because it was the last album you made with Jimmy Miller producing. And it’s one of your last albums with Mick Taylor. Did it feel like the end of a certain chapter at the time?
No, no. You just get on with it, day by day, you know? Our main concern at that point was, could we go to the U.S. and get visas. When we were in Jamaica, it was all a little bit weird. And then of course, we did, we went to L.A. It was just day-to-day life. We weren’t really taking that in until later on. I wasn’t thinking about anything like that.
Is “Living in a Ghost Town” a precursor to a larger album you’re working on, or was it a one-off release?
It was part of a group of songs we’d already recorded various places quite recently. It just seemed to fit the times. I went back to my lyric book and looked at it. It was a song about being a ghost after a plague. Obviously I threw in a few more current lines and then re-did some of the vocals and I re-did bits of my guitar and stuff. Now, I’m singing on some of the other ones that we did from that time period, finishing those off, too.
Do you have any idea when you guys might release another record?
I don’t know. I guess it depends. I don’t know when we’re gonna get together at the moment. We don’t know when we’re going to get together and record. It’s got to be in safe circumstances and all that stuff. I’m sure we’ll get together soon, but I’ve got to finish off the stuff we’ve already done. So that gives me an opportunity now to get that out of the way. It sounds good. It’s pretty varied. A bit of all kinds of different kinds of music in there.
Thanks Mick. I hope to see you on the road next summer.
Hopefully! Thank you so much.
[www.rollingstone.com]
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-05 22:07 by bye bye johnny.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
dcba
()
Date: September 5, 2020 23:45
Quote
bye bye johnny
Extended Q & A from Mick's Rolling Stone interview
Am I the only one with the feeling that Mick's far more honest and far less "Chesire cat" than he was in the past. When you read interviews yo'd always have the impression he was wrapping himself in a fog of semi-lies, half-sincere "confessions" and straight PR.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
stoneskid
()
Date: September 5, 2020 23:47
Quote
dcbaQuote
bye bye johnny
Extended Q & A from Mick's Rolling Stone interview
Am I the only one with the feeling that Mick's far more honest and far less "Chesire cat" than he was in the past. When you read interviews yo'd always have the impression he was wrapping himself in a fog of semi-lies, half-sincere "confessions" and straight PR.
I was just thinking the same thing but then again who knows which Mick showed up to the interview.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
24FPS
()
Date: September 6, 2020 00:02
Quote
black n blue
Thanks nice post, my folks are 94, and 93 and say FU to a mask.
Let's hope you're not that dim.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
bye bye johnny
()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:34
Extended Q & A from Keith's Rolling Stone interview - including a reference to the KR Riff Cousins YouTube channel.
How Keith Richards is Spending His Quarantine
The guitarist talks about new Stones music, his ‘Goats Head Soup’ memories, and how he hopes they’ll celebrate their 60th anniversary
By Patrick Doyle
Keith Richards performs with the Rolling Stones in California in August 2019. Chris Tuite/imageSPACE/MediaPunch/IPX/AP
As the pandemic took hold in March, Keith Richards called up Mick Jagger with an idea: The Stones should rush-release “Living in a Ghost Town,” a funky song they’d recorded not long ago for their first album of new songs since 2005. “I said, ‘Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know,'” the guitarist recalls. Jagger agreed, and wrote new lyrics; the video currently has nearly 10 million views on YouTube.
New music is one way Richards has been staying busy at home in Connecticut. “We’ve just been hunkering down here, watching the garden grow,” he says. He spent a lot of time recently revisiting Goats Head Soup, the band’s 1973 follow-up to Exile on Main Street, which they have just reissued with a huge box set. After touring Exile, the band got together in Kingston, Jamaica, to cut a set of dark grooves that sounded like nothing they’d ever released. Critics didn’t like it at the time, and the Stones quickly dropped many of the songs from their live set. But Richards came away with a different opinion after putting together the reissue, which includes 10 bonus tracks, ranging from studio jams to unheard songs like “Scarlet,” featuring Jimmy Page. “I feel we did a great job on it,” he says.
Here, Richards talks about life in quarantine, reminisces on the Goats Head Soup era, and shares his hopes for how the Stones will celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2022.
How have you been spending your time at home?
I’m feeling very lucky that I have some space so I can get out. And apart from that, man, I managed to [finish] “Ghost Town.” I’m trying to figure out what to do with these tracks we cut [before the pandemic], and if we can do anything else with them in another way, you know?
“Ghost Town” was a perfect song for the moment.
Yeah, it was a matter of timing. Mick and I, we had it in the can, and we never thought that with what was going on …. I spoke to Mick around March. I said, “Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know.” [Laughs].
There’s a guy who teaches your riffs on YouTube. He gave a lesson on “Living in a Ghost Town,” and he was talking about how different the chords are for you guys, especially the bridge. It’s cool to see you guys still evolving.
Yeah, it’s an interesting track to play. I mean, driving around and seeing nobody on the streets, it was a pretty quick connection to make: “Hey that ‘Ghost Town,’ we should put that out!”
What do the other new songs you’re working on sound like?
Oh, I don’t know, it’s hard to describe music. I think we have five, six, or seven tracks we’ve sort of slowly been putting together, and right now, as I say, if this thing’s going to go on, maybe we should think about putting them out in another way.
Do you miss performing?
Well, yeah. Cause I [was] supposed to be on the road. So I always have this feeling of, like, sudden redundancy, which I have no doubt millions of other people have had, as well. But apart from that, I suppose, in everybody’s mind, we presume that things will look up next year. Otherwise, nobody’s going to play to be able to play for anybody, are they?
What do you hope comes out of all of this?
I hope, like everybody else, there’s a very good vaccine as soon as possible. And a change of regime wouldn’t be bad. [Laughs.] Let’s leave it at that, man.
I’ve been at your concerts and heard people wonder, “Why do they still do it? They have everything in the world they could possibly want.” What do you get out of playing live?
I don’t know, you might call it a habit. I mean, that’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, “Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?” You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? It’s like that. Otherwise, I mean, I really can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s not a thing you retire from, you know?
And the adrenaline, and love, that you feel up there must be pretty strong.
Yeah, I’m just hoping everybody can all get back together again next year, without masks! By then, I hope we won’t need ‘em. But otherwise, I wear mine in bed!
Do you wear a mask often?
Yeah, if I go out. It’s not very often. We do go drift out and stop by a sidewalk cafe. Oh yeah, I’m a masked man. I mean, it’s what you have to do. I don’t care what it looks like or anything else. It’s ridiculous. This is bloody Alice in Wonderland, you know?
I wanted to ask about Goats Head Soup.
Oh, yeah. It’s weird, when you listen to something you haven’t really heard in its entirety for a long time. It’s a very interesting album. I remember of course cutting in Jamaica, and that made it very memorable, especially in that year. Because that was ’73. That was the year Marley and the Wailers put out Catch a Fire. That’s also the year the soundtrack of The Harder they Come came out. I remember being in Jamaica. There was a feeling in the air, actually, that Jamaica was starting to make a mark on the map. It was a great feeling.
The Harder They Come introduced a lot of people to reggae for the first time. It’s such a great kind of entry point.
Exactly, yeah, it’s a great introduction to the whole thing. And you felt that in the air in Jamaica. At least I did, because I stayed there. After the sessions, I moved back and I stayed there for months. That’s where I met all the guys that eventually turned up on the Wingless Angels [in 1997]. It became my second home. But at the time, when we were recording, we were just so into doing the sessions. We were working like maniacs. Midnight till ten in the morning. While we were doing that, we didn’t have much time to have much contact with what else was going on in Jamaica. It was after we finished and I moved up to Ocho Rios that I suddenly realized that, “Hey, Jamaicans have got something going here, you know?”
What about the initial idea to go to Jamaica? There are stories about you having trouble getting into other countries. Is that all true, or is it legend?
Yeah, basically. It’s one of the few places that would have us at the time. Because this is when the Exile bit of this whole thing really kicked in. Cutting Exile was like, you just left England. We all moved into my basement [at Nellcôte in France] and carried on. We were still in each other’s pockets, you know? But by the time we cut Goats Head, it had been almost a couple of years. Mick had married Bianca, and then … in other words, we had become exiles. Charlie was living in France. We were all over the place. Mick and I had to learn how to write and do this stuff apart, while we’re not actually next door in the hotel room or around the corner. So this was my first attempt at writing long-distance, so to speak.
And how did that change the quality of the songwriting?
Well, you can tell me. I feel that we did a great job on it. Listening to the record now, I mean, “Dancing with Mr. D,” that is a funky track. And “Heartbreaker.” I remembered, of course, Billy Preston was in there as well as Nicky Hopkins and of course Ian Stewart. We had this funk thing going that hadn’t dawned on me so much until I re-heard it recently.
It’s a really it’s a cool sound, between “Can You Hear the Music” and “Heartbreaker” — you guys were taking it in all kinds of different directions.
Yeah. I think being ’73, we are what we listen to, and a lot of funk music was infiltrating. As a musician, you don’t live in a vacuum. Charlie Watts was fascinated with funk rhythms, and always had been, since James Brown. So it was a natural progression for us to move and try that out.
You went to Switzerland beforehand to do a little bit of writing with with Mick, and that’s where you wrote “Angie.”
Yeah, I remember “Angie” I wrote in Switzerland, in a Swiss restroom. At that time, Mick was really on the other side of the world. So we got together a few weeks before we actually went to Jamaica to put all of the bits and pieces we got together into some coherent songs. Mick had “Silver Train” and “Starf*cker,” and I was working on most of the others. It was a different way for us to work, you know: “Hey, I’ve got this, but I need a bridge.“ “Oh, I got a bridge that suits that!” We were tailoring it up as we went along.
Did you know “Angie” was special at the time?
I don’t quite remember how the decision was made on “Angie.” I was very happy with it, because it took the Stones on that singles market in that era. It gave us another flavor, another place. In a way, it reminded me of when we put out “Little Red Rooster” [in 1964], which was a surprise at the time. As I say, through the mist of time, I can’t remember how “Angie” actually became a single.
Do you remember when the song came to you?
Yeah, out of sheer boredom. My daughter Angie had just been born recently. The weird thing is, at the time, we didn’t call her Angie, because that was actually a name given to her by Roman Catholic nuns, because she was born in a Catholic hospital. “You have to have one [from] this list of names.” Anita was calling her things like “Dandelion,” you know, it was that time. But weirdly enough, the Angie thing always stuck in my mind. And that was actually the name later on she chose to go by.
Dylan recently said that “Angie” was one of his favorite Stones songs.
Really? I didn’t know that. Bless old Bob. I love his new album, man. He’s done a lovely job there, Rough & Rowdy Ways.
I thought of you when I heard the album, especially “Goodbye Jimmy Reed.”
Yeah, man, bless him.
Back to Goats Head Soup — “Heartbreaker” is such an incredible recording, especially the way the guitars jump out at you during the song.
Yeah, lovely riff, man. I was very happy to kick that one out. I think I had the riff in my head and it came together in the studio with Billy Preston and Charlie. A lot of tracks really weren’t thought about or worked out much before we actually get in there. Some of them are maybe an hour old.
Do you remember how you wrote “Coming Down Again”?
{Laughs} Let’s say that it speaks for itself.
What about “Scarlet,” the track with Jimmy Page?
Oh, that’s really difficult to remember. Jimmy has waltzed in on a few sessions over the years. And “Scarlet,” my feeling is that we walked in as Led Zeppelin had finished [a session] … or at least Jimmy and Rick Grech. I think our session was after theirs, and they stuck around. [Laughs]
There’s an old quote where you were looking back on the Seventies, and you said the Stones had too many people playing on your records, which compromised the sound. Has your view on that changed?
I might have said that. I was probably pissed off about a track or two. But nah, I wouldn’t wanna stick that on anything, especially this record, because all of the sidemen, there’s very few of them, and they’re the best in the world, you know?
Mick mentioned he’s working on a documentary. Are the Stones working on one at the moment?
I’m not sure. Some things were in the works before the pandemic. You take the “dem” out, and all you get is panic!
The Stones’ 60th anniversary is coming up in 2022. Are you guys planning to celebrate?
Let’s hope so. And I hope to celebrate with as many of us as possible. Look on the bright side — one has to do that, you know?
It’s going to be a pretty special moment when you guys walk on stage again.
I hope we’re all there, man. It’s something to look forward to.
[www.rollingstone.com]
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 20:07 by bye bye johnny.
How Keith Richards is Spending His Quarantine
The guitarist talks about new Stones music, his ‘Goats Head Soup’ memories, and how he hopes they’ll celebrate their 60th anniversary
By Patrick Doyle
Keith Richards performs with the Rolling Stones in California in August 2019. Chris Tuite/imageSPACE/MediaPunch/IPX/AP
As the pandemic took hold in March, Keith Richards called up Mick Jagger with an idea: The Stones should rush-release “Living in a Ghost Town,” a funky song they’d recorded not long ago for their first album of new songs since 2005. “I said, ‘Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know,'” the guitarist recalls. Jagger agreed, and wrote new lyrics; the video currently has nearly 10 million views on YouTube.
New music is one way Richards has been staying busy at home in Connecticut. “We’ve just been hunkering down here, watching the garden grow,” he says. He spent a lot of time recently revisiting Goats Head Soup, the band’s 1973 follow-up to Exile on Main Street, which they have just reissued with a huge box set. After touring Exile, the band got together in Kingston, Jamaica, to cut a set of dark grooves that sounded like nothing they’d ever released. Critics didn’t like it at the time, and the Stones quickly dropped many of the songs from their live set. But Richards came away with a different opinion after putting together the reissue, which includes 10 bonus tracks, ranging from studio jams to unheard songs like “Scarlet,” featuring Jimmy Page. “I feel we did a great job on it,” he says.
Here, Richards talks about life in quarantine, reminisces on the Goats Head Soup era, and shares his hopes for how the Stones will celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2022.
How have you been spending your time at home?
I’m feeling very lucky that I have some space so I can get out. And apart from that, man, I managed to [finish] “Ghost Town.” I’m trying to figure out what to do with these tracks we cut [before the pandemic], and if we can do anything else with them in another way, you know?
“Ghost Town” was a perfect song for the moment.
Yeah, it was a matter of timing. Mick and I, we had it in the can, and we never thought that with what was going on …. I spoke to Mick around March. I said, “Hey man, if there’s a time to put this one out, it’s now, you know.” [Laughs].
There’s a guy who teaches your riffs on YouTube. He gave a lesson on “Living in a Ghost Town,” and he was talking about how different the chords are for you guys, especially the bridge. It’s cool to see you guys still evolving.
Yeah, it’s an interesting track to play. I mean, driving around and seeing nobody on the streets, it was a pretty quick connection to make: “Hey that ‘Ghost Town,’ we should put that out!”
What do the other new songs you’re working on sound like?
Oh, I don’t know, it’s hard to describe music. I think we have five, six, or seven tracks we’ve sort of slowly been putting together, and right now, as I say, if this thing’s going to go on, maybe we should think about putting them out in another way.
Do you miss performing?
Well, yeah. Cause I [was] supposed to be on the road. So I always have this feeling of, like, sudden redundancy, which I have no doubt millions of other people have had, as well. But apart from that, I suppose, in everybody’s mind, we presume that things will look up next year. Otherwise, nobody’s going to play to be able to play for anybody, are they?
What do you hope comes out of all of this?
I hope, like everybody else, there’s a very good vaccine as soon as possible. And a change of regime wouldn’t be bad. [Laughs.] Let’s leave it at that, man.
I’ve been at your concerts and heard people wonder, “Why do they still do it? They have everything in the world they could possibly want.” What do you get out of playing live?
I don’t know, you might call it a habit. I mean, that’s what we do. And also there’s that thing between us, like, “Who’s going to be the first one to get off the bus?” You have to be kicked off or drop off, right? It’s like that. Otherwise, I mean, I really can’t imagine doing anything else. It’s not a thing you retire from, you know?
And the adrenaline, and love, that you feel up there must be pretty strong.
Yeah, I’m just hoping everybody can all get back together again next year, without masks! By then, I hope we won’t need ‘em. But otherwise, I wear mine in bed!
Do you wear a mask often?
Yeah, if I go out. It’s not very often. We do go drift out and stop by a sidewalk cafe. Oh yeah, I’m a masked man. I mean, it’s what you have to do. I don’t care what it looks like or anything else. It’s ridiculous. This is bloody Alice in Wonderland, you know?
I wanted to ask about Goats Head Soup.
Oh, yeah. It’s weird, when you listen to something you haven’t really heard in its entirety for a long time. It’s a very interesting album. I remember of course cutting in Jamaica, and that made it very memorable, especially in that year. Because that was ’73. That was the year Marley and the Wailers put out Catch a Fire. That’s also the year the soundtrack of The Harder they Come came out. I remember being in Jamaica. There was a feeling in the air, actually, that Jamaica was starting to make a mark on the map. It was a great feeling.
The Harder They Come introduced a lot of people to reggae for the first time. It’s such a great kind of entry point.
Exactly, yeah, it’s a great introduction to the whole thing. And you felt that in the air in Jamaica. At least I did, because I stayed there. After the sessions, I moved back and I stayed there for months. That’s where I met all the guys that eventually turned up on the Wingless Angels [in 1997]. It became my second home. But at the time, when we were recording, we were just so into doing the sessions. We were working like maniacs. Midnight till ten in the morning. While we were doing that, we didn’t have much time to have much contact with what else was going on in Jamaica. It was after we finished and I moved up to Ocho Rios that I suddenly realized that, “Hey, Jamaicans have got something going here, you know?”
What about the initial idea to go to Jamaica? There are stories about you having trouble getting into other countries. Is that all true, or is it legend?
Yeah, basically. It’s one of the few places that would have us at the time. Because this is when the Exile bit of this whole thing really kicked in. Cutting Exile was like, you just left England. We all moved into my basement [at Nellcôte in France] and carried on. We were still in each other’s pockets, you know? But by the time we cut Goats Head, it had been almost a couple of years. Mick had married Bianca, and then … in other words, we had become exiles. Charlie was living in France. We were all over the place. Mick and I had to learn how to write and do this stuff apart, while we’re not actually next door in the hotel room or around the corner. So this was my first attempt at writing long-distance, so to speak.
And how did that change the quality of the songwriting?
Well, you can tell me. I feel that we did a great job on it. Listening to the record now, I mean, “Dancing with Mr. D,” that is a funky track. And “Heartbreaker.” I remembered, of course, Billy Preston was in there as well as Nicky Hopkins and of course Ian Stewart. We had this funk thing going that hadn’t dawned on me so much until I re-heard it recently.
It’s a really it’s a cool sound, between “Can You Hear the Music” and “Heartbreaker” — you guys were taking it in all kinds of different directions.
Yeah. I think being ’73, we are what we listen to, and a lot of funk music was infiltrating. As a musician, you don’t live in a vacuum. Charlie Watts was fascinated with funk rhythms, and always had been, since James Brown. So it was a natural progression for us to move and try that out.
You went to Switzerland beforehand to do a little bit of writing with with Mick, and that’s where you wrote “Angie.”
Yeah, I remember “Angie” I wrote in Switzerland, in a Swiss restroom. At that time, Mick was really on the other side of the world. So we got together a few weeks before we actually went to Jamaica to put all of the bits and pieces we got together into some coherent songs. Mick had “Silver Train” and “Starf*cker,” and I was working on most of the others. It was a different way for us to work, you know: “Hey, I’ve got this, but I need a bridge.“ “Oh, I got a bridge that suits that!” We were tailoring it up as we went along.
Did you know “Angie” was special at the time?
I don’t quite remember how the decision was made on “Angie.” I was very happy with it, because it took the Stones on that singles market in that era. It gave us another flavor, another place. In a way, it reminded me of when we put out “Little Red Rooster” [in 1964], which was a surprise at the time. As I say, through the mist of time, I can’t remember how “Angie” actually became a single.
Do you remember when the song came to you?
Yeah, out of sheer boredom. My daughter Angie had just been born recently. The weird thing is, at the time, we didn’t call her Angie, because that was actually a name given to her by Roman Catholic nuns, because she was born in a Catholic hospital. “You have to have one [from] this list of names.” Anita was calling her things like “Dandelion,” you know, it was that time. But weirdly enough, the Angie thing always stuck in my mind. And that was actually the name later on she chose to go by.
Dylan recently said that “Angie” was one of his favorite Stones songs.
Really? I didn’t know that. Bless old Bob. I love his new album, man. He’s done a lovely job there, Rough & Rowdy Ways.
I thought of you when I heard the album, especially “Goodbye Jimmy Reed.”
Yeah, man, bless him.
Back to Goats Head Soup — “Heartbreaker” is such an incredible recording, especially the way the guitars jump out at you during the song.
Yeah, lovely riff, man. I was very happy to kick that one out. I think I had the riff in my head and it came together in the studio with Billy Preston and Charlie. A lot of tracks really weren’t thought about or worked out much before we actually get in there. Some of them are maybe an hour old.
Do you remember how you wrote “Coming Down Again”?
{Laughs} Let’s say that it speaks for itself.
What about “Scarlet,” the track with Jimmy Page?
Oh, that’s really difficult to remember. Jimmy has waltzed in on a few sessions over the years. And “Scarlet,” my feeling is that we walked in as Led Zeppelin had finished [a session] … or at least Jimmy and Rick Grech. I think our session was after theirs, and they stuck around. [Laughs]
There’s an old quote where you were looking back on the Seventies, and you said the Stones had too many people playing on your records, which compromised the sound. Has your view on that changed?
I might have said that. I was probably pissed off about a track or two. But nah, I wouldn’t wanna stick that on anything, especially this record, because all of the sidemen, there’s very few of them, and they’re the best in the world, you know?
Mick mentioned he’s working on a documentary. Are the Stones working on one at the moment?
I’m not sure. Some things were in the works before the pandemic. You take the “dem” out, and all you get is panic!
The Stones’ 60th anniversary is coming up in 2022. Are you guys planning to celebrate?
Let’s hope so. And I hope to celebrate with as many of us as possible. Look on the bright side — one has to do that, you know?
It’s going to be a pretty special moment when you guys walk on stage again.
I hope we’re all there, man. It’s something to look forward to.
[www.rollingstone.com]
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 20:07 by bye bye johnny.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
dcba
()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:45
Quote
bye bye johnny
Extended Q & A from Keith's Rolling Stone interview
Mick mentioned he’s working on a documentary. Are the Stones working on one at the moment?
I’m not sure. Some things were in the works before the pandemic. You take the “dem” out, and all you get is panic!
Brilliant isn't it?
Re: Interview in Rolling Stone Magazine
Posted by:
Rockman
()
Date: September 5, 2020 03:14
yeah its been up already sticky ....
But hey it hurt ta read thru it again ....
ROCKMAN
But hey it hurt ta read thru it again ....
ROCKMAN
Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
spikenyc
()
Date: September 6, 2020 17:42
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
OpenG
()
Date: September 6, 2020 17:53
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
NilsHolgersson
()
Date: September 6, 2020 18:59
Do you have any idea when you guys might release another record?
I don’t know. I guess it depends. I don’t know when we’re gonna get together at the moment. We don’t know when we’re going to get together and record. It’s got to be in safe circumstances and all that stuff. I’m sure we’ll get together soon, but I’ve got to finish off the stuff we’ve already done. So that gives me an opportunity now to get that out of the way. It sounds good. It’s pretty varied. A bit of all kinds of different kinds of music in there.
New album on the way guys
I don’t know. I guess it depends. I don’t know when we’re gonna get together at the moment. We don’t know when we’re going to get together and record. It’s got to be in safe circumstances and all that stuff. I’m sure we’ll get together soon, but I’ve got to finish off the stuff we’ve already done. So that gives me an opportunity now to get that out of the way. It sounds good. It’s pretty varied. A bit of all kinds of different kinds of music in there.
New album on the way guys
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
TheflyingDutchman
()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:33
Quote
OpenG
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
For the Stonesmembers Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 19:35 by TheflyingDutchman.
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
SomeTorontoGirl
()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:49
Nice one with Keith too in that issue!
[www.rollingstone.com]
(Oops...just saw the other thread...)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 19:49 by SomeTorontoGirl.
[www.rollingstone.com]
(Oops...just saw the other thread...)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-09-06 19:49 by SomeTorontoGirl.
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
OpenG
()
Date: September 6, 2020 20:03
sted by: TheflyingDutchman ()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:33
Quote
OpenG
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
For the Stones Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
One of many footnotes - MT played and contributed to their best ballad IMO on Moonlight Mile. This song would of not got done during that time period, maybe later when Keith was around in another session if MJ still had the lyrical idea. We could have a brief chapter of footnotes for 1969-1974 for 5 studio records and Ya Yas and all the live boots.
Date: September 6, 2020 19:33
Quote
OpenG
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
For the Stones Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
One of many footnotes - MT played and contributed to their best ballad IMO on Moonlight Mile. This song would of not got done during that time period, maybe later when Keith was around in another session if MJ still had the lyrical idea. We could have a brief chapter of footnotes for 1969-1974 for 5 studio records and Ya Yas and all the live boots.
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
TheflyingDutchman
()
Date: September 6, 2020 21:31
Quote
OpenG
sted by: TheflyingDutchman ()
Date: September 6, 2020 19:33
Quote
OpenG
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
For the Stones Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
One of many footnotes - MT played and contributed to their best ballad IMO on Moonlight Mile. This song would of not got done during that time period, maybe later when Keith was around in another session if MJ still had the lyrical idea. We could have a brief chapter of footnotes for 1969-1974 for 5 studio records and Ya Yas and all the live boots.
I know, but they never acknowledged it. For example they always seem to forget that Taylor was a splendid rhythm player as well.
Re: Mick Jagger on the Future of Live Music - Rolling Stone
Posted by:
S.T.P
()
Date: September 6, 2020 22:16
Quote
TheflyingDutchmanQuote
OpenG
Interesting if MJ memory is correct - he states that on Winter, Silver Train and
Hide Your Love it started with a jam with MT.
For the Stonesmembers Mick Taylor was just a footnote in their entire history. Just a man with a nice melodic approach here and there.
I assume you are refering to DickTaylor, or have I missed something? ..Speaking on behalf of my self...Who are the Stonesmembers anyway?
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
KRiffhard
()
Date: September 7, 2020 23:26
"...I think we have five, six, or seven tracks we’ve sort of slowly been putting together, and right now, as I say, if this thing’s going to go on, maybe we should think about putting them out in another way"
...in another way?
So no new album and something like "Living in a ghost town"?
...in another way?
So no new album and something like "Living in a ghost town"?
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
MelBelli
()
Date: September 7, 2020 23:48
Patrick Doyle’s interviews with the guys are always great. But to have KR Riff Cousins personally brought to Keith’s attention? I. Am. Stoked!
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
crawdaddy
()
Date: September 8, 2020 00:24
Big thanks to bbj for all the info provided on this thread as well as so many others. 
Zoe Ball is a fine young lady at doing interviews and TV and radio stuff ,but a differant generation by 30-40 years to Keith.
I'm sure it will be a great interview to hear on the radio.
Would be great if they had Johnny Walker,who is in the same generation as The Stones, doing an interview with Keith.....or Mick ,Charlie or Ronnie on the phone ,or Zoom etc. however they do it these days.
Always look forward to his Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio 2.
Zoe Ball is a fine young lady at doing interviews and TV and radio stuff ,but a differant generation by 30-40 years to Keith.
I'm sure it will be a great interview to hear on the radio.
Would be great if they had Johnny Walker,who is in the same generation as The Stones, doing an interview with Keith.....or Mick ,Charlie or Ronnie on the phone ,or Zoom etc. however they do it these days.
Always look forward to his Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio 2.
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
Stoneage
()
Date: September 8, 2020 00:57
"At his home in Europe". Why be so specific? Why not his home on planet Earth?
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
grzegorz67
()
Date: September 8, 2020 01:03
Quote
crawdaddy
Big thanks to bbj for all the info provided on this thread as well as so many others.
Zoe Ball is a fine young lady at doing interviews and TV and radio stuff ,but a differant generation by 30-40 years to Keith.
I'm sure it will be a great interview to hear on the radio.
Would be great if they had Johnny Walker,who is in the same generation as The Stones, doing an interview with Keith.....or Mick ,Charlie or Ronnie on the phone ,or Zoom etc. however they do it these days.
Always look forward to his Sunday afternoon show on BBC Radio 2.
Zoe Ball isn’t quite the youngster she appears to be - she’s 50 in November!
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
bye bye johnny
()
Date: September 8, 2020 01:27
Quote
Stoneage
"At his home in Europe".
Perhaps you missed what Mick said - "I’ve been in Europe..."
Presumably Patrick Doyle was just reiterating that nebulous information.
BTW, the actual comment was "Isolating at home in the European countryside..."
[www.rollingstone.com]
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
rcfoxy
()
Date: September 8, 2020 03:11
Hey Mick - We here in New Zealand would love you to have a mini RS tour downunder! 2 weeks of quarantine, aka 2 weeks off rehearsals - then half a dozen gigs throughout the country to keep your chops in order...bring it on!! :-)
Cheers
Richard - In Another Land
Cheers
Richard - In Another Land
Re: Mick & Keith interview - Rolling Stone, September 3
Posted by:
spikenyc
()
Date: September 8, 2020 03:36
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