- 5 weeks ago
Billboard cover star Mick Jagger opens up about the Rolling Stones’ latest creative streak, the making of the band’s new music, and how technology continues to shape the recording process. He reflects on songwriting, working with producer Andrew Watt, revisiting songs left off earlier sessions, and why the Stones feel closer than ever to releasing music at a faster pace. He also opens up about how songs evolve in the studio, the balance between raw creativity and technical precision, and why getting the groove right still matters most. From falsetto vocals and vocal routines to the challenge of building melodies in real time, Jagger gives a rare look at the craft behind his performances. He also shares his take on AI in music, modern recording tools, touring, collaboration, and the legacy of the Rolling Stones as one of rock’s most influential bands.
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00:00It's not a new thing to be using technology in the studio.
00:03The studio is technology.
00:04If you're clever, you can use that technology greatly
00:07to your advantage, to make things go quicker,
00:10to make boring things go quicker.
00:22A Bigger Bang came out in 2005.
00:2411 years go by, until there's a covers album.
00:27Seven more years, Hackney Diamonds.
00:30Now, three years.
00:32It's getting closer.
00:33We're getting closer, yeah.
00:35It's like how Germany doing the World Cup football.
00:39You could have said, yeah, in 2005 you did well.
00:45Actually, we could have put this album out last year.
00:47We finished it last year.
00:49But the record company wasn't really ready
00:52to get into promotion mode for it.
00:53It was too quick for them to get it out in the fall.
00:56So we waited till this year.
00:58Two albums in two years then, basically.
01:00What's motivating this creative burst?
01:03I had a lot of songs that I've been working on,
01:05so I was kind of up for that.
01:07That was a good alternative.
01:08I didn't have to go, oh, I don't know what we're going to do.
01:11So I had a lot of songs prepared.
01:13So we decided to do the same mode of recording
01:17as we'd worked with Hackney Diamonds,
01:18because that method had worked.
01:21I'm curious, so when you came back to this,
01:23how many of the songs were done?
01:25Did they just need some tinkering?
01:26Okay, so from Hackney Diamonds we had three songs
01:30we didn't put on purposely.
01:32Right.
01:33Because we always planned that we were going to do an album pretty quick.
01:36Right.
01:36So we said, don't worry about these songs.
01:38Don't cry.
01:39You're not going to lose them.
01:40We knew we could go in the studio and do 10 to 12 songs.
01:43Mm-hmm.
01:43So, you know, we had them.
01:46How much of this bursting creativity, I guess,
01:49is fueled by Andrew Watt?
01:51Would you be able to do it if someone else was behind the boards?
01:54Let's split it into, there's writing songs.
01:56Right.
01:57I wrote one song on the album with Andy.
01:59Mm-hmm.
02:00Andy and Keith and me, the Back in Your Life Ballet.
02:03So as far as songwriting is concerned,
02:06that was the only song that I did with him.
02:10Mm-hmm.
02:10And the creativity part of it, for me, is a lot in the songwriting.
02:14Of course, then, what happens is when you go into a studio
02:17or rehearse the song or whatever, you expect that to expand
02:20and the universe of the song to become something else.
02:23It might change in some way.
02:26For instance, Rough and Twisted, which we did Hackney Diamonds,
02:28when I did the demo of that, it wasn't like a John Lee Hooker boogie.
02:32It was still a blues, obviously.
02:34But you change the beat, you know, you change a lot of things.
02:37And it's, I wouldn't say it's unrecognizable,
02:39it's certainly different.
02:40Yeah.
02:40A lot of songs, though, they stay more or less the same,
02:43like Jealous Lover.
02:44That was more or less how I imagined it was going to sound.
02:52Mr. Charm, that was more or less how I imagined it.
02:56Keith did a really nice riff on it that was better than the one
03:00I'd originally written, which is his job.
03:09They can change a lot.
03:11That's also creativity, obviously, but of a different kind.
03:15Yeah.
03:15So is that kind of what your songwriting process is with Keith at this point?
03:18You know, you prepare some stuff and you bring it in and then you start kind of chopping.
03:22He played me some songs and I played him a whole bunch of my songs.
03:27And I ran through them with Steve Jordan when no one else was there.
03:31Yeah. The ones that I thought were the groove tunes, like Mr. Charm, like Jealous Lover,
03:36things that I thought were really important groove tunes to me, like Never Want to Lose You.
03:41So Steve and I would understand each other.
03:43Have I got the right groove in my head?
03:45Can you do this better?
03:46Can you come with something else?
03:48Or is this the right approach?
03:50And so it's just a matter of just fine tuning, really.
03:54Yeah.
03:54And also the tempo, how fast could this go?
03:57Is this too slow?
03:58Because quite often when you write, you write too slow.
04:01But due to today's technology, you can just like speed up five beats in like 10 minutes and say,
04:06Oh yeah, that's better.
04:08So that was very useful for me because I think if I'm doing this fast beats,
04:12like in Mr. Charm or Covered In You or things like that,
04:14it's fast beats with the voice and do they fit in with the drums?
04:17So the drums and the voice has to fit in exactly together.
04:24It all makes perfect sense.
04:26So it's kind of an interesting process.
04:28I used to do it with Charlie too.
04:29You just spit these beats out and then quite often the person playing the drums will react
04:33to your vocal things.
04:34Whereas if it's six people in the room playing music,
04:36he's not really concentrating on what you're doing.
04:39So it's good to rehearse that first.
04:40So that's a good part of the process.
04:42I like that you called them Groover songs.
04:44Mr. Charm and Jealous Lover were two of my favorites on the album.
04:48It's great.
04:48It's a very robust, vital album.
04:52I wanted to ask about Jealous Lover.
04:53I was just shocked.
04:54Your voice, the falsetto still sounds fantastic.
05:02Do you have a vocal routine?
05:04How have you maintained your voice?
05:06Yeah, I have vocal routines.
05:07I must say though, thinking about it,
05:08I've got asked this question a couple of times,
05:10but I don't have a vocal routine for falsetto.
05:12It's not included in my vocal routine.
05:15Yeah, and falsetto, I think I learned my first song I ever did for falsetto
05:19was Mercy Mercy by cover on the first Rolling Stones album by Don Covey.
05:31That's the first singer I ever heard.
05:33Of course, Marvin Gaye was the king of falsetto singing and everything.
05:36Also, Al Green.
05:36What I do is easier than that, because I stay in the falsetto and then I use the full voice
05:41for
05:42the other parts.
05:43So in, say in Jealous Lover, you've got like falsetto lead in the first,
05:48and then you've got falsetto backgrounds in the chorus and full voice up front,
05:52so it gets stronger the chorus vocally.
05:55Right.
05:55So you've got a stack of falsettos, a stack of leads.
05:59So I had fun doing that.
06:00And you have no trouble doing it, basically.
06:02No, I have no trouble doing it.
06:03That's great.
06:04Very lucky.
06:05That's the easy part.
06:06I actually have more trouble doing other things.
06:08So you mentioned that.
06:09What's the thing you have trouble doing?
06:10The song that was perhaps the most difficult to see,
06:13because I didn't really know it, because we were just writing it,
06:15was the Back In Your Life song, because I didn't really know the song.
06:19Plus, it was quite a lot of up and down melodic content
06:24that I was trying to figure out what the...
06:27I didn't know what the top line was going to be.
06:29So Annie's just playing these chords, and I'm trying to fit in this top line,
06:32which was a bit...
06:33I'm making myself...
06:34Making problems for myself to fall into.
06:37Sure.
06:37But it was the most difficult, because it was the most quiet at the beginning
06:41and the most upbeat at the end.
06:43So it had the most contrast vocally, so it's very tender,
06:47and then it gets very hard.
06:49So that's probably the most difficult.
06:51Yeah.
06:51There's a lot of guests on the album.
06:53And one thing I really...
06:54A lot of them don't do much.
06:56Well, I was going to say, that's kind of what I like about it.
06:58It seems organic, because it's not sort of like the cameo,
07:02where here's Paul McCartney.
07:03Yeah, yeah.
07:03He's just on bass.
07:04Yeah, yeah, exactly.
07:05He fits into your world.
07:06I know he was also on one of the songs on the previews.
07:08It was the same week we did By My Head Off.
07:09By My Head Off.
07:10It was the same week, because he was next door making the album
07:12that he currently has, which is a very good album.
07:15Yeah, it's great.
07:16And it was done in Henson, where we're recording Hackney Diamonds in Los Angeles.
07:19Mm-hmm.
07:20So we called Paul in to do two numbers, one one day and one another.
07:24Yeah.
07:24You just said, hey, get in here.
07:26Hey, get in here.
07:26Because we didn't have a bass player, per se, when Andy was playing bass,
07:29Ronnie was playing bass, Paul played bass.
07:32Everyone had a go, except for me.
07:34Paul and John wrote The Stones' second single, you know, back in the day.
07:38I wanna be your lover, baby, I wanna be your man.
07:43And, you know, they sang backup on We Love You.
07:46Yeah.
07:46When you and Paul get together, do you ever talk about the old days?
07:49Or is it just focus on the task at hand?
07:51No, we don't talk about the old days.
07:55If I see Paul's morning social, we don't talk about reminiscence.
07:58Right, right.
07:59And in the studio, it was just like, this is the song.
08:02Mm-hmm.
08:02You know, it's like, Paul just fits into the thing very easily, you know.
08:07And he enjoys, because it's a different thing when you're asked,
08:10if I'm asked to do like a background vocal or they know what they want
08:14and they ask you to do it and you don't have to think about it.
08:17Normally, you have to think about everything, creating this thing.
08:20How am I gonna do it?
08:21And they say, okay, just do this.
08:23It's easy.
08:24You know, I think for Paul, he has to write the bass line.
08:26Mm-hmm.
08:27But I mean, this is a very different song to the one he did
08:30on Hacking Diamonds is perhaps a bit more difficult.
08:33Mm-hmm.
08:34Yeah.
08:34Paul really liked the song anyway.
08:36Never Wanna Lose You has Robert Smith of The Cure on Synthesizer,
08:40Bruno Mars on Cowbell.
08:42Robert Smith actually sings on Never Wanna Lose You.
08:44Oh, does he?
08:44He sings the replies in some part of it.
08:48Never wanna lose you.
08:50Answering me.
08:51Uh-huh.
08:51That's his biggest contribution.
08:54That's the only one you can actually hear.
08:55Mm-hmm.
08:56Yeah.
08:57I can't, I don't think you can hear the synth bar.
08:59When the Stones have guests in the studio,
09:01you guys behave differently than if it's just the core band.
09:04Well, most of the guests, there's no one there except for me and Andy.
09:08Yeah, yeah.
09:08Every time we got a guest come to listen,
09:11you know, to hear the album,
09:12because we were put in the pre-mixing stage by then,
09:15we put them to work.
09:16So, you like the song?
09:18Mm-hmm.
09:18Go and play something, you know?
09:20So that's what we did.
09:21That's what we did with Bruno, you know?
09:24Yeah, yeah.
09:24So I really love this groove.
09:26We said, okay, you play percussion.
09:27What do you want to play, you know? Go out and do it.
09:29Make yourself useful, basically.
09:31Yeah, exactly.
09:32This year, Robert Smith is also on an Olivia Rodrigo album.
09:35Yeah, I heard that.
09:36Do you listen to Olivia Rodrigo?
09:37I've heard her stuff, yeah, of course.
09:38What are your thoughts on her rock music?
09:41I mean, she's good at it.
09:42You know, she's really good at it.
09:43And everyone thought she was like a kind of,
09:45a different kind of singer than this.
09:47But there's quite a few female singers that have made that transition.
09:50And it's not a permanent, necessarily, transition.
09:53But the ability to change styles up from there, what you think their original girly pop stuff is.
09:59You know?
09:59So it's quite interesting.
10:01Yeah, absolutely.
10:02You know, I also wanted to ask about the Amy Winehouse cover.
10:05You know, you duetted with her, I think 2007, Isle of Wight Fest on Ain't Too Proud to Beg.
10:11Yeah.
10:11Was that kind of what, you know, having that history, was that what made you want to cover?
10:15Well, it was a kind of connection.
10:18We were recording in London.
10:20She is English.
10:21You know, we did actually do something with her.
10:23But we were looking for a good song to cover from a female vocalist.
10:26Yeah.
10:26We were thinking of early people.
10:28And then we said, let's do something a bit more recent.
10:30Oh, and we alighted on that song.
10:32But I always liked that song.
10:33Could have written it, you know?
10:35Right.
10:35You know what I mean?
10:35Almost.
10:36I felt that I could have written that song.
10:38Because it's like a minor key, harmonica lead, you know?
10:41And I just copied the horn lead and played the harmonica.
10:43So it felt very kind of organic in a way.
10:53In terms of like the sequencing of the record, is that a, you know, you and Andy, does Keith
10:59get involved?
11:00Who decides which song follows?
11:02No, I think we talked through with everyone a little bit.
11:05I showed Andy my analog sequencing method, which is, which is clipping or writing all the songs
11:12on paper and clipping it out with scissors.
11:14Then you've got 14 something, you go like that and it falls on the desk.
11:18And you look and then you see what the sequence doesn't work.
11:21We had a lot of sequencing problems because this is a double album.
11:24And so if you have to make the vinyl sequencing, who listens to anything in sequence?
11:28I never do.
11:29But you have to, I mean, three and four sequences.
11:32So it's not just like having seven and seven.
11:35Yeah.
11:36Yeah.
11:37There's a lot to think about.
11:38There's a lot to sequence.
11:39Yeah.
11:39The dropping everything sounds very Brian Eno-esque, like something he would do.
11:44Yeah.
11:44Let Chance take care of it.
11:46Or William Burroughs.
11:56You know, I wanted to ask about a couple of the lyrics on the album.
11:59One that stood out to me that I loved on Covered In You was,
12:02wait till you see the whites of their asses.
12:04It's a very funny, very cheeky, literally line.
12:07Where does stuff like that come from?
12:09Do you have a little notebook of, you know, lyrics?
12:11Well, I haven't notebooks yet.
12:13And then I, several ways of doing it.
12:15I just spitball them out onto my iPad and just record them.
12:19And it comes out not always accurately.
12:22The good thing about writing in a notebook is you have time to think and cross out.
12:26And you've got your crossings out and corrections.
12:28But then the advantage of spitting into your phone and your iPad is that you don't have any
12:36censorship between your head and the pen.
12:38So you're never censoring it because it's too quick.
12:41It's just coming out real spitball fast.
12:45So, yeah.
12:47So like on that song, maybe I was doing that method.
12:49When you're consulting these notebooks or voice notes or whatever, how far back do you go?
12:55Is it, you know, just recent stuff?
12:56Do you ever find stuff from a decade ago where you're like, oh, this is...
12:59Maybe I'll find things on notes on my phone from a decade ago.
13:03Like me playing guitar or something or piano.
13:06You can find things.
13:08And I was looking for a track that was a mix.
13:10And then I looked for it in my iPhone in search.
13:13And up came the original demo from 10 years ago or five years ago of me just on my own.
13:18Yeah.
13:19So it's quite funny having them to keep.
13:22I mean, it's easier in a way, if you back it up, than having lots of other devices with it
13:29on them,
13:30which there's no lists.
13:31You know that sometimes those in between devices, like from cassettes onwards,
13:35quite difficult.
13:36Right.
13:36Because you lose them.
13:37Yeah, exactly.
13:38They degrade over time.
13:39They degrade, but also you can't find that cassette.
13:41Right.
13:41You've got a whole box of them.
13:43Yeah.
13:44You've seen a lot of technology changes.
13:46Yeah.
13:46Has it gotten easier, basically?
13:48That part of it's definitely easier.
13:49Yeah.
13:50We haven't used tape for ages.
13:51Right.
13:52And we used tape for one song.
13:53Andy wanted to use tape for beautiful Delilah.
13:56So I said, what does it matter if someone listens to it on their phone,
13:59they don't know if it's recorded on tape.
14:01It doesn't make any difference.
14:03But he said, okay, record it on tape.
14:06So we recorded on tape and we did it live.
14:08So that was old style, you know.
14:11But I think that recording digitally and having all those things at your disposal,
14:16if you don't be disciplined, then it can make the post-editing process too long.
14:21So you have to be disciplined about it.
14:23Right.
14:23Another lyric, divine intervention is out of the question.
14:27I'm going to dance in the flames.
14:29To my ears, this sounds sort of like it's a kind of ass-shaking song about climate apocalypse.
14:34Is that more or less right?
14:36I know.
14:36Yeah.
14:36It sounds like you're turning kind of a depressing topic
14:39into a pretty upbeat, you know, awesome song.
14:43Yeah.
14:43How do you do that?
14:44But I think that's the trick, is that you don't want to be talking about this stuff
14:51in a too depressing, doom-y way.
14:54But you can express these subjects in a kind of slightly crazy way.
15:01It's easier to take.
15:02Yeah.
15:03So I think it's any lyric theme running through the album.
15:06It's a kind of dystopian lyric theme that goes through a little, even throw in songs like
15:12In the Stars, it's in there.
15:14It's even in Never Want to Lose You, I throw, if the world falls into decadent disarray.
15:21Yeah.
15:21That's it.
15:21That's it.
15:22And, you know, Ringing Hollow.
15:24Yeah, Ringing Hollow is more, yeah.
15:26That's the one that most addresses kind of your kind of current things.
15:31Yes.
15:32Yeah.
15:32But even that is pretty humorous.
15:34So it's not to be taken with too much gravitas, but nevertheless, it's the theme that if any,
15:39if there is a theme, which I never really thought there was until I started looking at it.
15:43And I realized I'm, I am keeping to this theme.
15:47So it doesn't matter if I do more of it, you know, without overdoing it.
15:50And yeah, Ringing Hollow does a good job of that.
15:52You know, you're talking about growing up, loving American culture,
15:56but kind of getting a little more disenchanted as time goes on.
15:59Yeah.
16:00And then they're expressing your experiences, which may not all be recent.
16:04You know what I mean?
16:04I was handcuffed and arrested, but that wasn't recent, but it happened, you know, several times.
16:09But, you know, it wasn't like last year.
16:11It wasn't like this year has been worse.
16:12Yeah.
16:13But it was, it's a kind of long personal experience.
16:15Right.
16:16Yeah.
16:23In the stars.
16:24So the video has Odessa Zion.
16:26Yeah.
16:27And I think the press release called it deep voodoo, deep fake technology.
16:33So it's a lot of bullshit.
16:35Yeah.
16:35But it, well, you know, it's AI and we had a lot of fun with that really.
16:40Yeah.
16:40I mean, it was good.
16:41So it's only the faces of the, of the musicians are different.
16:46Everything else is in a room, a real room.
16:49I see.
16:49So that they're not fake people in a fake room.
16:52They're all those drummers that you see are all real drummers and they're all playing in a real room.
16:56Okay.
16:56And the musicians are real musicians that look a bit like the Rolling Stones in 1968.
17:01Yeah.
17:01And so the only thing was the faces.
17:04So they worked on mine first.
17:06And it kind of looked like, it was very weird because at the beginning, it looked kind of like me,
17:09but not really like me.
17:11So like one of my children when they were 23 or something.
17:14And I saw Ronnie, I said to the people working, I said, well, it looks more like Jeff Beck than
17:20Ronnie.
17:21I said, stop it there.
17:22310.
17:23So freeze the frame at 310.
17:24Look, it's Jeff Beck.
17:25Suddenly he's in the Rolling Stones.
17:27So I had to do a bit extra work.
17:34What do you think about AI in music and, you know, musicians using AI?
17:39I don't know.
17:39You don't really want to be imitated by AI, obviously, a musician.
17:43AI vocally and instrumentally and the band doesn't work.
17:47I don't want people just putting stuff out there that can sound exactly like the Rolling Stones.
17:52And I think that's obviously wrong.
17:53If someone wants to make music by AI, I mean, go ahead.
17:58Sure.
17:59I mean, but I mean, it has to be original.
18:02You know, it has to be, you have to have your own input and your own thoughts.
18:05I'm sure you can do something great.
18:07I mean, you also do something terrible.
18:09It depends on AI.
18:10Right.
18:12If you put in shit, you'll get it.
18:13Yeah, yeah, exactly.
18:14Do you think AI in a way is sort of just the latest in, you know, you've seen a lot
18:18of technology changes.
18:19The technology in recording and film changes every five years.
18:23Yeah.
18:23A lot since the 60s.
18:25So every, it changes.
18:26Yeah.
18:27Just think of all the ways we listen to music compared to what we're used to.
18:30Right.
18:30And even that didn't last long.
18:31The golden days of the LP were not really that long.
18:3420 years max.
18:36Yeah.
18:36And it was, you know, invented in the 50s, coming in the 70s, by the 80s, kind of going.
18:41So like all these technology changes, just the way we listen, let alone the way, mate,
18:46we started using computers in a recording studio in the late 70s, you know, for mixing.
18:51Where computers would hold your mix, you know, it was difficult.
18:54Before that, you had to have three people mixing 24 tracks.
18:57It was really difficult.
18:58You would computerize it.
19:00And then the computer would hold those mixes and you do the next bit and so on.
19:03So it's not a new thing to be using technology in the studio.
19:07The studio is technology.
19:08And now, of course, it's much bigger and much more able to deal with all kinds of things.
19:13It's cleverer and the technology is clever.
19:16So in a way, if you're clever, you can use that technology greatly to your advantage.
19:22Right.
19:22To make things go quicker, to make boring things go quicker.
19:26There's a disadvantage to over-align it.
19:28You know, in my opinion, you've got to write the songs and you've got to play them and you play
19:33them live.
19:34And of course, you can overdub them.
19:35I've been doing overdub since 1965.
19:37You know, so that's not new.
19:40But I mean, there are people who use AI to just make a song from scratch, you know, in the
19:44style of the role.
19:45In the style of, yeah.
19:46But if you were any kind of creative person, you wouldn't do that.
19:50Yeah, I think that's fair.
19:52Will there be a tour for this record or will there be a sort of residency situation?
19:56I don't know at the moment, honestly.
19:58Okay.
19:59I would like to tour.
20:00I like touring.
20:01I like going to people.
20:02You know, if they only can be a residency, they can only be a residency.
20:05The thing about residency is the only downside for people is that a residency is much more expensive
20:10to do for the people that want to come and see the show.
20:12Because a lot of them have to travel a long way.
20:15They have to stay overnight.
20:16They have to buy an expensive ticket and they have to go back home again.
20:19And the whole exercise is not like getting on the subway and going to the gig.
20:24Right.
20:25Yeah.
20:25Then you come back.
20:26More cost prohibitive.
20:27Yeah, it's much more costly.
20:29Yeah.
20:29You have a great social media presence.
20:31A lot of just you sightseeing in Egypt and Cleveland or, you know.
20:36Egypt and Cleveland.
20:37It's very different.
20:38Yeah.
20:39The two cultural centers of the world.
20:41Are you intimately involved in that?
20:42Are you scrolling through social media?
20:44I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but when I do my travelog social media,
20:48things like you talked about.
20:50Yeah.
20:50I mean, obviously I do that, you know.
20:52It's not someone else that does it.
20:53Right.
20:54You know, I quite enjoy doing those kind of fun.
20:57It's usually just where I am.
20:58I don't go there specifically to do that.
21:01Right.
21:01You're not a documentarian.
21:02No, no.
21:03Not really.
21:03I have a quote from Werner Herzog.
21:06Oh, yeah.
21:06So you were going to act in Fitzcarral.
21:09Well, yeah, I did when the movie wasn't finished.
21:12Right.
21:12And they couldn't finish and then the Stones tour took you away.
21:15So he said it's a tragic gap in the history of film
21:18that you haven't been praised enough as someone who could have been a great actor.
21:22Could have been.
21:22Could have been.
21:23Do you wish you had had more time to kind of pursue?
21:26Yeah, I think the thing is, though, if it was now in this time frame,
21:30that I would have been able to act a lot more because there's not the prejudice against singers.
21:36In fact, they would take the advantage of using the fame of someone to use them in a film.
21:41Whereas in the days when I started acting, all the people in film hated you.
21:46And it was impossible to get a role because it just wasn't the thing.
21:51And also, they didn't use music in films either.
21:54Hardly at all.
21:55Like now we take it for granted.
21:57There's music almost all the time.
21:59And so now it's much easier for singers to get acting parts.
22:03But in those days, it was impossible.
22:06Yeah.
22:06I mean, it would have been nice to have done more.
22:08Thanks, Werner.
22:09Fantastic in performance, too.
22:11Yeah, it's such a long time ago.
22:13I mean, I just did a cameo in a silent black and white movie called The Three Incestuous Sisters
22:18with three famous actresses.
22:20What was the cameo like?
22:21It was fun.
22:22Yeah.
22:22I was playing a lighthouse keeper.
22:25I didn't have any lines because it's a silent movie.
22:27It's a silent film.
22:28Yeah, maybe the title card.
22:29You left to worry about the lines.
22:30So the last song on the album, Beautiful Delilah, it's a Chuck Berry song.
22:34Beautiful Delilah, bathing in the sun.
22:38Chuck Berry was a big influence on the Stones.
22:41If there were like, you know, a Mount Rushmore of influences for the Rolling Stones,
22:46you know, would his name face be up there?
22:50Yeah, he definitely would be up there.
22:51Yeah.
22:51Who else might be up there?
22:53Who might be up there?
22:54That's a good one.
22:54I suppose Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard.
22:59Yeah.
23:00Is that enough?
23:00I think that's enough.
23:01You got five.
23:01Yeah, that's enough.
23:02I mean, why not?
23:02You can add another one in.
23:03Can't argue with those faces.
23:04Yeah, that's good.
23:10The Stones were kind of ahead of the curve in terms of syncing songs, you know,
23:14with commercials and whatnot.
23:15You guys did the Windows 95, you know, Start Me Up.
23:18Yeah.
23:18That's a normal thing.
23:19Like, that's how artists make money.
23:21Yeah.
23:21But back then, you kind of got some shit for it.
23:23Did that bother you that people, you know, gave you a little…
23:25No, we knew we were doing something that was going to become the norm.
23:29Right.
23:29Honestly, we did sponsorship for tours.
23:31People said, what was that?
23:33You know, I said, well, it's going to become the norm.
23:36Yeah.
23:36You know, this is the total norm.
23:38This is America.
23:39This is how it works.
23:41And as I said before, they didn't feature songs in movies.
23:44And then it became not only the norm, it became essential.
23:48And I mean, I remember watching tennis matches where in between the games,
23:52they didn't play music.
23:53It was you have music all the time.
23:55You can't have a silent period in your life.
23:58Right.
23:59And you can't go to an event where there's a silent period.
24:02You can't go to a restaurant where there's not music playing,
24:06sometimes annoyingly.
24:07Right.
24:07Um, where the blues is the background to middle-class living.
24:11I'm not complaining about this.
24:12I'm just saying that this is just the changes that have taken place.
24:17And so we were just in the vanguard of that, where I'm not saying it was a brilliant idea,
24:22but it was just happening.
24:23And we, we, we weren't snobbish about it.
24:26Right.
24:26Yeah.
24:26I mean, the Steel Wheels tour kind of invented the modern rock.
24:29Yeah.
24:29We invented stadium show.
24:32Right.
24:32Yeah.
24:32Really.
24:33Because before that stadium shows have been only in the daytime and they'd been sporadic.
24:39So they'd been like one show out of five might be a stadium show,
24:43but that wasn't a whole tour of stadium shows.
24:45We kind of did invent that.
24:46Yeah.
24:47And one of the songs that Mr. Charm, what may be my favorite on the record,
24:50there's a line, the darkest days of 1916.
24:53Yeah.
24:57Is that the reference to the Battle of Somme of the World War?
25:01Yeah, Somme or Ypres, I can't remember which.
25:02Okay.
25:03Are you like a history buff?
25:04Do you do a lot of history reading?
25:05I am a history buff.
25:06Yeah.
25:07But I mean, I don't know why it came to me to throw that in there as a, as a
25:11seductive line.
25:14I'm just showing off.
25:15Just showing off your knowledge.
25:16What, well, you, you like history.
25:18What are you reading now?
25:20It's not so much a history.
25:22It's an argument between physicists about what happened before the big bang.
25:27I think it's called big bang something.
25:30Anyway, it's a layman's thing.
25:32I mean, you have to be careful.
25:33Right.
25:34I mean, sometimes you don't understand what's going on, but so the whole argument is
25:38if we accept that the big bang happened, which not everyone does, what did it come from?
25:43Did it come from nothing or what happened before the big bang?
25:46So there's lots of different scientists and have different theories about what this could be.
25:51And Stephen Hawking was very involved.
25:54He had lots of different theories and he kept changing his mind about them.
25:57I mean, if he's a genius and he can't figure it out, I don't know if he'll be able to.
26:01Yeah.
26:01It hasn't been figured out yet.
26:03Yeah.
26:03And probably never will.
26:16I want to see you paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it black, yeah.
26:22I want to see you paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:28it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:29it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:29it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:31it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:32it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:32it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint
26:32it, paint it, paint it, paint it, paint it,
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