Bill Wyman

During the small tour you made last year, you were singing on stage. Why don't you do it anymore ?
It doesen't come easy...
I've never done it with the Stones or before, so Amsterdam, Hamburg and London were the first time I ever stood on a microphone.

Do you regret having done it ?
I didn't like it.... I was always thinking like "one more song and then I have to sing".
I didn't really want to do it. The audience was nice, but I didn't feel right so I said no more me singing.
There's nothing on the second album with me singing, barely on the first one, and maybe I'll do 1 or 2 blues on the next album, but no more stage. I'm the bass player.

Songs like "Si si je suis une rock star" that you were singing some time ago may be easier to perform live ?
Yes ! We call it "tongue and cheek music". It's a bit like a comedy...
Ringo (Starr) does it with songs like Yellow Submarine, or Octopus's Garden, and you don't need to have the best voice in the world to manage songs like that.
But in my band, I have 4 great singers, so why singing myself ?

You could have performed "Si si..." yesterday in Paris, the audience asked for it.
(laughs) Well, I used to do "Stuff (can't get enough of that stuff) last year, and it used to go down very well, but I can't play the bass when I sing .

You've always been considered as a shy person, someone cool, calm, and collected...
Yes, I'm always shy in front of an audience, so I'm always at the back, in the shadows, just doing it. I don't like the front, the adulation. I'm your favorite undertaker !!! (laughs)

A big part of your audience is young, and doesen't know the music you're playing. Most of them come to see the Rhythm Kings because they're Stones fans. What can you tell them about the music you play ?
We play traditional music. But 1st of all, I want to say that everytime the Stones played, they had young people coming to their shows, and they still do. The Stones introduced all these young people to the blues music, and I'm doing the same thing.
When the Stones started playing the blues, it was not on the radio, and you couldn't find this kind of records in the shops. When the Stones made it popular, with other bands like the Yardbirds or the Animals, the record companies brought the records in from America and sold them. Then, blues became a big music in the 60ies.

What can we expect on the 3rd CD ?
It's gonna be early blues, from the 20ies-30ies, and maybe a bit of ragtime, that is a good music too, but nobody's playing it. I have no restrictions , no limits, no musical history to live with.

During an interview I had with Mick Taylor this summer, he told me he made several sessions for you during the recording of "Anyway the wind blows". Will others songs be released with him on the guitar ?
When we worked with Mick, he was not in very good shape.
He was coming out of a divorce, he had no guitar, no amplifier because he sold everything. He had no money, he was living by his mother in Wales, and was a bit mixed up.
I used him for 3 evenings and what I got from him was very little. Everything was badly played, it wasn't the Mick Taylor I wanted.
I was very disapointed, I paid him good money for the sessions, and he went away.
I heard short after that he put a band together and was playing blues in small clubs.
Then I heard last year that the man who did the mixing on our 1st album was producing a record with him.
Then I met him 2 monthes ago when I was mixing in the studio, and he was like the old Mick Taylor. I think he's back to normal, so maybe next year, after Christmas, when we'll be working on the next album I'll call him, because we didn't get very good things from him the 1st time.

I asked him what he thought about your leaving the Stones after the 89/90 World Tour, and he answered he was surprised you didn't quit by the same he did...
(laughs) 74 ? Well I thought many times of leaving because I was frustrated musically.
If you are any competent musician, if you have creative ideas, ideas of songs, of arrangements, in a band like the Stones, where these 2 people do all the things, there is no freedom.
You're always frustrated, you don't have the chance to do a song on the album, like the Beatles did with Ringo and George, or like Led Zeppelin, where everybody was given a chance to contribute. There never is a chance with the Stones.
In the 70ies, I didn't quit the band because I thought "OK, let's do solo albums", so I went to California, and worked with great musicians : Leon Russel, Dr John, Van Morrisson, Sly Stone...... I had all the people I loved on my solo albums, and then my frustration was gone.
In the 80ies, I made movie musics for Dario Argenta's horror films, I made a big movie score for a major film with Omar Shariff called "Green Ice". The film was shit but the music was good !!! (laughs)
So I was releasing this tension with my solo albums, but I didn't want to play music just for money. I want to be creative, more adventurous, and that's why I left. I didn't want to stay in the Stones, and be stuck in a position having to play a music I didn't like anymore and that restricted me from doing all the others things I'm interested in because of time.

What about the following of your book " A Stone Alone" ?
My work on the 2nd book is finished, but my problem is trying to find someone to write it for me. Ray Coleman who wrote the 1st died this year.
I tried someone else, a similar kind of person, who worked for musical papers many years, and toured with us in the 60ies like Ray Coleman did . He made some chapters but I didn't like his work, so I'm looking for somebody who would be compatible with me to write the 2nd book, but my part is finished.
The 1st one took me 13 years, the 2nd one seven, and I already started on the 3rd one. These books are slow work, research, because there are so many details. On the 1st one the printer made some mistakes in dates and I was looking stupid, but I'm not writing these books for the critics, I'm writing them for the fans.

Is it true that Mick Jagger wanted to have acces to your files ?
He wanted to take a black pen and make a complete edit on my book before I released it.
I didn't accept and he wasn't very happy.
When he wanted to make a book, he wanted all of my information, and I just said "Piss off".
My book has nothing to do with him. If he writes a book, he should write it from what he remembers.

Nowadays your philosophy  seems to be "Get as much enjoyment as possible ...
 ...even if you don't get paid. (laughs)

Do you mean that you don't get paid with the Rhythm Kings ?
I don't make any money ! How can you ?
We don't sell so many records. When I make the album, I pay the musicians.
The record company buys the album, and they don't give that much money. Then you go on tour, and play small clubs.
We need a road crew, and I have to pay all these great musicians a good price otherwise they don't come, because they make more money alone. But in the band, Georgie Fame, Gary Brooker, everybody does it for the love of music because they work for not very much money.
There isn't enough money, and that's the reason why we can't play Spain, Italy, the south of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland or Russia. We had invites for all those countries, but we can't play there because it means flying.
If you fly 10 people to one place, the money of 2 shows is gone.

And you hate flying ....
Yes, I can go by car or train, but the point is the others fly. This small tour, playing clubs, where the music is best, and where the music was actually written for is not a way to make money.

We can imagine it's difficult to get rich and succesful with a kind of music that is neither heard on radio, nor seen on TV...
Sure ! But why is it that in music, anything more than 5 years old - apart from a few hits - is never played on radio to the young public ?
You can go to art exhibitions, from van Gogh or Leonardo, you can see the whole history of art in museums and exhibitions. You can see the oldest film that was ever made, etc etc, so why not the same with the music industry?
Because of the fashion, the young people don't have any access to the history of music, unless people like me revive it. There are very few people to revive it, because you can't earn any money doing it.

Keith Richards always promotes the old rock n'roll, saying "Everybody talks about rock music, but what happened to the roll ?"
Yes, but he doesen't go as far as me. He doesen't put it into practice.
He tries with the X-pensive Winos but when he goes on the road, half of his show is Rolling Stones' songs, so he plays safe.
Mick Jagger does the same. When he made his shows in Australia he played 22 songs and 17 were Rolling Stones songs.
Ronnie Wood does the same.

The Stones will tour the UK next summer, and the fans hope to see you on stage with them. 
Would you accept if they invite you ?
The Stones are not Spinal Tap...

Does that mean you would refuse ?
No, I don't refuse, but I see no reason for doing it.
If they were doing something special, like maybe a TV special for the year 2000, playing the old songs, then maybe I'll do it.
But that part of my life is over. I moved to other things that are much more satisfying inside.

Did you see them on their Bridges to Babylon tour ?
No, because they cancelled England. They did so because taxes were too high. They're interested in money.

I have met an american fan who crossed the Atlantic especially to see you live in Amsterdam and here in Paris. 
Are you planning some american and japanese dates ?
No. We'll make only these few dates.
We don't even play in England. You have only a few places in Europe where you can play this kind of traditionnal music, but you have nothing in England. You can't bring this kind of music to the young people so they never know about it, and they never buy it.
It's like the blues in the early 60ies.


Last question : What about other Sticky Fingers cafés in Europe ?
No. It's out of question because I'll have to keep an eye on them and to travel. I don't want to travel too much.


Paris, France.
Tuesday, October 11th 1998.
(Doctor Stones)