In the early 1960s. almost 200 years after they lost the Revolutionary War, the British recaptured America. Their invasion was not led by flotillas of the King’s Navy carrying thousands of foreign mercenaries, but by small bands of strange-looking young men with even stranger names — Beatles, Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Kinks. The musical revolution that ensued changed American culture forever.
Mick Jagger: The Penthouse Interview
Of all the rock-n-roll bands who led this revolution, none have made a greater or more enduring impact than Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Few would debate that they have earned their sobriquet of “The World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band.” And the greatest band has also produced rock-n-roll’s greatest legend, Mick Jagger. No one — not John Lennon, not Bob Dylan, not even Elvis Presley — has better personified the burning sexual creativity of great rock-n-roll.
Mick Jagger was born 42 years ago, when the German Luftwaffe was still dropping bombs on London. The oldest of two sons, Jagger was raised in a middle-class suburban household in Kent. Although Jagger’s image is that of a tough, swaggering working-class lad, his upbringing was really very bourgeois. His father, Basil, was a physical education teacher and lecturer, and his Australian-born mother, Eva, was a woman who took great pride in her home and children.
It was a religious, strictly run household where misbehavior was quickly and severely punished. Young Mick excelled in sports and did well in school. Indeed, Jagger’s enrollment in the London School of Economics appeared to ensure his future as a solid citizen of Queen Elizabeth’s realm.
But in the mid-fifties, something called rock-n-roll cast a spell on Jagger and thousands of others of his generation. The music was exported from America, but it was more revered in Great Britain than back home. The music of Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and Bill Haley and the Comets, as well as the rhythm and blues of Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, inspired Mick to envision a future more interesting and exciting than the drab respectability of British economics.
The Rolling Stones were born in London in 1962. Jagger and Keith Richards are the only members who remain from the original group. They saw themselves as rhythm and blues purists, catering to jazz snobs in small Soho clubs. Their name was taken from an old Muddy Waters song, “Rollin’ Stone.” There wasn’t much money to be made playing music in small London pubs, and Jagger kept his options for the future open by remaining enrolled at the London School of Economics. In fact, in 1963, when the Beatles were beginning their rise to superstardom, very little seemed to be happening for the Rolling Stones. It wasn’t until a teenage impresario named Andrew Loog Oldham became the band’s manager that things began to turn around for the group. With a record contract and a 1964 tour of America planned, Jagger decided to make a full commitment to the band and dropped out of school — a decision, Jagger says, that his parents did not easily accept.
“I think what upset people is that I said what I thought, and that was at a time when very few people did.”
The Rolling Stones followed on the heels of the Beatles with their 1964 visit to America. Already, rock-n-roll fans were choosing sides between the Stones and the Beatles. In Britain, the Stones were being compared unfavorably by the press to the Fab Four. The Beatles were clean-cut, their audiences were relatively well-behaved. and their music did not shake the establishment unduly. The Stones, on the other hand, were unruly, coarse, and dangerous, with audiences comprised of hysterical teenagers who seemed ready to pour into the streets. In short, the Rolling Stones— led by a sexually threatening Mick Jagger — became the favorite targets of British journalists.
Through the years, as their popularity soared and their success grew, so did the turmoil that has been as much a part of the Stones as their music. There were the drug busts of Brian Jones, Keith, and Mick. Mick’s “living in sin” with Marianne Faithful! shocked England and provided a field day for the more scurrilous members of the British press. Brian Jones’s tragic drowning and the rumors following it continued to enhance their ugly image. Often, Stones concerts inspired violence, the most famous incident occurring in 1969 at Altamont, California, with the fatal stabbing of a Stones fan by the Hell’s Angels. Yet, throughout all the madness, Mick continued to write and perform some of rock’s greatest songs, all the while serving as the linchpin that held the Rolling Stones together.
Has middle age tamed Mick Jagger? Penthouse wanted to know that and more. Although millions of words have been written about him, Jagger is not fond of giving interviews. Much of what the public thinks it knows about him has been written by people who, in his words, “spoke to me for five minutes.” Penthouse asked Special Features Editor Allan Sonnenschein to try to persuade Jagger to give us this exclusive, in-depth interview. After 11 months, Sonnenschein was finally successful.
“It would be nice if someone in the press cared about anyone’s personal feelings. But in the game of show business, you’ve got to be prepared to take some pretty hard knocks. And you know, I can take them.”
The interview took place over several days at the New York recording studio where Jagger was working on a new album — one that will be a landmark for him. The recording, titled She’s the Boss at press time, is Jagger’s first solo effort. For over a year he has worked at nothing else — writing all the songs in addition to overseeing all aspects of the production.
Sonnenschein’s first session with Jagger took place on Election Day last year as Mick took some time off from working on the album’s final mixing. “Considering Jagger’s feelings about giving interviews,” Sonnenschein tells us, “I wasn’t certain how cooperative he would be. So I was surprised that, if anything, he went out of his way to make very sure that I was comfortable.”
“I wasn’t too surprised to find that Jagger, a new father, was eager to discuss topics other than music. Perhaps one reason he has been so leery of the press is that he has been typecast as the quintessence of mindless sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. As we began our discussion, I decided it would be interesting to discover other facets of his personality and opinions.”
It’s Election Day today. Any feelings about it?
Jagger: Yeah. No taxation without representation!
Does it surprise you that young people appear to overwhelmingly support President Reagan?
Jagger: Well, Mondale is hardly a youth candidate. They see Reagan as an effective person. The guy is tremendously popular.
How about among minorities?
Jagger: Some of the black people working here in the studio were laughing when I asked them who they were voting for. Of course they’re going to vote for Reagan. Anyone who is making a buck is voting for Reagan. You don’t have to be completely brilliant to figure that out. On the level of musicians that I know, black musicians, they voted for Reagan.
Why?
Jagger: I think that Ronald Reagan inspires people. I think that he inspires in them that American ideal.
Do you think that most Americans relate to Reagan’s political philosophy?
Jagger: I think that people vote for Reagan because they like the guy. I don’t think they really know or care what his politics are.
How successful a leader do you think Reagan has been?
Jagger: Well, I can’t say that his foreign policy has been a success. It’s a mess in Central America, it’s a mess as far as any kind of dialogue with the other side is concerned, and we’re at a low point in East-West relations. He also has a Middle East policy which has been, in terms of human lives, a bit disastrous. As far as the Iraq-Iran war, it has been no kind of policy.
Has there been anything on the plus side?
Jagger: On the plus side you could say that the guy has spent more and more on atomic weapons than anyone else, which is what he said he was going to do when he came into office for the first time.
Do you think that’s a positive thing?
Jagger: Of course not! It’s very dangerous. We already have so many weapons, enough to blow ourselves up 2,000 times over. Reagan indulges in double-talk: “We have to increase military spending to achieve peace.” One gets used to hearing stuff like that. But we have so many weapons, it’s unbelievable. Why do we need any more? We never get rid of the old ones very quickly.
So, you think his reelection will be dangerous?
Jagger: What I’m really saying is that I hope the guy does use his mandate to do some serious arms negotiations — at least try.
What else would you like to see accomplished in his second term?
Jagger: I hope that he meant it when he said he was for all the people in America, rich and poor. Many people have a feeling, and I think it is valid, that the rich and the middle class are catered to at the expense of the poor.
As a former student at the London School of Economics, does Reaganomics make sense to you?
Jagger: It’s worked. We’ve flimflammed a lot on economic policy in the last four years, but like in England, they have very high unemployment, but they don’t have the budget deficit that we have here. What you pay for in bringing down inflation, you pay for in unemployment or a high deficit. In a free market, that’s how it works. So we’re paying for it by the deficit. Now, how he’s going to get us out of that I really don’t know. We’re probably going to get a huge deficit.
Which we already have.
Jagger: It’s going to get worse. It’s like a mountain.
You said that Reagan is inspiring. What about Margaret Thatcher?
Jagger: Yeah! During the Falklands War she was a source of inspiration. Basically these right-wing figures are the inspiring ones at the moment.
You made a very strong video called “Undercover of the Night” that took place in Central America and was banned by the BBC. Are you especially concerned about the situation in that part of the world?
Jagger: I think it’s really dangerous in Central America. I mean — as someone who knows the region only slightly, and I don’t claim any great knowledge — it’s a problem of poverty. Poverty in those countries is acute and they’re very close to us. These are totally exploited people. Nicaragua is a country very, very poor, very small, with few resources, governed for years by a tiny oligarchy of people who raped them under the protection of successive American governments. Today, these countries need help economically, not militarily. The shortsightedness of Western foreign policy is sad. Somoza was terrible — an awful, awful man. Even by the standards of the region the guy was seriously bad, and we went on supporting him until almost the bitter end. For what? The guy wasn’t helping his country; he was not really helping the United States.
Do you think the West has a moral obligation to help these people?
Jagger: Yes! We have an obligation, whether it’s moral or not. If we don’t take it, they’re going to fuck around with us, one way or the other. If you don’t give enough, then the guy that is the have-not is going to come and take of you. It’s like that. You don’t have to look after them totally, but there is a certain amount of responsibility one has to one’s neighbors.
Let’s talk about the more serious world of rock-n-roll. The Stones will be going on tour soon. Will you still be singing “Satisfaction”?
Jagger: I don’t think so.
After 20 years, how much longer do you think that the Stones will be touring?
Jagger: I guess it will become embarrassing ….
Outside of money, what motivates you to keep on touring?
Jagger: It’s a very hypothetical question, because there are very few musicians who go on tour for nothing. But we toured many years without earning great sums of money. We did a lot of concerts — very big, tiring, long, grinding tours of arenas where we should have made a fortune, and for whatever reason, we never made a lot of money. Actually, we didn’t make big money until 1978. I enjoy to go on the road. I kind of miss it after a while.
But isn’t there a point when you feel that you are going through the motions?
Jagger: That’s the trick of doing it. You don’t want to get to the point where you’re going through the motions. I think that’s a drag — a drag for you, a drag for the audience. If you limit it to 30 dates, I think that’s enough. If you want to do some more, then you should take some time out. All the money people, all the touring people will hate you because that means the machine comes to an end, and obviously they have to be paid before you go again. But I think if you want to do more than, say, 30 straight gigs, you’ve got to take a break. Otherwise you do tend to go on automatic pilot. Every band knows what that feels like.
When you hear about the Jacksons selling tickets for $30 a show, do you feel that you’ve missed out on something?
Jagger: No, not at all. I think that as far as ticket pricing, $20 is really enough to pay.
Do you think it’s fair to ask thousands of fans to pay $30 to hear the Jacksons play approximately 90 minutes of music?
Jagger: For me, an hour and three-quarters of any rock band is enough. I mean an hour is enough for me. I can’t stand to see anyone for more than an hour. I don’t mind to play for more than an hour. I played two hours on the last tour. Sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more, sometimes two hours and 15 minutes, and I think that’s too long. I get bored.
So, when Bruce Springsteen and his band play for four hours, it’s a bit too much?
Jagger: For a lot of Springsteen fans that’s great, and I don’t want to take anything away from the fact that he plays that long. I liked the Springsteen show, I thought it was good. It didn’t bore me, anyway, so that’s a good sign.
After 20 years, how do you get yourself up for a concert?
Jagger: Well, the same way you normally do. If you’re playing to an audience of a thousand, or 20,000 or 90,000 people, even if you’re not “up” before you get out there, they get you up. It’s going to be a pretty bad audience that will make you lethargic. It’s like in sports. You don’t feel very good, but once you get out there you try your best and do your best and you’re up for it.
In 1962, did you ever dream it was going to be like it has turned out for the Stones?
Jagger: I don’t think anybody really knew. Rock-n-roll was in a very shaky kind of state when we started out. Today rock-n-roll is a huge industry, a self-serving industry, with its concerts, record sales, and all the other paraphernalia and garbage in between. That didn’t exist. People weren’t making millions out of concerts. The records were good but the whole industry of rock-n-roll did not exist as it does now. So, when we came in, obviously, our expectations were never to be a big band, not for 20 years.
“I’m not a male chauvinist. In fact, I was kind of androgynous and was always accused of being too feminine.”
But things began to change when —
Jagger: When the Beatles happened, and it was apparent that it might change. There was a big explosion in record sales, and shortly after, the concert thing was happening.
So, the Beatles were responsible for the success of rock-n-roll concerts.
Jagger: The Beatles Shea Stadium concert was the first major outdoor concert, but they never followed up on it. They could have done a stadium show like we did in 1981, but they never did that. In fact, no one ever did that. The outdoor show was something that was just done as a festival, and you had to have a huge array of talent, not just rely on one band. So, the industry changed with the Rolling Stones.
Would you say that the quality of rock-n-roll concerts left a lot to be desired in those days?
Jagger: It changed in 1969, when the sound systems started to get better. That was the beginning of the arena concert. That was when it got more professional, which was, for me, better. Before that it was a drag and you’d get booked in everywhere and it was just screaming kids and no one knew what was going on; it was just a joke, disorganized. Then, gradually, people from different areas with much more expertise in theater became involved in it and made it more professional.
You mentioned the importance of the Beatles in the sixties rock -n-roll explosion. Were you a big Beatles fan at that time?
Jagger: No, I never liked the Beatles. [Laughs]
Didn’t the Beatles help out the Stones in the early days?
Jagger: Paul McCartney says that we didn’t care to remember that they sold us a song for our first English Top Ten record. I remember it very well and I always said that it was great. He seemed to imply that it was something I would like to forget. I remember it like it was yesterday. I have a very clear, precise idea of what went on and how Brian Jones made something out of this corny song, playing it like a blues steel-guitar solo, and made it kind of funky.
Did the Beatles and you have a good personal relationship?
Jagger: Yeah. I used to get on pretty well with John. I used to be friends with Paul. I mean … I’m pretty friendly with him. I saw George and Ringo the summer I was in England. I saw a bit of them.
Has there always been competition between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones?
Jagger: Yeah. It was real good to have that competition. Like I said before, there was this huge increase in record sales and the way into America was paved by them. Obviously, most of the comparisons were ridiculous.
While everyone takes it for granted that the Stones record their own material, it wasn’t always like that. What made you decide to write and perform original songs?
Jagger: What made us do it? Well, the success of the Beatles and the fact that we couldn’t rely on covering other people’s material forever. We were going to run out. And it was also fun writing your own songs.
Did you think that you had it in you?
Jagger: No, not really. Writing songs, at the beginning, is really difficult. We used to write these dumb ballads, which we didn’t dare record because we were a tough blues band.
“As Tears Go By” wasn’t a dumb ballad.
Jagger: Yeah, I know. But before that we used to write these stupid words. As long as they rhymed, that was enough for me — real boom-boom poetry. I wrote about teenybop girls and things.
Well, you haven’t stopped writing about girls.
Jagger: I know, but it’s slightly more mature — not a lot!
How does the Jagger-Richards songwriting team work?
Jagger: Well, when we started off, Keith used to hum a melody that he got from somewhere or he made up or whatever.
I would try to make up words and we’d just sit there and strum along — and basically, that’s what we still do. The way we started off, I just wrote the lyrics and Keith wrote the melodies. I still write all the lyrics, more or less.
Let’s talk about the lyrics that you write. What about, for instance, your attitude toward women?
Jagger: Hmm…
You’ve gotten a lot of criticism about it.
Jagger: Yeah. It was sort of fashionable at one time to be critical like that. Of course, when you’re very immature, I think a lot of times you write from the heart and you also just copy things from other people. I think what upset people is, in the early lyrics, that I just said what I thought and that was at a time when very few people did.
Early rock-n-roll lyrics were kind of banal.
Jagger: I mean that there was no honesty in them. I’m talking about not even the semblance of any kind of real-life occurrences in lyrics until Bob Dylan influenced people to write in a slightly different way. And our attitude toward women was a bit more hard-edged than the normal pop-song attitude, which, up to that point, was like “Venus in Blue Jeans,” and it was never “you bitch.”
Have you had much that is nice to say about women?
Jagger: You get an awful lot of the other kind of lyrics in Rolling Stones songs, being kind or praising the opposite sex to the sky in the traditional sense of the lyric writer.
But that sentimentality is not as much fun for you?
Jagger: No, I do that a lot. I think that the really rotten thing is that I’ve written a lot of songs that are romantic — love songs, as well — that people don’t always remember.
Is Mick Jagger a male chauvinist?
Jagger: I’m not a male chauvinist. Not at all. In fact, I’m just the opposite. I was kind of androgynous, and was always being accused of being too feminine, in fact, rather than being too masculine. I was never accused of being a macho figure. I was the total opposite of the macho figure. I was always the guy you could imagine making pate in my kitchen. And I never had a relationship with a woman where she had to stay home.
But, to go beyond my own experience for a minute, you have to realize that, for a long time, the status of women will be different. They have special, not only biological, but spiritual and cultural values having to do with childbirth and child-rearing, and because of that their role in society is going to be different. Women who only have careers and don’t have children will probably feel incomplete as a woman. So most women want to have children and a career. and that will place a big burden on them and their husbands — and on society.
Why is it a burden?
Jagger: Because someone has got to look after these children. There is a great shortage of child care on the middle-class level, but on the poorer level — where people have got to work — there’s a problem with these kids running loose on the streets and not being properly looked after. I agree that women should work and I personally like women who work but it is something that we have to deal with in society as a whole because it does present problems.
Would you personally like to have a woman who stayed at home?
Jagger: I don’t know! I never had one. What’s it like?
Let’s move on to a safer subject. Some people have accused you of romanticizing and even encouraging Satanism in your songs.
Jagger: No! The only song I really wrote about that subject was “Sympathy for the Devil.” I wrote it very fast and I didn’t really think about it. It was written one morning before I went to the studio. But I like it. I like its theme. I like its lyrics. It’s like a subject you get interested in and you decide to write about it. When you’ve written your piece you tend to move on, I think.
How do you think you have matured as a lyricist?
Jagger: Well, I can make more rhymes. It’s difficult for me to make any kind of judgment on it. That’s for other people to make. Obviously I think my lyrics are better. Sometimes I’ll go through patches where I think they’re good and some I think are terrible. I can always blame other people.
That certainly won’t be the case on this album.
Jagger: Well, no. Obviously, not everything you do pleases you 100 percent. But I hope they’re a bit better than the “moon in June” I used to do.
Have you tried to write anything other than songs?
Jagger: I tried writing short stories, but I’m a little bit shy about doing it. When people say, “Why don’t you write your autobiography?” it would be so great to do it in short stories. I love traveling and I’ve written travel pieces, but I don’t know — it’s something I don’t think I’m so hot at.
Would you like to write about music?
Jagger: No. I don’t like criticism that much.
I’m simply not interested in it. I think it was the London Times or the Guardian that asked me some time ago to do reviews of videos and films, but no, I’m not cut out for the life of a critic.
Drugs are part of the Rolling Stones’ history. What was the drug scene in the early days?
Jagger: Terrible! I don’t know if it was worse than it is now, but it was more naive. I don’t think anybody knew; everyone was prepared to experiment. I think now people know the difference between different things. Apart from that, it’s more or less the same — pretty sick, really.
It’s incredible, isn’t it, when you think of all the people who have died from drugs?
Jagger: Yeah, it’s really not very good. It does appear that people in show business are particularly prone to insecurity and they try to alleviate that insecurity and some of them use drugs, overuse them or abuse them.
Did you have a problem with drugs?
Jagger: I think anyone taking drugs has a problem. But all musicians use drugs of some kind. You couldn’t go to a recording session in a studio without some of the musicians taking drugs. You’ve got to be very strong-willed to avoid them.
Did drugs affect the Stones?
Jagger: Keith, Brian, and myself, on numerous occasions, had problems with the police over drugs and that obviously affected the group’s morale. But we managed to deal with it somehow.
Do you remember how you felt when they found you guilty of a drug charge in England?
Jagger: Terrible! But we knew it was going to be guilty. It was no surprise. We were surprised at the sentence. Normally, for a first offense the sentence would be suspended or probation.
I know that it was overturned on appeal, but it must have been hell for the group with your and Keith’s future unknown.
Jagger: I didn’t find it particularly easy making music when we were being busted and everything. I mean, it’s nice to be pushed and to have influences, but it’s not nice if you think your guitar player is going to be in jail next week — it’s not easy to make music.
“Most women want to have children and a career, and that places a big burden on them and their husbands — and on society.”
How did the press treat you when the drug busts were going on?
Jagger: I just think that the press likes to take hold of something and go on and on. Of course, it would be nice if someone in the press cared about anyone’s personal feelings. But in the game of show business you’ve got to be prepared to take some pretty hard knocks. And you know, I can take them.
Do you read much of what’s printed about you?
Jagger: Not now, I don’t. People who read all their press are crazy, stupid. I don’t care what they write.
How did it feel when you couldn’t pick up a newspaper without reading about you and Bianca?
Jagger: You get used to it. After 20 years of it, it’s just water off a duck’s back. I don’t like it very much. But you do invite it if you go out to some dumb party and all. You never go to a party just for a party, it’s always to hustle something. And if you take part in that social crowd, you’ve got to expect to be part of it. I can live without it. In fact, New York in the sixties didn’t really have all that much sensationalism. But it does now — ever since Rupert Murdoch took over the Post.
Philip Norman, in his book on the Stones, Symphony for the Devil, claims that the British press set you and Keith up for the first drug bust. Is it true?
Jagger: Oh, sure … if Norman says so it must be true.
You don’t sound too happy about the book. Have you read it?
Jagger: I read bits of it. From what I can tell, all writers want to make a point, to come to a conclusion: “He was like this and this is how it all happened.” But life isn’t as simple as that. How can Norman make conclusions about me when he doesn’t really know me?
Norman wrote a lot about Allen Klein, who once managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the same time. Obviously, you knew him well. What was he really like?
Jagger: [Laughs] He was the only person who had the two biggest bands in the world and lost them both. He’s just a rapacious guy. I don’t know what he does now, but he must be in a weird situation to think that he had management of these two bands. He still could be managing the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney.
How did Klein blow it?
Jagger: Think of all the millions he could have made, and all he did was try to grab as much as he could. He’s genuinely a nuisance. Usually, you get over the emotional thing after a guy fucks you over, but this guy keeps coming back and back and back, so you really have to be serious with him. He’s not the kind of guy you can talk to calmly. like. “Hey, Allen. why don’t we make a business deal like sensible people?” He’s not interested in that. He wants it all. Just bullshit!
Mick, you’re 42 years old and the father of a new baby. Do you feel yourself becoming a little more conservative and “responsible” than you were, say, 15 years ago?
Jagger: I don’t really find having a baby makes you conservative.
Does it make you look for more stability?
Jagger: It obviously changes your life in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t have to make you politically any more conservative. It might make you more protective, perhaps, but if you were really poor, I’m sure it would change your economic attitude. You wouldn’t be able to run around spending money on having fun and all that. But I’m in the fortunate position that it doesn’t affect me that way, so having a baby doesn’t have that sobering effect that it’s supposed to have! [Laughs] But seriously, my interest in education is something that I inherited from my father and grandfather. I think that education, even in the countries where it’s considered to be of a higher standard, leaves a lot to be desired. It tends to have a regional bias, which doesn’t really help in the formative years when people acquire prejudices about other societies. They are ill-informed, and even into adulthood they don’t grow out of it. And, of course, people who don’t travel very much have a very odd view of the world.
Do you think that the quality of education has improved since your childhood?
Jagger: I see the education of my own children, and I don’t think that it’s improved from my own. Obviously, there’s a lot of room for improvement in backward countries, but also in our own backyards. The British and European systems are so rigid. My children are doing the same curriculum that I was doing years and years ago. I can’t believe it can’t be improved upon.
There are so many things that have changed that kids today should understand. For example, the whole world is becoming more citified. Especially in the Third World. Cities like Rio, Sao Paulo, and Mexico City are growing so fast. That kind of urban life produces a strange human being whom we don’t understand. It’s really a very stressful thing with its poverty and crime. I think there should be an understanding as to what is happening in our society.
Do you think that you’ve finally found the right woman?
Jagger: That’s a very leading question.
Perhaps, but you do seem pretty happy.
Jagger: Well, yeah, I am.
So — one last question, especially for our women readers. Are you going to get married again?
Jagger: No!
Why are you so emphatic?
Jagger: As they say, once bitten, twice shy.
We’re pretty sure that Great White said, “Once bitten, twice shy” – at least after Ian Hunter did. That may not be the most crucial point of the Mick Jagger interview, however. Just a theory… More relevant perhaps might be the fact that the most recent Rolling Stones tour took place nearly 40 years after this interview, and they may still be going strong. Presumably they do not wish to gather any moss.
