Q&A: Mick Jagger on the new Rolling Stones documentary
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ENTERTAINMENT
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The still-swaggering 64-year-old Stone spouts off on rude journalists, his brood of children, gardening, and the new Martin Scorsese-directed doc, Shine a Light
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 You were in your early 20s when the Stones reached major stardom, yet you were bizarrely poised and self-assured. How did you keep your head screwed on ?
Yeah, I was self-assured, I suppose, when you think about it. It wasn’t as if I’d been to acting school or had any media training—that kind of thing didn’t exist in those days. I think I knew pretty much what I wanted to do, what I was going to say, and how I was going to go about it. I’m sure there were some shambolic interviews where you could say, “I don’t know what he’s talking about.” Journalists were so different then than they are now. They didn’t know how to talk to you. Remember in Don’t Look Back when Bob Dylan berated the guy from Time magazine? It was terrible! But oftentimes journalists were so condescending; they thought I was so thick and hopeless that when I started to be pleasant or charming, it worked for me.
When you’re really famous, there are always people around. When’s the last time you were completely alone?
I don’t have big entourages. It’s not the English style. I tend to be pretty low-key, and when I’m songwriting, I’m quite happy to be alone. It’s rather solitary. I’m pretty social, though, so I don’t like being alone for too long.
Can you ever run around incognito?
London is such a media center, so it’s a hard place to go unnoticed. There are other places in Europe where I can lie low. I go to Asia sometimes, where I’m not very well known—at least in some of the country parts.
We hear you like to garden, of all things.
Well, not really. I mean, I like looking at gardens. I like to watch other people working in gardens and say, “That looks very nice.”
I guess no self-respecting rock star wants that sort of rumor floating around—you want something more depraved. Although you once mentioned that you wanted to write a travel book.
I quite like travel writing. It’s an interesting genre. Could I do it? I don’t know.
Have you read Ron Wood’s autobiography?
I have not read Ronnie’s book yet, though he very kindly gave it to me, inscribed, for Christmas. In fact, someone else did, too, so I’ve got two copies now.
Funny. We assumed he would have shown you the manuscript ahead of time.
To be perfectly truthful, I did not receive any advance manuscripts from Ronnie. I think it’s always polite to do that, though, don’t you?
Ok, so what about Keith’s upcoming autobiography? Do you have any involvement
with that book?
I have no idea what’s going on with that. I know it’s not imminent, but I do think it’s coming out in 2010. I’m sure Keith would appreciate the plug.
Shine a Light, starring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ronnie Wood, hits theaters April 4.
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