MUMBAI: Musician, singer-songwriter and producer Mick Jagger of legendary band Rolling Stones was interviwed by Larry King in a rare interview about his career and the re-release of the album ‘Exile on Main Street’ and the documentary film ‘Stones in Exile’ on Wednesday.
The interview on CNN’s Larry King Live was special as it also marked the 25th anniversary of the talk show.
King said, “One of our top requests of all time. He’s finally made it. Today is the day of the release of the Stones’ album ‘Exile on Main Street’ Never-before-heard tracks. This is an amazing release.”
In 1971, the Rolling Stones began an incredible run of eight consecutive number one albums. Exile on Main Street’ was first released during that time. The original double album contained 12 black-and-white postcards featuring the Rolling Stones in the company of two unidentified women. It turned the music world on its ear in 1972 and found new life in 2010.
The album was reissued again on May 17, 2010 in the United Kingdom, and on May 18, 2010 in the United States by The Rolling Stones’ new distributor, Universal Music Enterprises.
Speaking about how the album happened, Mick Jagger said, “There is a record label that bought all our catalog stuff called Universal Records. And they wanted to do something a bit different to mark this, you know, to put out these albums again. So they picked ‘Exile’ as being one of the most famous.”
All the tracks on this new album are remastered, and Jagger went back to digging some old compositions which he had left half done.
“They had no song, no vocals, no words, no music, just tracks, which were really good. Some of the tracks were all done and perfect. Except I wasn’t on them. So I thought well, OK, so I’m going to do mine. So I wrote words and I wrote melodies and sang them on some,” he said.
The Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide between 1989 and 2002, through which they pulled in about $1.5 billion. But Jagger said, “it was never about the money, yet it created problems for them that forced them to flee to France.”
When King probed further, Jagger said, “Money wasn’t the goal. We expected to be well-off, you know, because in those days you just did if you were successful. And we’re very successful, but we weren’t very well managed. So we had to leave England to acquire enough money to pay the taxes. Because in those days, in England, the tax rate was 90 per cent, it was very difficult to pay any debts back. So when we left the country, we would get more than the 10 pounds out of the 100. We might get 50 or something.” Jagger said the documentary shows what like was like living in France.
King also asked Jagger about the controversies relating to drug intake. “I don’t – personally, like performing taking drugs. I always think it’s better to be not taking drugs or drinking or anything. That’s not saying I’ve never done it because I have. But I sort of learned I think after a while – it didn’t take me that long to realize that it wasn’t a good thing,” he said.
The documentary ‘Stones in Exile’ is slated to release in June.
The interview was aired on CNN Larry King Live on May 19 at 06.30am. The repeat telecast is at 02.30pm IST today.