The Rolling Stones look back on 50 wild years of rock 'n' roll | 60 Minutes Australia

no one least of all the rolling stones themselves could have imagined that they'd still be together 50 years after first starting out you might have put some money on the energetic mick jagger making it but who would have guessed the volatile keith richards would even be alive today but half a century on they are the greatest rock and roll band of all time and they can't stop touring the world they'll be in australia next year continuing their golden anniversary celebration an event so big it's taking them two years to market [Music] [Applause] not just the oldest [Music] despite their signature lyrics they do get a lot of satisfaction out of being the rolling stones [Music] [Music] you know there's the air you breathe the water you drink the food you eat and then there's rolling stones and i guess we're just part of the furniture you know [Music] i think the wrong studies were really lucky they're also quite hard working and uh you know we've had out you know really had some great moments and everything it's nice to meet them but rock and roll's eldest statesman really don't need any introduction 70 year old mick jagger hey keith richards 70 next week have you done the guitar charlie watts 72 scenery yeah could you keep the noise down please and the 66 year old youngster ronnie wood i don't you can't [Music] men who really do seem to always get what they want [Music] [Applause] the world's largest concert crowds made up of not just people who remember them from 1962 but their children and their grandchildren when you're in australia you look into that sea of faces you will see people of our generation we see people of our children's generation and our children and their children right it depends that's the that's the norm and you always sell out how does it strike how does the music strike across the generations in that way well the older ones that got all the money bring the younger ones and pay for them and the younger ones say all right if you force me but will you buy me a beer when you get there no but that's a little too self-deprecating because my 11 12 year olds are very excited about the fact that i'm talking to you that i mean it's very gratifying i mean i think that they a lot of times you know they've heard about you through their parents or their older brothers or sisters or something like that but there are a lot of great and talented people in the music world what is it about the stones that created this extraordinary head heads-up singularity i often ask myself that it's a weird i think there's a strange piece of chemistry to do it's just why it should work i don't know i couldn't you know put it in a laboratory and uh try and figure out charlie what's the nature and sort of shake them all about and put them in i don't i really don't know [Music] i got my first drum kit when i was 12. [Music] steady bait behind the band the drummer has the best seat in the house but for all that he's seen and done charlie watts is the most reluctant of superstars [Applause] [Music] because you are such a can i say reticent man or a private man you wouldn't have known what you were getting into when you joined the stones and had you known would you have joined i yeah you know when i was asked to turn up up the road to rehearse the rolling stones was another band to me and it was going to last like the others three months or a year when you got the gig with the rolling stones did you have to think twice no on the other hand ronnie wood loves the lifestyle and can't get enough of it critics say the band is playing better than ever now how do you account for that i don't know it's just a good feel a great feel musically and the interaction with the audience is even better we get four generations of people watching us it's fabulous it's marvelous thing to see the little nips getting turned on to the same music as their great-grandparents yeah and we're the common bond [Music] [Music] this was hyde park in london mid-summer this year a rolling stones extravaganza watched by hundreds of thousands and similar to the show they're bringing to australia to mark their half century [Music] whose idea was it i hear it was yours to celebrate it uh any excuse to get the boys together how do you get it going what is it a phone call no no threats threats and disappointment uh you know uh but actually to tell the truth it's a matter that you feel it i mean you start to feel an itch going i say okay let's scratch it [Applause] [Music] on the road is a wonderful culture i mean i'm a product of the road myself hence the wreck you see before you but it's it's great especially as young people to go out on the road yeah i mean it's fun and it absolves all your responsibilities it was an entirely different world when the stones started us post-war britain a drab landscape of rationing and austerity [Music] my australian relatives used to send us some you know tins of fruit and and uh tins of peaches yes tins of peaches well pictures are one of those things that are better tin than exactly so it's uh tins of peaches and tensible things and used to get this regular kind of care parcel from australia because they knew that we were being russian so much if we gave them tinned fruit the americans gave the brits rock and roll which they added their own twist i mean to my generation basically rock and roll suddenly turned the world from black and white into technicolor first it was the beatles the rolling stones and everyone's cup of tea then came their much darker counterpoint there are whole armies of parents who become almost homicidal at the sight of them [Music] my memory is parents loved the beatles but they didn't like the slander yeah that was the sort that was our kind of you know differentiation yeah that was a kind of pub pr kind of dream it was true after certain point it was always best to have your pi believable center stage has always been the richards jagger relationship they were mates in primary school years later when they caught up again as teenagers they realized to their surprise they'd develop the same interest in music we bumped into each other on the train and the man had the records you see mick yeah he always he had these records under his arm and i'm looking and i'm wondering whether to mug him or not you know these were blues records yeah chuck berry record i mean this is enough to mug somebody for you know but you decided i said no we'll make friends [Music] you had the most wonderful repertoire and is it true with something like 500 songs i don't i don't know how many songs i don't think we could actually play the 500 you know if you put us in a room and see play play number three exactly i don't think we could i don't think we could do that but we got a good you know we have a big amount of songs that on our list the stone's success happened overnight almost as soon as they started playing in small clubs the kids were queuing around the block in no time they had to move to bigger venues and that's when things got really rough you could say it was a bit of a nightmare times as well but it was funny but it's also quite scary as well at moments you can see it moments in there that's what it could have been it could have gone either way you know well you didn't finish many gigs did you yeah we didn't we didn't finish a lot of concerts it made it very easy on me did like three or four numbers you aren't going to finish them [Laughter] for the stones teenagers had a voice and the establishment found that voice both raucous and threatened their music their anarchism and their controversial use of drugs were all seen to be sapping the moral fibre of the nation but the biggest threat to the band came from hysterical girls and maybe from the social commentators when these girls pounce upon mick and seem to want to tear him to pieces it's not essentially an act of aggression but rather an act of devouring him they want to incorporate his essence it's a sort of fetish fetishism i mean i've been scared a few times i've been shot at a few times but nothing scared me as much as being caught in the crowd of 13 year old have just lost it and they're tearing you to bits you know and you know if there's one way to die you know it might as well be it pal sadly i've never experienced that i can imagine you [Laughter] there's not a lot in life keith richards hasn't tried this one this is my main man as you'll notice he's only got five strings because i'm too tight to sprint can i look at the hands that use the tools now that's what a lifetime of these countries mike tyson's got better hands than this while maturity may have subdued his excesses the music's as loud as ever [Music] and when you're part of a group with as many hits as the stones who can begrudge you moments of [Music] remember you know we had just had satisfaction out and i mean that was the burn the biggest hit so far boom worldwide and mick and i are sort of sitting back in a motel room something wow thank god we're there and there's a knock at the door saying that where's the follow-up and then you realize you're really into a grind it's uh you know in those days especially you needed a single every 12-week year but it certainly taught you a lot about the writing again it's a way to learn it isn't not at the academy but on the job yeah on the job a lifetime apprenticeship which arrives at perfection that we see before us here i'm still the apprentice i think there's still stuff to learn yeah always if there wasn't there wouldn't be any point [Laughter] can you tell me the moment you step onto the stage and yeah how do you handle that mentally i mean what are you thinking how are you how do you prepare how do you energize well there's a lot of questions in one but uh you um i don't know i've been doing it for so long i don't really i don't sort of analyze it really anymore but i mean you have to go obviously you have to be prepared you have to know what you're going to do it's entirely professional you you've got to be professional then once you're very professional then you can do what you like and when you play the first note bang when the minute hits in then that's it there's an exchange of energy between the audience and the band and and it usually clicks right there no one understands chemistry of a band better than a drummer who's been there since the beginning he spent a lifetime watching them play mick jack is a apart from being a really good lyricist he's the best front man in the world and keith he's the best rhythm guitar player he's a one-off one-one-off keys and ronnie he can do and play anything there's one other bloke charlie wants what's he like i got no idea what he's like miserable most of the time sitting at the back moaning about things he's great talent though not really but was he just lucky was he very lucky but nobody is luckier than ronnie wood who joined the band in 1975 when they were already well established this is great tell me about this oh it's a part of the series that i did of all all of the boys before he was a rolling stone he was an artist and these days he continues to paint his works fetching five figures in galleries can we look at the other one in the dunny oh yeah though one i noticed at the stone's london headquarters now that's a rhinoceros yeah this might have been going for a slightly more piddling some that's why i never thought i'd go to the dunny with a rolling stone but now it's done in the dunning that's it ronnie's a man still living his boyhood dream well you wanted to be a rock star well i wanted to be in the stones and that was the end of his deal yeah specifically you and every kid in the world wanted to be a rolling stone even even me but i have no musicality and i can't hold a note well they weren't in the right place at the right time then i was of course you can't have rockstar egos in the same stage for 50 years without some friction nick and keith have had their differences but today maybe they're too old to care do you get on personally as well as you do musically oh yeah you don't have to live in one of those no no no not at all not at all but uh i mean apart from one or two you know obvious i mean after 50 odd years everybody has a bundle now again you know but only no absolutely i wouldn't be coming to australia next year you know with the guys if there was you know anything we argue about details we don't argue about the meat of the matter [Music] meeting them i have to remind myself i'm talking to men who would be old age pensioners were they not so busy and so rich then when they take to the stage the years fall away and they are what they've always been and presumably always will be the unstoppable stones because you still have fun yeah a lot of fun you in fact look like you're having more fun than in earlier times uh maybe i don't know i can't it's very hard to quantify it i was having fun in the early times but you know it it's you know i i enjoy it very much i mean i really enjoy it being out there and uh titled that song the last time this won't be the last time you come to australia who i don't know who can say i've never said it would be i've never said it won't be um with this lot nothing surprises me you know i mean i wouldn't be surprised if we do it in ten years and charlie wants to still be giving you the best back people you can ever get and uh and mick will probably still be able to do amazing pirouettes and they're amazing bunch of guys you know [Applause] [Applause] [Music] hello i'm tara brown thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on nine now dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 728,319

Rating: 4.8783917 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, music, rock, rock n roll, rolling stones, rolling stone, keith richards, ronnie wood, charlie watts, mick jagger, live, band, guitar, drums, bass, iconic, legendary, english, satisfaction, paint it black, australia, tour, concert, gig, drummer, jumpin, jack, flash, sympathy, devil

Id: sinbUXgb-sk

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021