How To Manage The Rolling Stones: ‘If you start taking it for granted, that's Doomsday' By David Roberts
28 August, 2018
MBW’s World’s Greatest Managers series profiles the best artist managers in the global business. This time, we speak in-depth to Joyce Smyth, the manager of The Rolling Stones for the past eight years – and a team member for a lot longer than that. The World’s Greatest Managers is supported by Centtrip Music, the currency exchange specialist which helps artists, managers and music businesses obtain an optimum currency exchange deal.
Sometimes it’s good to find an angle.
Sometimes it’s good to dive into the subject unexplored, to ask the question unexpected.
Other times, very rare times, the only thing to do is start with: So, what’s it like managing The Rolling Stones?
Like when you’re interviewing Joyce Smyth, the manager of The Rolling Stones, for instance.
Thankfully, she is polite enough, to ignore the neon ‘REALLY?’ sign flashing in her mind, and give a proper answer.
“It is”, she says, “like being the conductor of a rather wonderful orchestra. And that doesn’t just include them [the band], it includes everyone.
“We have the best in class in all departments. Be it the record company, the producers, the designers. It’s fabulous to be the conductor, to be interfacing with all these different people, this great team; it’s terrific – and such a privilege.”
In recent years, it’s been about managing a very busy band, and a band enjoying huge success with a new record as well as touring one of the greatest catalogs in rock’n’roll.
Blue & Lonesome, released in December 2016, went to No. 1 in the UK and No. 4 in the US, whilst the 17/18 No Filter Tour saw the Stones play 28 shows, grossing a total of $237.8 million.
The combined age of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, in case you were wondering, is 297.
For more crass questions along the lines of our opener, and for a horribly missed opportunity to make a gag about Their Satanic Majesties’ Holiday Request Forms (you’ll know it when you see it), read on.
You’ll find out how a girl who was turned on to music by a nun running up a hill eventually found herself in control of a band who had sympathy for the devil, redefined debauchery, and ended up as pillars, if not of British society, then certainly of British identity…
FULL INTERVIEW HERE:
https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/how-to-manage-the-rolling-stones-if-you-take-it-for-granted-thats-doomsday/
