Gazza wrote on Jul 21
st, 2008 at 6:21am:
Sioux wrote on Jul 20
th, 2008 at 5:54pm:
How do you feel about Ronnie's not being made an official member of the band until he'd been in it for 25 years?? I can't imagine anyone else putting up with that...
Depends on your definition of 'official'. He was officially a Stone from February 1976 (he was on the Black & Blue album cover 2 months later), but
chose to take a salary rather than a percentage (he thought it would be a better long term option financially as like most people he couldnt envisage the band lasting for more than a few more years). He just didnt become a board member until after they signed the contract with Virgin and Wyman left in 1993.
17 years, not 25 - and the problem was more down to a bad business decision on his part to begin with, although in fairness maybe its something the band should have addressed when theyd signed their previous record contract, with CBS, in 1983.
Ok Gazza, thanks for the clarification.
I thought I just read that Ronnie gave an interview not long ago, and he was talking about that very fact--that it took so long to "make" him a Stone. And he didn't seem too happy about it. Yeah, even if he took the salary instead of the percentage at first, that should have been rectified a long time ago. And yeah, it probably should have been the band making the move to make it official.