Great interviews with Mick and Keith in today's
Chicago Tribune:
Mick Jagger interview: 'Exile on Main St.' revisited
May 12, 2010
by Greg Kot
The latest re-release of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 masterpiece, “Exile on Main St.,” will be available next week, and it’s the most ambitious repackaging yet. It includes a deluxe edition with bonus tracks, a documentary DVD and hard-cover book.
It presents the original album intact and sounding better than ever with newly remastered sound. But the liner notes and documentary footage skim the surface of just what went on in Keith Richards’ villa-turned-recording-studio in the south of France during the summer of 1971.
More troubling: The 10 previously unreleased tracks – the main reason many Stones aficionados will bother shelling out for this pricey reissue ($29.98 to $179.98) -- shed little new light on the past; instead most of them feature freshly overdubbed vocals by Mick Jagger, a misguided attempt to update an album that needs no updating.
I spoke in the last few days with both Jagger and Richards about the reissue. It’s clear that Richards wasn’t heavily involved in the remixes of the previously unreleased “Exile”-era tracks. Instead he proclaimed his allegiance to the sanctity of the 1971 session recordings; the 18 album tracks on the original “Exile” were not remixed, only remastered.
But there was some pretty extensive overdubbing done on the disc of 10 previously unreleased “Exile” tracks. Richards said he added acoustic guitar on one track, but Jagger did a whole lot more, laying vocals as well as some guitar and harmonica atop several leftover rhythm tracks. As good as some of these tracks sound – “Plundered my Soul” in particular – it’s not really a representation of what went down in Richards’ sweaty basement in 1971 so much as what technological wonders can be concocted in an air-conditioned Los Angeles studio in 2010.
Here’s Jagger’s take on what went down.
Q: There must have been a ton of outtakes from those sessions. How come you didn’t release more?A: I went through a lot of stuff but then I started asking questions if it was really from “Exile” or not. And then I had to work out, well, what does that mean? It wasn’t all recorded in one go. I had to define for myself what the “Exile” period was. The first song recorded for “Exile” and eventually used for the album was “Loving Cup.” That was [a demo] in 1969. As far as unreleased things, I tried to avoid songs that had already been heavily bootlegged. I chose alternative takes of some songs, and others not so well known. One of them had some kind of vocals on it, which was “I’m Not Signifying.” The rest had no vocals or words, just [rhythm] tracks. So I wrote melodies and lyrics for those. That was my main thrust. I wasn’t interested in finding take nine of “Tumbling Dice.” I’m sure it’s there, it’s just that I’m not that interested in it personally. So for “So Divine (Aladdin Story),” “Following the River,” “Plundered my Soul,” I started from scratch on vocals. There was nothing in terms of melody or lyrics. The most challenging one was “Following the River,” because the chorus doesn’t go where I would expect it to. I was quite pleased with it in the end. All of the tracks had working titles, some of which I left on, like “Sophia Loren” and “Aladdin Story.” But “Following the River” was originally called “Wally’s Whistling Saw.” I wasn’t going to stick with that title for a romantic ballad.
Q
: What was about these particular tracks that made you want to finish them as opposed to all the others that must’ve been in that archive?A: Between us -- and Don Was had quite a lot of input -- these tracks were not that heavily bootlegged. They weren’t as well known as others. And these were the ones that sounded most interesting, that felt musically quite diverse.
Q: Were the original “Exile” tracks remixed at all?A: The original album hasn’t been touched, except being remastered. It’s been remastered about five times since released originally. Don and I did the remix on the unissued songs in the spirit of “Exile.” We kept it in the feeling of the original, we didn’t employ extra sampling or any sort of new tricks.
Q: Were you surprised by anything you found in the “Exile” archives?A: Some were a bit loose, they were unfinished and very raw. But “Plundered my Soul” was very together, no mistakes, no messing about, very arranged, very thought out, obviously very together. The same with “I’m Not Signifying,” we didn’t really have to do anything. Others were a bit more loose, they went on and on, got a bit repetitive, so we had to do a bit of editing. I didn’t do any vocals on the alternate tracks. Keith did a guitar overdub on “So Divine,” he did a bit on that. But most of Keith’s things were all done. I did some acoustic overdubs and I did some harmonica on “I’m not Signifying,” along with the horn line. I did vocals, percussion, acoustic guitar, and a bit of background vocals.
Q: During the original sessions, was it tough whittling down to the original 18 tracks. Could it have been longer?A: Probably, but at that time, it was released on vinyl. And short sides on vinyl gave you the best fidelity. That was quite good to have it the way it was set up, to have four sides, in the mastering process you got a better and hotter fidelity the shorter the side was. When you had 30-minutes-plus music on the side of a vinyl record, you lost volume and bass end as the record moved to the center. So we thought 18 tracks was good for a double album, and would give us a good, loud, rocking sound.
Q: You’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about “Exile” when you’ve been asked about in subsequent interviews. Why is that?A: I was being slightly annoying because people would always say, “Isn’t that your favorite?” And I would be a bit rebellious, just to annoy people who kept asking me if it was the best Stones record. I don’t have favorite records. I’m more familiar with songs when you put them on a set list for a show. It’s not a period, it’s just a song. And since you don’t play the whole record in a concert, you don’t really hear it as a record. You pick your favorites and find out what works live. For that reason, I don’t have a favorite Stones record.
Q: But “Exile” is now routinely cited as the best Stones record.A: And it is a great record. What’s interesting about it is that it has so many sides to it, so many different musical styles, very bluesy, and it has soul, gospel, and the other quirky little bits that perhaps you wouldn’t have put on a record with only 12 songs. You would’ve thrown out stuff maybe like “Just Wanna See his Face,” but on a more sprawling record like this you could afford to let those things go. Which perhaps explain why it wasn’t immediately reviewed as stunningly wonderful. But after a while people get to appreciate the breadth of it.
Q: The record didn’t get great reviews at firstA: Oh, yeah. You know what reviewers do, they play the first three songs and then review the record.
Q: Thanks, man.A: [Laughs] But you know what I mean. You can’t take in 18 tracks in a day. It’s hard. So you get through those four sides, it could take a while to really get the full picture. It’s a lot of stuff to get through. It took a while for the record to be appreciated for what it was.
Q: A lot of mythology is attached to the record about the working conditions not being the greatest.A: It wasn’t ideal at the beginning. It took a while to pull the place together. Even a studio that’s brilliant is like that. It takes a while to make it work. There were a lot of teething problems with the studio. We had some experience doing that already. It was a few different rooms. It wasn’t perfect acoustically. We had to work at getting a really good drum sound, which is always the most difficult thing. An acoustic instrument only, that is always the challenge in these places. You want to get a great drum sound, and that was difficult. There were a lot of breakdowns of power. Once it got going. You get used to these surroundings. I think in the end it wasn’t that difficult.
Q: Did you do it Keith’s house because you were worried he wouldn’t show up anywhere else?A: No, not really. He rented a house with a lot of room, and there weren’t a lot of studios in that part of the world at the time. We had done previous recording in my house with the same mobile back in England. We did some tracks on “Sticky Fingers,” like “Bitch” and “Moonlight Mile” on the mobile, so it wasn’t a major issue.
Q: What was the songwriting like with Keith? Were you collaborating head to head, or bringing your own stuff in?A: There was some stuff from England that we brought, licks and half bits of songs. We had stuff recorded in London like “Shine a Light.” And there were riffs born in that basement, like “Ventilator Blues,” “Rocks Off.” We had bits of everything from everywhere, and then we took it to LA to finish it off.
Q: So do you think it’s overstated how big a role that basement played in the way the record came out?A: We recorded a lot of stuff in there, and it was a very important part of the record. How much is complete conjecture. Would it have sounded the same at Sunset Sound? Probably not. The way you record, the people around you, are what gives each record its personality.
Q: Was the constant party a distraction?A: We were separate from all that down in the basement. We were cut off from the rest of the house, and people didn’t come down and do a lot of gawking. There wasn’t a peanut gallery, like a regular studio where you could stand in the control room behind glass. There was nowhere to watch from. Once we went to the basement, we were working. They didn’t bother us in the basement much. People get very bored watching people record.
Q: Jimmy Miller gets slagged sometimes as the producer for the murky sound. How do you feel about his role?A: I think Jimmy was a good producer. At the beginning of his production work with us he had more authority than the end, to be honest. He was enthusiastic, always good with time signatures, that was a forte of his because he was a drummer. He did have a good attitude to time signatures, which is always useful. I’m very involved in time signatures, because just getting to the groove was important, and he was always good with that. Producing can be all kinds of roles. Help pick the good songs, you might have 25 and you have to tell the writer that something isn’t quite up to snuff, because writers think everything they write is always brilliant.
Keith Richards interview: 'Exile on Main St.' revisited
May 12, 2010
by Greg Kot
Keith Richards talks about the forthcoming reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 masterpiece “Exile on Main St.” Much of the original album was tracked in the basement of the 16-room mansion, Nellcote, that he rented in the south of France during the summer of 1971.
Q: How come we didn’t get more unreleased stuff besides the 10 tracks?A: That would be a whole ‘nother album. It’s amazing how much stuff was left behind. It was a very prolific year that year. We went through everything we could find. It was an enormous backlog. This was the best we had. Some of them were like 40-year bells going off. “Wow, we didn’t finish that one?”
Q: How did “Plundered my Soul” get left off the original?A: It was difficult. That was why “Exile” became a double album. The record company wanted a single album, but the damn thing had a life of its own. We probably could’ve made it a triple. We tried to make a single, but it became impossible, like cutting babies in half.
Q: Did you feel like the band was in a great place musically?A: The vibe was very good. It was a long, hot summer. Not recording in a studio was unique for us, as it was for anybody at the time. Once things got going, it had its own rhythm. With every album you make you go in with that feeling. But maybe that we really were exiles put some extra bite into it.
Q: Really? I know you had some tax problems back home, but it wasn’t like you guys were homeless?A: Yeah, I didn’t mind living in the south of France, actually. But it was more of a collective feeling. “Hey, none of us are going home tonight.” That attitude pervaded the mood, and made us get down to work.
Q: There’s a lot of mythology about your nocturnal habits, Keith. How big of a party animal were you at Nellcote?A: There were very late nights, for sure. I heard loads of stories too, but that was upstairs, baby, because where I was I didn’t see much debauchery. Yeah, it’s true: There was a continual party going on in the house. But I couldn’t write songs, make a record and debauch at the same time, man.
Q: Band members were coming in and out during the sessions. It sounded very casual, bordering on haphazard.A: It was. A lot of those tracks came about with only two or three guys around, as we waited for everyone to show. It would be just me and Mick [Jagger], or me and Charlie [Watts]. An idea would start and you worked on it. It was haphazard. The first few weeks especially, no one quite knew their asses from their [expletive]. But once we got into the swing of things, it was like a bunker down there, and a lot of hard work got done.
Q: It was hot, instruments going in and out of tune. That can’t be a good thing for recording.A: Yeah, all true. There was an overcome and adapt spirit about it. But if it was really terrible we wouldn’t have stayed down there that long.
Q: Then you went to LA to finish the album. How come?A: We couldn’t do anything more to it in Nellcote. It was a great place for cutting the tracks, but it’s not a place to do vocals or any other overdubs. But the bone and the muscle was done down there in that bunker.
Q: Judging by his comments, Mick wasn’t happy with the album when it came out.A: All I can say, as far as Mick’s concerns, I haven’t met a lead vocalist yet who thought his voice was loud enough. But then again, Mick and I and [producer] Jimmy Miller mixed it, I don’t quite get [his complaints]. But I watched him working on this [reissue] and he’s really been digging it, hearing more things than he did at the time.
Q: What about the remix of the older material?A: My approach was basically hand’s off, don’t touch. I don’t want to do any fancy, modern ideas on top of a 40-year-old record. My job was to guard the sanctity and purity of the original tracks. But there was some overdubbing of vocals on some of the extra tracks. There was one track where we heard an acoustic guitar, then about one-third of the way through another acoustic guitar because I string must’ve broken, so I overdubbed that. I wouldn’t touch the original tracks with a barge bull.
Q: Jimmy Miller was criticized for some of his original production, which some listeners thought was a bit murky. How do you feel about it?A: I very much like what he did with us. I don’t think another guy could’ve pulled it off. He was a great producer, great friend. He had a lot of good ideas, and he was a damn good drummer himself.
Q: Did it help that he was musician himself?A: Yeah. It definitely made a difference. He wasn’t just a sound artist. He could play it too.
Q: Was Charlie at all threatened by Miller as a drummer?A: Nah! Drummers love each other. They go into immediate conversation about tom toms and paradiddles (laughs).
Q: “Exile” is generally perceived as the best Stones album. Do you understand why that is?A: Maybe because it was a double. I couldn’t put my finger on why people like it. It holds up with time. I can still listen to it, and that says something. I enjoyed gong back through it. Going back through the tracks, I could smell that basement and all the dust. It was very evocative.
Q: People view it as the quintessential Keith record in the Stones catalog. Do you agree?A: I get it that people would think that from the fact that it was done in my house. But I never thought of those sessions as a different balance between me and the rest of the band. You’re in the middle of it, and your perception of things can be a bit blurred, especially with me.
Q: American roots music factored heavily into a lot of the songs. What inspired that?A: It certainly wasn’t conscious. But after all we’d been touring America for six years pretty much constantly. I think “Exile” gave us a chance to pick out the things we heard in America. We do play American music, rock ‘n’ roll and blues. So a lot of things came out from working in America all those years. Within the Stones there are never meetings or a setting out of goals. The band is all about capturing a certain feel, and first you have to find out what that is. When you do, you go to work.
Q: How was your relationship as a guitarist different with Mick Taylor than with [his predecessor] Brian Jones?A: Brian and I worked very close together as far as rhythm and leads were concerned. With Mick Taylor, he’s far more of a soloist, and I had to adjust. It was great fun to reinvent the sound of the band, because Mick certainly changed it a lot. He’s a beautiful player and it’s just a matter of finding the new slot. And I enjoyed playing with him. I was really pissed off when he left.
Q: Did you write specifically with his guitar playing in mind?A: That goes along with songwriting. When you’re down there doing it, you can put the break into it. What’s beautiful about songwriting is just piddling around on the guitar and there it is, and something appears out of nowhere. The rest is trimming, editing and thinking. The best time is when it comes out of nowhere. That’s when I love it.
Q: How did you and Mick write at Nellcote?A: We were trying to keep up with the band. We’d say, we haven’t got a song for tomorrow yet. We were scrambling writing them on the spot. “Happy” came like that one afternoon and several others. “Tumbling Dice,” that came quick. Started as a song called “Good Time Women.” The only difference was that we still didn’t have the lyrics, but it’s the same riff.
Q: How did you determine you’d sing “Happy”?A: I did it before Mick arrived that day. He shows up and says, “Wow, great, there’s one I don’t have to do.” Mick joined in on the choruses. That’s what I mean by working quickly. We’d start at 2 and by 5 it’s done.
Q: I can’t imagine the record label was happy when you turned in a double album.A: The record company wanted to cut it in half. There was quite a fight in a way, lawyers and blah-blah. The damn thing had a life of its own, insisted on being a double, and Mick and felt strongly about it. We got our way.
Q: What’s in the immediate future for the band?A: I don’t know. I’m seeing the guys in a week or so. We’ll probably kick around some ideas then. There’s no road work this year, but maybe we’ll do some sessions.
Q: Would you like to make a new record?A: I would, I sure would. When I see the guys, you have to take the temperature of everybody, because everybody’s gotta want to.
Chicago Tribune
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