Ask about Mick Jagger's willy and the interview's over

by: By Owen Vaughan
From: news.com.au
November 14, 2011 11:50AM
http://www.news.com.au


Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards. W@hatever you do, don't stare at Jagger's crotch. It will only lead to uncomfortable questions. Picture: AFP

THE Rolling Stones have a golden rule for interviewers. You can ask about the drugs, you can ask about the girls, you can even ask what gets Ronnie Wood off.

But the one thing you must never, ever ask is this: Does Mick Jagger have a small penis?

Elizabeth Day, a music writer for The Observer newspaper, was told by the band's PR that she was not allowed to ask about "big and small willies", a refrence to a passage in Keith Richards' autobiography, Life, in which he claimed that Jagger had a "a tiny todger… he's got an enormous pair of balls – but it doesn't quite fill the gap".

Day said that the warning was the "only time genitalia size has been listed as a verboten topic in any interview I've ever done".

Related Coverage
Stones coy on anniversary plans NEWS.com.au, 22 Sep 2011
Mick Jagger forms secret supergroup Courier Mail, 20 May 2011
Stones rolled in and cleaned up Courier Mail, 20 Feb 2011
Jagger will perform at the Grammys NEWS.com.au, 4 Feb 2011
Exile excess but the kids are all right The Australian, 21 May 2010
Although it lacks the definitive word on Mick's package, Day's 3000-word probe into the Stones contains numerous gems. Here is a sample:

Keith Richards on giving up drugs: "Everybody's got to grow up eventually. All of my stuff, I considered it all an experiment that went on too long. Once you've sniffed it, you've sniffed it."

Jagger doesn't think he's a good dancer: "It's about keeping the audience enthused, keeping them involved. They don't come to see a dancer par excellence."

Richards thinks Jagger is a diva: "It's like working with Maria Callas. The diva is right and we've got to try and put music together without annoying the diva. If the diva gets too annoyed, then I get p***ed off. Do you think when we get together we're all like happy families? Forget about it. We've been fighting cats and dogs all our career."

Wood on going into rehab for the eighth time after claims he tried to throttle the Russian cocktail waitress he left his second wife for: "I became an annoying kind of drunk. I annoyed myself and it wasn't working any more. I'm still learning from my mistakes and I'm determined I'll never do anything stupid like that again."

The band on the prospect of a tour to celebrate their 50th anniverary next year:

- Wood: "Fifty years! It's got to be done."

- Watts: "I would like to think we'd do a tour. Um, if we don't, we don't. I mean, I've felt like that for the last 50 years. It's never bothered me if the Rolling Stones stopped tomorrow."

- Jagger: "I've no idea. We don't really get together that much as a group."

- Richards: "Yeah. I dream of it."

What's a journalist if they can't ask questions?

Stones are a unit between push and pull.

Keith has all the freedom of speech he wants.

Mick shouldn't take it so hard.

if stewart could talk, imagine what he could tell us...