On the 50th anniversary of the first performance by the Rolling Stones, we present this interview with Bill Wyman, an extended version of the piece that ran in the April/May 2005 issue of Relix.

As the Rolling Stones’ bass player for 30 years, Bill Wyman has been there and done that, and, most likely, done it again a few more times. Having retired from the band in 1993, Wyman began focusing on family, archaeology, photography, charity work, the restaurant business (Sticky Fingers) and writing (he’s published three books with two more on the backburner). After not playing music for several years, Wyman got the itch again and formed the Rhythm Kings in the late ‘90s. The group released its first album, Just For a Thrill, this past March adding to Wyman’s already deep satisfaction.

The new album Just For the Thrill is pretty hot. I must admit that I’m always a little leery of legends coming back and making albums with other legends. But this seems really… genuine. And it sounds good.

I’ve had that band for about six years. However when you go in the studio you can be a little more adventurous and you can bring in the odd person as a guest on one or two tracks or something and we’ve done that over the years with Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Chris Rea, and so on and so on, Mick Taylor, and various people have come in and done it. But basically the band stays as it is, especially for most of the songs. We tend to look for roots music as much as we can and I try to write a few songs in the same styles as the album, you know, that will fit with what we’re choosing. If things don’t fit we don’t use them and the same applies to tracks we cut. But it’s quite a fast process although we keep it at very good quality.

We’ll go in the studio for five or six days and cut 20 tracks – basic tracks – and then, I mean, the over-dubs will be mainly backing vocals, horns, and the occasional over-dub of a guitar or percussion or something like that. Most of it’s done very, very quickly. And then we’re left with about 25, 30 tracks and we choose 14, 15 for the CD. (laughing) And the ones that aren’t used we put on the shelf for another time. It’s quite nice actually because we do get high quality. I mean, I listen to a lot of cover versions of earlier songs and, generally, they’re quite rushed off and not done too well and you tend to prefer the original better. Do you know what I mean? But we try to just change it a little bit without losing the mood and the feel of the original. It’s very important to get that atmosphere of the original song, even if you change instruments a bit and change vocals, you know. I’ve had a girl sing songs from the past that have been done by guys, but you must get the essence of the song, that’s very important to us. So, we cut, like, maximum three takes. We usually get it in one or two because we just run through it a couple of times and it sounds correct and then we do it. So, and then I just use my regular people.

I know this band, when you tour in the U.S. or elsewhere, you’re doing smaller club dates.

Well we’ve only been there once [U.S.]. That was three years ago, we were offered a tour. It seemed to have been the wrong promoter, actually. We ended up doing about 18 gigs, down from Canada down to Memphis after I did a book launch. No, before I did a book launch actually. I should have done it after a book launch because it would have been more noticeable. So we went… and apart from about three shows it was very well attended. I mean, we played up to audiences up to about 7,000 outdoor, full audiences everywhere, did a couple of shows in some places where the first one sold out like the Townhall in New York and places like that, and it was very good. There were about three places where they didn’t really know us and it wasn’t very well attended. So, it went all right, but it didn’t break any boundaries or anything. And, of course, where we didn’t go, of course we were still unheard of. So, these CDs have tended to go by the board in America, although they’ve been very popular throughout Europe and the Far East, Australia, places like that.

At this point in your career, is there much difference between playing a massive stadium or playing to 3500 people?

Well that’s the beauty of this, you know? The great times with the Stones, as far as I’m concerned, and I think you could speak to any of them and they will probably say the same thing, was playing the little gigs. And that’s why they incorporate little gigs in their tour now more than ever. I mean, when I, before I left the band after 30 years, we always tried to do one or two maybe, little gigs like the Fox Theater in Atlanta or places like that. We’d also open the show in a small club to 3-400 people. And they were the fun gigs. And the more the band has gone on since I’ve left, the more they’ve incorporated little gigs into their tour. And now, when they come over to Europe a couple of years ago, they did one big major London gig and then they did a couple more London gigs but they did two or three small ones. And I think that’s very nice because it’s great to see the band in those small places.

So for me taking this band into, well we play theatres, we play large clubs but not many, we mostly play theatres and concert halls which go up to, like you said about 3000. And it’s very nice because the people are close up, you can have a rapport with them. It feels like you’re one with them. It sounds a bit corny but that’s the fact of the matter. And, they’re most enjoyable, they really are. You know, you have a sit down audience and within half the set they’re all up on their feet and they’re all coming down the front and it’s very, very nice.

You’re a reference point for so many players. I’m curious who was your reference point as a young bass player in the 1960s? Who were you looking to for guidance or inspiration?

Booker T and the MGs. [Donald] “Duck” Dunn. He was my idol and of course, over the years, he’s become a great friend who I see quite regularly because he comes to England a couple times a year. We get together and have something to eat or something. Steve Cropper I know quite well now, spend some time with him sometimes. But he was my, like, idol. I mean Willie Dixon was an upright bass player. I had to emulate certain things he did because we played those kind of songs when we began. Muddy Waters’ stuff, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, so on, so on. But it was a bit difficult because I was playing a bass guitar with a guitar pick and he was playing an upright with the slap and that applied to Chuck Berry records, etc., etc.

Since I’ve been with the Rhythm Kings, I’ve restyled myself, actually. I’ve moved onto just playing with my thumb, flat wound strings, a big speaker, which I always had that see, a 15-inch or 18-inch speaker just to get that fat bottom. I’ve tried to play so it sounds a bit like an upright now. I play notes and I move the way an upright plays rather than rock and roll. And I enjoy it much more, I must say, it seems to fit, simply you play, another simple bass player, you know I’ve always tried to be that, leave space. It works very well for me. It’s the Booker T people really, and also Carl Radle who was in with Eric Clapton and Leon Russell and people like that in the ‘70s, who was a very similar bass player to me and often we used to get together and I’d say that it sounds like me playing Eric’s song, you know, and he’d say it sounds like me when you play. You know, those kind of simple players that leave lots of space and holes and I think that’s quite important.

Considering the Stones were named after a Muddy Waters song and you’re such a massive blues and R&B fan, what was it like for you hanging with legends like Muddy Waters and the Chess crew in the 60s and backing Bo Diddley with Charlie Watts in 1963?

Yeah, I played with Muddy on a number of occasions actually, outside of the band. I know the band got together with him in Chicago in the ‘70s, in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. I played with Muddy in Montreaux in ‘74. I also played with him again in Montreaux in ‘78, and I saw him on many occasions in between. I was able to do that. I was very fortunate and I enjoyed every minute of it. But, there again, it was just a matter of playing with Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Muddy, those people who just kept keeping the bottom end in and keeping it simple and letting then do their thing over it. But you gotta build that foundation and that’s what Charlie and I did with the Stones and we’re those kind of players. It’s just making a foundation for other people to get off on and be extroverts (laughing). You know, you can sit in the back and just watch them and say here they go again.

Dec. 7, 1962 you audition for The Rolling Stones and get the job. At what point did you realize that it was more than just another gig? That this was something changing rock and roll?

It never crossed our mind. I did realize that, once Charlie joined the band, cause I’d joined just a month before him with my drummer from my band, and when Charlie joined I noticed a difference because Charlie was a jazz drummer, and we locked in very quickly together, and then it just sort of slowly escalated. But you never thought, none of us ever thought it would go into something major where we’d be making records or being on TV or going abroad to play because it wasn’t done for those reasons. It was done just to play music and we were playing jazz clubs and things like that because that’s the only place there was to play. And so those thoughts were far away from us. It’s only when we started to have riots and craziness in clubs and in the small theaters that we suddenly realized that something’s going on here and we saw what was happening with The Beatles and we thought well, we could be like that as well maybe because we play totally different music and we’re great friends with them and there’s room for both stars in music.

*I interviewed Jim Dickinson a while ago and we got to talking about the Stones. And he said of its latest incarnation, “You go see them now, it’s not The Stones, it sounds like a cover band.” *

Well they work to time rhythm; they have a time, tempo time, and things like that which we never had obviously. And I’ve seen them on a number of occasions, and the more I see them, the more, without being too critical, the more they sound machine-like, rather than free and dangerous as they were in my days when you never knew whether it was all going to fall to pieces in the next chorus or whether it was going to elevate into something magic. And it always elevated to something magic fortunately. Very rarely did it sort of collapse, but there was always a danger of that, and there was always this kind of floaty feeling in the band, you know, which was very nice and exciting. I just find it all sounds too worked out and perfect and all that now.

I get, literally, hundreds of emails from fans saying we missed you on the last tour, you should have been there, it doesn’t sound the same, etc, etc, etc. But I don’t really want to dwell on that because it’s all in the past and it’s not sour grapes or anything because I’m still the greatest of friends with everybody. In fact I’m doing a session with Charlie and Peter Frampton on Monday. I asked Charlie if he wanted to come and I see Charlie all the time because he lives quite close and his granddaughter and my children go to the same school so we’re constantly in touch. I see Woody [Ron Wood] quite a lot, Mick. I don’t see Keith much because he lives in America, but it’s a very friendly situation, so it’s not sour grapes as such.

But I do get multiple emails from fans in Germany and everywhere else saying it doesn’t quite sound like it should. But, you know, it’s bound to change when someone else comes in. I mean, when Brian Jones died and Mick Taylor came in the sound of the band changed considerably, and the same happened when Mick Taylor left and Ronnie Wood joined, and it’s bound to happen when one member leaves, but it doesn’t stop the band.

*Dickinson also said, in reference to The Stones’ many keyboardists, that “Stu [Ian Stuart] was the one, Stu was their keyboardist – but Nicky Hopkins did the best playing of his career with the Stones.” *

Nicky Hopkins. Absolutely. That’s why I always use really good quality keyboard players in my band. Really important. I mean, I got Chris Stainton at the moment and he’s been with the band two years. And he’s phenomenal in the studio, but he’s astounding on the stage, and he also diverts to organ. Nicky could do that as well. Nicky could play anything.

In fact, there’s a lovely quote about Nicky and Stu. Stu came into the studio in the early ‘70s with the first Delaney and Bonnie album, and he says you gotta listen to this. The other guys hadn’t got in there; it was me and Nicky there. And he put it on and he played a couple of tracks and said, “What do you think of that Nicky?” And Nicky walked down to the studio and he played the song throughout, instantly. Note for note, changes, breaks, everything. And Stu turned around to me and said, “That’s what I don’t like about Nicky.” I mean he was a genius, genius.

In fact, I’m still in touch, and they’ve sent me a whole bunch of CDs, his people, saying these are things that Nicky put together on his own at home and I wonder if you could think about putting some out if you could think there’s a way of doing it. So, I’m kind of going through them at the moment. He was a wonderful player. So I’m very fortunate to have people like Georgie Fame, people like that and Dave Hartley and Chris Stainton and piano players and organ players like that in my band, both live and in the studio. It’s a very important part of playing roots music because on most roots music there’s piano playing. I mean, piano was a major thing in the ‘20s and ‘30s, with stride piano and boogie-woogie coming in the ‘30s and ‘40s. It’s always been there and a lot of the great players were piano players, like Fats Waller, people like that, so it’s a very important instrument in the music I do right now. Also much in the Stones, it was always in the background.

Just for a Thrill sounded very New Orleans to me.

Yeah, certain tracks. We tried to cover… well this band covers eight, nine styles of music, both onstage and in the studio. We do jump music like Louis Jordan, stuff like that, we do boogie-woogie and we do blues, jazz, soul, rock, gospel. We even touch on skiffle and the early rock and roll, rockabilly. We do a whole mixture of stuff and it astounds people because they don’t expect it because the usually go to see a band that plays one style of music. And after they have played three hits and they go on to the more mundane songs it gets a bit boring because it’s samey, samey, samey. This band’s got so much variety in it, and that’s the joy I get out of it. I wouldn’t do it otherwise.

It’s not a career move for me. It’s just something I really love to do apart from the other projects I do, which is like writing books. I’m on my fifth book now that comes out next month. I’ve got two more books on the back burner, which one comes out next year and the other one comes out just before Christmas. I do archaeology, I do photography, I’ve got three little children growing up. Three little girls of ten, nine and six. I’ve got tons of hobbies, I do charity things. I never stop working, you know, but I love every minute of it. And this is just part of the great life I’m having now and I’ve had since I left the band. And it’s all been very successful, luckily. The only think I don’t do, you see, is fly.

Yes, I read that.

And that is the problem with touring America, because the only two times I’ve been to America since 1989 is to launch two books. My history of blues music, the Blues Odyssey, and Rolling with the Stones, and I was obliged contractually to do it. So, while I was over there I thought I’d do a little tour and that’s how that happened. But, you know, unfortunately I’ve had offers from Japan and Australia and everywhere for this band to go you know, and I just haven’t taken them up, because I don’t want to be a touring band, it’s not what I want to do. I want to be at home with my family and do my other things. So it’s just a great diversion. It’s part of my life, but it’s a very enjoyable part and so far it’s been very successful, particularly in Europe.

I’m curious as to who you think is one of the more overlooked blues artists that had a major impact?

Oh god, there’s a lot of them because in the early days they were hardly recorded. They used to send those field recorders out and just a guy would do six songs and then they’d come back the following year and he was gone, they’d never found him again. So you’ve got these wonderful six songs from some obscure artist that no one’s ever heard of. But they’re great, there’s a lot of those.

One of the very early people that impressed me was the guy that made the first blues record ever, and that was in 1934 I think it was or ‘32, Papa Charlie Jackson who came out of Vaudeville and medicine shows and he played a banjo in guitar tuning and he played with all the greats, all the great singers of the time and a lot of his songs came down. “All I Want is a Spoonful,” you know, and you get that coming through Howlin’ Wolf and many other people much earlier. But there’s an awful lot of great piano players that just did half a dozen tracks and they’re lost forever. It’s a shame. We tried to bring those people to be noticed in the book. We didn’t just focus on the greats.

But I think of all the greats, I think the one that’s less appreciated than all of them for some reason, although he’s had a lot of covers from other more popular artists, is Jimmy Reed, who I adore. Even though he was always drunk. But that’s part of the job (laughing). But no one’s, if you talk about blues you talk about Muddy and BB King and Freddie King and all the other kings and the Collins’ and Elmore James and of course Robert Johnson, but hardly anybody talks about Jimmy Reed. And, I mean, when the Stones started and I began with them and then Charlie came, half of our set was Jimmy Reed songs, in those days, “Take Out Dome Insurance,” etc, etc. You know, “Big Boss Man,” and they were great songs and helped Brian and Mick to learn harmonica and then we moved on of course to Little Walter and people like that, but Jimmy Reed was always a big influence on us.

You seem to have been able to call most of the shots in your life and that you were always able to do what you wanted. Has anything eluded you?

That’s a hard one. Find something amazing archaeology-wise. I’ve found lots of very interesting things over the years and spent time with museum people and all that sort of stuff which has been very nice, but I’ve never found anything amazingly incredible. It would be rather nice. It’s like, if you collect things, just to find the one thing that’s missing in your collection, whatever it might be you collect, whether it’s coins or whether it’s rare records or films or something. You know, it’s the one that eludes you. And, uh, it’s probably that. But, I’m very content actually.

What culture would it be?

A Bronze Age or a Roman. I’ve got a lot of Roman things actually. Saxony is really interesting, pre-Viking middle ages after the Romans between about 600 and 1000. It’s quite, you don’t find a lot of Saxon things and they’re absolutely beautiful; they made fantastic things and it would be rather lovely to find something Saxon, special. I’ve found a few coins and things like that but just to find something really special.