By Paul Freeman [ 1997 Interview]

Born in London in 1936, Bill Wyman became one of the world’s most famous bassists, during his stint as an original member of The Rolling Stones, from 1962 to 1993.

Wyman has hardly been resting on his laurels. He’s a composer, bandleader, film and record producer, restaurateur, photographer, author and inventor. An amateur archaeologist, he designed and marketed a metal detector, which he has used to find relics dating back to the Roman Empire.

When we spoke with him, he was excited about the album debut of the all-star Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
Had you been longing to get back into another musical project?

BILL WYMAN:
No, I wasn’t really. I found that, when I left The Stones, I didn’t really want to be involved in music for a while. I did do a few charity concerts and I stood in for Ronnie Lane on a couple of Faces TV awards things that they had. But I didn’t really want to do anymore music for a while. I focused on my private and family life. And I worked on a bunch of projects that had been outstanding for a while.

And then it comes creeping back. Always does. I mean, when you’ve been in the business 30 years, it tends to chase you [Laughs]. So it did arrive. But it was different... Do you mind me rambling?

PCC:
[Laughs] No, I’m enjoy it.

WYMAN:
[Laughs] It was different, because I felt that, if I put out another album... I’d done some stuff with a band called WIllie & The Poor Boys [1985]. I’d had success and I’d had failure. It went both ways. I’d done some movie score work. I didn’t really want to try to do sort of pseudo soft-rock anymore or tongue-in-cheek things I’d been quite successful with. I just thought, I don’t need all that anymore, so forget about image, forget about having a record a certain way and a certain kind of music. Forget about trying to have a chart smash or singles and things. And just go in there and cut anything I want, from any era, in any style. I’m sure there were people who thought I was completely mad. But that’s what I did.

PCC:
How did you go about putting together the core of the Rhythm Kings band?

WYMAN:
Well, I just got a very small, five-piece together. Graham Broad, who we’d used before on many things. He’s a really nice drummer. In fact, Charlie [Watts] thinks a great deal of him, as well. He’s used by a lot of people. He was over in the States last year, working with Procol Harum. I always use him. I find him very comfortable to play with. And he’s a very neat, tasty drummer.

And then we had Georgie Fame [keyboards/vocals], when he was available. He works a lot with Van Morrison on the road. And myself, my musical friend Terry Taylor [guitar], who’s been on a lot of my solo albums and had also played with Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters with me in Montreux. He’s very versatile. And then we found this absolutely amazing piano player [ Mike Sanchez], out of nowhere [Chuckles]. He can play anything, from ragtime to stride to Fats Waller to blues, anything. He’s absolutely wonderful. So that made up the little setup. And then we went in about three days every month, just with a handful of songs. And came out with seven masters, one month. And next month another five. The next month did eight. And we just kept stockpiling, really, just seeing what was happening with different styles.

We did the odd country-flavored thing from the ‘40s, We did Billie Holiday songs. Fats Waller. We did ‘20s country blues. We did ‘70s stuff like Creedence. We did ‘Tobacco Road,’ which is on the album. And ‘50s early rock. Just anything. And it was absolutely wonderful. Everybody had a great time. There was kind of this underground vibe that was going around London with the musicians. And I was getting phone calls from people like Kiki Dee, Jeff Beck and people like that, saying, ‘I’ve heard about this album... can I be on it? People say it’s great.’ [Laughs]. I started to get people inquiring.

I’d gotten about 50-odd tracks, which was very surprising, but that’s what we had. I thought I needed a little bit of icing on the cake on some of them. You know, I didn’t want them all the same as each other. I just called up friends, like Eric [Clapton] and Gary Brooker, Mick Taylor, some other people, just to come in and burnish them a bit, in their own way. But I chose particular tracks for them to work on. Albert Lee came in and worked on a lot of the uptempo, boogie and jitterbug stuff and jump music. Martin Taylor, the jazz guitarist, who’s only on one track on this first album, but he’s on a lot on the second one, he came in and did a lot of kind of Django Reinhardt type playing. He’s absolutely wonderful, too.

And so I went on and just did it like that. I divided it into three groups in the end, like early ‘20s, ‘30s, ragtime stuff. Then the second group of ‘30s, ‘40s, which is bluesy, with jazz flavor, horns, and as I say, the Billie Holiday, Fats Waller kind of stuff. And then the ‘60s and ‘70s, which the first album was. We’re getting great reviews. It’s a very pleasant surprise for me, because it’s all bonus [Chuckles]. We just did it to have a nice time. And it wasn’t expensive. Each song was like take one, two or three. There was no sort of chasing a track down forever. If it didn’t work, we just didn’t bother with it and we went on to the next one. It was a very enjoyable experience for everyone. I was getting phone calls from the horn players saying it was the best music they’d played on for years, and all kinds of things like that. Chris Rea would come in and just sit there and say, ‘This is like warming your hands by a fire on a cold winter’s morning.’ [Laughs] It was very nice, all complimentary. I’m glad it’s selling and getting nice reviews, as well.

PCC:
It’s too rare these days to find records that aren’t over-embellished, that have a sense of spontaneity and fun and natural interaction among the musicians.

WYMAN:
Well, I tried to produce it as quality-conscious as possible, obviously, with great musicianship, because we do have some wonderful players on it. That came through and I’m very proud of it. But a lot of the songs I wrote, either on my own or together with Terry Taylor doing the music -I did all the lyrics - they turned out wonderful, because we sort of wrote songs for a style. We wrote songs in a ‘40s flavor and wrote songs in a ‘20s flavor. And sort of early ‘50s jump music, Louis Jordan, Cab Calloway, that kind of stuff, Amos Milburn. And they came out so good. And they came out easily, much easier than any of soft rock stuff I’ve tried to do before, which often took me forever to get lyrics together on. So I was very proud of these songs. People often say they think they’re old songs. They don’t realize that we wrote them for the occasion. And that’s also a nice compliment.

PCC:
Had you felt in the past that you didn’t have enough opportunity for singing and songwriting?

WYMAN:
Well, there was always that, in The Stones, because The Stones were a closed shop as far as writing for the band. I mean, the opportunity was not given for anyone to do anything, as it was with similar bands of the era, like The Beatles, The Who, Zeppelin and so on. It was a closed shop. You didn’t have a chance to get in there. And, if you did, it was by pure luck, or just an accident, you know. That was my experience. Ronnie Wood does a little bit, here and there these days, shares in a song. But, generally, you don’t have a chance.

So you can’t work on musical ideas you have. And every musician has creative ideas. Or most of them do. And most of them fulfill them in the band they’re in. I was unable to. So I always had to step outside the band and try to do them as solo recordings or productions and the movie stuff, which I touched on slightly.

And it was always frustrating, because I could never focus on it 100 percent, and go through with the project . They’re always broken up in segments, a week here and then back to work with The Stones for two months. And then two weeks there. And then another couple of weeks with The Stones. And then three days somewhere else. And it was like that all the time, whatever kind of project that you had, whether it was photography, which I was interested in, or music or writing or anything. It was just so broken up that you couldn’t really focus on it. That was the frustration that I had within the band.

But I did kind of get by that and did manage to do a lot of solo stuff. But if you’re not 100 percent on the ball and you do things in bits and pieces, by the time the project is ready to release, it’s usually a long time since it started. And it tends to become a bit dated and not quite the right keyboard sounds or whatever. There’s always something. And you have to try to upgrade it again, from the year or two years that you’ve been working on it. And then it doesn’t quite sound right and then you have to change something else. So it’s very bitty. And it’s very unsatisfying.

PCC:
You’ve done some live dates in Europe with The Rhythm Kings?

WYMAN:
Yeah, I just managed to get the band together for 10 days. This German record company, BMG, requested that we do a a few dates, just to make people aware of the band and the record. I scraped around and asked everybody if they could play for nothing, practically, and just do a few dates and one TV thing. And they were all delighted. Frampton and Albert Lee flew over from the States to England. We had a couple of days rehearsal, because they’d all played on like one or two songs, but they didn’t know the whole thing. We put tickets out for sale in Hamburg and they went in a couple of hours. We added midnight show. The same thing happened in Amsterdam. That one sold out in the afternoon, so we put on a second one. And then we did one in London. It was just bop, bop, bop. And then everybody left and went back to their own careers and projects. It’s that kind of a band. I have to grab them when I can. And it’s coincidental, if everybody’s available at the same time. We’ve had fantastic receptions. I was astounded.

People just wanted to have a fun time. It was probably something to do with the music, but we had so much audience participation, singing along. We did some early rock ‘n’ roll songs, various bits and pieces. We intended to do an hour and 10 minutes. We ended up doing an hour and 45 every night. They wouldn’t let us leave. We’d come back for an encore, get ready to leave and then have to go back on again. And then we’d say, ‘Thank you very much. Wonderful audience.’ And then put the half-lights up. And the venue’s music would come on. But they just wouldn’t go away. Halfway to the bus, we’d have to get back to the dressing room with the promoter saying, ‘You’ve got to get back out there!’ That happened in both Hamburg and Amsterdam. It was great.

PCC:
Is there any chance of a North American tour?

WYMAN:
Well, I don’t fly anymore, unfortunately, not since 1990. But I was hoping to put some sort of special together or some live thing for America. We are expecting to tour for a second time in Europe and we’ll do some filming, trying to put a special together. But, as I say, I just don’t travel anymore. I kind of got fed up to the back teeth with it.

PCC:
Had you always had an aversion to flying?

WYMAN:
It never bothered me in the least. I had flown before I even joined The Stones. I’d flown three times before I was in the band. It never concerned me at all. Then just one day, on a European tour, the ‘Urban Jungle’ tour, after ‘Steel Wheels,’ I was on a plane and I just thought, ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t like it.’ And I just never went up again. I finished up the tour traveling by road, which is very enjoyable. I took the drive through Germany right to Prague and experienced all kinds of interesting things and saw much more of the countryside. It was much more interesting than jumping on a plane and going to a hotel or backstage in a limo. And I really enjoyed it. The flying, I just can’t do it. I don’t know why. The only other way to get there is on one of them big boats, isn’t it?

PCC:
So was that one of the reasons for leaving The Stones? The extensive travel?

WYMAN:
Partially. But the main reason was I really didn’t want to carry on. I didn’t see any reason. I thought, we’d reached the pinnacle, achieved everything we’d set out to do - there’s nothing else to aim for, in a creative way. I didn’t see what else to do, but repeat what we’d already done... maybe a little bit better, if possible, as we always seemed to do, and pick up the money.

I’d found more important things in my life at that time, other things that I had to do. I’d been in the band 31 years. And that was enough, as far as I was concerned.

PCC:
Did you find a different sort of satisfaction, going back to play clubs, rather than the huge stadiums you’d been playing with The Stones?

WYMAN:
Yeah, it’s great. They were playing Giants Stadium, when we were playing this little Fabrik in Hamburg for 1,200 people. [Chuckles]. And I knew it, because I keep those records, of course. And I talk with Charlie a lot, as well. And the band have been sending me packages from the tour, T-shirts and badges and programs and things. I always kept those things. And it was funny, they were doing this enormous stadium for two or three million dollars or whatever it was and we were doing the Fabrik for nothing [Laughs]. And we came off, probably with as big a smile as they did.

PCC:
Settling down now, does that come easily to you after all the wild rock ‘n’ roll years?

WYMAN:
I was never a party person. I never ran in the fast lane much. Probably in the beginning a bit with Brian [Jones]. But then I became like that, because I was the first one married, the first one with a child. In fact, my son Stephen was nine months old, when I joined the band [in 1962]. So I was kind of already a bit settled. When everybody would go partying in London after gigs or whatever, I’d go home. Charlie was the same, because he had a baby shortly afterwards and got married in ‘64. So we were like the two responsible ones, if you like. We felt obligations, which, of course, we should. So we trod home and we had that to deal with. And the others partied more. We stayed much more well behaved [Laughs] and less looked at by the media, which was kind of nice for 20 years.

PCC:
But the oft quoted figure of your having slept with 1,000 women, when was that happening?

WYMAN:
Oh, it was probably through the ‘60s, into the early ‘70s. What that is, really, it’s not seeing how many women you can go out with It’s going to a town, where you can’t get out of the hotel. And you’re bored to death of the room. And there’s nothing on the TV. And you’re fed up with listening to music or whatever. You’re just bored and you feel very lonely and you bump into someone in the early light hours in the little coffee shop downstairs and you get their company, just to pass the time. And then it becomes a habit. It’s a bit like that, really. No more, no less.

None of those things ever become meaningful in any way. It’s just in the moment, being a bit lonely in New Zealand or wherever you might be at the time. If you could go out and about and look around and see all the great places in these countries that you’re visiting, it’d be great, because you could occupy your time. We were always in a position where it was airports, car, hotel, car, backstage, gig, car, hotel. And it’s like that all the time. Then car, airport. You never saw anything. You never could go anywhere. It was so restrictive.

In the ‘80s, I went to Japan, just as a tourist, before any of The Stones had ever been there. We were never allowed in Japan. I went to Australia for a month. I went to Ayers Rock and Alice Springs and spent a week in the desert and all those kinds of things, because people didn’t expect to see me and it was so much nicer. Do you know what I mean? I went to Fiji. I was able to just look around and be inconspicuous. Of course, I got noticed and recognized. But people weren’t expecting to see me in those places, so I had much more freedom and saw much more of the countryside and the beautiful sights that are around. And that was very nice.

PCC:
But now, in a different situation, monogamy is no problem?

WYMAN:
Well, five years ago, I decided to get my private life in order and I spoke to a girlfriend that I’d first met in London in 1979 in Paris, when myself and my girlfriend Astrid [Lundstrom] had broken up over an 18-month period and I had this little affair with Suzanne [Accosta] in Paris and then we stayed friends, bumped into each other here and there, in different countries, different towns, like New York, Paris, London and so on.

We just stayed friends, kept in touch and all that. And I just sat down one day and thought, ‘Who could I live with on a serious level and have a family with and really settle down once and for all?’ And I decided on her and rang her. She was a bit guarded, because she knew my reputation a bit and everything. But the promise was made and she gave up an acting career and two clothing design companies she had in Santa Monica and just moved over and we got married. That was almost five years ago. We’ve got two beautiful little girls, three and two, and there’s another one on the way. We’ve got Katherine, as in Katherine Hepburn, who’s my wife’s favorite actress, the second one’s Jessica. [And the third is named Matilda Mae]

So it’s a great time in my life now, because I’m doing all of the things that I wanted to do. I can decide my own dates and times and what projects I want to work on this week, next week or the week after. I can be at home. I don’t have to phone in from Toronto or whatever. It’s very nice. I’ve got eight projects going.

PCC:
You’re also involved in the restaurant business?

WYMAN:
Yeah. I’ve got three very successful restaurants. I’ve got one in London, Sticky Fingers, which has been going for nine years, full all the time, very, very successful. We’ve got it all perfect and we decided to open in Manchester about 14 months ago. We have the big one in Manchester, which is doing very well now. We’ve got a third one in Cambridge.

PCC:
Are you considering opening a restaurant in North America?

WYMAN:
Well, I’ve so many offers. But I go to all of those things. I can just jump in a car or jump on a train and go to them. It’s two, three hours maximum. I’ve had so many offers to franchise in so many countries, but you start to do it abroad and make it some big-time international scene with restaurants, like Hard Rock, etc., I’d be traveling all over the place again. I’d never be home. In the ‘60s, I was married and had my son. And I was on the road all the time. And I missed all my son’s childhood. I wasn’t part of it. I’d come back after a four-month American tour or something and he was talking. The next time I’d come back from Europe or Australasia or whatever, he was walking and doing this, that and the other and I kind of missed it all. And I really want to enjoy that now. So I’ve had a second shot at the apple and I really want to be here and enjoy it all. And I can be. It’s my decision.

PCC:
Do you miss any aspect of touring with The Stones?

WYMAN:
No, no. I had kind of a veiled invite put to me about six months before, because they’re still good friends. I still see Charlie a lot. He visits me. I visit him. Our families mingle. I see Woody [Ron Wood] a lot. I bump into Mick sometimes. We go to the odd birthday party. We have lunch with Jerry [Hall] down in the south of France. I don’t see Keith much, because he never comes over here and I never go over there. But there’s a very nice sort of thing going on now with us. They understand totally now the reason that I left, which they didn’t understand at the time and disliked. And now they’ve accepted it and it’s a very nice atmosphere.

I had dinner with one of the people close to the band and they said to me, ‘Oh, by the way, Bill, if you’re not doing anything in the next two years, we might have a job for you.’ It was put tongue-in-cheek like that, with a smile [Chuckles]. And that was it. But I’ve never had any regrets, not even for a minute, about my decision to leave. And I don’t think I ever will. We’re not Spinal Tap. I’m very content with it. And good luck to ‘em, if they can continue to do it successfully. But it doesn’t interest me.

PCC:
Does it concern you that maybe they’ll go on too long?

WYMAN:
Well, I left, when I thought we’d gone on long enough. That’s the reason I left. I didn’t see a reason to carry on. They obviously did. They’ve all got other activities outside The Stones, but they're very minor compared with mine. I mean, Mick is basically 90 percent Stones. He does a bit of acting and movie stuff. And Keith doesn’t really do much outside the band. Woody does a bit of artwork, a few exhibitions and things. And that’s it, outside of the band. And Charlie, he’s got his little jazz band that he takes around and plays Carnegie Hall and places like that, which he enjoys very much. And that’s about all he does outside the band.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve got a great interest in astronomy. I go to observatories and talk to people. Archeology, I indulge in. I’m writing a book on it, an early English history. I do photography. I’ve got a limited edition book coming out, based on my friendship with Marc Chagall. I’m working on a second book on The Stones. I’ve got three restaurants. And the list goes on. I’ve just started a website. I’m very, very busy. And I’ve got eight different project going in different directions and it’s very nice. The Stones has always been a smaller part of my life than it has for the other members, I think. It was a major part of their life.

PCC:
But while they’re out there, do you find it ironic that people keep bringing up the age issue with rock musicians, whereas, in blues or jazz, that’s not a factor, or people assume that you’re going to get better with age?

WYMAN:
Well, they all think rock ‘n’ roll is jumping up and down and rolling on the floor with guitars sticking up. All that high energy stuff. And a lot of it is like that. But that doesn’t mean older can’t play it. It’s a very young music, so it’s never had elder statesmen before, actually [Laughs]. All those other forms of music - classical, jazz, blues have all had elder statesmen before, because the music’s been going on a considerable time. But we’re the first... well, second generation of rock ‘n’ roll people, aren’t we?

The first generation, a lot of them are dead now, but Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and people like that are still out there, even though they’re in their late 60s, early 70s. John Lee Hooker’s in his 70s. There’s not many blues people left now. But there’s a lot of the ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll people out there, aren’t there? And they're still doing gigs - The Bee Gees, Stones, The Who. And why not?

Why not check out Bill Wyman’s latest projects by visiting billwyman.com?