There is only Mick

For a month now, Rolling has been living in one of the private schools of Toronto. Here they are preparing for the next tour in support of the new Album Abiggerbang, which is released on September 6.

Each arranged a temporary base in a traditional style. In the room occupied by Mick Jagger, the white curtains are pushed as much as possible to let in more sunlight, the floor is covered with fluffy white carpets. The air humidifier is included at full power: the 62-year-old star needs to take care of the voice, and the air here, in the north, is dry and cold. The jagger has wide white cotton trousers, pink in a thin striped shirt, black with red sneakers. He is trembling: like the rest of the rolling, he has not a gram of excess fat - he is doing dancing with an instructor (“This is not a choreographer, he just helps me think over stage movements”). Showing a long fur coat of gray and white fur hanging in the corner, Mick says: “I went in it because it was very cold here, but I decided to remove it before your arrival - I had already deceased that it would have already been ... Well, in general, too much.”

Keith Richards, meanwhile, remade the classroom into a sort of club-pendant-cast all the windows, placed candles and bouquets of blood-red roses everywhere, and even uses a skull as a vase for sweets. Smoke from cigarettes hangs in the air. “Cozy here, right?” He says, circling the room with his hand, similar to a clawed paw. The head of the 61-year-old Richardz was wrapped in a torn scarf, and the hair, tangled into a kind of dreadlock, is dotted with trinkets: eagle head, cross, Chinese coin. He says that he does not even know what he has in his hair: his children and friends like to dress him up like a Christmas tree when he is off. Richardz has neither an instructor nor a regime - he does not work at his own stage image at all. “Mick wakes up with a ready -made plan for a day in his head,” explains Richards. “In the morning, he already knows who will call today, what will be, where he will go. What am I? I wake up, pray to the Lord and check if all the phones are turned off. If we played here in the family, he would be a mother. ”

A family called RollingStones has been 43 years old. From the original composition there were only three - Jagger, Richardz and drummer Charlie Watts; The guitarist Brian Jones died in 1969, and Basist Bill Waymen left the group in 1993. They did not have albums-Bratseller after Tattoooou (1981). But, while most of their peers died, went into obscurity or limited themselves to periodic “reunification” for monotonous concert tours, Rolling remains one of the most often and brightly concert groups in the world. Do you want a new round ticket, which begins on August 21 in Boston? Then hurry up, tickets are almost sold out. The question is, do they feel the same as 40 years ago, going on stage today? “Some people think that we continue to play by inertia,” says Richards. “But we play because we are high. Every time I play with these guys Jumpin 'Jackflash, it sounds in a new way for me. We need music not to feed our families. And not in order to prove something to someone. Just no one wants to be the first to jump from a walking train - and will remain in the dust. ”

Jagger and Richards say that while working on Abiggerbangoni, they became closer more than in the previous years-the relevance due to the fact that Watts, the last of the “real” members of the group, fought at that time with cancer of the throat. “We sat at the table and looked at each other. It was like this: “You. I. That's all that we have,” says Jagger. “Everything was built on two acoustic guitars, and everything is so reliable, schematic that if you try to somehow develop this thing, the whole essence will disappear.”

The new Album of Rolling consists completely of new songs: there is a rude, uncouth blues in the LitTleredrooster style, a pair of touching-overwhelming ballads of Richardza ​​and typical club hits performed by drunken complacency. Jagger is clearly proud of this album. “We can still do something new,” he says. “We have a bunch of everything new. Just fans are usually conservative. “Ah, I like Brownsugar more” —ok, excellent, but listen to this, m ** silt. ”

Producer Don US, says Jagger, every time he is afraid that "songs will sound not in Rolling." “But this does not bother me,” Mick clarifies. “It’s good if they sound somehow in a new way.” But Abiggerbang was in the classical style of "Rolling". This is the longest of their records for 33 years - how two sides of the old vinyl plate. “The sound recording company thought it was too long,” says Jagger. “Then I asked: what is the album of RollingStone, the best?” “Well, Exileonmainstreet.” “So Exile.” And how much does it sound? - more than an hour. - So what is the problem? - Yes, there is nothing. "

The new Music "Stones" sounds more spontaneously than most of their previous works, and Jagger sings more aggressively than in all previous years. Since the last studio album of the group was recorded, Jagger had a divorce with his wife Jerry Hall, with whom he lived for 23 years, was under trial because of an illegitimate child born of him by the Brazilian fashion model. All the same time clarifies Stephatektes, for example: oh no! Not You AGain, F ** King Up My Life/It Was Bad the First Time Around/Better Take My Own Advice (“Once! Just not this, you break my life/first of all, listen/listen to me”).

But the strongest moment on the album - in the song SweetneoCon - is tied not with personal experiences, but with political views. “You say that you are a Christian, and I say that you are a hypocrite/You say that you are a patriot, and I say that you are filled with g ** nom.” “It is explicitly said,” says Jagger with a grin. “Kit said [here Jagger begins to parody Richards], which is weak here with metaphors. I think he is a little worried due to the fact that he lives in the United States,-Jagger smiles, “I don’t.”

The “Stones” was always based on the confrontation between Jagger and Richardza ​​- I know the creative (but far from always) creative. Jagger - cosmopolitic with a claim to a sophisticated taste, Richards is a prime guy who appears to be an uncouth blues. Jagger dancing and frolic, Richards - stands with a cigarette in his mouth. Over the years, they quarreled and put up many times, recorded solo albums and reunited, and without having achieved one by one. “We were ready to kill each other many times,” says Richards. “Well, or at least seriously cripple. However, this always concerned the little things, but not the main thing. The cover of the album, for example, is “Yes, you cannot make it!” This is stupid, of course. I have known him from the age of four, and then I was three [winks]. Our children grew together - Juggers and Richardses. All this made us patriarchs. ”

They remember the time when both were still teenagers and played on the warm -up of the real patriarchs - the Diddle and Little Richard. “The only blues that I then knew how to play was about the lost school jacket,” recalls Richards, accurately reproducing the line from the song. Despite the star of Jagger and the decadence of Richards, deep down both of them remained true to this simple and naive ideal. Each of them helps to be honest: Richards reminds Jagger that he was a musician, and Jagger Richardzu is a star.

As usual, in the new round “Stones” there will be a grandiose show, which absolutely contradicts their musical minimalism and roots leading to rock clubs. Two scenes and a whole fraud truck-some kind of incomprehensible screaming heads from papier-mash, which are now lying in front of the make-up jagger, armchairs for happy fans, built into the scenery. And Jagger, as usual, is very excited. “What about T -shirts?” He asks rhetorically and ruffles his hair until they become on end. “The scenery? Scenes? Video on stage and in the hall? So many things need to be done, and the day is so short. And then a rehearsal, - the fake smile of the captain of the cruise liner appears on his face. - And what, everything is fine? Are everyone happy? Rave".

And Richards, as usual, sits and thinks. “The group does not give up the universal love of music. Charlie only says that about this fantastic solo in the spirit of Coltrain, - says Keith. “Slava to God, we still have it. You can disappoint the whole world, but with music everything is still in order. ” Richards is once again drawn by a cigarette. “Maybe we are just a product of our time,” he thinks. “Interesting, our group could unwind if we were just starting now?” I think we could earn a living, but I would continue to work somewhere else. ” For Jagger, this is the main job - at least until he goes on stage. “Sometimes this sensation is“ and here again we! ” - causes a slight cynicism,” he says. “But as soon as you go on stage, it covers you again.” Well, and they again!