Stones In Exile

About three months ago the Rolling Stones re-released their Exile on Main St, originally released in 1972. To coincide with the release of the album, the Rolling Stones also released a documentary about the making of the album, Stones in Exile. I saw bits and pieces of the film on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show, but not all of it. I liked what I saw. I’m a sucker for these kind of things, so when I saw it for sale on DVD, I jumped at the chance and got a copy for less than $15 at Best Buy. Included in this film are clips from the 1972 Robert Frank documentary of the Stones [Cocksucker Blues] and many still photographs of the band taken by French photographer Dominique Tarlé. While the film clips and stills are shown, you hear the Stones themselves [including ex-Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor] provide the narration for the film. Also providing their commentary are such people as Jimmy Miller [Exile’s producer], Andy Johns [Exile’s recording engineer], Bobby Keys [longtime Stones sax player], and Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards’ longtime paramour.

The very beginning of the film sees Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts visiting Olympic Studios in London. After reminiscing about recordings that took place in this studio [some of which were included on Exile on Main Street], the narrative about the Rolling Stones of the early 1970s begins. At that time the Stones were managed by Allen Klein, the same guy whose tenure as the Beatles’ business manager contributed to that group’s demise. The Stones realized that Allen Klein had been ripping them off for years and so they desperately wanted to get out of their contract with him. Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman picked up the story:

Mick: "We’d been working hard, we were a very successful band, we’d sold a lot of records but we weren’t getting paid ‘cause the record contracts were giving us such a low royalty. We found out that we had a management company guy who claimed that he owned everything we were doing in the past and always would in the future. Touring, records, publishing, songs, everything, he said he owned it. So we had to get rid of him and try to get out of this ridiculous Byzantine mess that you’ve created for yourself."

Bill Wyman: "We were supposed to live this life, limousines, you had to have, and this, that and the other. The money just flew, so you were always in debt. None of us had paid tax. We thought we had. We thought that had been dealt with, and it hadn’t. Tax, under the Labour government of Wilson was 93%. If you earned a million quid, which we didn’t, you’d end up with 70 grand. So it was impossible to earn enough money to pay back the Inland Revenue and stay here, in England."

Faced with the predicament of not having enough money pay their back taxes, the entire band became tax exiles [hence the name of the album] and relocated to France in the spring of 1971. There were some severe misgivings within the band about taking such a step. When asked by a reporter if he wanted to leave England, Charlie Watts gave him a very short and emphatic answer: “No!” Bill Wyman wasn’t keen on leaving England either. Bill missed his English creature comforts, Charlie couldn't speak any French. Mick Jagger thought the band might be finished since they would have to leave England, but he saw no alternative because he didn't have the money to pay the taxman.

The perils of recording Exile on Main St:

Keith: "We looked around for studios, but especially in the South of France in the early…in 1971, there were no good rooms to work in, and the equipment was shabby, and nobody felt comfortable in anywhere we looked at."

Jimmy Miller: "We tried various cinemas and public halls that one might rent, and we just never found a suitable site. And in the end, we chose convenience, I suppose, over sound, and went for the basement in Keith’s house."

Keith: "We said “we have this truck, our own mobile studio. Why don’t we just forget about them and just bring in the truck and work around the problems? At least this way, we don’t have to ask our interpreter every time we want to turn it off or on.”"

Jimmy Miller: "The basement of Keith’s house was in fact a lot of separate rooms that made up a basement. In the end, the separation was so poor that we would have to have the piano in one room, an acoustic guitar in the kitchen, because it had tile so it had a nice ring. There was another room for the horns. And there was one, probably, main studio where the drums were and Keith’s amp, and Bill would stand in there but his amp would be out in the hall."

Andy Johns: "The place was absolutely atrocious and was very, very difficult to deal with. It was so humid and the guitars would go in and out of tune all the time. And Mick kept complaining about the sound and…The gear wasn’t working properly, the lights would go off, and there were fires, and it was just insane."

Jimmy Miller: "It wasn’t the best conditions at all. It was difficult for all of us. The wires would go out the door and down the hall into a mobile truck. Every time I wanted to communicate I would have to run around to all the different rooms and give the message."

Charlie Watts: “A lot of Exile was done how Keith works, which is: play it 20 times, marinate, play it another 20. Keith’s very like a jazz player in lots of ways. I mean, he knows what he likes, but he’s very loose. Keith’s a very Bohemian and eccentric – in the best terms – person. He really is.”

Bill: “We started off just jamming. Really casual. Hung together. It always ended up great. That was the great thing about it.”

Bobby Keys: “It was about as unrehearsed as a hiccup. It just was…It wasn’t exactly spontaneous combustion. This was a whole different approach to music and recording from what I’d been used to. Usually you know the name of the song you’re playing.”

Charlie: “The one that’s great on that is Ventilator Blues. You always rehearse it and it’s a great riff, but we never do it as good as that, something is not right. Either Keith would play it a bit different, which is not the same, or I’ll get it wrong. That’s because Bobby said “why don’t you do this?” I said “I can’t play that.” He said “yeah, it’s this.” And stood next to me, clapping. I just followed his time.”

Bobby Keys: “Where I ever had the balls to try to tell Charlie Watts where two and four was, is beyond me. I have often thought to myself “Son, what were you smoking, or what were you drinking?” God bless his heart and patience he listened to me. There you go, you hear it right here, I taught Charlie Watts how to play the drums.”

Andy Johns confirmed what I had always suspected about the Rolling Stones. The Stones’ greatness comes from the interaction and the synergy of Keith Richards and Charlie Watts. If those two were in sync, then all was right with the universe.

Andy Johns: “What would really happen is this – they would play very poorly for two or three days on whatever song, and then if Keith got up and started looking at Charlie, then you knew that something was about to go down. Then Bill would get up and put his bass at that sort-of 84 degree angle, and you went “ah, here it comes. They’re going to go for it now.” Then it would turn into this wonderful, God-given music.”

Living in "exile" in the South of France:

Saxman Bobby Keys thought there could be a lot worse things than living in a great location with lots of pretty girls, lots of booze and drugs, making music whenever you wanted all the while being in his mid-twenties. Anita Pallenberg saw relocating to the South of France as a chance to finally settle down with a family after living the life of a gypsy on the road with the Stones.

Charlie: “Everybody had a great time, but it was very stressful if you know what I mean. You were having a good time, but ready to go back home. The only one who wasn’t like that was Keith, who was being supplied in his mansion, with the band working downstairs. Must have been heaven for him.”

But after awhile, things got a bit out of control. Bill Wyman described how somebody broke into the house while they were all watching TV, stole a bunch of instruments, and nobody noticed. Anita Pallenberg lamented how she and Keith got heavily into drugs, and the paranoia that came with it. She couldn't keep track of all the people who came and went. After a few months Keith and Anita wore out their welcome with the French authorities and had to leave. There was one HUGE revelation from Keith. He related how and why he turned to heroin.

Keith: “I did it, basically, to hide. Hide from fame and being this other person, because all I wanted to do was play music and bring my family up. With a hit of smack I could walk through anything, and not give a damn.”

Amazing…and here I thought the whole point of the exercise of getting a band together was money, fame, girls, etc. I’m reminded of what Johnny Rotten once said many years ago: “If you don’t like being a pop star, then stop being one.”

After the time in France, the Stones relocated again, this time to Los Angeles to finish the record. Mick said they’d always finished their records in LA. They’d recorded a lot in France, but the songs were unfinished. Some of the songs had some fragmentary lyrics, some had no lyrics at all. The lead vocals and the harmony vocals still had to be done. Some songs needed overdubs (steel guitar, piano, upright bass, etc). Then it was time to mix the record. Mick would do his mixes, Keith would do his mixes. Then they’d argue over which mixes were best. Bill Wyman said this process went on ad nauseum. Charlie said it took so long to finish the record because Mick doesn’t like to finish anything.

Exile on Main St. as seen by those who created it:

Mick: “It is a different kind of record. It’s a very sprawling, gutsy piece of work. Criticism of Exile, it didn’t have a direction. But that’s also something very laudable about it, that it exhibits all these styles, and even multiple styles, in one song. Does it have tons of hit singles on it? No, this isn’t that kind of record.”

Mick Taylor: “Over the years it’s acquired a kind of magical glow. Probably because of the way it was recorded, the rawness of it, the edginess of it.”

Bill: “I loved the tracks, obviously, but I don’t think that we had hardly any good reviews on that album. By anybody. They were all boo-hooing it saying it was a load of crap, and it wasn’t like the Stones. And they all did amazing U-turns in the next few years, saying it was one of the greatest albums we’d ever done.”

Keith has the last word about the whole thing: “I just wanted to make music and see how sounds are made. How do you transmit that feeling and it actually comes back out and touches people? It’s been the mystery of my life and I’m still following it.”

What do I think of this film? I loved hearing all the details about finding a place to record, what the recording process was like, and what distractions there were that the Stones put up with in order to make the record. The whole thing sounded like it was straight out of some wacked-out Fellini movie. If you’re a music junkie like me, it’s a compelling story. I thought the film could have used more clips from Franks’ film, but the way the filmmakers took the many still photographs taken by Dominique Tarlé and mixed them with the interviews of the participants was very effective. That kind of storytelling usually holds my interest. I first saw that kind of documentary when Ken Burns did his magnificent film about the American Civil War. That’s a lot like what Stones in Exile is like. If I have one criticism of the film, it’s the use of interviews of people who have nothing to do with the Rolling Stones. People like Sheryl Crow, Benicio del Toro, Jack White, Will.I.Am, Don Was, and Caleb Followill from Kings of Leon. Why do I care what they think of Exile on Main Street? These interview segments added nothing to the finished product. But all things considered, a good product for which Stones fans like me can part with their money.