http://www.independent.ie/entertainment ... 68391.html

'I can't live off my Stones royalties'
Ex-Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman tells Robert Sandall just why, at 71,
he's going on tour with his new band


Friday January 18 2008
Bill Wyman is sitting in a booth at the back of his Sticky Fingers restaurant cuddling a very beautiful young girl with long curly hair and slanting eyes called Matilda. She is telling him what she thought about his band the Rhythm Kings' recent performance at the O2 centre, where they supported Led Zeppelin.

He's happy now: "Playing with the Stones there was always such a lot of pressure," says Wyman

For Matilda, this isn't an easy conversation. For one thing, the large age difference between them means that most of the vintage r'n'b tunes the Rhythm Kings play were recorded decades before she was born. It can't help either that the guy she's with, the group's leader and bass player, is her father.

"It was great, but you weren't very good, dad," Matilda says reproachfully, slithering around on her banquette, the way mildly bored nine-year-olds do when grown ups are doing most of the talking. "Everybody else was singing except you." Wyman beams indulgently at his youngest daughter and explains that he's looking after her while his wife is off skiing in France with her sisters, Katie, 13, and Jessica, 12.

A less pernickety observer than Matilda might marvel at the fact that, at 71, Wyman is more active now than he has been since the earliest days of the Rolling Stones. In a couple of weeks the Rhythm Kings embark on a 32 date trek across Britain, playing six nights a week at small theatres and concert halls from Fife to Cornwall. Last Autumn they toured Europe before joining the bill at the Ahmet Ertegun memorial benefit in December.

As well as performing a half hour set on their own, the Rhythm Kings stood in as the house band on the night for Paulo Nutini and a host of soul greats, including Solomon Burke and Percy Sledge.

"We had to learn 30 songs in two days," Wyman says, with evident satisfaction. "Musicians have really started to appreciate this band. Everyone we played with at the O2 has emailed me since to ask if we'll play for them when they come back."

Though Wyman clearly enjoys this kind of praise, compliments about his stamina fall on resolutely deaf ears. "We've always worked hard. We have to because of the budget. You can't make much money touring with a 10-piece band. You get a bit of small change but basically you do it because you love playing, which is the honourable way."

Wyman formed his current band in the early 1990s as a deliberate antidote to the one he left after the Steel Wheels tour. From a financial perspective, the timing of his departure was not auspicious.

"The big money wasn't there yet. I had a small nest egg and I can live nicely but I can't rely on Stones royalties to support me. I have to work and I'm not in the same league as the boys who stayed on. But I wanted to have fun. Playing with the Stones there was always such a lot of pressure. The next album or single always had to be the best, or at least sell more. When we got together to play it was a great moment. Working with Charlie (Watts) was fantastic, and we're still really close. But when I toured with the Stones it would take a month to practise songs we'd been playing for 30 years. With the Rhythm Kings we do it all in two days."

Wyman is keen to quash the rumours about lingering bad blood between him and his former bandmates. He concedes that the airbrushing of his image from the archive photographs that appeared on the sleeve of the Stones' 2005 retrospective album Rarities was "disappointing and petty, but I don't know whose decision that was. I don't bring those things up". His general view is that the wounds, such as they were, healed years ago. "It was just a three month thing," he says. "They didn't want me to leave, but we get on great now. I had 30 great years with them, then a nice divorce and corny as it may sound, we're still family.

"The point that gets forgotten s is that we spent half of our lives together. We still send each other Christmas presents."

Well, you have to ask, and Wyman duly tells of the gifts that he recently received from the other Stones. A large scented candle from Richards "one of those huge round things that burns forever. Keith always sends me those." An even larger potted plant from Ronnie: "a poinsettia the size of a table, so big we couldn't get it in the office." His favorite present was the box of Bronze Age artefacts from Charlie Watts, a lavish nod to his keen interest in archaeology. This included two flat blade axes from 2000BC in perfect condition. Wyman can't remember what Jagger slipped in Santa's sack; he thinks that it might have been a book.

Wyman's current phase of contentment in all areas dates back to his watershed year, 1992. It was then that he conceived the idea of forming a band with an older musical agenda which would allow him to play the bass the way he had always wanted to, in a more fluid, jazzy style.

His other major decision of 1992 was to marry a Californian model, Suzanne Accosta, a woman he had befriended in Paris in 1979. "When we first met Suzanne had no idea who I was. She asked me what I did and I said I was a musician. She went a bit pale after I said I was in the Stones. She didn't seem impressed with it."

After 13 years of casual, non-sexual contact -- for most of which Wyman's relationship with the teenage Mandy Smith was all over the world's gossip pages, along with suggestions that he was a sex addict in the grip of a mid-life crisis -- he invited Accosta to London and asked her to marry him. "She said I'd have to change my ways and I said 'I will'. And I have."

Wyman is understandably thrilled to have had the chance of a second bash at fatherhood so late in life. "I joined the Stones when my son Stephen was eight months old and I never really saw him grow up. I'm now at the age when, if you're lucky, you're doting on your grandchildren. And I've never been so happy. I've still got my health, my career, all my hair, and three beautiful daughters."

At this Matilda, who has just finished crayoning over a sheet of paper listing the Rhythm Kings' forthcoming British tour dates, flashes her father the sweetest smile.

- Robert Sandall

with thanks to Carla! :wink:

poveretto.....se vuole può venire lavorare con me...poi mi sa dire cosa vuol dire vivere con un stipendio mensile da metalmeccanico..... torna con i rolling e smettila di dire cazzate che sei anche un gran bassista oltre tutto! :wink:

grandeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

beh, non è che ha detto che se la passa male, ha solo detto che quegli introiti non sono suficienti per il suo stile di vita.
per quanto riguarda gli Stones, magari poi non succederà, ma credo qualcuno tra loro coltivi l'idea di un suo ritorno per un ultimo tour. certo Darryl Jones non sarebbe contento, ma immaginate la pubblicità della cosa.

poverino........

magari avvenisse poi se darryl jones non e' contrìento pazienza 8)

Da quando ha lasciato gli Stones è un continuo denigrare la musica del suo vecchio gruppo e, per l'altro verso magnificare quanto sia interessante, vario, bello e stimolante quello di oggi.
Sta anche bene attento ad aggiungere che comunque è ancora in buoni rapporti personali con gli altri, salvo lamentarsi che guadagna un decimo di loro.
Insomma Bill, a 71 anni hai deciso che cazzo vuoi?

Secondo me è l'Alzheimer
A parte gli scherzi, credo che voglia scrollarsi di dosso il passato solo perché vuole essere visto come il musicista Bill Wyman e non più solo come un ex membro dei Rolling Stones. Altrimenti non si spiegherebbe cil fatto che non vuole autografare gli lp degli Stones.

Allo stesso tempo gestisce un locale che si chiama Sticky Fingers...

Stiamo cercando un magazziniere, se gli interessa...





Vere o false che fossero, le cavolate che ha detto sui suoi Ex Compagni si stanno un minimo ritorcendo contro...anche se veramente non sa nemmeno lui che cavolo vuole...già solo il locale a London...fanculo...e le cameriere che c'erano

Secondo me è l'Alzheimer
A parte gli scherzi, credo che voglia scrollarsi di dosso il passato solo perché vuole essere visto come il musicista Bill Wyman e non più solo come un ex membro dei Rolling Stones. Altrimenti non si spiegherebbe cil fatto che non vuole autografare gli lp degli Stones.

Allo stesso tempo gestisce un locale che si chiama Sticky Fingers... [/quote]

Credo che vorrebbe guadagnare come gli Stones, ma senza farne parte.