Rolling Stones Quotes -Bill Wyman on Hearing Music in his Army Days

By Marcelo Sonaglioni on January 30, 2025

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Bill Wyman on hearing music in his army days

“The only way you could be in a band in those days was to be a very high quality player because there were only dance bands, so I never saw the possibility. I did clarinet for a couple of years at school but I didn’t like that. When skiffle came in I was in the RAF in Northern Germany: we heard skiffle coming through on British Forces Network… I was hearing things like the Grand Ole Opry show when I’d never heard country music before…

…I used to really like waking up at 6:00 AM before we’d go on duty and lie in bed and listen to all the great singers like Roy Acuff and Flatt & Scruggs. We tuned into the American Forces Network and I heard my first rock ‘n’ roll in 1955. Suddenly I was listening to Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, and that’s when I really wanted to do it. I was in Germany listening to that stuff probably half a year before they hit England. We started to hear things like Bill Haley and Elvis, and then Little Richard and Chuck Berry. I saw Berry in a film called Rock Rock Rock where he was playing You Can’t Catch Me and I was completely won over.”

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Before joining the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman served in the British Army’s Royal Air Force (RAF) in the early 1960s. Wyman, born in London, enlisted in the RAF when he was just 18 years old,. His time in the RAF was a far cry from the rock‘n’roll world he would later conquer, but it provided him with discipline and structure—traits that would come in handy during his years with the Stones.

Bill’s army service was relatively uneventful, and it wasn’t long before he was drawn to the music scene. After leaving the RAF, he started performing in The Cliftons before joining the Rolling Stones in 1962. His steady and reliable presence in the band, both musically and in his personality, often contrasted with the more unpredictable members, but it was this stability that helped the Stones navigate their rise to fame.

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