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The Rolling Stones in the press:“Rolling Stones Gather the Moss!” (by Ray Willis)
They don’t want money—but they can’t help making it! What do they do with their unwanted riches? Ray Willis found out
A year ago, the Rolling Stones were lucky if music brought them £7 a week. They lived only for rhythm-and-blues! Now they’re £10,000-a-year men. And they still live for r-and-b!
Say what you like about the way they look. Anyway, that hasn’t changed. But no-one can claim they have altered their life’s purpose.
I was there the night the Stones made their big decision. A full-time stab at the pop world. It was May 15, 1963, in their base—the Station Hotel in Richmond, Surrey.
Money had never interested them very much. What mattered was their music. They wanted to get their kind of sound to as many people as possible.
Their first disc, “Come On”, clicked. The £7 quickly became £40. By September, this figure had doubled. Come Christmas and earnings were up to £150. Now, their take-home pay ranges between £200 and £250 a week!
I met the Stones again the other night, not far from the Station Hotel where it had all begun. They didn’t seem to have changed, but surely they must have done. What, I wondered, had their success meant for them?
‘Yes, we’ve earned a lot of money in the past year. Gathered a lot of moss, you might say,’ drummer Charlie Watts told me frankly. ‘But most of the gravy has been spent.’
For instance, when they are touring—almost every week—the Stones insist on the best hotels. This costs them anything from £35–£45 a week.
‘One-nighters are strenuous,’ explained Brian Jones. ‘We try to make it a rule to relax in the very best beds afterwards!’
Mick Jagger broke in: ‘We’re all dead keen on owning cottages in the country, or by the seaside. So we have put enough by for that. But we always seem to be buying something.’
Said Charlie Watts: ‘Take me, for example. I like clothes. I’ve got cupboards full of them. I reckon I spend at least £40 a week on gear. I’ve 200 shirts, countless shoes. Oh yes—and six night shirts.’
about £200 on a guitar. And I’ve got several in that price range, too.”
BRIAN JONES is regarded as the most thrifty Stone. He saves his money hard for weeks and weeks. Then he’s liable to go out and buy something ludicrously expensive like a £45 shirt!
“My real weakness is cars,” he told me. “I’ve just spent a tidy sum buying a Hawk. It’s a nice, smooth-running job that drinks more petrol than I can consume coffee.”
MICK JAGGER is another to whom clothes are almost a religion. But the biggest love of his life at the moment is a new Zodiac car, which he has fitted with every gadget you can think of!
“I spend pounds and pounds a week on petrol for the car,” he told me. “I drive it everywhere. Mind you, I always slow down passing a men’s shop because I’m always on the look-out for new gear.”
The most domestically-minded Stone turned out to be BILL WYMAN. Pride and joy of his life in his Beckenham, Kent, home is his kitchen.
“It cost £1,500 but it’s the nerve centre of the house,” he explained.
“There’s a cooker nearly as big as I am. Mixers, timers, automatic washers, driers, rinsers—the lot. I don’t go a lot on cooking, mind you. I just like to fiddle with the gadgets.”
It was Brian Jones who summed it up. “It’s amazing where it’s all gone,” he said.
“I reckon that if it all ended tomorrow we will have enough put by to let us live in luxury for four years or so. No more, and anyway luxury isn’t really our idea of living”. (Ref. rolling stones gather)
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