The Rolling Stones

The brand new recordings on GRRR! constitute the first time Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood have all been together in the recording studio since completing the exalted A Bigger Bang album in 2005, and follow on from the critically-acclaimed expanded re-releases of the historic 40th Anniversary live Madison Square Garden concert Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out in November 2009, and of two of their seventies masterworks, Exile on Main St., in May 2010, and Some Girls, in November 2011.

1. Keith Richards remembers how The Rolling Stones began

Keith Richards: I mean this is London in 1962 and I mean as big as London is, there is only a select pool of musicians that would actually consider going that way by playing clubs and pubs and not ballrooms by the jazzers, who are all around basically traditional jazzers who are still pushing the stomp, which is great in its place but they had the whole market. Our main trick was to try and get in for the interval, while the main band is getting pissed and hitting the chicks we get up there for ten or fifteen minutes and just plug away. It's amazing how you can turn the interval into the whole show and that's kind of what we did, that's when we got the marquee club thing. From our small world London is at our feet, you go down to the Richmond Station Hotel and watch a thousand people who can't get in and you go ‘something's happening here', although I don't think any of us thought we were ready to handle it. At that time, end of '62, The Beatles came out which really threw us because we didn't know anybody could play guitar north of Watford at the time!

That sounds so insular which we kind of were, and then this band came from Liverpool and they were writing their own material. This gave us a quantum leap to have to think about, we were here and faithfully playing our Muddy Waters and blues, and damn well too I have to say for a bunch of kids. But the idea of leaping beyond that into popular music, or in other words turning what you are playing into popular music and getting a wider audience, hadn't occurred to us. We would see some of those record executives driving by the station hotel and would think ‘what's all the fuss about?'. So a buzz started to happen.

2. Keith Richards says The Rolling Stones can play a gig anywhere:

Keith Richards: Garage, a bar, you know, a small theatre or club - that to us is like dangling sweeties, it's like candy time, yes! Give me my little Fender amp and forget all of the distractions of high tech stage stuff and computers. And it's always a challenge and always interesting, seeing as you're eyeball to eyeball with the audience and you have to just see how you feel about it now, see if you can do it. To us I guess playing those places is where we test ourselves and say if we can't rock a club, baby, then I'll toss it in and take up golf or something.

3. Speaking just a few weeks ago, Keith Richards explains the enduring appeal of The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year:

Keith Richards: Because we're damn good and we genuinely love what we do, we don't do it for anything except for ourselves. I don't mean that money-wise - of course you don't mind getting paid - but that is not the driving force behind this band. Sometimes I wonder ‘what do you really want to do Keith?', you know? Sit at home, you can do a bit of painting or writing or whatever, but there's a certain magnetic sort of thing that says ‘no what I really want to do is play with Charlie Watts and Mick and Ronnie' so in a way that's the thing, it's the force that's indescribable.

4. Here's Mick, Keith and Ronnie with their thoughts on the new single, ‘Doom and Gloom' which features on the new greatest hits album ‘GRRR!':

Ronnie Wood: Well it's hard in this day and age to come up with a new song, which Mick had in the forefront of his mind, the same as Keith did with ‘One More Shot' - keep it simple, keep it rough and ready and just let nature take its course. I think that's what happened in the studio. We did one track on a Tuesday - ‘One More Shot' - then Wednesday we recorded ‘Doom and Gloom' and then Thursday we were doing overdubs. Normally it would have taken us six months to do that in the old days. So the new ‘efficient' Rolling Stones are happening.

5. Why have The Rolling Stones lasted so long?

Mick Jagger: That's a very good question, but I've never been able to answer it. But my one answer - which I think is a pretty reasonable answer - is that after the beginnings of the Rolling Stones they've been quite a successful band, obviously they've had their ups and downs, but it's been a very successful and very popular band. If the Rolling Stones hadn't been a very popular band I'm sure they wouldn't exist. So part of their existence is due to their very loyal audience.