Like A Rolling Stone: Bill Wyman goes Stone cold, alone.

Like A Rolling Stone:
Bill Wyman goes Stone cold, alone.

by Benjy Eisen

As a member of “The World’s Greatest Rock N’ Roll Band,” Bill Wyman arguably helped define the meaning of rock n’ roll. He played bass on some of the world’s most recognizable songs, second only to The Beatles. Then, in 1993, he did something totally unprecedented — Bill Wyman walked away from The Rolling Stones. He talked to MODE Weekly from his home base in London, before departing for his first American tour with his new band, The Rhythm Kings, and will make a very special stop at the Whitaker Center on August 13.

MODE: You were in The Rolling Stones. Why’d you leave?

Bill Wyman: Because I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t see any progression anymore. We achieved everything we ever wanted to, the top of the tree and there was nothing else to achieve within the band, I didn’t think. All it would entail if I carried on was kind of going on stage for the next ten years still doing “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Honky Tonk Woman” and “Street Fighting Man,” etc., etc. and I didn’t want to do that anymore, I’d already done it for 20 years. So I wanted to do something more interesting and more challenging really.

MODE: Do you miss it at all?

Wyman: No, not at all. Not one iota. I went to see them when they were over here in ’95 I think it was. I went to the show and went backstage before and after and had a good laugh and enjoyed the show. It was my first Stones concert I had watched so I thought it was quite nice. I didn’t have any regrets or wanting to be up there, you know it’s not Spinal Tap; I don’t do that. So that was kind of fun and of course I’m still best friends with them, I see them all the time, we spend a lot of time together socially at dinners and at each others houses, holidays, and that’s nice. It’s more like family. But no regrets whatsoever and it never even crossed my mind.

MODE: How’d you form the Rhythm Kings then?

Wyman: About four years ago — I took a couple years off, from music anyway, I worked on a lot of other projects and got into a lot of different things so I enjoyed that and then after two years I thought “Oh I don’t know — I’d better do some music again.” But this time I do whatever I want, no matter whether it’s commercial, whether it’s going to sell, whether it’s going to be on the charts, whether it’s going to be played on the radio, or anything like that. I just do whatever I like. I started just cutting anything that came to mind no matter what era it came from no matter what style it was just with a bunch of friends and chopped it around a bit and ended up with an album which we released in ’98 called “Struttin’ Our Stuff” and it did really well and then I carried on from there. Each year we put out an album … and each year we’ve toured Europe. So it’s been building all the time — the last two albums, in the first week of release in England, they both went to Number One on the jazz and blues charts. And without any airplay whatsoever, so that was rather nice. And we’ve been playing to packed houses ever since, since about three years ago, throughout Europe, Scandanavia right down to Zagreb, Croatia, and places like that. And all over England.

MODE: Do you think with the Rhythm Kings you’re progressing still, musically?

Wyman: Yeah, because I think what we’re doing is introducing a lot of music that’s been forgotten or not known by the younger people out there. Because when we play on record and when we go and play live we do a variety of about 12 different styles of music. I don’t think there’s another band in the world that does that. Because I’ve got five fantastic singers in my band which all sing in different styles so I can cover jazz, blues, rock, reggae, jump music, rockabilly, country, soul, gospel, anything, early blues, and who knows what, so nothing is impossible with this band. And the audiences seem to like it very much because they don’t hear very much of that type of music anymore out there.

MODE: This is music that seems to be your roots. Is it still the best?

Wyman: Yeah, well they were. They’re really great songs. I always choose what I consider great songs by great artists and try to improve on them without losing the essence of the original. If we do a 1930s song by Fats Waller for instance, we’re not going to do it exactly the same. But we’ll keep the same feel of it and the mood of it and just improve upon it in various ways, and present it to a new audience the same way the Stones did with the blues in the early ’60s, when in England and Europe there was no blues being played on the radio and you couldn’t buy the blues in a shop because they didn’t have them. And the same thing applies to the Rhythm Kings. There’s lots of people out there, believe it or not, which have never heard of people like Ray Charles. Which is absurd. I think we’re doing something out there and we’re providing something for a large section of the public that is not being provided for by record companies or by the media, radio, etc.

MODE: If somebody didn’t know who The Rhythm Kings were, and they asked you why they should check it out, would you mention that you were in The Rolling Stones?

Wyman: Oh no, no, no. I don’t do that.

MODE: What would you say then?

Wyman: It’s a phenomenal band with five great, great singers in it and in England and in Europe we’ve been wowing them for three years now. When we play, we play for two hours and at the end of the show nobody wants to go home. The audience stands and gives us a standing ovation for 10 or 15 minutes, everywhere we play, and we do three or four encores and they carry on. They don’t want to go home. And they put the house lights on and everything, and they put the music on and they still don’t want to go home. They still stand there. Because this is a band full of genius performers and wonderful singers playing a great variety of music which you can’t hear anywhere else. So we sellout everywhere and we have been for three years, all over Europe and England, and this is the first visit to America and I think America is going to be extremely surprised with this band. It’s not just a put together band of a bunch of faces just to make a bit of money, because this band doesn’t make money, because there’s 11 of us [playing] small places and when you do the budget there’s not very much left at the end of it, but that doesn’t matter. Because this band does it purely for the music. Because they love to play music together. And perform together. And so it doesn’t matter about all that. It’s not a career move. It’s not to get rich and famous. It’s just to play great music to an audience that wants to hear it. That’s the important thing.