Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were taking a break while putting the finishing touches on their new album a few weeks ago, and they once again heard a TV announcer refer to the Rolling Stones as "the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world."
They've been blessed, or cursed, with the label for about 20 years. The pair tested each other's memory to find who first pinned the phrase on the band, finally settling on a former tour manager who doubled as a public address announcer during the 1960s."It's a title. You wouldn't claim it, but if it's bestowed upon you, you'd say `thank you very much,"' Richards said. "I would never call us that.
"Some nights we are, some nights we ain't."
Nearly 3 million people hope they'll catch the right nights as the Stones embark on their first U.S. tour since 1981 and release their 34th album, "Steel Wheels," a surprisingly strong effort if only because of the considerable doubt the band would ever record again.
The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who were a golden troika of British rock supergroups in the '60s, but only Jagger, Richards and crew have survived until today as a creative force.
The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame members boast a catalog that began with such radio hits as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Let's Spend the Night Together," matured with seminal rockers "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Brown Sugar" and boogeyed through the '70s and '80s with "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," "Miss You" and "Start Me Up."
But until a fateful summit in Barbados last February, it appeared the story of the Rolling Stones was drawing to a close.
Jagger and Richards, the unquestioned leaders of this five-member band, had been conducting a public feud the likes of which haven't been seen in rock since John Lennon and Paul McCartney sniped at each other on record in the early '70s.
It centered on the restless Jagger's desire to record and tour separately from the band. The fiercely proud Richards, who guards the Rolling Stones' reputation like a museum curator, thought Jagger's priorities weren't straight.
"There were a couple of dodgy months during the last seven years when I thought it didn't look too bright on the horizon," admitted guitarist Ron Wood during a series of recent interviews with The Associated Press at a Long Island hotel, close to where final rehearsals were taking place for the tour.
Jagger and Richards, after months of talking to each other through the press, had a face-to-face meeting in Barbados and eventually set to work, writing 20 to 30 songs together.
Richards laughs nervously at descriptions of his relationship with Jagger as an uneasy truce. "It's far more simple and far more complex," he said in a weary rasp ground down by cigarettes.
It seems they've simply agreed to disagree.
Jagger, his thin, wiry body coiled like a rubber band on a hotel suite chair, peppers his conversations with references to the Stones as "ancient." He bluntly replies, "No," when asked if the Stones still satisfy him creatively.
"I don't really know, he was just annoyed," Jagger said in clipped tones when asked about his partner. "You should ask him. He's a very mood-swingy person. I'm fine with touring with the Rolling Stones part of the time. I don't want it to be my whole life. I think he learned over the period of time that it didn't have to be his whole life as well."
Jagger, whose solo albums were unexpected flops, learned some lessons as well. It's clear, he said, that some people can't accept him as an artist outside the Rolling Stones.
"If Keith had sold like Michael Jackson figures, he would have still been back in the Stones, he would have dropped everything to come back," Wood said, mentioning Richards' solo record.
"What surprised me was that Mick didn't do those figures," Wood said. "That probably surprised him, too, and maybe it did make him realize the strength of the band. Not that he didn't realize the strength of the band, but once he and Keith ... spent some time together in Barbados, they just realized the friendship was longer and stronger than any paper or any magazine."
Jagger, Wood said, has "come back into the band very genuinely and we've made no compromises."
Although Jagger and Richards co-write most Stones songs, they've actually done little writing together during the '70s and '80s, band members said. "Steel Wheels" was different.
"The way we wrote these songs is very similar to the way we used to work in the '60s, before we had to split up in the early '70s and leave England and start to live apart from each other," Richards said.
Drummer Charlie Watts was called in after a few weeks to add rhythm to the basic tracks recorded by Jagger and Richards, and bass player Bill Wyman and Wood soon followed. The Rolling Stones, used to interminable months of piecing songs together in the studio, tried another novel concept before recording this time. They rehearsed.
"It was such a bonus to do that, to know the arrangements," Wyman said. "Then you can hone it down and really tighten up. Before it was go into the studio, Keith's got some vague riff, Mick mumbles some words and it becomes a song after five days."
Jagger said he wanted to replace a "slovenly" style of recording with one more organized. Night owls Richards and Wood curbed their tendencies to work into the early morning. And for all of the worries about solo projects, the extra work left the Stones in fighting trim, Richards said.
Unlike the previous "Dirty Work" - an album band members privately criticize - "Steel Wheels" shows more versatility than the Stones have displayed in years. There's the required hard rockers, but also a country-tinged ballad with fiddles, a tune featuring Moroccan drummers and a grungy blues workout.
"The Rolling Stones were drifting into this rather boring rerun of riffs past," Jagger said. "I'm not saying everything on this album is brilliantly original, but it does have some sparks of ingenuity."
New songs "Sad Sad Sad" and the single "Mixed Emotions" are among the 60 songs the band is rehearsing for its concert trek. Other new songs will be worked in as the tour winds its way across the country, band members said. It started Thursday in Philadelphia.
Jagger, who's arrived onstage in past tours riding a giant phallic symbol, and tossed flower petals from a cherry picker, hesitated to talk about what audiences can expect this time. But Wood and Richards spoke freely.
Audiences can expect to hear some perennials, like "Start Me Up," "Tumbling Dice," "Sympathy for the Devil," "Honky Tonk Women" and "Gimme Shelter." The Stones have also dug deep into the past for such gems as "Ruby Tuesday," "Paint It, Black," "Sweet Virginia" and the 1967 psychedelic oddity, "2,000 Light Years From Home." Songs will be rotated in and out of the show so it won't be the same every night.
Wood described the concert as "really showy. The stage is so high we have to have FAA warning lights on top," he said.
"I'm really proud of them all this year," Richards said. "Ever since we got together in February it's been going like a dream. The songs came up real easy and the boys in the rest of the band came in and started playing like demons."
He said the Stones took out old records to try to recall the original ideas behind the songs, rather than just remember the last time they were performed live.
"We've done a lot of work, especially on the old songs," he said. "There's a lot more work gone into this tour and the record than the Stones usually put into it, and very concentrated, too, because it's all taken place since February when Mick and I sat down and said, `Have you got any songs?"'
Perhaps as a nod to Jagger, Richards doesn't want to talk about the future of the Rolling Stones beyond the current tour. But he and Wood make it clear they're not looking to retire this 27-year-old band anytime soon.
"We'd be chicken not to follow this thing down the road now, because nobody's taken it quite this far," Richards said. "We've been around a long while and we're still functioning. It's not like the Beach Boys getting up there and doing all songs that they've written 20-odd years ago, just a nostalgia trip. There's old stuff and there's new stuff and hopefully it compares pretty well."
Will the Rolling Stones still be functioning in 20 more years?
"Yeah, I reckon," Wood said.