The rock ’n’ roll generation is disappearing right before our eyes. The run of recent obituaries can induce a kind of vertigo. Yet the Rolling Stones have lasted, leaving us with the illusion that mortality can remain tomorrow’s problem. The Beatles didn’t make it a decade. The Stones, which formed in 1962, are in their sixth decade. Mick Jagger Net Worth
The first time Mick Jagger—who reportedly has a net worth of $500 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth— remembers being asked if the Stones would ever tour again was in 1966. Two years later, Rolling Stone magazine ran a cover story on their comeback. When the band released their last huge hit, 1981’s “Start Me Up,” they were viewed by many as over the hill. People have been talking about the Stones being “old” for 50 years now.
How has this band—more than any other act of their era—kept it together? The most compelling answer may involve a London School of Economics dropout named Michael Philip Jagger—who inadvertently became a business legend as well as a musical one. Jagger says he never set out to build rock’s first behemoth brand. Yet he forged a trail that led artists away from naïveté and potential exploitation to unabashed commercialism, à la Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.”
Here are a few things Mick Jagger revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Jagger on taking up the business side of the Rolling Stones:
“It was an act of self-preservation,” he says. “I don’t actually really like business, you know what I mean?” he says. “Some people just love it. I just have to do it. “Because if you don’t do it, you get f—ed.”
Jagger on the business legacy of the Stones:
“One of the things I’m really proud of, with the Stones, is that we pioneered arena tours, with their own stage, with their own sound and everything, and we also did the same with stadiums,” Jagger says. “I mean, nobody did a tour of stadiums.”
Jagger on how their new album, Hackney Diamonds, finally came together after 18 years — deadline pressure:
“What I want to do is write some songs, go into the studio, and finish the record by Valentine’s Day,” he told Richards. “Which was just a day I picked out of the hat—but everyone can remember it. And then we’ll go on tour with it, the way we used to.”
Richards told Jagger it was never going to happen. “I said, ‘It may never happen, Keith, but that’s the aim. We’re going to have a f—ing deadline,’ ” says Jagger, making a karate-chop motion. “Otherwise, we’re just going to go into the studio, for two weeks, and come out again, and then six weeks later, we’re going to go back in there. Like, no. Let’s make a deadline.” (Richards declined an interview request.)
Jagger on his somewhat stabilizing role in the band:
“I haven’t been perfect,” he says. “I mean, it is kind of my role, you know? I think people expect me to do that,” he says. “I don’t think anyone’s saying, ‘Oh, I should be doing the “clarity” role.’I don’t see Ronnie [Wood, the band’s longtime guitarist] saying to me, ‘Mick, I think you should retire from the clarity role and the vision role and I’ll do it.’ No one else wants to do it! I just got dumped with it. And I made a lot of mistakes when I was very young. But you learn.”
Jagger on what the Stones have in common with Taylor Swift (fighting for financial control over their music, which they undertook in the early 70’s):
“The industry was so nascent, it didn’t have the support and the amount of people that are on tap to be able to advise you as they do now,” Jagger says. “But you know, it still happens. I mean, look what happened to Taylor Swift! I don’t really know the ins and outs of it, but she obviously wasn’t happy.”
Jagger on selling his publishing:
Looking to the future, I asked Jagger if the Stones had plans to sell their (post-1971) catalog. He said no. He knows a tidy lump sum of cash might leave a less byzantine legacy for heirs, but “the children don’t need $500 million to live well. Come on.” Maybe it’ll go to charity one day. “You maybe do some good in the world,” he says. He’s also not planning to publish an autobiography.
Jagger on the Stone’s members problems with drugs:
“There were a lot of disputes,” Jagger tells me now. “And then, with Charlie not functioning too…probably because it was his way of escaping. You get to a certain age, and you don’t want to have to deal with this stuff. I mean, everyone was taking drugs; the 1980s was a big drug period. Well, so were the 1970s! And the 1960s!”
Jagger on not ruling out a posthumous hologram tour:
He is, however, cognizant that the business of the Rolling Stones will outlive him. “You can have a posthumous business now, can’t you? You can have a posthumous tour,” he says. “The technology has really moved on since the ABBA thing [the pop group’s recent “Voyage” virtual show], which I was supposed to go to, but I missed it,” he says.
Jagger on old age:
The problem with old age, Jagger says, is that people feel helpless, useless, and irrelevant. While he gets treated differently (“People get out of my way, in case I fall over,” he cracks), his recovery in 2019 was notably swift (“In two weeks, you’re in the gym”).
Jagger on his family, including his 6-year-old son Dev:
“I have this really wonderful family that supports me. And I have, you know, young children—that makes you feel like you’re relevant.”
Jagger on growing more comfortable with social media:
As someone who’s been public for 60 years, Jagger still wants to keep some things private. But he expresses pride in his posts, which show him popping up here and there around the world. His girlfriend, Melanie, a former ballerina, has her own online presence. “It’s just a fact of life,” Jagger says. “But there are boundaries I like to have.” In some ways, social media has become less threatening. “People used to post stuff and everyone would think, whatever girl you’re standing next to…‘Is that your new girlfriend?’ You know. But everyone knows now,” he says.
Jagger on whether 80 feels different than 70 when faced with his mortality:
He shrugged it off with the boyish playfulness—and matter-of-factness—that has served the Stones so well. “They’re both big numbers,” he says. “One’s more than the other one.” Mick Jagger Net Worth
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Photos: Juergen Teller for WSJ. Magazine.
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