This week in '94: backstage with Mick Jagger
In honor of the 50th season of 60 Minutes, the broadcast has been looking back at classic episodes of the last five decades. This week in 1994, Mick Jagger, the lead singer of The Rolling Stones, told Ed Bradley that his bandmates hadn't strayed from the basics: sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
"I'm afraid that's still there," Jagger said, "I think that rock 'n' roll is still very much of that sexuality. I think the audience, you know, still takes a lot of drugs. And rock and roll, you have to deliver."
In an unaired portion of that interview that's excerpted in the video above, Jagger took Bradley backstage to look through his wardrobe--and explained why his clothing had become his ritual. "It helps you get into the personality that you're going to be," he explained.
Here's a transcript of the video:
ED BRADLEY: I saw a great line in a story, it must have been the opening of the -- when you started to tour in Washington?
MICK JAGGER: Yeah.
ED BRADLEY: And I think the guys said it was two lawyers who went to the show. And the guy said he looked at you and what you were wearing and what you were doing on the stage and he says, "I want to do rock and roll when I come back."
MICK JAGGER: (LAUGHS) When I come back.
ED BRADLEY: And that's -- I mean, that was it. I mean, he goes to work every day and he wears a suit and a tie and he lives in a very straight world. What he really wants to do is rock and roll.
MICK JAGGER: Well, he could…
ED BRADLEY: And, I mean, this is a side that everybody has yet most people can't express.
MICK JAGGER: Well, it's just -- yeah, it's actually -- I mean, the thing about clothes and all that is that people laugh and they say, "Oh, why do you want to wear those clothes?" Cause so many -- you know, we started off by wearing all our street clothes onstage. And that was, for that time-- was a very kind of outré statement. Cause everyone wore band jackets. You know, it was the thing to do. And when we started just wearing our regular street clothes, because we couldn't be bothered or didn't have the money, everyone thought that was just outrageous. But the thing is about doing the outfits and make-up and all that, it helps you get into the personality that you're going to be, that, you know, you're going to project on the stage. So, for me, it's really -- getting dressed and getting ready is a bit of a ritual. And the same as when you take it all off. You take it all off so that you -- you don't have to become --you don't have to be that personality all the time. Cause I think you'd drive everyone crazy, but probably does anyway.
ED BRADLEY: Including you.
MICK JAGGER: Yeah. But you know what I mean? You don't want to get stuck in it.
The video above was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.