News Hitting more than just snares: The night Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger came to blows
The world of rock and roll is an elusive one filled with late nights, alcohol, drugs, sex and violence. While a lot of negativity surrounds many of these elements, and it is better to focus on the positives, such as the music, we are only human, so hearing a story about two of the most famous people in the world fighting is pretty enticing. That’s precisely what happened when The Rolling Stones found themselves in Amsterdam at a highly tense time.
The Rolling Stones were undoubtedly one of the best bands on the planet, as, despite having had some controversies, the crowds they drew spoke for themselves. Thanks to upbeat tracks, catchy riffs and choruses and an outstanding live show, people couldn’t get enough of the band, but with this success came a sea of internal arguments.
The band were especially pissed when Mick Jagger went behind their backs to renegotiate their recording contract and also announced he would be releasing music as a solo artist. Other band members weren’t particularly fond of him during this period, so they all decided to go to Amsterdam to get things back on track and patch things up. However, the opposite happened.
After a night out, the band rolled into their hotel room at about 5am. Jagger and Keith Richards were sharing a room, and in a drunken haze, Jagger decided to ring Charlie Watts’s room and yell at him down the phone. “Where’s my fucking drummer?” He said over and over, to not much of a response, before hanging up.
About 20 minutes passed, and everyone in the room assumed that Watts would have likely let the comment roll off his back, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead, there was a knock at the door, and Watts was not very happy, standing in the hallway, looking like a man on a mission.
Richards recalls the incident, “There was Charlie Watts, Saville Row suit, perfectly dressed, tie, shaved, the fucking bit,” he said. “I opened the door, and he didn’t even look at me; he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said: ‘Never call me your drummer again.’”
With that, Watts delivered a right hand that sent the singer flying. Jagger spilt backwards into the room, falling onto a platter of smoked salmon. He didn’t try to hit Watts back, with Richards recalling, “It takes a lot to wind that man up,” but Watts had made his point perfectly clear, and no doubt kept Jagger slightly more in check from that moment onwards.
The Rolling Stones were proprietors of chaos; fair enough, some of their songs were sincere, but the majority focused on sex, drugs and rock and roll. If they practised half of what they preached, arguments and fights would always linger, and that’s precisely what happened in Amsterdam. A combination of the three, mixed with big egos and hard fists, meant the night ended more abruptly than anyone would have predicted.
