Charlie Watts: Mick Jagger's still a stickler for perfection

Charlie Watts says that Mick Jagger is still a stickler for perfection on stage. Watts, whose drumming has been part of the foundation for the Rolling Stones' classic sound since they began, told The Word magazine what it's like to be behind the band on any given night. He said: "My mind doesn't usually wander off to trivial things, even when I'm playing a song I know backwards. The minute you (do), a mistake happens. And bloody hell: Mick will turn around and give you a dirty look -- he's got eyes everywhere, even when he's leaping about. He's like James Brown."

He went on to say that he far prefers live work to recording, which he regards solely as being a means to an end: "Playing live has always been the thing we've done best. Studio stuff is something I've learned to do over the years. For me it's a bit of an interruption between playing live -- a way of getting another lot of songs together that we can choose to play live, or not."

Charlie Watts says that he's amazed that the band, which celebrated its 45th anniversary this year, is still operating at peak condition: [ Click to listen if you have a backstage pass] "Nobody ever believes that you can have the energy as you get older. They think it's a young kid's music because it's not old enough to be older musicians playing it and here we are again proving them wrong hopefully."

In other Stones news:

Former lead guitarist Mick Taylor will join former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman onstage on March 17th in Amsterdam, when Wyman and his band the Rhythm Kings will back Chuck Berry for a single date, according to NU.nl.

Carla Bruni, the ex-girlfriend of both Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, is reportedly dating French president Nicolas Sarkozy, according to Britain's The Sun.
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