Charlie Watts Quotes

She was so funny and clever, and she had the most infectious laugh you`d ever heard. And I loved the world she was in, the world of art and sculpting. I just admired Shirley very, very much. I still do.

There`s this huge cult grown up around rock`n`roll, but I never saw it myself. I don`t mean I never saw it going on, I mean I just didn`t "get" it.

With the jazz, it`s great being onstage with such wonderful players, and with the Stones, it`s great being up there with your friends. I stand firmly with my rock`n`roll band - though I have to say, I have always considered the Stones to be a great blues band - rock`n`roll to me is Little Richard.

Playing the drums was all I was ever interested in. The rest of it made me cringe. The girls only really loved Mick, Brian and Keith anyway.

George (Harrison) has never been nasty to anyone, he`s only ever preached love and peace. He`s not like John Lennon: he`s never made statements or anything. He`s just a very nice guitar player.

And drugs are very hard to give up. For me, anyway. I didn`t even take that many. I wasn`t that badly affected, I wasn`t a junkie, but giving up drugs was very, very hard. Much, much harder than the rest of it.

Brian (Jones) had this horrible streak. John Lennon had it, too. John could be one of the nicest, most hilarious people you`d ever meet, but he could also be a cruel bugger. He used this terrible rapier-like wit to kick people down. Obviously, a very talented man, but, to me, John was just like everybody I went to art school with - funny, flippant, but he`d walk over anybody who got in his way. Not the nicest person in the world, and Brian was the same.

For years I never talked to the press. Somebody asked me why I didn`t and I said, `Well, I don`t really feel like talking.` I don`t like it. I still don`t. I trust the others to say whatever they say on my behalf. They never say things I disagree with. I`m not very sociable. I`d rather be sitting listening to the radio.

Musicians are the most selfish people in the world, actually. The world revolves around them and all you live for is that 2 hours on stage and that`s all they have... They`re the most unwelcoming people, really. I`m not saying that they`re not nice people or intelligent, but it`s what they do. They aren`t the most open of people. I think it`s their attitude and I don`t think it`s ever going to change. So much for philosophy.

I give the impression of being bored, but I`m not really. I`ve just got an incredibly boring face.

I get bored anywhere. The only time I`m not bored is when I`m drawing, playing the drums or talking. I talk a lot, about nothing usually, and all contradictory. Shirley always accuses me of having no beliefs. Maybe that`s why I can talk to anyone.

It`s very difficult to keep a marriage together when you`re on the road. Not so much now as earlier, because the nice thing about now is that one can dictate what you`re doing. Then, you couldn`t. It`s harder on people around. It`s a very lonely life.

I`d be scared of stopping. What I do is play the drums. I`ve never found anything to take its place. I don`t know what I`d do if I didn`t do it. As you get older, you suddenly have this number in front of you and you haven`t got a great deal of time left. You panic a bit. Two years` touring out of that is prime time, and two years is too long to keep doing the same thing.

If it all ended tomorrow - I don`t mean if we all die, but if we simply stopped playing - that would be all right, I`d do something else or play with somebody else. I`ve never worried about the band stopping. If it does, it does.

I don`t want to retire. I always think you get a bit older when you retire, not that I`m not old now.

With age, what you learn most is doing what you do even better. That doesn`t mean Louis Armstrong at 70 was better than Louis Armstrong at 20. But he did get Louis Armstrong across better. And the same is true of the Stones. It must seem strange that we do the same thing with the same boys all these years later. It seems strange to me. But it`s like when you get drunk at a bar and wonder later how you got home. You know where you are - you`re home - but how did you get there? That`s the mystery.

I don`t like drum solos, to be honest with you, but if anybody ever told me he didn`t like Buddy Rich I`d right away say go and see him, at least the once.

To be able to play as slow as Al Jackson is almost impossible.

I hate leaving home. I love what I do, but I`d love to go home every night.

Maybe I should`ve stuck with one thing and just done that. You meet players who play in different styles, all as good as the other.

When people talk about the `60s I never think that was me there. It was me and I was in it, but I was never enamoured with all that. It`s supposed to be sex and drugs and rock and roll and I`m not really like that. I`ve never really seen the Rolling Stones as anything.

Usually I can hear the pianos, the saxophone, and usually I can hear Ronnie. But I really need to listen to Keith and Mick. The rest of the band is sort of an embellishment to that.

I`ve had a record collection ever since I was a kid. I don`t listen to one thing. Maybe I should`ve done that. I may have been better.

We always work at least a month to six weeks before we go on the road, usually for something like eight to 12 hours a night. It took six weeks to do it this time. We just play virtually everything we know.

I don`t need to hear Bill to go through a song. I need to hear Keith to go through a song. I know Bill will be playing what I`m playing anyway. I need to hear Keith because it`s all there: the time, the chord changes, and all the licks you have to follow.

I never had lessons. Used to try to play to records, which I hated doing. Still can`t play to them.

Mick`s good at interviews, you know, and you get only so much, and he doesn`t want you to have any more, whereas I`ll prattle on forever.

I didn`t know what the hell Charlie Parker was playing... I just liked the way he played.

It`s been years and years and years I`ve been playing the drums, and they`re still a challenge. I still enjoy using drumsticks and a snare drum.

The world of this is a load of crap. You get all these bloody people, so incredibly sycophantic.

People say I play real loud. I don`t, actually. I`m recorded loud and a lot of that is because we have good engineers. Mick knows what a good drum sound is as well, so that`s part of the illusion really. I can`t play loud.

For some reason at 12 or 13, I just heard Gerry Milligan and fell in love with that, whatever it was called.

I think you get to a point where you watch something just to enjoy it. I don`t think it`s really done so that you`re supposed to feel, Oh, he`s the most wonderful drummer. I think the whole lot is what`s more enjoyable.

Rock and roll has probably given more than it`s taken.

You need better technique than I have to play jazz, but what you have to do is the same thing, isn`t it?

Mick`s not good on his own problems, but he`s very good at other people`s. He`s been wonderful over the years. I don`t mean I ring him up every week, but he`s fantastic.

I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis` direction.

I think it`s an awful drink, to be honest with you.

I`m very strict with my packing and have everything in its right place. I never change a rule. I hardly use anything in the hotel room. I wheel my own wardrobe in and that`s it.

When I was a kid I never learned to play. I actually got in bands through watching people play and copying them.

A lot of our tracks have sounded a lot better than I thought they would because of recording, mixing, and because I probably didn`t hear it that way. I`m not a songwriter.

It doesn`t really change, actually. I think The Rolling Stones have gotten a lot better. An awful lot better, I think. A lot of people don`t, but I think they have, and to me that`s gratifying. It`s worth it.

Half of it is being born with that. Of course, 80 percent is work. But, you have to be born with that little bit that makes you an Earl Palmer.

I`ve seen Keith fall asleep at business meetings about millions of dollars for him-because of heroin, just nod out and then wake up and answer a question.

You`d imagine Mick would be the happiest person in the world, and yet a lot of the times he isn`t.

I wanted to play drums because I fell in love with the glitter and the lights, but it wasn`t about adulation. It was being up there playing.