A Conversation with Brett Morgen – HuffPost 5.31.13

Mike Ragogna: Brett, how are you?

Brett Morgen: I’m good.

MR: How did the Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane get started?

BM: I got a call from Mick Jagger sometime at the end of ’11, and he was interested in putting together a movie to coincide with the Rolling Stones fiftieth anniversary. He wasn’t sure what form he wanted it to be, he just knew that he wanted it to be a movie and not a mini-series. The first question is, how do you do a movie about a story that unfolds over fifty years? My thought at the time was that you can’t do fifty years in two hours. The only way to pull that off is to find a story, lock onto it, and go into it with the understanding that you’re not going to get everything in there. The other thing is that he wanted it to be a movie. Having read pretty much all the books about the Rolling Stones and seeing all the documentaries that have come out, the one thing that I felt wasn’t represented was the sort of journey of the Rolling Stones — the foundation of the Rolling Stones and how they came to be. The other thing he wanted to do was to tell the story in a way that is uniquely cinematic, that fully takes advantage of the medium that you’re using to tell the story. So when we set out to make Crossfire Hurricane, the narrative that I locked onto was about how the Rolling Stones went from being the band that everyone hated to the band that everyone loved. That journey took us from ’63 to somewhere around ’81. It’s a movie about how these guys played the role of the anti-Beatles, how they eventually sort of became the roles that they were playing, and then how those characters that they were playing nearly devoured them. Ultimately, they survived, just as The Rolling Stones have done with any obstacles or adversity that has come their way. I also wanted the film to not just be about the Rolling Stones, but to sort of try to make an experience — so that you’re not just hearing about an experience that happened to them, you’re experiencing it.

MR: And you do that partly through the interviews you had with the guys. You have Mick, Keith, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood talking on camera. You also have Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor, so everybody is adding to this story. It seems like you’ve had the most access to the most amount of material about The Rolling Stones that I think there’s ever been.

BM: I did the most extensive interviews with the band; we had around eighty hours of interviews. All the interviews were conducted one on one, with just a band member, myself, and a tape recorder. They were done over the course five months, and there were no subjects that were off limits. Basically, I’d lock myself in a room with one of them for three or four hours — they were quite intimate — and I think, to a certain extent, therapeutic.

MR: With all the research and time you put into this project, I imagine not only your knowledge about The Rolling Stones grew and changed, but also maybe your opinions and perceptions of the group. Did that happen?

BM: Of course, in the sense that prior to starting the movie, I was a fan of The Rolling Stones, but I wasn’t a scholar of The Rolling Stones. For the last twenty-five years, I’ve listened to their music consistently, but I hadn’t ready any books about them. I’d seen a couple of movies, but I hadn’t read any books. So a lot of the story was really new and fresh to me. A lot of the time, if I like a band, it doesn’t mean I want to go study up on the band’s history. For me, the making of the film was illuminating every day. I was constantly coming across things I hadn’t known. I think that I have a greater understanding as to why The Rolling Stones have survived the way they have, and why they were chosen to carry the mantle of The World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band.

MR: Can you explain more on that?

BM: Well, I think it’s pretty complicated and loaded. I think every guy in the band has a role, and they each understand their role. I’m not talking about the band in the Bill Wyman era or Mick Taylor era, but… You know, if Charlie Watts had more ego, the band probably would not have survived. Everyone played their role. It’s just as we were saying at the beginning. Just as they all played their roles as the anti-Beatles, they also all played roles within the band, and Charlie is like Switzerland. If he wasn’t, and if they didn’t have that stability and that foundation, in my mind, The Rolling Stones wouldn’t be around today. Charlie is so grounded he almost borders on self-deprecating. Each of them in the band would say that he is the key to the whole thing. Charlie is the constant Zen master presence. Then if it wasn’t for Ronnie, I don’t think the band would have survived because Ronnie really brought this energy and enthusiasm that I think inspired Mick and Keith. On top of that, prior to being with The Rolling Stones, he had written one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs of all time. So he wasn’t just a guitarist, he was somebody that could contribute musically in a way that other people hadn’t. Bill Wyman was the only sober guy in the band, and they loved him. Bill left the band first because he had a fear of flying. He’s a guy that really likes to be grounded. He played the bass and created a foundation for the band, and I think if he was more of a partier, it might have disrupted the equilibrium of the band. They needed people like Bill and Charlie to be the rhythm section, and be comfortable standing behind the lights. One of the problems with Brian Jones was that Brian, I think, wanted to be up front and center in the band. The problem was that he was neither the songwriter nor the singer, which sort of pushed him off into the margins, and ultimately, I think, led to his early demise. Brian was also instrumental in the early days of the band because Brian was an incredible musician who brought a lot of amazing things to the group. Then, of course, you have Keith and Mick, and they balance each other off. I mean, they’re complete yin and yang, they’re polar opposites. I guess one thing that was surprising was, having met Keith and Mick, it’s amazing that they have been bonded together for fifty years because of this band since they could not be more different. It’s true like it is on any sports team. Everybody has a role to play, and if you don’t accept your role or understand your role, there’s going to be problems. I don’t think the guys have always gotten along, but they also have shared an experience that nobody else in the world has shared. It’s kind of like the Apollo program. So I think that cemented their bond, but I also think that the tension that has existed sometimes in the band is also heard in their music. That’s one of the secret ingredients of The Rolling Stones, the music is really dangerous because it feels like it could fall apart at any second, and I think that tension and the competition, perhaps, is what really propelled them to go fifty years.

MR: What’s funny is that Keith and Mick were seen as the anti-John and Paul, just as The Rolling Stones were the anti-Beatles, but the relationship between the two pairs seems quite similar in that they were very opposite people.

BM: I think in terms of lyrics, when The Rolling Stones came out, The Beatles were writing “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” and The Rolling Stones were writing “Stupid Girl.” The Stones clearly were writing songs in the spirit of the image that they were projecting out into the world. I think that The Beatles and The Stones shared a very similar sensibility. I think the difference in those early years really had to do with Brian Epstein and Andrew Oldham. Andrew encouraged them to be a bit raunchy. He wanted to separate them from The Beatles to create their own identity. Keith once said to me that sometime in ’65, he was speaking with John Lennon and John said, “God, I wish I could be in your band. I bet it would be a lot more fun.” I think what he was seeing was that The Beatles from about ’63 to ’65 all had matching uniforms, and The Stones refused to wear matching jackets and were allowed to be more individual. It’s not that Mick had a darker sensibility than John Lennon, they were just allowed to express it.

MR: The Stones had many reboots. I think it could be argued that Tattoo You is a reboot, and Some Girls too, among others. It would seem that part of their longevity is due to their ability to reinvent themselves, and yet they still maintain that image as the world’s greatest garage band.

BM: I think the one constant is that The Rolling Stones are a band’s band — they’ve always been a band’s band. When they first started playing clubs back in ’62, the place was moving. The difference between a Rolling Stones show and other shows then was that people would go to a Rolling Stones show to dance. So if you follow their music through the years, they’ve always been able to maintain that, even through the ’70s stuff and Some Girls, or Black And Blue, which is basically one of the only rock albums that you can actually dance and shake your ass to. Of course, they’ve had their ballads, but that’s really been the constant with The Rolling Stones, and that’s something that Mick talked to at great length about with me, how he’s always perceived them to be a band’s band. I think though they’ve gone through these various, as you say, “reboots,” there is more commonality between “Harlem Shuffle,” “Miss You” and “I Want To Make Love To You” than meets the eye.

MR: What were the things that you learned in your research that surprised you the most?

BM: Those are really about the band and the individuals. Going into it, I had no idea that Mick Jagger was as funny as he was. There were times where I’d be sitting, and he can’t help but be the entertainer, so he’d be doing imitations of the other guys in the band and really just putting on a show. It was absolutely hilarious. Keith is probably much more sensitive than people might think. I think Wyman’s encyclopedic knowledge of the band is almost freakish. I think everyone knows that Charlie is a gentleman, but Charlie is like the Dalai Lama of rock ‘n’ roll. I think in terms of the band itself, I never really understood what happened to Brian Jones, or why he ended up how he ended up, and those were some of the more emotional and interesting interviews, the ones that centered around his contributions to the band and ultimately his demise. That was really illuminating to me.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

BM: The thing about The Stones is that rock ‘n’ roll should be provocative. I think one of the things this film shows is that even though they were getting rich along the way, they still knew how to provoke and to engage, they thought there shouldn’t be rules and barriers. I also think rock ‘n’ roll should be theatrical. It is entertainment. It’s called show business for a reason. I think what The Rolling Stones have that no one else had is the greatest front man in the history of music. So beyond the music, there was always something to look at, a show to see, and I think that combination was the key to their success.

MR: It’s been ten or eleven years since The Kid Stays In The Movie was released. What are your thoughts on that film now?

BM: It’s funny you should mention that. Somebody was just writing me about that this morning. You know, I felt at the time — maybe not when we were making it, but definitely when we premiered it — that we had created something really special. I also knew when we were making it that I wasn’t going to have any reference points. It wasn’t going to be like “this” film or “that” film because we were doing something that hadn’t really been done before. I’m not just talking about the visual effects, but story-wise, with a guy telling a story while standing off camera for ninety minutes. It feels to me like one of those movies that you’re lucky to do once in your lifetime; it was a perfect storm. It had an amazing way of describing that life, and had an amazing way of visually describing that. Those three things — having the life, being able to describe it and then having the voice to carry it — are a rare trifecta. I’d be surprised if there will ever be anybody like Bob, who can carry a story the way he can. It’s something that I’m incredibly proud of, probably more so as the years carry me on and I see that the film still feels as current to me today as it did when it first came out. Anytime a film uses visual effects, often times, you go back ten years later to watch it, and they seem really dated. But there is a timeless quality to the scenes in this picture that I think will keep it in people’s hearts and minds for years to come. There was a point.

MR: What’s up next?

BM: I’m working on a movie about Kurt Cobain at the moment.

MR: And you’re doing it from within the..

BM: …yeah, it’s an officially sanctioned film. We have access to all the music and all of his work. So, people can look for that I guess sometime in ’14.

MR: Nice. Brett, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much.

BM: My pleasure man. It was fun.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney