The singer Mick Jagger accused of ripping him off and doing a bad job of it: “Absolute bullshit”
If you’ve got a distinct schtick, let it be known that others will steal it. In fact, The Rolling Stones represent the proud, great grand larceny of rock ‘n’ roll.
They didn’t have to be told it was dog-eat-dog out there, they were among the fiercest canines around the dog bowl, greedily feasting on whatever was readily available. As Keith Richards proclaimed himself, “I’ll take anybody’s idea. You can call that collaboration, I call it thieving”. And he was damn proud of that.
They might have begged, stolen and borrowed from the blues, channelled the pomp of James Brown and added a dash of Beatles psychedelia, but they made all of this their own in a brash brainstorm of strutting individualism. They made this new mix a distinct part of emerging pop culture. As Pete Townshend said in praise of his old peers, “When it comes to classic rock, there’s only The Stones and The Who; that’s it!”
That didn’t stop others from attempting to join these radical lads on the lonely pedestal they had aptly placed themselves upon. While hair rock and metal might have sorely embarrassed Jagger and his pals, it was certainly the effrontery of the London band that the newcomers were harnessing. As Jagger said himself, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing”.
But he was always steadfast that he was overdoing himself (at least musically). He wasn’t a parody, but rather a performer. His concern was that Steve Tyler of Aerosmith, was somewhat overdoing a cheap satire of Mick Jagger. “[He’s] quite a nice guy, mind you,” Jagger said in 1977, softening the blow to a similar extent to a car sponge placed beneath an atom bomb.
“He’s almost too bloody sweet. He’s very kind to me, anyway,” he continued. “He’s such a little sweetheart, really – what can you do with him?” He had thought of one potential solution to the predicament: “Punch ‘im in the mouth? Here, what are you playing at, fuckin’ impersonating me? – Slam!”
While they never did come to blows and have remained somewhat pally, that certainly hasn’t stopped Jagger from casting disdain on Aerosmith, dubbing them “rubbish” and “absolute bullshit”. Not that this had made much of a mark on the band beyond bruising their ego, as Aerosmith actually give The Rolling Stones a run for their money when it comes to record sales, ranking as one of the most commercially successful groups of all time.
In a similar vein to the Stones, Tyler simply took something that inspired him and made a mint off of it. Just as Richards happily owned up to his thievery, Tyler has never shied away from the Jagger similarities. In fact, when they claimed their Rock & Rock Hall of Fame induction, the first joke the pouting frontman cracked was: “I wonder if this’ll put an end to ‘Hey, aren’t you Mick Jagger?” No doubt, Jagger, somewhere watching on, tutted, ‘He wishes’.
However, Aerosmith have also always argued that the strutting similarity is merely skin deep and their ‘Walk This Way’ sound is far different. Or, as Joey Kramer hit back in a Louder Sound interview, he would never want to impersonate the Stone because “they’re not so good”. He favours a fuller sonic attack.
He continued his barbed retort to the bad copycats’ claim by adding, “Everybody is always raving about the Stones, saying the Stones this and the Stones that. I’ve never cared for the Stones. They never had anything to offer me musically, especially in the drumming department”.
And the wheel of classic rock’s famed clashes remains fully in spin, the trading of insults a key part of its pantomime constitution. Copycat or not, that hasn’t stopped the likes of Alice Cooper proclaiming that Tyler is a “10/10” vocalist, or Diane Warren saying that “hearing [his] voice was one of those moments I’ll never forget.”
You can’t win ‘em all.
Steven Tyler’s favourite Rolling Stones songs:
- ‘I’m a King Bee’
- ‘Brown Sugar’
- ‘Rip This Joint’
- ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’
- ‘Something Happened To Me Yesterday’
- ‘Hot Stuff’
- ‘Memory Motel’
- ‘The Spider And The Fly’
- ‘She Said Yeah’
