Tony Chapman: the man who missed a chance to join The Rolling Stones
When people think of the Rolling Stones, they often think of the eccentric nature of the band. Each member seemed to embody sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, to the point that it was difficult to turn on the news and see a story about The Rolling Stones that wasn’t shrouded in controversy. However, there was much more to the band than just their notorious flamboyancy.
Rolling Stones’ initial manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, once said that the Stones were leagues behind bands like The Beatles and Dave Clark Five. “The Rolling Stones got there long after The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits,” he said, “They were the pioneers. If The Beatles ever looked over their shoulders, The Rolling Stones were not the first thing they saw – it was the Dave Clark Five.”
Oldham even went one step further to suggest that without The Beatles, the Rolling Stones wouldn’t have seen success at all. “There was no real future for a British band before The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964,” he said, “That was the turning point, after which there was an avalanche. It totally transformed the possibilities, and as usual, The Beatles were the frontrunners. In music, there is The Beatles, and then there is everybody else.”
This might be an unfair assessment. The timing of the Rolling Stones’ rise to fame and their reputation as a band often undermines much of their music. The fact is that, before anything else, The Rolling Stones were musicians who cared deeply about their craft and were always adamant about putting the quality of their sound and their live show first.
This is best reflected in how selective they were when it came to having people join the band. If all they cared about was the party side of rock music and riding off the coattails of other bands, the Rolling Stones would have had no problem letting anybody join, but they had to ensure they were working with the highest quality musicians.
Before Charlie Watts formally joined the band, they had Tony Chapman help them out. During the band’s first year making music, Chapman helped out on percussion, but it wasn’t a relationship built to last. There are a lot of ways to say why Chapman didn’t end up making a name for himself in the band, but if you were to ask Keith Richards, it comes down to one major factor: He wasn’t good enough.
“One day we picked up a drummer called Tony Chapman who was our first regular drummer,” recalled Richards, discussing asking Chapman to leave the band, “Terrible. One of the worst… would start a number and end up either four times as fast as he started it or three times as slow. But never stay the same.”
