The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has acknowledged that life in a successful rock and roll band is “obviously not normal”, and admitted that “psychologically your actual state of mind is permanently damaged”.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Jagger suggests that the adulation that comes with being part of a superstar band can alter one personality.
“Obviously, it’s not normal,” he says. “It is not like most people’s lives. It does affect you. You can become disassociated. From other people. A lot of people in show business only hang around with people in show business, because they’ve got something in common, they can relate to each other, and you get disassociated from what people might call ‘real life’.”
When asked how he fights against this, the 82-year-old rock legend replies, “It’s quite easy, really. You go out and walk on the street on your own and do normal things, go and buy The New York Times.
“But, nevertheless, that’s only temporary because psychologically your actual state of mind is permanently damaged,” he adds. “Your late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business because it’s a big ego trip, and you have to have a huge ego to do this. People that do this that don’t have huge egos have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different [personality]. I have a friend whose standing joke is that I behave at a dinner party like I behave onstage.
“Of course I’m not really like my stage persona… it’s such an exaggerated version of me. This overbearing, shouting, ego-tripping person — you’re not really like that. But when you’re in your late 20s and early 30s, you can be like that all the time. And there are people in show business that never switch off.
“You’ve heard all these stories about method actors,” he continues. “They take it to the absolute extreme, so they’re like the character all the time, and then after the movie’s over, they’re still in character. It takes a long time to slough off the character. So which character do you go back to? Is he always going to carry some of that character in his “true” character, whatever that is? This is the show business dichotomy and it’s something you learn to live with, and you always hope that you’re a so-called normal person underneath.”
The Rolling Stones released their latest album, Foreign Tongues, last week, on July 10.
