Mick Jagger Recalls ‘Idiotic’ 1960’s Press

Mick Jagger exerted some definite control over director Brett Morgen's new Rolling Stones documentary, Crossfire Hurricane. Despite that, he couldn't erase some of the more embarrassing moments from his past as evidenced in some of the band's earliest interviews. Jagger was asked by Uncut whether he had a favorite "Mick" while watching the film. Jagger said, "There are some funny Micks in there. The very young one is so odd. One minute, he's completely there, the next he says something so stupid. . . It's easy to laugh now and say, 'What did I say that for?' But people used to ask the stupidest things then, compared to now. It was idiotic."

He touched upon how differently the press dealt with musicians at the dawn of the British Invasion as opposed to now: "It's very naive, the press people trying to be clever, but they're pretty idiotic, and we respond in quite idiotic ways, and rise to the bait and come off with a few good replies. It's mostly quite combative. It makes you remember how antagonistic some people were."