S Poddar
Recently, the former bassist for the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman, spoke about his guesting on the band’s newest release, Hackney Diamonds. Though he has spent more than half a century in the Stones, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t actually keen on the cut on which he appeared – a number called “Live by the Sword.” Wyman stated that he was keen on appearing on the cut mainly because of his strong ties with deceased drummer Charlie Watts.
He stated, “We were always close” that he had never gone astray from the good connection with Watts, since the day he left the Rolling Stones in 1993 till the day he passed away. “After I left the band, until he passed away, we saw each other every week,” said Wyman in an interview to Classic Rock. “He would visit my house, and we’d sit down for a cup of tea.”. We’d sit around and talk for hours. But when the Stones asked him to do a special cut for them featuring Watts on drums, it was especially meaningful to this friendship.
The song came from a request from Mick Jagger and producer Andrew Watt. Wyman contributed bass to “Live by the Sword.” Wyman explains: “When they called me, I was glad to do it.”. It felt like an opportunity to play along with Charlie again, and that mattered to me.” On the song itself, though, Wyman was candid. “I wasn’t particularly keen on it. It had too many guitars and seemed over-full. There was not enough room in the music. It could have been much simpler.”. But that’s the way they do it, and I respect that, bless ’em,” he said.
Wyman admitted that playing bass on the track wasn’t an easy task due to the dense arrangement. “There wasn’t much room for my bass,” he explained. The song was so full of guitars, it was hard to find room to fit my part in.” To top it off, the legendary musician Elton John came in to record a piano part. Wyman observed, “Elton and I had a chat, but you hardly hear his piano. There are just a few notes scattered around because the track is so busy.”. Still, it was fun being part of it, especially as Charlie was involved.”
Aside from being featured on “Live by the Sword,” Wyman also laid down a second track during his time in the studio, although it wasn’t included in Hackney Diamonds. “I played bass on another track, but they told me, ‘We’ll save that for the next album.’ So who knows, I might be on the next one too,” he teased.
In the same interview, Wyman also discussed his latest solo project, Drive My Car. Initially, he had a different name in mind for the album: Rough Cut Diamond. “There’s a song on the album that goes, ‘I’m just a rough cut diamond, and everybody says diamonds are a girl’s best friend,’” he explained. However, when Wyman discovered that the Rolling Stones had selected Hackney Diamonds as the title for their own album, he changed the name to avoid duplication. “I thought people might think I was copying them, so I called Mick Jagger to get his take. He just said, ‘You’re on your own with this one, mate,'” Wyman laughed. “In the end, Drive My Car worked out perfectly.”
In many ways, given the long time away that Wyman has been from the rest of the Rolling Stones and their other endeavors, all of which prove how his travels through music remain forever deeply intertwined with the band as a legacy, there still remains this connection to Watts that, one feels, marks a constant in both of his life and work as an individual.
