The Beatles are Liverpool’s favourite sons, all coming from working-class northern backgrounds, singing about the landscape around them and proving that great things can come from humble beginnings. On the flip side, The Stones are southern and, realistically, pretty posh. (Farout)
But to Richards, the line was drawn by only one thing: the music. Even though they were coming up at the same time, he didn’t compare the two groups as he thought that, at their core, they were built of different stuff.
“Everyone in The Beatles could sing,” Richards said to Louder Sound. While it could be argued that Ringo Starr isn’t much of a singer, the fact remains the same. After the split of the band, all four members went solo, taking on the role of the frontman with their own songs and their own artistic identity.
To the Stones guitarist, that’s the major difference between them as, for a lot of their band, that wouldn’t be possible.
“We were more of a music band. We only had one frontman,” Richards claimed. It’s true. The Stones have always been led by Mick Jagger, with the group falling around him like a traditional set-up of guitarists, bass players and drummers who do their job and do their job well.
The development of the band has always hinged on that as they move in a unit. As the style of the songs changed, the musicians morphed and changed with it, all working away in their own instrumental corner but all in service of the song.
It’s saved the band from the arguments that plagued the Beatles over who would sing what, or even who would play what as they weaved between roles depending on who’s song it was.
“I learned a lot about being a frontman,” he said. “I appreciated it a lot more — Mick’s angle on things — onstage especially.” He claimed that his time as a solo artist or as part of X-Pensive Winos made him understand the roles in the band better. “It widened my perspective of what everybody has to do in a band,” he said, “It gave me more respect for the frontman.”
