Have you ever fought or quarreled with one of your friends? if you have then the possibility is your relationship with him/her grew stronger or you don’t talk to each other anymore. So why am I writing about a fight? well, it is simply because we have seen several bands feud. For example, we can take Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters, Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose, and Slash.
There are many other examples and as mentioned some of them got back together and some of them are still not on good terms. Even one of the biggest bands ever The Rolling Stones members had something that Keith Richards revealed in his autobiography, Life.
Keith revealed that once the frontman of their band Mick Jagger got punched in his face by the legendary drummer Charlie Watts. So why did Charlie punch him? find out more below.
The reason why Charlie Watts punched Mick Jagger
According to Keith’s autobiography, there was something going on between him and Mick because of Jagger’s ego so their long-term friendship started becoming complicated, however, Jagger’s ego not only affected his relationship with Keith but also made Charlie furious.
Back in 1984 when they were on a tour in Amsterdam Charlie punched Mick really hard that he fell down. So what did Mick do that provoked Charlie to punch him? in his bio Keith said that he and Mick went out to Amsterdam and after returning to their hotel at five in the morning and Mick started calling Charlie. Although Keith was against the idea because he did not want to disturb him but Mick was determined. He called and asked, “where’s my drummer?” and after around twenty minutes Charlie came knocking in their room.
Keith wrote, “There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed, tie, shaved, the whole f***ing bit. I opened the door, and he didn’t even look at me. He walked straight past me, got hold of Mick, and said, ‘Never call me your drummer again.’ Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a right hook.”
However, in Bill German’s [Rolling Stones fanzine editor] book Under Their Thumb, he wrote that Charlie punched Mick after he said, “None of this should matter to you because you’re only my drummer.” Well, even though their story differs a bit, it ends up with Mick getting punched by Charlie.
Furthermore, Keith added, “Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below…It takes a lot to wind that man up.” It was not a good idea to anger Charlie and Mick learned it the hard way.
Keith then tried to talk Charlie down but it took him 24 hours to do so. He said that he thought that he cooled down Charlie but after 12 hours Watts was like, “F*ck it, I’m gonna go down and do it again.”
Well, one thing is certain Charlie was not going to just sit and let Jagger do or say whatever he wanted. Maybe, after this lesson, Jagger humbled down a bit. However, even though Mick got punched, it did not end their relationship but it might have made their relationship stronger and closer because they were performing together until Charlie’s death in 2021.
Even after Charlie’s death Mick paid tribute to his late friend and said that he really misses him. Furthermore, he even told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview that Charlie “held the band together for so long, musically, because he was the rock the rest of it was built around.” Furthermore, he said that it was a huge loss and really hard.
