Bill Wyman says the Rolling Stones didn’t have “no damn money” despite their fame

Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has revealed the financial problems he faced during his time in the band.

In an interview with Classic rockWyman pointed out the rock group’s precarious situation in the early 1970s. The Stones had achieved international fame with a series of hugely popular albums – including Beggar’s banquet, Let it bleed And Sticky fingers. Despite the success, they were short of money.

“We didn’t have any fucking money,” the bassist insisted. “[Former Stones manager, Allen] Klein had all the money, and if you wanted something, you begged him to send you some money. You’re in the red with your bank, so instead of partying all the time, you’ve been thinking about how you’re going to pay your bills. It was a nightmare.”

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“And then [Prime Minister Harold] “Wilson comes and raises the tax to 93 percent, that was absurd,” Wyman continued, referring to a time when the Stones left the UK and went into tax exile. “We had to leave because we owed the tax office so much money that with ninety-three percent taxes we could never make enough to pay it back. So we had to leave and then we were accused of being multi-millionaires and we left because we didn’t want to pay our living expenses, but we weren’t.”

Bill Wyman says he should have left the Rolling Stones “much sooner.”

The Rolling Stones’ financial problems were not limited to the 1970s. In a separate part of the interview, Wyman – who left the band in 1993 – admitted that he should have left the group sooner.

“I should have done it much earlier…in the ’80s,” he explained. “I stuck with three tours that ended in 1989 and 1990.” [three legs of the Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle tour]after seven years of nothing, and I ended up with a £200,000 overdraft because we weren’t earning anything.”

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Wyman further noted that some band members were doing much better than others. According to the bassist, the Rolling Stones were divided into haves and have-nots.

“When Brian {Jones]died he was over thirty thousand pounds in debt,” noted Wyman. “When I bought the mansion in Suffolk I had a thousand pounds in the bank and had to take out a mortgage and hope I could continue to make enough money to keep it.”

“Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] “We were super wealthy, so it didn’t bother them,” Wyman continued. “But me, Charlie [Watts] and Ronnie [Wood] scraped by. Ronnie began making art to support his family. Anyway, I only started playing with them again hoping it would only last a few years because I had all these other things I wanted to do.

Wyman was recently published Drive my carhis first new solo album in nine years.