Charlie Watts , the Rolling Stones for 58 years, was always more reserved and discreet than his bandmates. With the sad news of the musician's death last Tuesday, the 24th , at the age of 80, fans recalled the day he lost his temper with Mick Jagger and donned his best suit to punch the vocalist.
At the time, the band had gone through some internal tensions: Jagger had secretly signed a contract for solo albums, while Watts was dealing with personal problems, such as marital problems and addiction to alcohol and drugs.
In a meeting about the band's future, Jagger made an unpleasant comment to Watts. "None of this should matter to you, you're just my drummer," the singer said, according to Keith Richards in his autobiography Life (Globo Livros, 2010).
The first time, the offensive comment went unnoticed, but the same didn't happen when Jagger insisted on the joke. According to the biography Mick Jagger (Companhia das Letras, 2012), by author Philip Norman , the episode occurred at the end of 1984 during a band meeting in the Netherlands. All the band members were in the same hotel room, but Charlie Watts hadn't shown up.
READ ALSO: Charlie Watts: Musicians mourn the death of the Rolling Stones drummer
Faced with the delay, Mick decided to call his colleague's room. "You'd better not call him at this hour," Richards tried to warn, but was ignored. When Charlie's room phone was answered, the singer repeated the joke. "Where's my drummer?" he said.
It took about 20 minutes for Charlie to show up. He was perfectly dressed, in a tie and suit, with a freshly shaved face and a strong smell of cologne. As soon as he reached where Mick was sitting, he grabbed him by the jacket and started hitting the singer. "Never call me 'your' drummer again, you're my fucking vocalist," Watts warned.
The punches were so strong that Jagger almost fell out of the window, heading straight for the Amsterdam canal outside, but was saved by Keith Richards because he was wearing the guitarist's wedding jacket. "It takes a lot of provocation to get Charlie into that state," he observed in Life .
READ ALSO: The day Rudolf Schenker wore a wig to get rid of mosquitoes in Manaus
