Former SIU Student Darryl Jones
Playing Bass for the Rolling Stones
interview by Chris Wissmann
from Nightlife, 08/23/96

Darryl Jones’ resumé reads like a litany of the greatest or most popular musicians in the world. It started with a stroke of luck, albeit one deserved after years of devoted practice on his instrument, the bass– Jones met and befriended Vincent, the nephew of one Miles Davis. At the time, Davis, the progenitor of nearly every jazz musician of the late 20th century who mattered, needed a bass player. Vincent mentioned Darryl to him. In his autobiography, Davis wrote that he asked Jones to play a few pieces for him, and walked out of the room exclaiming, "that motherfucker can play!"

The next two years of Jones’ life were spent on the road and in the studio with Davis. There was a little time in there to work with Sting– Jones spent a few months on the Dream of the Blue Turtles tour, which was documented on the feature film, Bring on the Night. To simplify the story a bit, Davis replaced Jones when scheduling conflicts arose between himself and the better-paying Sting. Jones rejoined Davis after the Sting tour, but Davis fired him two years later, writing that Jones had become too much of a show-off. It was, he wrote warmly, a hard decision with no hard feelings, for Jones had became "like a son to me."

After parting with Miles, Jones went on the road with Peter Gabriel’s Amnesty International Tour, where he backed dozens of greats, including Bruce Springsteen. Then it was off for a tour with Herbie Hancock, followed by Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour.

Jones tried to settle down in his hometown of Chicago and develop a solo career, became interested in film, and moved to the West Coast. Then bassist Bill Wyman decided he didn’t want anything to do with the Rolling Stones’ Voodoo Lounge album and tour.

Undeterred by music biz rumors of the Stones filling the spot with the Who’s John Entwistle, or bringing back Mick Taylor and relegating Ron Wood to bass, Jones placed a phone call to Keith Richards, a casual acquaintance he’d run across several times on the road. As it turned out, the position was not filled. Jones passed the audition, then played on two Stones albums, Voodoo Lounge and Stripped, and their respective tours.

While Jones is not an official member, Keith Richards, when asked about the status of the bassist, has said bluntly, "Whoever plays Rolling Stones songs on stage with me is a Rolling Stone."

Pretty darn good for an SIU education, ay? Jones was a music business student here in 1980 before deciding to try music full time. Following are his ruminations on playing in the Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World, his education under Miles Davis, and the time he spent in Carbondale as an SIU student.

First, a quick note to Caren Bell, one of the Stones’ publicists, for setting up this interview after putting up with a full year of my nagging. Since Darryl isn’t an official Stone, Caren went far out of her way to make this interview happen. Thanks!

Though they obviously had a falling-out, the Stones had to have had a sense of comradery and musical empathy with Bill Wyman; they knew what he was going to play before he played it, and he fit in quite naturally with them. When the Stones brought you aboard for Voodoo Lounge, were you expected to be yourself, musically, or did they pretty much have parts written for you [in Bill Wyman’s style]?

There were no parts "written," believe me. It’s not that kind of gig.

Basically, I don’t know there was so much a falling out; I think Bill just decided he wasn’t interested in touring. I’ve heard that he’s working on a record, he’s still involved in some of [the Stones’ business activities], he’s got a brand-new baby and another one on the way.

But to get to what I think the Stones were looking for, I think that when they auditioned guys, they were really... I don’t think they were looking for another Bill Wyman. I think they were just looking for somebody who could come in and play solid and not, you know, change the style of what they’ve been doing. And I guess my whole reason for going after the gig was because I thought that the way I play could work for them. And so I just went in and kind of played the way I play. They didn’t ask me to play the bass line exactly as Bill played it, [they] just said, "Well, we’re gonna run through these tunes, and if you don’t know them, we’ll teach them to you." I think it was a very informal kind of meeting. I just went in and played what I thought would work for the tunes, and they seemed to work.

It must have been pretty easy after some of the more challenging stuff you’ve done in the past, such as with Miles Davis.

Well, I mean, you know, I’m not negotiating altered chord changes, but... I think that the thing that’s kept me, you know, as busy as I’ve been in this business is that I don’t look at one kind of music [as] being easier than the other. I think that my job is to find whatever the essence of, you know, what needs to be played is, and I think that if you can do that, if you can just find out... whatever kind of music you play, if you can just kind of go to the center of it, and make... good decisions about what will work, and what will make everybody feel comfortable and will make the music swing, I think once you make those kinds of decisions... so long as you have some experience playing a few different styles, it doesn’t matter so much.

As a classically-trained musician, did you ever find the Stones’ music– Keith Richards once described it as "five strings, three notes, and two chords"– did you ever feel you needed to do something a little more technically skilled?

Well, first of all, I’m not really classically trained. I mean, I did play an acoustic bass, and I played with an orchestra in high school, and very little there in Carbondale.

But again... you know, when I was growing up in the house that I lived [in], my father was playing, you know, a lot of jazz music, and my mom was playing a lot of kind of soul music, blues stuff, and so I don’t really have this idea... that one particular kind of music can be boring. Because if you’re... really paying attention and that if you try to find what works for any kind of music, there’s no time to get bored.

I think that the moment that I pick up a bass guitar, I don’t care what kind of music I play, and I feel like I’m bored, then it’s time for me to take up painting.

A lot of people ask me that question, and will I admit it’s a little bit unnerving for me, because I don’t think about music like that. I don’t think to myself, well, it’s harder to play, you know, over changes, or it’s easy to play over a Rolling Stones tune because there’s not that many changes. I just, you know, love music, and I try to bring whatever needs to be brought to whatever kind of music I play.... Obviously, when I’m playing with the Stones, I don’t need to particularly know what a raised ninth chord is. Luckily, I have played some music where I do know what that means and I do know when to use that stuff, but the thing for me with the Stones, man, is just making sure that everything grooves and it swings, and that we’re having fun. That seems to be their thing– "Let’s go out here and play this music the best we can play it, and have some fun."

And probably has been a complete blast.

It’s been as much fun as someone could imagine playing with the Rolling Stones [would be].

Especially the Soldier Field gigs. I went up to see one of those shows and it was really neat when they announced you as the hometown boy. You got a hell of a lot of applause.

Yeah, that was very nice. I really enjoyed playing in Chicago.

And that’s funny, because I always played with bands who played outside of Chicago, or in Wisconsin, or you know. But to play actually Soldier Field, where I actually went, where my mom took me to see James Brown perform, really, that was the big thing for me that night. That I was playing where twenty-five years earlier, I saw James Brown play. And to be playing at home, like near home, was really great for me. I really enjoyed it.

I never got to see the MTV special for Stripped, but I always wondered if you played an acoustic bass or a stand-up.

I did play Ronnie [Wood]’s... bass, it’s like an acoustic bass guitar. I played that on a few tunes, and some of the recordings– whenever I played on acoustic bass, it ended up not being used, or we just ended up going with a different take.

Since it was basically the Stones "unplugged," I always wondered if they ended up going all the way with the concept.

You know, it’s interesting, because the concept was sort of like Unplugged, but at the same time, there’s electronic music on all of that music. I think that basically they were just trying to come away from the arena sound to a more kind of personalized club sound, and that was really the concept, I think, even more than trying to be totally acoustic, because I play electric bass on all that stuff.

It seems like every one of today’s major jazz stars, and many of the minor ones, won their spurs playing with Miles Davis. The gig with him must have really validated your status as a professional musician, as if you really arrived when you joined his band.

Yeah, I will say that playing with Miles, at the time that it happened, I was 21 years old... with the kind of musical background that I had, like I said, listening to jazz music and funky music, you know, Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown, that kind of stuff, playing with Miles absolutely had to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I still believe that today, because it has facilited, just like you say, the kind of respect in the music business that I just couldn’t have gotten any other way. And to go on further and say that I learned more about music and listening and being present in the moment... and just... it was also incredible to witness Miles’ love of music, you know, those are the things I came away from playing with Miles with.

A lot of people constantly talk about, "Miles was a genius." Well, I agree with that, but it didn’t just come because he was an unusually gifted person. He also was a very, very hard worker. I mean, we would finish a two-hour, forty-five-minute gig, and Miles, during the preceding [sic] hours, would listen to that tape [of the performance] four or five times before he went to bed. And you would get calls at 4:30 in the morning, 6 o’clock in the morning, with Miles talking to you about, "OK, what you played here, if you don’t play that tomorrow night, it’s curtains for your ass." Or, "Don’t play what you played. You played too much there."

I mean, he was really listening, and always challenging me to really be listening, and to really be present, and just to leave space. You don’t have to be playing all the time for everything to work.

Were you around when he was working on Doo Bop, his last album?

No, I played with Miles from June of 1983 until August of 1985, and then again from October of 1986 to February of 1988. So it was close to four years over a five-year period.

So that was more when he was still getting his chops back.

Miles was actually playing pretty good when I joined the band in ‘83. I think that, even more than his playing, his health... got stronger.

Well, he kicked heroin...

Well, yeah... When I joined Miles, it was like, about, six or eight months after he stopped doing anything. Or maybe longer than that; I don’t know exactly...

I will admit, he was kind of on a comeback, but he just got stronger and stronger, he was looking better and better every time I saw him, and so, as a result of that, his playing just got stronger and stronger.

Miles was experimenting till the end, working with Prince and using scratches and hip-hop tracks. I thought it was just amazing that someone of his age was able to grasp young music like that and turn it into something new.

Miles always had his ears open, and that’s what Miles had been doing all those previous years. He was always really experimenting with the forms of music. Early on he was re-doing be-bop tunes, or re-doing swing tunes as be-bop. A little bit later on it was the cool sound, Kind of Blue, then later on it was something else, it was Bitches’ Brew. I think that he was always, it’s part of what he was well-known for, is that he was always searching, always pushing the limit of music, trying different things.

I’d like to ask you about Carbondale a little, because you were here for quite awhile and were a student at SIU.

I went to SIU, but I wasn’t... I was there for a year.

That was it?

That was it, yeah.

Basically, I think, and perhaps some of my instructors will read this.... Well, the thing that I will say about Carbondale is that I think when most kids were thinking, "Yeah, I’ll go and get my books together, and it will give me a chance to be away from my parents for four years," I was really not thinking like that. I remember when my parents drove away, the big thing that was in my mind was, "I wonder if I can support myself as a musician? Well, I got my dorm paid. But I wonder if I could literally make enough money to live, playing the bass?"

And I guess I came pretty close to that when I was down there. Of course, I got some assistance from my folks, but basically, what happened was, it gave me a lot of confidence. It gave me the confidence to decide, "Well, I won’t go back to Carbondale for another year, I’ll stay here in Chicago and try and work on the music scene." And that is what led to the rest of the stuff that happened.

So it really functioned for me as a kind of apprenticeship as a professional musician. So it served me, though, albeit, not in the way that... I think back now and wish that I had studied more, but it seems to have worked out okay.

You were in the music school, then?

Yeah, I was a music business major.

Oh, wow. That was my minor.

I just, I never got to any of the business classes. I really enjoyed being down there. I learned a lot, I played an awful lot. I think that, by nightfall, I was in one band, that first night I was there.

I know a lot of people still remember you from then, like Robbie Stokes and Richard Simpson.

Oh, yeah, are they still there?

Oh, yeah, Richard co-owns a nightclub called the Hangar 9, which I think was here where you were down here–

Yeah, right...

–and Robbie still owns a sound company, and Mercy still plays every Sunday at Pinch Penny.

Pinch Penny Pub! Yeah, that’s the first place I think I jammed at when I got to town, with a band that later became Contraband, with Joe Liberto...

He’s still here, too.

Is he still there? Man, he was a great musician. You’ll have to tell him I said "hi."

Oh, yeah, I sure will...

... I still think about that place, I still kind of miss it.

Well, there’s a magnet to this town, like, no matter what happened to you here, you could have gotten arrested a million times, there’s something that just pulls people back.

Yeah, I mean, I like watching the news. You know, I was aware of the problems they were having at Halloween and stuff like that.

No, man, in fact, when Caren [Bell] mentioned where this thing was situated at, I said, "Well, of course I’ll do that; it’s practically hometown."

Well, thanks, really.

So what’s next for you? Have the Stones’ told you if you’ll be on their next album , or if there is a next one, or have you been doing session work?

Actually, I haven’t been doing a whole lot of music work; just a little bit here and there.

You’ve probably gotten your fill by now.

Yeah. Basically, what I’m doing now is trying to move into a few other areas. I have been studying acting in Los Angeles. I started studying acting in 1987 when I was living in New York [at] the Actor’s Studio... and when I moved out here a couple of years ago, I decided that, well, since I’m in Los Angeles, I might as well try... pursuing acting. So I have been going to auditions. I was in Chicago a week ago; I did just this little bit-part in a film that I’m going to score, so that’s another thing I’m trying to move into a bit. And I’m filming, actually, my first acting job where I have just a couple of lines on a film here in Los Angeles. You know, small things are starting to happen in this field, and I’m excited about that.

I just love the movies, I love the music for movies, I love to see great acting, and I’ve really had a preoccupation with directors. I always looked at the way Miles led the band, and it was much more like he was a director, like he was able to bring things out of musicians that... maybe they didn’t realize they had. That really got me started reading books by directors and just hanging out with directors.

I’ve kind of got a friendship started with John Carpenter, and so I talk to him while he’s shooting. I’ve just done little glorified extra parts. In the film Village of the Damned, I’m a cop, I shoot somebody and then I get shot. And in this last film that he’s just completed, I play the leader of a gang where, you know, chaos reigns in Los Angeles and I’m the leader of a gang that takes over [some] turf, so I’m just yelling really loud and firing a 12-gauge shotgun.

What’s the name of that movie?

The name of that movie is Escape from LA. It’s a sequel to the film he made with Kurt Russell [Escape from New York]. So, you know, things have been happening in that respect. I’m very excited about that and, you know, I’m hanging out with orchestrators and people who are involved with doing music for films, because I’m trying to learn more about how to do that. The score that I’ll do for the film I worked on in Chicago will be acoustic jazz, a small ensemble. I look forward to that as well. I’ll be playing acoustic bass, working basically in the jazz idiom.

Sounds like you’re getting a lot of diversity, then.

Yeah, you know, when I really think about when I was a kid, I never really wanted to be Michael Jackson, I wanted to play for Michael Jackson, and I guess, not that the two are anything alike, but when I think about having started with Miles and getting such a great start, and getting up where I have with the Stones, I really feel like those dreams have really realized, so I’m now kind of planting some seeds for some new dreams. I’d really like to work more with film in every respect... I’d like to direct my own music videos; I have some ideas for that, and the other thing I’m constantly involved in is writing music for myself, and I think as soon as I have a slightly more well-defined direction that I’ll record some music by myself and put a record out... I would say that some people say I should have already done it, but the one thing I realize is that the longer I wait, the better it will be. I guess in the next year or 18 months, I’d like to work on a record, but I’m not interested in doing a bass record, I want to do a music record, writing some lyrics [and singing].