"China" - |
Ronnola
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http://www.ink19.com/issues/december2000/inkSpots/ianHunter.html
He never liked it. The thing with Mick is, everybody used to say, "Why doesn't he sing more?" You couldn't get him to do it. When he did that, "China," Mick Jones said to me, "Well, we're one song short, how about using that song?" It just developed right there and then. Then Mick Jones says, "You're singing the rest of the album, let Mick sing this." I thought he sung it beautifully, because it's like a sea chantey sort of thing, and he sung it plaintive. But Mick hated it, absolutely hated it. He hated his own voice, for some reason.
Do you want to hear a story about that? I was outside talking to Springsteen, outside of the Power Station. I was talking to Bruce (laughs) and [Mick] came out and he goes, "You gotta do this vocal!" And I said [sternly] "Not now." (laughs) "You do it." So he did, and that's how that came about. I was right in the middle of a conversation I didn't want to end, so I said, "You go and do it," so he did. I came back in and I thought, "Oh, that sounds really good." It sounded a bit like me, so I took over the third verse, right from when I went back in.
Trying to get him to [sing] was a nightmare, especially live. He wouldn't listen to himself in monitors, he's gotta listen to the amp. That was his problem with his solo career, because he had to leave the amp to sing. He'd just get totally perplexed by the whole thing, you know.
No, it was purely technical. He always had to hang where it sounded right to him, and that's a whole other problem if you've got a mic to get to. I mean, he was supposed to do harmonies, and it was 50/50 if he was going to make it or not (laughs). If he happened to be in the area and everything was all right, yeah.
Well, I think where he belonged, but he just never got the shot, was [writing music for] movies. If he'd have gotten the shot Michael Kamen got, he'd have been off and running.
Well, he writes a lot of these big scenic film jobs. Kamen was around at the time, he was one of the kids hustling around. But he got huge and famous. That's where Mick belonged, but Mick didn't have the wherewithal to get into that area. Because it's more than just playing, it's how you handle yourself and who you meet and going to meetings, and he couldn't do that. The thing he did with Tina Turner is the most hilarious thing you've ever seen in your life. Mick was a little bit loony, you know, in certain ways (laughs). Daft is not the word -- he was an incredibly funny bloke.
(Long pause) Singing nursery rhymes to the kids at barbecues, stuff like that. I miss him more for that than anything else, because our kids grew up together and the wives grew up together, everybody grew up together. Even when we weren't working together, we would be hanging out. There's nothing you can say about that except there's my life before him dying and my life after. It's as simple as that: two different lives.
Yeah, I know, times goes quickly. But cancer was in his family -- his dad died of it and there was a lot of it in his family. Then he got it, and there we were for two years -- it was a nightmare. He did great, I mean, he was still up and about right up until about two days before it actually happened. He was on morphine and he was fine, he didn't hurt or anything.
Bowie retired and Mick sat home. I was looking for a guitar player, and a couple of people -- Mick Rock was one of them -- said "Why don't you go see Mick, he's sitting around not doing anything." That was how the whole thing started with Mott. Bowie did ring him up in the '80s and wanted to go out and do -- he must have been hard up -- he wanted to do Spiders again, but Mick wouldn't do it. "Why won't you do it?" "We already did it."
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