(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Mon 22 December 2025 16:45, UK
Given the longevity of The Rolling Stones, it’s easy to forget that there was once a period when they genuinely didn’t think they’d survive. The music was bad, the atmosphere was worse, and the situation was really, really nasty.
There had been plenty of other incredibly rocky moments for the band. As the situation with Brian Jones hit a fever pitch, the future looked troublesome. At points when Keith Richards’ various addictions worsened, it seemed like a struggle too far. But there was no moment as treacherous for the group as the 1980s.
The decade nearly destroyed them. In a classic case of what goes up must come down, their commercial peak in the 1970s crashed into chaos. Keith Richards’ heroin habit was worsening, making him more and more erratic. The mess pushed Mick Jagger further into the idea that maybe he wanted to go solo, taking precious time away from the group to instead make some truly awful records on his own, like 1985’s She’s The Boss.
The combination of those two things led to the biggest blow-up yet between the lifelong friends. Jagger basically declared he didn’t care about the band anymore, signing a solo record deal and looking away. In response, Richards called the group and Jagger a “millstone” around his neck and the pair fell into a back-and-forth spat that encompassed everything from each other’s bad habits to their talents, even to the music they listened to, as Richards once said that “Mick listens to too much bad shit”.
The situation was so bad that even Charlie Watts was crashing out. The band’s resident voice of reason and the member that was typically all calm and fine, keeping the rest of them grounded with his own rejection of fame and a more normal life – if he’s also losing it, that’s when you know things are dire.
But as the band was collapsing more and more into chaos, it all seemed to get on top of Watts. His previously normal alcohol and drug consumption stepped up as Watts said, “I think it was a midlife crisis. All I know is that I became totally another person around 1983 and came out of it about 1986. I nearly lost my wife and everything over my behaviour.”
From every direction, things were ominous, and so in the studio making Dirty Work in those conditions, you can imagine how the atmosphere was, and you can forgive them for making what is arguably their weakest body of work.
With everything threatening to completely come apart, a sensible call was made – there would be no tour. Killing their tradition of touring every album, and basically touring constantly, the decision was made that the band wouldn’t survive it, and that the album doesn’t deserve it.
“Touring Dirty Work would have been a nightmare. It was a terrible period. Everyone was hating each other so much; there were so many disagreements,” Jagger recalled. Unwilling to blame it on his own behaviour, though, he pinned the majority share on Watts, adding, “It was very petty; everyone was so out of their brains, and Charlie was in seriously bad shape.”
He never once regretted the decision. “In retrospect, I was 100% right. It would have been the worst Rolling Stones tour. Probably would have been the end of the band,” he said, truly seeing it as the move that saved them.
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