Washington DC [US], July 15: Sir Mick Jagger regrets taking John Lennon's advice not to meet Elvis Presley.
The Rolling Stones frontman was put off meeting his idol after the Beatles legend was left disappointed by his own interaction with The King, but decades after the deaths of both Elvis and John - who passed away in 1977 and 1980 respectively - Jagger admitted he wishes he'd grasped the opportunity when he could.
Speaking on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Jagger said: "I remember John telling me, 'You should never meet your heroes. I would never meet Elvis, Mick, if I were you."
"And so, I didn't. I took John's advice. It was really stupid of me, really. I'd love to have met Elvis
"I wanted to keep my Elvis to myself, my version of Elvis."
"And so, I didn't want my version of Elvis shattered like John's was, but maybe my Elvis version would have been different."
Elsewhere during the interview, the 82-year-old rocker recalled how the Rolling Stones were initially viewed as "bad", "dirty", and "scary" and vilified by the media when they were first starting out.
He said: "People were really welcoming in most places. But there was a group that were really not welcoming. But maybe they didn't know who you were, but they would just shout names at you.
"So it was very polarised in a kind of modern way."
Jagger insisted their look was "very tame" by modern standards, but "in those days it wasn't".
He added: "Especially in the US, when we first went there, I'd say 64, outside of New York and LA, we were like freaks for them.
"It was a hostile environment, particularly in America, but not only in America. I'm not blaming America for being the only (hostile place), they were hostile in England, there was a lot of hostility, but America was not ready for this stuff. Really, they weren't."
But the Start Me Up hitmaker praised the likes of Ed Sullivan and Mike Wallace for being "willing to have serious conversations with you."
He added: "They respected you a bit more. There were others that did not, and you didn't do their shows."
Jagger also reflected on his "competitive" friendship with the late David Bowie, who he teamed up with on 1985 single Dancing in the Street.
He said: "Yeah, we were competitive. David was so competitive, much more competitive (than me). I was made competitive by David. He was so competitive that I had to be competitive back.
"David went through all these different iterations. There isn't one David Bowie. There's kind of like a slowly evolving David Bowie. There's jump cuts of, you know, to another David Bowie, another style. When he was doing like Jean Genie, he was very Stonesy. That was a very Stonesy period."
The Sympathy for the Devil singer admitted he called Bowie out for copying him during his Jean Genie period.
He told his pal: "God, you nicked all my things."
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
