How Mick Jagger Rebranded the Stones To Stay In Business

Rolling Stones on Johan Cruijff Arena 2017 — Photo by benhoudijk/depositphotos.com

Before Taylor Swift took ownership of her songs, there were many others; and before many others were the Stones.

Mick Jagger studied a bit of economics in college before he decided that venturing into the real world was more his thing. He went on doing music, but after the Stones took off in the 1960s, they felt that they might have gotten ripped off by their own team. 

Back then, they hired a business accountant, Allen Klein, who negotiated a better deal with Decca Record, earning them a million-pound advance for their next album. However, they later discovered that they had signed ownership of their songs to Klein, who started his own company, ABKCO Music & Records.

After Jagger brought on a private banker, he discovered that the Stones owed a large sum of back taxes which resulted in debts. They ended up fighting Klein in court for many years. Even today, the company owns the copyrights of their pre-1971 music.

Jagger never imagined himself being the one to rebuild the band’s brand. However, the task fell onto his shoulder, and he became the man who kept the Stones running.

It was more of a self-preservation. “I don’t actually really like business, you know what I mean?” he told Wall Street Journals in a recent interview. “Some people just love it. I just have to do it because if you don’t do it, you get f—ed.”

“The industry was so nascent, it didn’t have the support and the amount of people that are on tap to be able to advise you as they do now,” Jagger said. “But you know, it still happens. I mean, look what happened to Taylor Swift! I don’t really know the ins and outs of it, but she obviously wasn’t happy.”

To resolve their debts, the Stones piled into merchandise, branding, and sponsorship and took the bullet for it. They pioneered arena and stadium tours, taking control in their own hands.

“We pioneered arena tours, with their own stage, with their own sound and everything, and we also did the same with stadiums,” Jagger said. “I mean, nobody did a tour of stadiums.”