Owen Wilson has opened up about the time he made friends with The Rolling Stones, being gifted an all-access backstage pass that would remain valid indefinitely – only to have it taken off him after one show.
READ MORE: Why The Beatles and The Rolling Stones should’ve let history be
Wilson is a lifelong fan of the rock’n’roll greats, who performed the first-ever concert he attended in 1980. So in a new interview with James Corden and Jeff Goldblum on The Late Late Show, the Loki star explained that he was rather chuffed to be honoured with their attention.
“I went to see the Rolling Stones in Argentina,” he said (via Consequence), “and I was kinda friendly with some of the band, and my friend was really good friends with Mick Jagger. And we got these special laminates, kind of all-access, that were good for the rest of your life…”
After being gifted with the passes, Wilson recalled being eager to test just how “all-access” they truly were, thinking to himself, “I’m gonna walk over here and see if anybody stops me.” He noted that “no one would stop [him in] any place” he ventured off to, and eventually he “ended up right at this place where [he] could look over and see Mick Jagger on the stage, right there”.
Wilson continued: “Then all of a sudden, he bolts, during ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’, and comes running down, and it turns out where I was was part of the stage a little bit, so I just sort of froze and tried to be inconspicuous… And then someone came running over, [screaming], ‘Get out of here! Move! You’re not supposed to be here!’
“I go to bed that night still thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, that was kind of a gnarly experience.’ And then I get a call the next morning from Mick’s security team: ‘Do you have that laminate?’ ‘Yes, I still have it.’ ‘Okay, we’re gonna come over and pick it up…’ I get it – he has a show to do, he doesn’t need some bozo just cruising around, distracting him.”
The Rolling Stones are currently hard at work on their 24th studio album; last month, it was reported the band had recruited Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to perform on it, with Andrew Watt producing.
In 2020, Jagger said the Stones had recorded “a bunch of tracks”, with the band in the process of “finishing off the vocals and some other instruments on them”. Then, last March, Keith Richards said he and Jagger had recorded “more [tracks] than [he] can count” during a week-long recording session in Jamaica. And in January of this year, Richards said in an Instagram post that the Stones finally have “some new music on its way”.
Meanwhile, Wilson’s next film role will be in the Bob Ross biopic Paint – set to hit cinemas on April 7 – in which he stars as the legendary artist. Later in the year, he’ll star as a priest named Kent in a new reboot of Disney’s Haunted Mansion franchise.
The post Owen Wilson was gifted an AAA tour pass by The Rolling Stones, but had it revoked after one show appeared first on NME.