SECRET HISTORIES
Joe Hagan writes revelatory bio of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner
Author Joe Hagan was understandably excited at the prospect of interviewing Paul McCartney when it came to researching his book about the life of Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner.
Not only was he key to Wenner’s biography and the story of Rolling Stone, he was key to any story that dealt with 20th-Century culture.
The investigative journalist was also concerned about the depth of opinions and information he would get from the so-called “nice Beatle” when it came to the topic at hand.
“I went into that interview thinking ‘I’m not going to get much from this guy,’” says Hagan, in an interview for his new book, Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone. “It’s going to be a bunch of boiler plate about how great everything is.”
So Hagan was delighted to discover McCartney actually had “a lot on his mind” when it came to Rolling Stone magazine and its mercurial founder. There was a history there, and it wasn’t always cordial. It was juicy.
“He always thought that Rolling Stone was partisan to John Lennon; that Jann and Yoko Ono had collaborated to downplay his significance in the Beatles’ history,” says Hagan. “He had an axe to grind. I thought ‘This is incredible. I can’t believe I’m even hearing this.’ Of course, I built out chunks of the book with that kind of idea. It made me realize that this is a narrative thread that I have to explore here.”
In the four years Hagan spent working on the 547-page biography, there would be plenty of threads and revelations for the New York journalist to unravel as he sought to chronicle the complicated and often strange story of Wenner, the manically driven rock ’n’ roll kingmaker who founded Rolling Stone in 1967 with borrowed money and turned it into one of the most significant counter-cultural institutions in American history.
Hagan conducted 250 interviews for the book which includes input from Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, David Geffen, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and dozens of other not-as-famous commentators and observers who were all part of the wild ride. It turns out quite a few people had an axe to grind with Wenner. Sticky Fingers covers both the day-to-day details of how he grew his empire and his complex personal life, including the struggles with his sexuality, his lengthy but strained marriage, his insatiable appetite for drugs and the dozens of friendships, vendettas and feuds he burned through over the past 50-plus years.
At the heart of the book is Wenner’s intriguing relationships with those around him and his ability to enlist virtually everyone he came across in his quest to build wealth and influence. “One of the beauties of this book, at least in writing it and putting it together, is all the little secret histories,” Hagan says.
The revelations haven’t stopped, even after the book was put to bed. Hagan, whose investigative work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and New York magazine, actually interned at Rolling Stone. So when he saw Wenner in a coffee shop in his hometown of Tivoli, N.Y., a few years back he recognized the media mogul right away. Hagan introduced himself and Wenner, who had recently moved to the area, invited him and his family to his estate. Wenner eventually asked him to be his biographer.
What followed was four years, off and on, of talks between the two. Wenner had a number of “canned” stories at the ready to illustrate his success and importance, but Hagan wanted to dig much, much deeper. Wenner seemed decidedly less enthusiastic than the author when it came to discussing his sex life, particularly his homosexuality. Hagan insisted on keeping it an unauthorized biography. The 71-year-old publisher co-operated and didn’t read it until it was finished.
Wenner has publicly denounced the book. In an Oct. 18 article in the New York Times, Wenner was quoted as saying “My hope was that this book would provide a record for future generations of that extraordinary time. Instead, he produced something deeply flawed and tawdry, rather than substantial.”
“From the get-go and as I got deeper into the process, I knew there was going to be some friction just because a subject always has a different view of themselves than other people do,” Hagan says. “After I did all this reporting I knew there would be some hot spots for him. I actually tried to warn him in advance about this. I would talk to him and say ‘Listen, you’re not going to like all of it. You should prepare yourself.’ He just decided that he hated it. I don’t know specifically why. He gave his quote to the New York Times, but he hasn’t talked to me about it.”
While Hagan admits he has undergone “anxiety and unhappiness” about Wenner’s response, he also says he is proud of the book and stands by it.
“I remember at one point, at the very beginning of this whole process, Jann said ‘I want to know what it all added up to,’ ” Hagan says.
“He wanted to know what the whole baby-boom journey had added up to. What did he add up to? I knew I had to answer that, to address that in some way. It was painful to come to the conclusions I did. The dream of the ’60s that he had embodied did not pan out. That’s why I say the whole story is ‘John Lennon to Donald Trump.’ You can’t just look at this as some outlier. Donald Trump is not a red herring. He is a culmination of the culture of the last 50 years. That was a huge revelation to me. It’s about celebrity and about fame and a loss of the thread.”