Rolling Stone talks about making a concert film with Martin Scorsese, whether the Hells Angels tried to kill him and how he thinks Atlanta is 'still a nice place.'

Four months shy of his 65th birthday, Mick Jagger is as spry as ever. The proof is in the Rolling Stones and Martin Scorsese's "Shine a Light," the concert documentary opening nationwide Friday.

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As 16 cameras soar around the stage of the intimate Beacon Theatre in New York, Jagger prances, dances and gyrates, contorting his way through a set list that includes "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Satisfaction," "Shattered" and "Some Girls."

Jagger doesn't do many newspaper interviews, but he phoned recently to talk to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Q: Where are you?

A: I'm in the West Indies at the moment. On holiday. It's very nice. And you're in Atlanta?

Q: Yes, sir

A: Very good. I like Atlanta.

Q: I thought you did. You made "Freejack" here in the early '90s.

A: Yeah. My kids were joshing me about that yesterday. Well one was joshing me, and the other one thinks it's fantastic. They just happened to see it. It was on the cable network in England. They'd never heard of it before.

Q: Is that why you named your daughter Georgia?

A: Um. There is a story about that actually (laughing). I seem to remember there was some connection.

Q: You don't want to tell me what it is?

A: I don't really (laughing). It's embarrassing.

Q: But there is a connection?

A: Yeah. There is.

Q: We'll get to the movie in a moment, but tell me first why you like Atlanta so much.

A: I don't really know. We did a show there in the very early days. I think that show was with the Righteous Brothers. Can you believe it? Yeah. So it goes back a very long way when they had their, you know, that big hit, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling." And that was the Atlanta, you know, then it was a very small town and rather compact and different from the sprawling metropolis it is now. I think it's possibly the most changed town I regularly visit.

Q: It's changed a lot since you made "Freejack."

A: Oh god, yes. Hugely. It's still a nice place.

Q: So tell me why is it time for a concert film again?

A: Well, we haven't done a concert on film since the Imax film, which I don't even know how many years ago that is. And the one we did before that was in 1981 with Hal Ashby. So we haven't really made that many. You know, a friend of Martin Scorsese who produces films had done this concert film with Neil Young and he said we should do one like this. ... It's been interesting work, but it's taken up a huge chunk of time to get this right. ... When we decided to work with Martin he didn't want to shoot a big concert, so we had to create something that Martin and us were both happy with.

Q: And what about it made you happy?

A: Well, I mean, I think Martin's a great director, but I wanted to shoot the concert we were doing in Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro because it was very visual with its huge million-plus audience and on this beach and very unusual and all these great looking people and a lot of music around it and musical background and the start of the Carnival season. ... And Martin wanted something smaller, and we didn't have anything smaller on the tour schedule. ... So that made it all bigger and more difficult and a lot more work than, you know, like us playing Atlanta, which was already on the schedule.

Then we wanted to have special guests, and we had to do all that. And then there's the post and all the sound mixing and all the publicity (laughing).

Q: I think seeing it I've never felt closer to you guys.

A: I think that was the intention. And I'm glad that you felt that because that was the idea of it, you know. That was why it worked to take it off the big stage.

Q: I listened to the Stones' press conference from the Berlin Film Festival, and I know that Keith said the cameras didn't bother him. He said he didn't even see them. But I was wondering if it might have been different for you.

A: I find it very hard to believe [he didn't notice them]. The first night there were only cameras there and hardly any audience. All of the front was just cameras on tracks and they are very large, 35 millimeter, old fashioned cameras, you know. Not like DV. Everything was shot on film. I mean there was a couple of DV cameras (for backstage). And they were all tracking or on cranes and used by people who had never worked the show before, so it's always a problem to work with people with cranes when they've not worked the show before because you don't know whether the camera's going to end up in your face or not.

So the first night was very much camera-heavy, and the second night we moved a lot of camera positions because they were so in your face. You were so aware because when you have a camera on a track running by you, you're not playing to the audience, you're playing to the camera. ... So, contrary to Keith, I was, you know, totally aware of the cameras. You're not going to look at them and mug at them all the time, but I don't see how any of the band could not be aware of the cameras because they were right in your face.

Q: Do you think it changed your performance?

A: Oh totally. ... You can't really shoot a documentary film unless the subject doesn't realize he's being filmed. If the cameras are hidden, the person may behave in a way that is more akin to his normal behavior. But as soon as the person knows he's being filmed, he's altering his behavior for the documentary.

Q: Were the hot stage lights in that wall of lights really that hot?

A: No, it wasn't really, (laughing). They were very hot when I walked out from that scene in the back. That was super hot. It was the most (gigantic) wall of lights I've ever seen. It was massive. You really couldn't stand it for very long.

Q: They make some deal out of it in the movie's press notes. Something like they had to be careful because the lights would get so hot you might "light up."

A: Well, it is a film and that is a press note (laughing).

Q: There is one particular song where I thought I was noticing some pretty cool moments between you and Keith. It's been a month since I saw the film, and my guess is it might have been for "All Down the Line." Keith would come forward and seemed to be having some kind of fun or joking with the song and you gave him a really hard look and he backed off. And then later on you very sweetly sort of tugged him back in and had him singing the chorus again with you.

A: That's in ... I think you're referring to "Far Away Eyes."

Q: Yes.

A: I think the thing about this film is that you do see much more of what's happening than on a very large stage and you are much closer to people and can see a lot more interaction. And the thing about this show is that we had to do a few numbers that, to be honest, we didn't know very well. We had to keep our eye on things. You have to have a lot of eye contact with people when you're doing a song where any one of you might screw up so you gotta try and stay together on those songs, especially when you know you're being filmed.

Q: I was reading yesterday a 1972 interview you did where you mentioned that you thought the best songs were the ones you and Keith had written together, and you specifically mentioned "Satisfaction." I was curious because usually when you deal with something for the mainstream audience a lot of people feel like the art gets watered down. But it seems to me you guys set what the mainstream was.

A: Yeah. I think if you're a band that's doing something you really enjoy, you know, you just go out on a road on your own. When you're starting out you don't even know what the mainstream is really and you're not very clear about it. And anyway now, I think most people starting out strike out on their own direction. If you're trying to be a follower I don't think you're gonna get very far.

The thing about the Rolling Stones is that they go out in all kinds of directions really. The Rolling Stones is a really eclectic kind of band. Though we're known for rock and bluesy tunes and things, the Rolling Stones do a lot of other kinds of music.

Q: A lot of the longevity is due to you guys being, you know, rockers, but can you tell me where your work ethic comes from because you're all about performing and giving a good show.

A: I guess it's partly because it's been drummed into you at a young age that you're supposed to work hard. Or at least some people get that. The other thing is that you enjoy what you do so you keep at it. So I think it comes from both things. But I don't feel like I'm working too hard at the moment, sitting here and looking outside my window.

Q: What are you seeing?

A: Palm trees (laughing).

Q: Will you say anything about the BBC report about that possible Hells Angels death plot aimed at you after the Altamont concert?

A: Well, either it is completely untrue, which I suspect, and just a lot of made-up [expletive] or if it [is true] surely the FBI wasn't doing a very good job if they didn't warn you about it at the time. (laughing). Because surely you would have said, "Oh, there was a failed attack. Maybe we should warn him there could be another one."

Since they didn't do that, it makes me think either they weren't doing their job or it's just a load of all bollocks.

Q: So you were never told anything about it before?

A: No. Nothing.

Q: Could you comment a bit about how the Internet affects music?

A: It makes it easier to find every kind of music you want. I mean, you don't have to go to the store. Now it's all easy to find, which makes it a good thing.