Skip to main content

Rolling Stones: Paint it Mac

Mick Jagger may push his music through any digital music system going, but he’s an iPod user when it comes down to personal choice. And the Rolling Stones used Macs and GarageBand to help create their most recent album.

Variety has an interview with the band’s tech guru, Richard Kerris – yes, that Richard Kerris, the man who bought Maya to Macs, who led Apple’s video application teams and now works at Lucasarts. Kerris spills the beans on the Rolling Stones’ Mac and iPod usage. Each live performance during the band’s 40 Licks tour was filmed and pumped into a Mac, with stage crew then transferring the footage to the band’s personal iPods. When the band left the stage, the iPods containing their performance were popped into their pockets as they walked to their cars, and the band would then watch the footage back at their hotel. Soon after the iPod came out, "Mick was right on it. He was like, ‘I want to get every night’s show so I can listen to it that night and know what was good and what didn’t work, etc.’ So they established this whole thing working with the background crew, I showed them where you could daisy-chain the iPods and synchronize them at once. So it was really fun," Kerris explains. Kerris also reveals the ‘Stones used GarageBand for their last album as they did all their demos.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel