Sir Paul McCartney: The Rolling Stones are a blues cover band

Sir Paul McCartney has called The Rolling Stones a “blues cover band”.

The Beatles legend has made no secret of the fact he believes the ‘Let it Be’ hitmakers were better than the ‘Honky Tonk Women’ group, and he’s now insisted they had more range than the blues-orientated band.

In an interview with The New Yorker, he said: “I’m not sure I should say it, but they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are.

“I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”

Macca, 79, previously insisted that while he’s a big fan of the ‘Paint it Black’ rockers, he still thinks his own group was better.

He said: “The Stones are a fantastic group, I go and see them every time they come out because they’re a great band and Mick can really do it, the singing and the moves and everything, Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie, they’re great, I love them. Their stuff is rooted in the blues, when they’re writing stuff it’s to do with the blues, whereas we had a little more influences. Keith once said, ‘You’re lucky man you have four singers in your band, we’ve got one’. I love the Stones but I’m with you, the Beatles were better.”

And Stones frontman Sir Mick Jagger, 78, later responded to his peer’s comments and pointed out that his band is still “lucky” enough to be performing stadium shows – unlike The Beatles, who disbanded in 1970.

Jagger said: “There’s obviously no competition. He [Paul] is a sweetheart. I’m a politician. The big difference, though, is that The Rolling Stones is a big concert band in other decades and other areas when The Beatles never even did an arena tour. They broke up before the touring business started for real. The Beatles did that [Shea] stadium gig in 1965.

“But the Stones went on. We started stadium gigs in the 1970s and are still doing them now. That’s the real big difference between these two bands. One band is unbelievably luckily still playing in stadiums and then the other band doesn’t exist.”