In 1989, Jefferson Airplane returned to the music scene after a 15-year hiatus, releasing a new album and embarking on a tour. But, shortly after, the band’s keyboardist, Grace Slick, chose to retire from the industry fully.
Following this, a controversy arose among fans because, explaining the reason behind her retirement in a 1998 Behind The Music documentary on Jefferson Airplane, Slick told VH1:
“All rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire.”
The keyboardist later detailed her explanations by saying rock and roll was for younger audiences that old rockers couldn’t relate to. Because of these words, she received backlash from the public and was accused of being ageist.
But her former bandmate, Paul Kantner, agreed with Slick’s viewpoint in a different interview with Mick Skidmore. While explaining whether he would want to be a rock star all his life, the guitarist said:
“It’s quite an interesting process in the beginning and enjoyable, and you do graduate. Grace’s point of not playing rock and roll at 60 or whatever. I saw the Rolling Stones on TV, or part of it is quite well taken from that point of view. It just looks so out of place. For Mick to be dancing around like he was when he was 20, and it’s like watching your father trying to f**k a young girl or something. It’s embarrassing. You know how old people want to f**k young girls all the time.”
Touching on a different point of view, he added:
“But there is the other side of the coin also that I like about what we have fallen into and being musicians rather than rock stars. I am sort of working on being a journeyman musician still in the shadow of people like Jack [Casady] and Jorma [Kaukonen], who, for instance, you are consummate musicians. I’m still learning. We never really did prance around on stage, but I can’t see doing what we did at 60 what we were doing at 20. It certainly pays Mick Jagger well, so who’s to quibble?”
Paul Kantner kept making music with the Jefferson Airplane follow-up Jefferson Starship until his death in 2016. The guitarist passed away due to multiple organ failure and septic shock following a heart attack at the age of 74.
