Keith Richards Interviewed: “We’re born to have fun. If you take it too seriously, you’re f***ed…”

Mixing drinks, cutting tunes, foiling cops, life’s a gas when you’re Keith Richards, the human personification of the rock’n’roll spirit. But what of the shadows – mardy Mick, tragic Brian, dead Bobby and Mac – that loom? In 2015, with a rare solo record in the bag, it was time for MOJO to receive a full philosophical download from The Rolling Stones’ guitar guru. To celebrate Richards’ 80th birthday, we revisit the interview in full…

Portrait: Mark Seliger

It’s an offer few of us would refuse. “Fancy a drink?” asks Keith Richards, a minute or two after the tape has clicked off. With MOJO nodding affirmatively, Richards leads us to the kitchen of his manager’s office high above New York’s Broadway, grabs two paper cups, empties a vodka miniature in each, and pours in a slug of fizzy orange.

Up until now, Richards and his myth – as rock’n’roll’s piratical mischief-maker, arch hedonist and Lord of Misrule – have entwined only abstractly in 90 minutes of roving conversation and salty anecdotes. But now MOJO sees the legend in action. Cigarette clamped in pursed lips, Richards takes a large bag of ice from the fridge, lifts it above his head and, with extraordinary violence, smashes it on the floor, sending dozens of cubes scattering everywhere.

“Hurgh, hurgh, hurgh,” he chuckles throatily, surveying the mess with a playful glint in his dark-brown eyes. He pulls a mock-surprised face. “Oh no, it looks like an Eskimo’s just pissed all over the floor…”

We ‘chink’ paper cups while an assistant is dispatched to corral the floe of errant ice. As the booze in Richards’ infamous ‘Nuclear Waste’ cocktail kicks in, MOJO looks at the giggling guitarist and wonders: what gives a 71-year-old man the licence to prepare a mid-afternoon drink in such a randomly irresponsible fashion?

The answer is self-evident: this man is Keith Richards, and a lifetime spent cavalierly upending social norms – whether turning heroin into a rock’n’roll fashion essential, clubbing a stage-invader with his Telecaster, or snorting his father’s ashes – is a sizeable component of his enduring allure.

Another, of course, is his transformative genius as a songwriter and guitarist, long proven in his 53 years as a Rolling Stone and certified anew by Crosseyed Heart, Richards’ new solo album – only his third. Initiated as far back as 2008 and consciously conceived as a companion-piece to his rambunctious autobiography, Life, its songs are inspired by real events and painted in the panoply of Keef-anointed musical styles – picked acoustic Delta blues (the title track), reggae (a cover of Gregory Isaacs’ Love Is Overdue), Memphis soul (Lover’s Plea) and honking 12-bar boogie (Blues In The Morning). Help from of a cast of fast friends, including drummer-producer Steve Jordan, Norah Jones, Ivan and Aaron Neville, Waddy Wachtel, Bernard Fowler, Blondie Chaplin, and late Stones saxist Bobby Keys, add to the impression of Richards circling his wagon train for a spectacular and poignant final stand. “The idea behind the album was: Getting to know Keith more,” says Jordan. “The more of Keith the better. It’s been about capturing his personality and life on record.”

As MOJO prepares to quiz the Human Riff, we overhear the build-up to his presidential-style arrival through a closed door – “He’s two blocks away”; “No, not to the studio, the office!”; “He’s downstairs now!” The tension becomes unbearable. Then suddenly in walks one of the most famous faces in rock’n’roll, a slight figure dressed in off-duty blue jeans, light cotton shirt and turquoise trainers. His craggy, elfin visage is tanned nut-brown like a country gardener’s, and his distinctive sticky-out ears uphold a grey trilby hat.

“Pleased to meet you,” rasps Richard in his slurred, faux-aristocratic baritone, ever accompanied by an unhurried, roguish chuckle that, one finds, can communicate everything from disbelief to deep joy to regret. “I’ll be with you in five minutes…”

Exactly 29 minutes later, Keith Richards re-enters the room and lights up a Marlboro. “Sorry about that. The Stones are about to go on tour again… Hurgh, hurgh, hurgh. Oh my! Are you ready…?”

Your last solo record, Main Offender, came out 23 years ago. Why make a solo record now – did you want to make a public statement about where you’re at?

No… I realised that it’s been a long time since I’d taken myself outside of the Stones’ shack. It’s funny because there’s one part of you saying, (piratey voice) “You’re being disloyal!” Then you got the other Stones thinking, “You’re crazy, why do you need to go out and do that?” And I didn’t really need to do it, I just enjoyed doing it. It’s an interesting way to work, just me and Steve [Jordan], which makes it fairly cheap. There’s none of the logistics involved in getting a whole band together, and after a while it started to fall into a nice groove. Steve has to take an awful lot of the credit for getting this album together. I almost have to be held at gun-point to do solo stuff – someone has to persuade me very convincingly to do it.

I guess until the mid-1980s there was an unspoken agreement that the Stones wouldn’t make solo records. Is that right?

Yeah, it was unspoken because it was never brought up. Then suddenly Mick brings out She’s The Boss [in 1985]. Oh! In that case, suddenly it was spoken (laughs). Well, we either do the Stones or not. So there was never anything written down. But if you did [record solo], you tried to choose places where it didn’t interfere with what the Stones are doing. With this record, I started it when we were in hibernation, in 2007-8, so there’s been no time pressure. All that’s important is when it comes out, it comes out right. I have a feeling that when Mick found out about it, he said, “Let’s get the Stones working again!”

So do you think Mick disapproves?

Oh I don’t know. I’ll never know the truth – that’s all I know. He doesn’t particularly like to work with me all the time, but he doesn’t want me to work with anyone else, either. He’s a bit jealous in that way.

You seem to be exploring your favourite musical styles on Crosseyed Heart – country blues, Memphis soul, ballads, lovers’ rock. Is that harder to do in the Stones?

From my point of view, any of these songs could just as well have been Stones songs – if [the others] had been around at the time to record them. It’s just what I had available in my locker. There’s a lot of ‘hat’s off’ stuff here – to Robert Johnson, Gregory Isaacs, Otis Redding, Leadbelly, of course. Goodnight Irene is one of those songs that I’ve known forever. I’ve heard really good versions – like Leadbelly’s – and millions of bad ones. So I went back and checked the original lyrics and they were pretty heavy. “I take morphine and die” – suddenly you’re not in The Kingston Trio’s version any more! I tried to get close to the original, lyric-wise, and then 12-string it. I got a lovely little Brazilian mandolin that gave it that hurdy-gurdy sort of touch. It’s a wonderful instrument.

With both Bobby Keys and another auxiliary Stone, Ian McLagan, passing away last December, did you ever think this record might be your…

(Interrupts) Like a last statement? No, I didn’t. (Chuckles) It’s what I do, make records, and I just happened to fall in with Steve and we found an interesting trail to follow. With writing the book, I came out the other end like I’d just lived my whole damned life twice. I wasn’t supposed to make it the first time around! (Laughs uproariously)

At the height of the Stones’ drug madness in the early ’70s, Bobby was your partner in crime. Did you reflect fondly on those times when he died?

When you say “soul brother” – him and me! I’m gonna miss that man. I never know whether to laugh or cry when I think of Bob. I tend to go to the laughing side. That cat had Buddy Holly as a neighbour, he was out on the road playing with Buddy Knox by the time he was 15. He was the repository of rock’n’roll – the stories, the people he played with. I didn’t even find out until a couple of years ago that he’s on Elvis’s Return To Sender (sings sax part). Boots Randolph couldn’t make it, so he recommended Bob.

You two obviously got up to some extra-ordinary mischief together. That whole Cocksucker Blues period…

Yeah, he was a mischievous man… He couldn’t help it! There was an incredible scene in the Customs House in Hawaii coming back from Australia [in February 1973]. Before we left Sydney, we were patting each other down, going, “Are you clean?” Everything must go! “EMG” it’s called. Then we fly out of Australia, land in Hawaii, the first port of entry to America. Bob’s there, this big Texan with his saxophone. “What have you got there?” “A saxophone.” He pulls it out of the case and out flies this hypodermic syringe which sticks in the wooden table top, right in front of the Customs man. (Ironic voice) “Anything to declare, sir?”

I go to catch the plane to ’Frisco and when I get on, Bobby Keys is in front of me. Apparently, Bobby had made quite an impression on the daughter of the governor of Hawaii, Mr Dole, and the minute he got popped at the airport he called her. They ripped up all the paperwork in front of him, and said, “On your way, get out of here!” Talk about one lucky fucker.

Some of the material on Crosseyed Heart is very tender – your duet with Norah Jones on Illusion is lovely. Are you the romantic one in the Stones? You wrote Ruby Tuesday, did the basis of Angie…

Yeah, there are a couple of ballads on here. I suppose you don’t get a lot of chance to explore that area with the Stones. But when we have, we’ve done some great songs – yes, Angie, for one. There’s that streak in me which is always, “I’m very sorry I’ve just pissed off the most beautiful woman in the world.” I’ll get on my knees and beg, y’know, “Come on back!”

But also that kind of writing strikes a chord in other people. That’s probably why I like country music – I like the melancholy, the yearning bit, when they get it right. Like The Everly Brothers – that beautifully crafted broken heart. (Chuckles) That’s what it’s about, that little arrow fired by Cupid.

There’s the famous bootleg recording of you playing at the piano – Somewhere Over The Rainbow, in Toronto in 1977. Some may argue that not enough of that stuff got on record.

It never felt appropriate to do it. Can you imagine if I turned up to a Stones session – “I’m playing piano on this one, and it’s called Somewhere Over The Rainbow!” I can hear the hooting of laughter in the air! But at the same time I love old standards, I love their construction. And I love playing piano, very badly; but the bits I can play, I can play well. Mozart or Elton John, no. There’s something about the piano when you’re a guitar player – maybe it’s just a physical thing, but the piano to me is like, “How simple! It’s all laid out on one strip…” I learned blues piano from [late ‘sixth Stone’] Ian Stewart – for whose band, I stress, I still proudly work.

Keith leans forward and helps himself to another cigarette from the open packet on the table. Without his trademark kohl eye-liner or gypsy-scarf bandana, the man who all but invented the idea of cadaverous rock’n’roll chic, xeroxed multiple times by the likes of Johnny Thunders (RIP), Steven Tyler, Chrissie Hynde, Peter Perrett et al, appears in disarmingly rude health. Richards famously kicked heroin in the years following the 1977 Toronto bust but for the next 30 years pretty much everything else was fair game.

Then, in 2006, the unthinkable happened. After undergoing life-threatening brain surgery in New Zealand after falling from the bough of a tree (“I wasn’t collecting coconuts. I was sitting on a branch about seven feet from the ground and fell off”), Richards was advised by his doctors to knock cocaine on the head for good.

The result has been a many-years class-A-free Keef, which, depending on your point of view, is either a major blow to his once impeccable credentials as “the world’s most elegantly wasted human being”, or, more sensibly, a blessing that will hopefully anneal his good health for years to come. Richards assures me that, during our chat, his paper cup contains orange soda only; nevertheless, his speech is at times markedly slurred and, later, his attempt to enunciate the phrase “physical education instructor” has alarming shades of sloshed thespian.

Which begs the question…

So… do you still drink much alcohol?

I like to keep my hand in! (Uproarious chuckle) Other than that, I’m pretty straight these days…

Is it a different experience making music clean? Is it more, or less, intense?

It’s difficult to say once you’re on it. It’s like all those jazz players who took heroin because they thought they’d be like Charlie Parker. But no! All drugs are different and, yes, I would say I got a whole lot out of cocaine; I got more out of it than it took out of me. It made me concentrate more – I’d stay up four or five days. In that time, other people had changed their clothes, they’d shaved, they’d gone to work and come back. I found it’s something not to recommend – you’re not going to make any better music out of it. But you’re certainly not going to make any worse. Sometimes I’ve chased songs for four or five days until I got it right. And I certainly didn’t do it on organic food!

When you’re not being a Stone or the solo thing, you famously read a lot and…

I still smoke a lot, too, and not just cigarettes (laughs like a drain). One of the most pleasant things to watch is a map of America [showing States where cannabis is legal], where it goes, Green… green… green… Whether it’s a good thing in the long run, I don’t know. When I started to smoke, usually it would be a back- stage thing. Usually black guys from other bands. “We’re doing three shows a day, on the bus all the time, and you guys come out and you’re all together musically and look great…” They’re like 40-odd years old, and we were 20. “How do you guys do this?” It was like, (deep Southern voice) “Well son, smoke one of these… and take one of these…” Drugs I fell into because it was part of the job, part of the milieu, to use the French. All of a sudden we needed help because we were knackered.

So do you relax by reading a book while having a spliff?

Yeah! Sitting in the sun… I smoke regularly, an early morning joint. Strictly Californian.

There’s a song on the album, You Got Nothing On Me, which mentions “the cops”…

(Interrupts) The cops come up quite a bit on this album!

…And they’re trying to get you to “squawk”. Are you still regarded by some as a threat 
to society?

It came from when I was writing the autobiography. I was thinking of my experiences in Chelsea in the ’70s. Anything contemporary, they don’t touch me no more! (Chuckles) I was their Number 1 target at the time – talk about police harassment! I got used to it. When they started to plant stuff on me, it was notorious around Chelsea in those years. There was a lot of bribery and screwing going on. I mean, as English as I am, the idea of “the old bobby” – he doesn’t exist, barely. But when they come around knocking at your door, kicking it in – you think, “Ah, yes, the other side of the coin” (laughs).

Are you proud of the speech you made at Chichester Magistrates Court after the notorious Redlands bust in 1967, when you said, “We’re not old men. We are not worried about petty morals”? That seems, historically, an incendiary 1960s moment.

Yes, I guess it was. Sometimes I do think about that one. First off, the thing that surprises me is that I opened my mouth at all. It got me an extra six months! (Chuckles) Luckily, the judge had already screwed the case up. But I remember standing there, and he was talking about (prurient voice) “some ladies standing naked on couches” – and I’m like, “I’m not interested in your petty morals.” I was like (puts hand over his mouth), “Oh shit, did I just say that?” But some things just have to be said sometimes. It was nothing to do with scrapings of a bit of weed here and there. It was to do with a cultural clash.

Were you aware that, during that time, with your look and attitude, you were creating the archetype of the English rock’n’roll libertine?

Yeah. I thought, “Well, somebody’s got to stand up for it!” You don’t think, “That’s what I’m going to do, be an English libertine!” You do it because you thought it was right and there was nothing wrong with it. What was wrong was the other side. It was saying, “I have no problem with drugs, I have a problem with policemen.” I suppose suddenly being elevated to this position of “The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, da da da”, I felt I could say that. Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t have said those things if I was Joe Bloggs.

Your old flatmate at Edith Grove, James Phelge, recalled an incident in Trafalgar Square where you suddenly turned on a northern tourist who was berating you for having long hair. He was quite shocked at how aggressive you were…

There were many, many incidents like that, and if Phelge remembers it, it must have happened. Usually, that stuff was like water off a duck’s back. I had far worse in America when we first arrived. In the Midwest we once got arrested for being girls! (Laughs) We were in a swimming pool in a Holiday Inn on a highway in Georgia somewhere, and suddenly (makes siren noise), “Oh, the cops are coming… and they’re turning in here!” The cop gets out and shouts, “OK, where are the topless women?” Someone had called in saying there was a bunch of topless girls in the pool. We were like, “Really? (Cups non-existent boobs) This is all we got!” Obviously it was some irate person – probably a woman – who called them, thinking we were chicks. She must have had pretty bad eyesight!

Your image in the late ’60s and beyond – the eyeliner and scarves – was that your way of expressing your outlaw spirit. Like warpaint?

(Suddenly bashful) Kind of. I’ve got a bit on from yesterday, actually, we did a photoshoot. (Pause) I don’t know, I always felt I didn’t have enough eyelashes! On-stage, I thought, I’ll thicken them up a bit. Then it becomes like warpaint.

As Richards’ rascally laugh rises and falls yet again, his bright eyes rolling theatrically upwards, it’s impossible not to find the Rolling Stone a captivating presence. He is the ultimate naughty schoolboy who’s never wanted or been allowed to grow up. Yet the framed photos of Keith and the Stones that line his manager’s office are a reminder that his free-spirited tilt at life may sit more easily with some bandmates than others. There are, it’s noted, far more photographs of Keef goofing around with Ronnie Wood – two cackling, scarecrow brothers-in-guitars – than there are of Richards and Mick Jagger.

In Life, the guitarist confirms that, after Mick had a fling with Keith’s girlfriend Anita Pallenberg during the filming of Nic Roeg’s Performance in 1968, their relationship was never quite the same. Yet their half-century bond is such that Richards vows he’ll cut the throat of anyone who’d ever deliberately cross his writing partner – “and that’s my prerogative,” he reaffirms today, flintily.

Years of tussling came to a head when, in his autobiography, Keith referred to Jagger’s “tiny todger” – something that understandably may not have gone down well with rock’s storied Lothario. Yet five years on, the Stones seem as robust as ever, with this summer’s Zip Code tour of the US soon to be followed by autumn dates in South America and possibly beyond.

Did Mick confront you about the things you said in Life?

Oh yeah! He called me – (unhappy Jagger voice) “I have to talk to you…” (Long laugh) Of course, a few things rankled with him but I then produced the pages I had blue-pencilled out. “Look – you’re getting off lightly, pal!”

Your relationship has always seemed very nuanced – friends but rivals, brothers but separate islands?

Mick and I joust with each other all the time. From my end it’s never been a fight. Mick’s a control freak – it’s necessary for him to believe he’s Numero Uno, so most of the time I go along with it – unless I think he’s making a really wrong decision affecting the Stones. Maybe we enjoy jousting with each other. I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and jot down a line – “I’ll save that one for him!” (Chortles) We’re mates, and as far as work goes, I couldn’t think of another frontman to back up. He’s amazing. What he puts in there is a rare dedication. I think he has a lot to prove to himself but it’s unnecessary, because he’s already proved it all. It’s like, “Relax, Mick, take it easy.” But Mick Jagger relaxing? That’s very rare. He’s one of those guys that has to be doing something all the time.

Now that you’ve reined the excess in a bit, and Ronnie is sober, is it as much fun on the road? Do you worry the Stones’ totemic power might be sapped?

Well, me and Ronnie always have a laugh, whenever and wherever. When he said, “I’m straightening up,” I said, “That will be an interesting experiment, Ron…” (Chuckles) And he’s kept at it, right up until this point. And the thing is, he’s exactly the same as he was when stoned out of his mind! “You didn’t need to take all that shit, man! You’re hilarious anyway.” The guy has got a lot of optimistic energy. Now he’s remarried, too – it’s very lucky for him that another woman would take him on! (Chuckles). I love playing with him, and he’s been knocking me out. (Mock annoyed) He’s been listening and practising.

Do you have to do that – practise? Surely you must know the songs by now?

The first few days of rehearsals, I do have to do a bit of thinking. By the time you get on-stage you don’t want to be like, “Satisfaction – what key is that in again?” Sometimes you have a complete blank. So you have to go back to basics. What’s interesting is how quickly everyone folds back into it. The first day of rehearsals is usually a laugh, we’re playing clangers all over the place. “Whoops, sorry!” (Chuckles) But after two or three days it just slides in. I love playing with Darryl [Jones], a great bass player. Being a jazz player, like Charlie Watts, it means we have this funk-jazz-R&B rhythm section that suits me fine.

Darryl’s been with you quite a while now…

Yes. He says, “I’m the new boy, I’ve only been here 21 years!” Ha ha ha. I said, “What do you want, a cake?”

These days, do you have to prepare physically before a tour as well as mentally?

No, no, no. (Chuckles) The only time I’ve ever done anything like that is after an injury – rehab, like when I’ve broken ribs. I find exercise boring. Actually, when you work with the Stones – which I love to do – rehearsing for eight or nine hours a day, standing up and moving around, I find that enough. I’d rather do that than go crazy on treadmills. Mick does all that stuff, but his dad was a physical education instructor. That’s part of him. “Where’s Mick?” “He’s out running.” “In this weather?!” I find that by the time I finish rehearsals, I haven’t just been rehearsing the music, my body has been rehearsing too.

When Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman first came back for cameos on the 50 And Counting tour in 2012, did you have any discussions like – “Can you tell me why you left the band again?”

Yes, there were a few of them! And the weirdest answer I had was – and this is a great English thing – “I don’t really know…” Wyman, he mainly developed this fear of travelling. Like, what, after going round the world 10 times?! I don’t know if that was the whole reason. When I ask Mick Taylor that question, he says, “It’s a mystery to me. I don’t have any idea… Put it down to my old lady at the time.” I said, “That won’t wash with me!” (Long laugh) I think he believed that he had the extra step to go, career-wise. And being in the Stones you get big ideas. You want to be a producer or a writer. But then, “What have you written in the last 15 years?” “Nothing, really…” Taylor’s a funny sod, but I do love him. He’s his own worst enemy.

Did you think it worked musically bringing them into the show?

I wanted to see if it would blossom into something else, like a three-guitar band. I realised that was just a hope, an idea. The Stones are a two-guitar band, and I know that, really. But Midnight Rambler over the last year or so [with Mick Taylor guesting] has been amazing. He’s a lot looser than he was the first time around. He’s got a lot more mileage under the belt – and a better sense of humour about it all.

Do you need a sense of humour to be in the Stones?

Are you kidding? In this day and age if you take it too seriously, you’re fucked!

The buzz of playing live – do you still get that even after all this time?

What I love about stage work is that sort of cycle of energy and enthusiasm that goes around. The better part of human nature is usually displayed. I mean, I know we’ve had one or two bad ones, hurgh hurgh. But basically there’s something to be said for it, because you come off stage feeling great, ’cos you’ve turned on all these people, and they’re leaving like, “Yeeeah!” You think, “If only we could translate this into a global phenomenon – why should it just happen for an hour or two?” But by now, I’m probably like some old player… “The roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd!” But the stage is a place where I feel totally comfortable. No phone calls…

Do you think the Stones will record another album and tour again? It’s 10 years since A Bigger Bang.

In truth, the answer to all that is yes, I think we will. We’ll do this year, then go into the studio. I know Mick wants to record again – he blurted it out in a meeting: “It’s about time we went back and recorded.” I was like, “We’re here to talk about a tour, right?” So that will be interesting. End of the year.

So what is it that drives you on? As you said, you didn’t need to make Crosseyed Heart, yet you clearly put your heart and soul into it. Is your true addiction to making music?

Yeah, but doing it better all the time. Or differently. With the Stones, not that differently, but so that nobody goes up there thinking they’re playing anything by rote. The songs are wide open and you can throw in other ideas. The thing I find interesting in rehearsals is playing stuff you’ve done for 30 or 40 years, and thinking, “Oh shit, man. If I’d put that note in the record, it would have been a better record!” The songs grow as you play them; the older they are, the more magic there is in them. It’s never dull. We’re born to have fun, you see! We can’t help it.

Does the money play a part? Every time you read about a Stones tour it seems to state how much you’ve grossed in millions of dollars.

I don’t even think about it. I know I’m getting paid but as to how much… I’ve never been that interested. But I can say this: since I was 19, I’ve been raking it in. A lot of it has gone on lawyers! But at the same time, I’m sure everyone feels a different way about money. But the bottom line to me is the bottom line – I don’t come off stage going, “How much did I make?” It’s anti the whole point of doing it.

And with that and a lengthy, diversion on the merits of Chuck Berry and Little Walter Jacobs, our conversation begins to wind down. Any notion that the textured and oft-wistful Crosseyed Heart represents some kind of terminal declaration, or else a rehearsal for the end of the guitarist’s tenure with the Stones, seems somewhat fanciful after an hour-and-a-half of raucous Keith vitality. He seems more alive and thirsty for music and life – inextricably entangled for him – than ever.

As we retire to the kitchen for the après-chat cocktail, the interview bubble burst, Keith suddenly seems smaller and more shy, but as eager to put MOJO at ease as before. There is one last question: now he’s comparatively sober and has revealed new sides to the world through his book, is there anything in life he still feels he needs to mend? Anyone he needs to make peace with? He thinks for a few moments.

“I feel I could have done more for Brian Jones,” he says of the founding Stone who died in mysterious circumstances in June 1969. “But I was also in the worst position to do that, because I’d just stolen his old lady [Anita]. One, or some, of us should have been with him, but you never knew where he was, or what he was doing. Also, you know that ‘chaperoning’ thing – he was a grown man. But I feel if I hadn’t have stolen his old lady, maybe that wouldn’t have happened.”

And with a final throaty chuckle – this time a subdued one of reflection and regret – Keith Richards bids adieu and disappears behind a closed door.

This article originally appeared in MOJO 262