by Chris Heath, GQ
He sits on a sofa, sipping from a plastic cup, answering a few questions about the life—"I've led so many lives....Which life are you talking about?"—that has led him here.
What remains for you to achieve?
"I've never tried to achieve anything. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records. That was the only real goal in my life, ever, but since that happened so quickly, like a laser beam...I think the next goal was not to become one-hit wonders. I mean, after that, no real goal, except to sort of keep on going. I mean, what does an entertainer do, basically? You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good. Turn them on."
Is that the word you prefer? "Entertainer" more than "musician"?
"I wouldn't want to impress them with musicianship. I want them there because they want to be there and because they know that they're going to have a damn good time. I wouldn't take it any higher than that."
And what's the joy or fulfilment in achieving that?
"Well, you'd have to be there, pal. To know what it's like to be on a Stones stage with an audience. The exchange of energy that goes on. It's immeasurable. In fact they don't have meters to do it."
What does physically making music give to you?
"Well, it's better than drugs."
People may listen to that, coming from you.
"And the fact that I've written a lot of music on drugs doesn't negate that statement. I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn't get bored anywhere. I could break out of jail on that stuff and still be in jail. It's a freedom nobody can take from you."
Is there anything you still need to prove?
"To prove? I was innocent! Of everything!"
Richards likes to play guitar every single day. Maybe an hour or so. "Afternoons, evenings. Pick around, play some Robert Johnson blues, hopefully make an incredible beautiful mistake which will lead me into another area. I do it for me. You know, I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I do it because it turns me on." (As for the mornings...here's more than you wanted to know about how each bright new twenty-first-century-Keith-Richards day begins: "First we have the bowel movement. Cool, that's that out of the way. Seen a friend off to the coast. And then you see what's on the agenda....")
It's a routine (the guitar playing, not the other one) that was disrupted while he was working on his million-selling autobiography, Life. "I hardly played at all for two years," he says. After our conversation, he is due in the studio with drummer Steve Jordan, his partner in his sometime other band, the X-Pensive Winos. "I'm sort of basically recovering from the book, and this is my therapy at the moment," he explains. "In the process of doing it, my chops are coming back." So far, they've got six songs that may or may not turn into an album. "Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one—I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life." That chuckle. "I work the seamier side of life."
And, I note, it's been good to him.
He nods. A sly grin. "There's a lot of seam," he says.
He sits on a sofa, sipping from a plastic cup, answering a few questions about the life—"I've led so many lives....Which life are you talking about?"—that has led him here.
What remains for you to achieve?
"I've never tried to achieve anything. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records. That was the only real goal in my life, ever, but since that happened so quickly, like a laser beam...I think the next goal was not to become one-hit wonders. I mean, after that, no real goal, except to sort of keep on going. I mean, what does an entertainer do, basically? You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good. Turn them on."Is that the word you prefer? "Entertainer" more than "musician"?
"I wouldn't want to impress them with musicianship. I want them there because they want to be there and because they know that they're going to have a damn good time. I wouldn't take it any higher than that."
And what's the joy or fulfilment in achieving that?
"Well, you'd have to be there, pal. To know what it's like to be on a Stones stage with an audience. The exchange of energy that goes on. It's immeasurable. In fact they don't have meters to do it."
What does physically making music give to you?
"Well, it's better than drugs."
People may listen to that, coming from you.
"And the fact that I've written a lot of music on drugs doesn't negate that statement. I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn't get bored anywhere. I could break out of jail on that stuff and still be in jail. It's a freedom nobody can take from you."
Is there anything you still need to prove?
"To prove? I was innocent! Of everything!"
Richards likes to play guitar every single day. Maybe an hour or so. "Afternoons, evenings. Pick around, play some Robert Johnson blues, hopefully make an incredible beautiful mistake which will lead me into another area. I do it for me. You know, I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I do it because it turns me on." (As for the mornings...here's more than you wanted to know about how each bright new twenty-first-century-Keith-Richards day begins: "First we have the bowel movement. Cool, that's that out of the way. Seen a friend off to the coast. And then you see what's on the agenda....")
It's a routine (the guitar playing, not the other one) that was disrupted while he was working on his million-selling autobiography, Life. "I hardly played at all for two years," he says. After our conversation, he is due in the studio with drummer Steve Jordan, his partner in his sometime other band, the X-Pensive Winos. "I'm sort of basically recovering from the book, and this is my therapy at the moment," he explains. "In the process of doing it, my chops are coming back." So far, they've got six songs that may or may not turn into an album. "Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one—I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life." That chuckle. "I work the seamier side of life."
And, I note, it's been good to him.
He nods. A sly grin. "There's a lot of seam," he says.
