Still Life

Keef: in the sway

A pretty interesting Q&A with Keith Richards over at rollingstone.com, including stuff that didn't appear in the print article.

Some excerpts:
You went right from being a teenager to being a Stone -- no regular job, a little bit of art school. What would you be doing if the Stones had not lasted this long?

I went to art school and learned how to advertise, because you don't learn much art there. I schlepped my portfolio to one agency, and they said -- they love to put you down -- "Can you make a good cup of tea?" I said, "Yeah, I can, but not for you." I left my crap there and walked out. After I left school, I never said, "Yes, sir" to anybody.

What did heroin do for you in the Seventies? What did you get out of it -- calm, poise, a sense of power?

You could talk to every junkie in the world and get a different answer. Because they don't know -- nor do I. [Long pause] It was a damn good feeling, for starters. And we were going through a lot of stuff. I could operate behind that. It gave me a distance from everything that was going on around me. I could see things happening -- fast time, slow time. It was Stones business, Allen Klein stuff, and then Brian dying. There was a lot of stuff happening, and it gave me a sense of space. Eventually, I was so far in space, I was almost in the atmosphere...

You're talking to a madman, really. Who else in this forty or fifty years of rock has been able to sneak through the cracks like this? Which is probably why a lot of us become musicians, I think. As long as you've got a gig, it's a brilliant slide through the social structure. You don't have to play the game that everybody else has to. It's a license to do what you want.

Are there Stones hits that you're sick of playing?

..."Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up" are always fun to play. You gotta be a real sourpuss, mate, not to get up there and play "Jumpin' Jack Flash" without feeling like, "C'mon, everybody, let's go!" It's like riding a wild horse.


Speakin of "Jumpin' Jack Flash", go here to download a live version of the song from Paul Westerberg's recent solo tour. Other live Westerberg/Mats MP3s there as well.