“THE idea of me growing up?” muses Keith Richards, breaking into one of his mischievous cackles. “Save that for later.”
As rock and roll’s ultimate survivor approaches the big 8-0 in December, he’s got every reason to have a youthful spring in his step.
Next Friday sees the release of the age-defying Rolling Stones album Hackney Diamonds, 12 vibrant new songs summoning the swagger of their glory days.
“It doesn’t matter how old the frame is, when you’re playing rock and roll, you have to be young at heart,” the guitarist continues.
“I don’t think about age until the birthday comes round and I always know it’s coming round because Mick is five months ahead of me.”
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Just consider that the Rolling Stones formed a full 61 years ago, when Jagger and Richards bumped into each other on Platform 2 of Dartford Station and bonded over their Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry records.
And that now, they’re embarking on a new chapter in their storied career with a great album and, I confidently predict, live shows to follow.
“Weirdly enough, I’ve been thinking about this,” reports Keith. “Does it mean I’ll soon be saying, ‘Oh no, not Volume 3!’
“But you never know with these guys. After all, I’ve got Peter Pan on vocals.”
‘I still talk to Charlie & I expect I’ll continue to’
While never even attempting to get close to Mick’s superhuman fitness levels, Keith’s looking remarkably healthy . . . by his standards at least . . . now that he’s given up fags, the hard stuff and hellraising in general.
“I have my check-ups and the doctors just say, ‘Get out of here!’” exclaims the walking miracle.
Speaking for himself, frontman Mick and fellow guitarist Ronnie Wood, he adds: “Everybody’s had health problems but somehow we’re all in physically good shape.
“As long as your leg doesn’t fall off — that WOULD be considered a health problem — who cares about the other aches and pains?”
That said, Keith is delighted to report that Ronnie has “busted” his small cell cancer scare.
“Yeah, he’s got a clean bill of health and now he’s a solid family man. Two young daughters,” he affirms.
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On a sadder note, Keith is carrying on without his mainstay, drummer Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, a loss which hit him hard.
“I still have conversations with the man, which I fully expect to continue,” he says.
At his age, Keith can be forgiven for keeping some of life’s pleasures. “I do drink, man! Mostly in moderation,” he tells me.
“Though it depends a bit on the occasion . . . and right now I have a lot to celebrate!”
The last time I met him in person, he helped himself to a large Screwdriver, mostly vodka, not much orange, from a mini bar and lit up one of his favourite Marlboro Reds.
Today, we find ourselves in the dark, windowless confines of a swish Knightsbridge hotel’s reading room, with only a couple of glasses of mineral water for company.
I can hear the lovable rogue’s piratical rasp before he strolls through the door and, as he approaches me, he extends the right hand that’s played a thousand riffs and says: “How are you doing, man?”
Keith is dressed down in black, minus his round-framed shades but with trademark fedora perched on his grey curls. “There’s something amazing about yours and the Stones’ longevity. What’s the secret?” I ask him.
“It must be in the water . . . or maybe it’s just my generation,” he replies in that wonderfully lived-in voice.
If you close your eyes and listen to Mick’s searing vocals and the scorched-earth guitars of Keith, Ronnie and American livewire producer Andrew Watt on Hackney Diamonds, it’s as if time stood still . . .
. . . probably somewhere around the release of 1978’s unvarnished Some Girls singles Shattered and Respectable.
That year is significant because it was the height of punk and the Stones were up against the most seismic shift in music since they and The Beatles spearheaded the Sixties’ pop revolution.
One of their new songs, Bite My Head Off, complete with a cameo from Paul McCartney on bass, is an expletive-laden three-minute punk blast, the words spat out by Jagger with the venom of the Sex Pistols or The Clash.
“Mick’s a punk!” cries Keith when I bring up the song.
“The punk side of Jagger has always been there and we’ll never get rid of it.”
In the Stones’ officially sanctioned 2012 film Crossfire Hurricane, there’s some astonishing footage of a 1964 concert ending in a mass brawl, with the band being manhandled off the stage.
“I don’t think we finished a show for two years,” says Keith. “That’s when Mick developed his punk attitude.
“Before you went on, the main thing was, ‘How do you get out of here?’ It was mayhem.”
Keith believes the late Seventies’ punk scene could only dream of what the Stones went through. “Punk wished to be like us. They just re-enacted!”
As if it was yesterday, Keith recalls what it was like being caught up in the chaos.
“Girls were going berserk, fainting all over the place, and we were all getting shoved out the way because of the stretchers heaving them away. It was quite an eye-opener at the time. Jesus Christ, women!”
Keith is made up about the appearance of McCartney on Bite My Head Off, especially because The Beatles had similar experiences.
“Yeah, Macca just strolled in with his bass. I think the song reminded him of those times. Beatlemania was equally as bizarre as Stones mania.”
There’s a moment towards the end of Bite My Head Off where you hear someone saying, “Come on Paul, play something”. “That might be me,” smiles Keith.
In the Sixties, The Beatles and the Stones were set up as bitter rivals, rather like Oasis and Blur in the Nineties.
But Keith puts it down to “a bit of PR” and says he’s always had huge respect for the Fab Four.
Mick and I went, ‘Let’s do it, let’s go there’
“That goes back to 1963 when Paul and John (Lennon) gave us I Wanna Be Your Man because we weren’t writing songs at that time — we were only just beginning.
“Our friendship started way back then but we always allowed the rivalry thing.
“In the meantime, we’d be calling each other and saying, ‘When are you bringing out your next single?’ ‘Ours is ready’ ‘OK, well, ours isn’t, so you go first’. We were always plotting behind the scenes so we didn’t clash.”
Next it’s time for Keith to talk more about Mick, who he says is “unbelievable, man, one of the greatest frontmen”.
Acknowledging that there’s been turbulence in their relationship along the way, he says: “People only hear about the downs.
“After 60 years, if you had a brother, you’d have had a few ups and downs, too, and ours is usually concerned with work.
“I say, ‘That’s too schlocky’, and he says, ‘I love it’, and I go, ‘You’re an asshole!’ But the abrasiveness is minor compared to the harmony that goes on all the time.”
I remind him of his social media post to mark his old mucker’s 80th in July which said, “Happy birthday Mick, long may we keep saying this to each other, Love Keith”.
He repeats to me: “Of course I love him.” With the seeds of Hackney Diamonds sown years ago when Charlie Watts was still with us, Keith credits Mick with providing “the main impetus” to getting it over the line.
“Hats off to Mick for his part. Actually, he fell in line with what I’ve been saying for years!
“When a lead singer says to you, ‘I want to record’, get them in the studio straight away!
“That energy feeds the rest of us. I mean, an enthusiastic Mick is far easier to work with than a bewildered or disgruntled Mick. Let’s just get him while he’s in this mood.”
Keith is also enthused by the drumming of Steve Jordan, anointed by Charlie and now sitting in his place.
“Breaking Steve in has been beautifully seamless,” he says.
But the final track on Hackney Diamonds finds no room for a drummer or even Ronnie, who has been with the band since 1975. It’s a stirring cover of the song which gave the world’s greatest rock and roll band their name, Chicago legend Muddy Waters’ Rolling Stone Blues . . . just Mick on both vocals and harmonica and Keith on guitar.
“Hats off to (producer) Andrew Watt, who suggested it,” he says. He actually bought us the 1920s guitar, which is about the age of the one Muddy played.
“Mick and I went, ‘Let’s do it, let’s go there’. We transported ourselves back in time.”
Keith calls Rolling Stone Blues “the masterwork”. “We did two takes. It’s not something you want to record over and over. When we finished, I said to Mick, ‘Well done, Muddy’.”
He’s often said this before but Keith’s a massive fan of his bandmate’s harmonica skills which add authentic atmosphere to the song.
“Mick is one of the best harp blues players around, man,” he says. “There’s something almost uncanny about it.”
Before we go our separate ways, I ask Keith what his family think of his latest endeavours . . . the first Stones album of original material since 2005.
For years, his main base has been in the wilds of Connecticut, where he lives with his wife of 40 years, the one-time model Patti Hansen, mother of his daughters Alexandra and Theodora.
He also keeps his old English country estate on the South Coast, Redlands, which he bought in 1966. “I haven’t seen my English side down in Sussex yet but I’m getting thumbs up from my other lot who are with me all the time, Theo and Alex,” he says.
“And I’ve got this great new granddaughter, who’s killing me at the moment.
“Arlo is two years old and that says it all . . . she’s milking the terrible twos!”
With the buzz around Hackney Diamonds building to a deafening roar, Keith has been caught up in a promotional whirl. By his side has been Patti, the love of his life.
“She’s my rock, man,” he says. “Amazing woman. I’m going to write a book about her. She keeps me together.”
Finally, I ask this irrepressible character, 80 years young on December 18, how long he intends to keep rolling as a Rolling Stone.
“I see no reason to go anywhere,” he answers. “And, in any case, there’s nowhere else to go.”
Rolling Stones
Hackney Diamonds
★★★★★
FROM the moment opening track Angry’s searing riff kicks in, you just know the Stones have done something special.
If the 12-track album puts the emphasis on the unbridled joy of rock and roll, there’s also room for fabulous deviations.
These include epic gospel blues of Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder, the country rock vibe of Dreamy Skies and the jazz-inflected Tell Me Straight (with Keith on vocals).
Amazingly, for a band that’s been around for more than six decades, they still sound as if they are in their prime.