Keith Richards on His Remarkable New Memoir, ‘Life’ - Rolling Stone Keith Richards on His Remarkable New Memoir, ‘Life’ Hear Gorillaz' First Song in Six Years, 'Hallelujah... Keith Richards on His Remarkable New Memoir, ‘Life’ In the latest issue of ‘Rolling Stone’ the 66-year-old guitarist talks about his highs, lows and death-defying excesses Credit: Photograph by Peter Lindbergh All Stories "I don't think I looked for it," Keith Richards says in a low, even growl. The Rolling Stones guitarist is talking about trouble, the kind that runs through his autobiography, Life, like a hellbound train: drugs, cops, cold turkey, death and the turbulent relationship between Richards and his Glimmer Twin and childhood friend, singer Mick Jagger . More News All Stories "That's just the way things pan out," Richards says, sitting in his manager's New York office and sipping a late-afternoon cocktail from a red plastic cup. "Conflicts arise all the time, especially if you're working in such a closed unit." There is a rumbling chuckle.

"If I'm in conflict with somebody, then it means somebody is in conflict with me." Exclusive Excerpt from Keith Richards' Life The title of Richards' book is a simple, accurate description of the contents: the 66-year-old guitarist's highs, lows and death-defying excesses, from birth to now, vividly related in his natural pirate-hipster cadence and syntax. Life opens with a comic roller-coaster account of a last-minute rescue from hard time in Arkansas during the Stones' 1975 tour. Richards, who wrote the book with British author James Fox, then goes long and deep on his postwar boyhood — an only child of divorced parents in the rough London suburb of Dartford — and the emotional rescue he found in American blues, the formation of the Rolling Stones and his creative bond with Jagger. At one point, Richards describes a recent trip to Dartford, visiting old haunts like the three-room flat over a grocery where he, his mother, Doris, and father, Bert, lived from 1949 to 1952. "It's almost like you're looking at somebody else," Richards says now.

"Then you start to feel small things, like the smell of a gas lamp or my grandmother shuffling around and my grandfather going, 'Make the boy some egg and chips.'" Richards relates, with blunt detail, the outlaw rush and sordid daily routine of his decade-long affair with heroin, which he ended in 1979. "If I hadn't looked back on that, something would have been missing," he contends. "When I was taking dope, I was fully convinced that my body is my temple. I can do anything I want with it, and nobody can tell me yea or nay." But Richards also counts the damage from his choices: the loss of cosmic cowboy and fellow user Gram Parsons ; the hellish descent of Richards' lover Anita Pallenberg; and the death of his infant son, Tara, in 1976 while Richards was on tour. "Leaving a newborn is something I can't forgive myself for," says Richards in Life. "The first time we talked about that," Fox says, "Keith couldn't get out more than five words. Then we realized we had to go back to it.

He told me that he thought about it every week." Fox, who wrote the 1983 true-crime book White Mischief, first interviewed Richards in 1973 for a London newspaper. For Life, Fox says he and Richards "talked in topics and periods, never chronologically," for several days at a stretch, up to three hours a day, starting in late 2007. Life includes eyewitness testimony from people close to Richards who were interviewed by Fox, such as singer Ronnie Spector ("an early love") and saxophonist Bobby Keys. But Fox did not speak to the other Stones. "I did try," he says, noting, "There is a tradition among Rolling Stones of not having anything to do with each other's books." Life is ultimately two stories: one of music, misbehavior and survival; the other a fond, perplexed, sometimes outraged telling of Richards' life with Jagger, including their battles over control and the destiny of their band. "I had a feeling Mick would have no problem with the truth," Richards claims. He goes quiet for a moment.

"No doubt I was as infuriating to him as he can be to me." Jagger read Life, Richards says, "and he was a bit peeved about this and that." But, the guitarist insists, "Mick and I are still great friends and still want to work together." Richards' proof: He and Jagger talked over the summer about new Stones action in 2011. There is another of those earthquake cackles. "Can you imagine if life went along smoothly and everybody agreed?" Richards asks. "Nothing would happen. There'd be no blues. There'd be no 'Happy,'" referring to his iconic blaze of joy on 1972's Exile on Main Street . There would certainly be no Life. This story is from the October 28, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone.

‘Life,’ Keith Richards’s Memoir - The New York Times The New York Times Books |A Writing Stone: Chapter and Verse Search Continue reading the main story For legions of Rolling Stones fans, Keith Richards is not only the heart and soul of the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, he’s also the very avatar of rebellion: the desperado, the buccaneer, the poète maudit, the soul survivor and main offender, the torn and frayed outlaw, and the coolest dude on the planet, named both No. 1 on the rock stars most-likely-to-die list and the one life form (besides the cockroach) capable of surviving nuclear war. Halfway through his electrifying new memoir, “Life,” Keith Richards writes about the consequences of fame: the nearly complete loss of privacy and the weirdness of being mythologized by fans as a sort of folk-hero renegade. “I can’t untie the threads of how much I played up to the part that was written for me,” he says. “I mean the skull ring and the broken tooth and the kohl. Is it half and half?

I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain. People think I’m still a goddamn junkie. It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.” By turns earnest and wicked, sweet and sarcastic and unsparing, Mr. Richards, now 66, writes with uncommon candor and immediacy. He’s decided that he’s going to tell it as he remembers it, and helped along with notebooks, letters and a diary he once kept, he remembers almost everything. He gives us an indelible, time-capsule feel for the madness that was life on the road with the Stones in the years before and after Altamont; harrowing accounts of his many close shaves and narrow escapes (from the police, prison time, drug hell); and a heap of sharp-edged snapshots of friends and colleagues — most notably, his longtime musical partner and sometime bête noire, Mick Jagger . Advertisement Continue reading the main story But “Life” — which was written with the veteran journalist James Fox — is way more than a revealing showbiz memoir.

It is also a high-def, high-velocity portrait of the era when rock ’n’ roll came of age, a raw report from deep inside the counterculture maelstrom of how that music swept like a tsunami over Britain and the United States. It’s an eye-opening all-nighter in the studio with a master craftsman disclosing the alchemical secrets of his art. And it’s the intimate and moving story of one man’s long strange trip over the decades, told in dead-on, visceral prose without any of the pretense, caution or self-consciousness that usually attend great artists sitting for their self-portraits. Continue reading the main story Die-hard Stones fans, of course, will pore over the detailed discussions of how songs like “Ruby Tuesday” and “Gimme Shelter” came to be written, the birthing process of some of Mr. Richards’s classic guitar riffs and the collaborative dynamic between him and Mr. Jagger. But the book will also dazzle the uninitiated, who thought they had only a casual interest in the Stones or who thought of Mr. Richards, vaguely, as a rock god who was mad, bad and dangerous to know. The book is that compelling and eloquently told.

Photo Credit Patricia Wall/The New York Times Mr. Richards’s prose is like his guitar playing: intense, elemental, utterly distinctive and achingly, emotionally direct. Just as the Stones perfected a signature sound that could accommodate everything from ferocious Dionysian anthems to melancholy ballads about love and time and loss, so Mr. Richards has found a voice in these pages — a kind of rich, primal Keith-Speak — that enables him to dispense funny, streetwise observations, tender family reminiscences, casually profane yarns and wry literary allusions with both heart-felt sincerity and bad-boy charm. Songwriting, Mr.

Richards says, long ago turned him into an observer always on the lookout for “ammo,” and he does a highly tactile job here of conjuring the past, whether he’s describing his post-World War II childhood in the little town of Dartford (memorialized here with affectionate, Dickensian detail); the smoky blues clubs that he and his friends haunted in their early days in London; or the wretched excess of the Stones’ later tours, when they had “become a pirate nation,” booking entire floors in hotels and “moving on a huge scale under our own flag, with lawyers, clowns, attendants.” In these pages we see Keith through the scrolling chapters of his life. There’s the choir boy and Boy Scout, who was bullied by schoolmates and kept a pet mouse named Gladys. The former art student, dedicating himself like a monk to mastering the blues: “You were supposed to spend all your waking hours studying Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson. That was your gig.

Every other moment taken away from it was a sin.” And later, the rock star, known for his pirate swagger, who actually remains something of a shy romantic with women, worrying about finding “the right line, or one that hadn’t been used before.” “I just never had that thing with women,” he writes. “I would do it silently. Very Charlie Chaplin. The scratch, the look, the body language. Get my drift? Now it’s up to you. ‘Hey, baby’ is just not my come-on.” Mr. Richards communicates the boyish astonishment he felt when the Stones found their dream of being missionaries for the American music they loved suddenly giving way to pop fame of their own, and their hand-to-mouth existence in a London tenement (financed in part by redeeming empty beer bottles stolen from parties) metamorphosed into full-on stardom, complete with rioting teenagers and screaming girls.

He conveys the exhausting rigors of life on the road, even as he captures the absurdities of what was rock star life back in the day: the pharmaceutical cocaine, the impulsive jaunts abroad (“let’s jump in the Bentley and go to Morocco”), the spectacle of the police perched in the trees outside his home. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Of the years of living dangerously, when he was zonked out on heroin, Mr. Richards recalls that he slept with a gun under his pillow; turned his 7-year-old son, Marlon, into his minder on the road; and forced all his band mates to live on “Keith Time,” in which 2 p.m. recording sessions had a way of becoming 1 a.m. dates the following day. He writes candidly about how everything began to revolve around “organizing the next fix” — elaborate stratagems, which at one point included buying doctor and nurse play sets at FAO Schwarz — and the difficulties of getting and staying clean. Photo Keith Richards (with Mick Jagger behind) at a 1994 concert. Credit Douglas C. Pizac/Associated Press Why did he become an addict in the first place?

“I never particularly liked being that famous,” Mr. Richards says. “I could face people easier on the stuff, but I could do that with booze too. It isn’t really the whole answer. I also felt I was doing it not to be a ‘pop star.’ There was something I didn’t really like about that end of what I was doing, the blah blah blah. That was very difficult to handle, and I could handle it better on smack. Mick chose flattery, which is very like junk — a departure from reality. I chose junk.” During the worst of his years on heroin, Mr. Richards writes, Mr. Jagger stepped up and dealt with the day-to-day business of running the band but was reluctant to relinquish his increased control once Mr. Richards returned to action. He writes that Mr. Jagger had begun to treat the rest of the band as “basically hirelings,” and he describes the sense of hurt and betrayal he felt when he read in an English newspaper that Mr. Jagger, then intent on a solo career, had described the Stones as a “millstone” around his neck. Mr. Richards also mocks Mr.

Jagger (whom he jokingly began referring to as “Brenda” or “Her Majesty”) as a social climber and swollen head, and says that Mr. Jagger “started second-guessing his own talent” and chasing after musical trends. But while this book’s passages about Mr. Jagger have made lots of headlines, especially in England, they are not all that different from the volleys of accusations the two have exchanged over the years, and Mr. Richards adds that deep down he and Mr. Jagger remain brothers. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy It’s really less a case of “North and South Korea,” he says, than “East and West Berlin.” Mr. Richards’s verbal photos of other colleagues and acquaintances are razor-sharp as well. He describes Hugh Hefner as “a nut” and “a pimp,” and Truman Capote as a “snooty” whiner.

He writes that Chuck Berry was his “numero uno hero” (from whom Richards says he stole “every lick he ever played”) but “a big disappointment” when he met him in person. In another chapter he writes that success turned his former band mate Brian Jones “into this sort of freak, devouring celebs and fame and attention.” In the course of “Life,” Mr. Richards discusses his clashes with the police and his much-chronicled court appearances, as well as all the other headlines generated by the tabloids over the years. But the most insistent melodic line in this volume has nothing to do with drugs or celebrity or scandal. It has to do with the spongelike love of music Mr. Richards inherited from his grandfather and his own sense of musical history, his reverence for the blues and R&B masters he has studied his entire life (“the tablets of stone”), and his determination to pass his own knowledge on down the line. One of this galvanic book’s many achievements is that Mr. Richards has found a way to channel to the reader his own avidity, his own deep soul hunger for music and to make us feel the connections that bind one generation of musicians to another.

Along the way he even manages to communicate something of that magic, electromagnetic experience of playing on stage with his mates, be it in a little club or a huge stadium. “There’s a certain moment when you realize that you’ve actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you,” Mr. Richards writes. “You’re elevated because you’re with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you’ve got wings.” You are, he says, “flying without a license.” LIFE Keith Richards writing a ‘delicious’ memoir - TODAY.com Today.com Keith Richards writing a ‘delicious’ memoir 2007-08-01T00:01:10.000Z comment () Rolling Stone Keith Richards, cigarette no doubt in hand, is working on a memoir, the object of a multimillion dollar bidding war that will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2010. “It will be his life’s story,” Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch said Tuesday. “For nearly 50 years, he has been at the very center of the vortex of stardom and of entertainment as a cultural force.

He’s a thread running through the whole thing.” Richards, the master riffer, legendary partier and songwriting/sparring partner with Mick Jagger, received $7.3 million for the book, according to a publisher insider with knowledge of the negotiations. Currently untitled, the memoir will be written with James Fox, an old friend of Richards’ and author of “White Mischief.” “Keith is working with someone who has been a friend and is an extremely skilled writer. I know that James has also been talking with people close to Keith,” says Pietsch, who declined to offer specific names or say whether Fox was talking with members of the Rolling Stones. Richards’ life and work have fascinated millions, but his is hardly an untold story. Richards, 63, has been interviewed countless times, speaking candidly about his music, heroin addiction, love life and battles with Jagger. He is quoted extensively in “According to the Rolling Stones,” an authorized oral history published in 2003. “All those interviews have been scattered over decades,” Pietsch says. “To have the story of his own life in one book, there’s no experience like that.

And there will be stories he has never uttered before.” Slideshow Neil P. Mockford / GC Images Celebrity Sightings Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr. on the "Let's Be Cops," red carpet, Selena Gomez is immortalized in wax and more. Celebrity Sightings of Idris Elba - Actor Idris Elba seen on the set of :A Hundred Streets" on Aug. 8 in London. Getty Images / Getty Images of Elisabeth Moss, Mark Duplass - Actors Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass arrive at the premiere of RADIUS-TWC's "The One I Love" at the Vista Theatre on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Getty Images / Getty Images of Nick Kroll - Actor Nick Kroll arrives at the premiere of RADIUS-TWC's "The One I Love" at the Vista Theatre on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Getty Images / Getty Images of Damon Wayans Jr., Jake Johnson - Actors Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson arrive at the premiere of "Let's Be Cops" at the Cinerama Dome on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles.

Getty Images / Getty Images of James D'Arcy - James D'Arcy arrives at the premiere of "Let's Be Cops" at the Cinerama Dome on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Reuters / Reuters of Julianne Hough - Actress Julianne Hough arrives at the premiere of "Let's Be Cops" at the Cinerama Dome on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Getty Images / Getty Images of Hannah Simone - Actress Hannah Simone arrives at the premiere of "Let's Be Cops" at the Cinerama Dome on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Getty Images / Getty Images of Nina Dobrev - Actress Nina Dobrev arrives at the premiere of "Let's Be Cops" at the Cinerama Dome on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles. Getty Images / Getty Images of Nicole Murphy, Brandy Norwood - TV personality Nicole Murphy and singer Brandy Norwood attend The Pump Group VIP Cocktail Reception at W Hollywood on Aug. 7 in Hollywood. Getty Images / Getty Images of Tara Reid - Actress Tara Reid attends The Pump Group VIP Cocktail Reception at W Hollywood on Aug. 7 in Hollywood.

Getty Images / Getty Images of James Wirt, Julia Stiles - Actors James Wirt and Julia Stiles stand on stage during the opening night curtain call for "Phoenix" at the Cherry Lane Theatre on Aug. 7 in New York. Getty Images / Getty Images of AnnaSophia Robb - Actress AnnaSophia Robb attends the opening night performance of "Phoenix" at the Cherry Lane Theatre on Aug. 7 in New York. Getty Images / Getty Images of Selena Gomez - A boy gives the wax figure of Selena Gomez a kiss at the unveiling of the new new, never-before-seen Selena Gomez wax figure at Madame Tussauds New York on Aug. 7 in New York. Getty Images / Getty Images of Chris Martin - Chris Martin of Coldplay performs during the Elvis Duran Z100 Morning Show at Z100 Studio on Aug. 7 in New York. Getty Images / Getty Images of Michael Fassbender - Actor Michael Fassbender attends "Meet the Actor" at Apple Store Soho on Aug. 7 in New York. Getty Images / Getty Images Singer Lily Allen performs in concert at Bridgestone Arena on Aug. 7 in Nashville.

AP / AP of 'Expendables 3' - The stars of "Expendables 3," from left, Kellan Lutz, Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas and Wesley Snipes attend "Expendables 3" at Cinema UGC Normandie on Aug. 7 in Paris. Getty Images / Getty Images of Robert Pattinson - Actor Robert Pattinson speaks during the Meet The Filmmakers event for "The Rover" at Apple Store, Regent Street on Aug. 7 in London. Getty Images / Getty Images of Nicole Kidman, Jason Bateman - Actors Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman are spotted filming Bateman's "The Family Fang" in Westchester, New York, on Aug. 7. Getty Images / Getty Images Keith Richards working on memoir Associated Press Published Wednesday, August 1, 2007 9:17AM EDT NEW YORK - Rolling Stone Keith Richards, cigarette no doubt in hand, is working on a memoir, the object of a multimillion dollar bidding war that will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2010. "It will be his life's story," Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch said Tuesday.

"For nearly 50 years, he has been at the very center of the vortex of stardom and of entertainment as a cultural force. He's a thread running through the whole thing." Richards, the master riffer, legendary partier and songwriting/sparring partner with Mick Jagger, received US$7.3 million for the book, according to a publishing insider with knowledge of the negotiations. Currently untitled, the memoir will be written with James Fox, an old friend of Richards' and author of "White Mischief." "Keith is working with someone who has been a friend and is an extremely skilled writer. I know that James has also been talking with people close to Keith," says Pietsch, who declined to offer specific names or say whether Fox was talking with members of the Rolling Stones. Richards and Jagger formed the Rolling Stones in the early 1960s and the band has stayed together despite numerous feuds, drug problems and the death of one original member, Brian Jones. Their many classic songs include "Start Me Up," "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Richards' life and work have fascinated millions, but his story is hardly untold.

Richards, 63, has been interviewed countless times, speaking candidly about his music, heroin addiction, love life and battles with Jagger. He is quoted extensively in "According to the Rolling Stones," an authorized oral history published in 2003. "All those interviews have been scattered over decades," Pietsch says. "To have the story of his own life in one book, there's no experience like that. And there will be stories he has never uttered before." Other Rolling Stones have written memoirs, including former bassist Bill Wyman and fellow guitarist Ron Wood, whose book is due this fall. Jagger has reportedly tried writing his autobiography, but given up, claiming he couldn't remember anything of interest. Pietsch says that he has read some samples from Richards' book, and found them "delicious." "The range and type of stories was exactly what you would hope to hear," Pietsch says. "The memories and the emotions, people wonder if he remembers anything, but I wish my memory was that good." Related Links Keith Richards working on memoir - USATODAY.com Keith Richards working on memoir Posted What's this?

NEW YORK (AP)  Rolling Stone Keith Richards, cigarette no doubt in hand, is working on a memoir, the object of a multimillion dollar bidding war that will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2010. "It will be his life's story," Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch said Tuesday. "For nearly 50 years, he has been at the very center of the vortex of stardom and of entertainment as a cultural force. He's a thread running through the whole thing." Richards, the master riffer, legendary partier and songwriting/sparring partner with Mick Jagger, received $7.3 million for the book, according to a publishing insider with knowledge of the negotiations. Currently untitled, the memoir will be written with James Fox, an old friend of Richards' and author of White Mischief. "Keith is working with someone who has been a friend and is an extremely skilled writer. I know that James has also been talking with people close to Keith," says Pietsch, who declined to offer specific names or say whether Fox was talking with members of the Rolling Stones.

Richards and Jagger formed the Rolling Stones in the early 1960s and the band has stayed together despite numerous feuds, drug problems and the death of one original member, Brian Jones. Their many classic songs include Start Me Up, Brown Sugar and Jumpin' Jack Flash. Richards' life and work have fascinated millions, but his story is hardly untold. Richards, 63, has been interviewed countless times, speaking candidly about his music, heroin addiction, love life and battles with Jagger. He is quoted extensively in According to the Rolling Stones, an authorized oral history published in 2003. "All those interviews have been scattered over decades," Pietsch says. "To have the story of his own life in one book, there's no experience like that. And there will be stories he has never uttered before." Other Rolling Stones have written memoirs, including former bassist Bill Wyman and fellow guitarist Ron Wood, whose book is due this fall. Jagger has reportedly tried writing his autobiography, but given up, claiming he couldn't remember anything of interest.

Pietsch says that he has read some samples from Richards' book, and found them "delicious." "The range and type of stories was exactly what you would hope to hear," Pietsch says. "The memories and the emotions, people wonder if he remembers anything, but I wish my memory was that good." Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Share this story: Keith Richards Working on Memoir Keith Richards Working on Memoir TOOLBOX The Associated Press Wednesday, August 1, 2007; 7:54 AM NEW YORK -- Rolling Stone Keith Richards, cigarette no doubt in hand, is working on a memoir, the object of a multimillion dollar bidding war that will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2010. "It will be his life's story," Little, Brown publisher Michael Pietsch said Tuesday. "For nearly 50 years, he has been at the very center of the vortex of stardom and of entertainment as a cultural force.

He's a thread running through the whole thing." Richards, the master riffer, legendary partier and songwriting/sparring partner with Mick Jagger, received $7.3 million for the book, according to a publishing insider with knowledge of the negotiations. Currently untitled, the memoir will be written with James Fox, an old friend of Richards' and author of "White Mischief." "Keith is working with someone who has been a friend and is an extremely skilled writer. I know that James has also been talking with people close to Keith," says Pietsch, who declined to offer specific names or say whether Fox was talking with members of the Rolling Stones. Richards and Jagger formed the Rolling Stones in the early 1960s and the band has stayed together despite numerous feuds, drug problems and the death of one original member, Brian Jones. Their many classic songs include "Start Me Up," "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Richards' life and work have fascinated millions, but his story is hardly untold. Richards, 63, has been interviewed countless times, speaking candidly about his music, heroin addiction, love life and battles with Jagger.

He is quoted extensively in "According to the Rolling Stones," an authorized oral history published in 2003. "All those interviews have been scattered over decades," Pietsch says. "To have the story of his own life in one book, there's no experience like that. And there will be stories he has never uttered before." Other Rolling Stones have written memoirs, including former bassist Bill Wyman and fellow guitarist Ron Wood, whose book is due this fall. Jagger has reportedly tried writing his autobiography, but given up, claiming he couldn't remember anything of interest. Pietsch says that he has read some samples from Richards' book, and found them "delicious." "The range and type of stories was exactly what you would hope to hear," Pietsch says. "The memories and the emotions, people wonder if he remembers anything, but I wish my memory was that good." © 2007 The Associated Press Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on the feud that nearly broke the Rolling Stones | Daily Mail Online comments It was the row that nearly split them. But now Mick says he’s glad Keith’s apologised for calling him ‘bitchy Brenda’. And so is Keith.

Just in time – they’ve got Glastonbury on Saturday… 'It's a really good working relationship. Keith (Richards) seems to be quite focused, and he seems to be enjoying playing,' said Mick Jagger Mick Jagger ON KEITH RICHARDS In mid-April, I sit for nearly an hour with Mick Jagger in his Beverly Hills hotel suite. He is wearing slim black jeans and a light pink long-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar, trim and as fit as ever. ‘I don’t know what the hell we’re going to talk about,’ he says, as he takes a seat at a dining-room table, smiling. About Keith Richards, and what he wrote in his 2010 memoir Life perhaps. I ask Jagger if an apology from Richards was... 'Everybody's still here, which is obviously an important ingredient,' said Keith ‘A prerequisite, you might say?’ Jagger offers, with a tight smile. ‘Well, I think it was a good thing he got together with me and said that. 'I don’t really want to talk about it apart from that, but I think it’s good that he said it, and yes, it was a prerequisite, really.

‘You have to put those things to one side; you can’t leave them unspoken. 'It’s very tempting – English people like to do that. They don’t like to face up to these things. 'It’s easy to push them out of the way, but it’s good we had that conversation.’ But were there things Jagger liked about Richards’ book? Did he find it, overall, an accurate take on the band’s early history? ‘Accurate...’ He repeats the word with a bitter laugh. ‘I don’t really want to talk about Keith’s book.’ In 1987, when I asked Jagger about Richards, he said: ‘I feel...I respect him, and I feel a lot of affection for him, and I feel protective. 'He’s the kind of person who, well, he has a certain vulnerability. He’s had a lot of hard times. 'He’s had a lot of good times. We’ve had a lot of fun and a lot of heartache together.’ Today, when I ask him about his present relationship with Richards, Jagger replies, ‘It’s a really good working relationship.

Keith seems to be quite focused, and he seems to be enjoying playing.’ In the moment when Jagger declines to say more about Richards, he looks down at a glass of water and his reticence seems to emerge from a place of genuine hurt. I try a sideways approach into the matter of Richards’ criticisms of the singer as a cold and designing person. Over the years, others have said something similar. Does Jagger understand that reaction? ‘I think it’s kind of a cliché, really,’ he says. ‘People like to pop-analyse others, put them into boxes and say, ‘Oh, Keith’s so passionate, and Mick’s cold and dispassionate.’ Mick in Keith's villa on the Cote d'Azur in 1971 'People aren’t like that in real life. Keith can be as cold and dispassionate as almost anyone I know. I don’t mean that as a criticism, because you have to be sometimes. ‘People have different natures. Talking about yourself as a person, not just as part of a band, I don’t know where to separate or not. 'I have to be analytical sometimes, outside of music, then I have to be feeling as well.

I have to see other people’s points of view. 'If I’m talking business with someone, I try to see their point of view. You step back and analyse it. You don’t need to be emotional with these things. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share ‘But that doesn’t mean that I’m not passionate about the musical side of it. I can be really emotional about it. You have to be all things at once. I get very excited about designing stage sets and things like that, graphics and merchandise. 'I work sometimes with Charlie on them, and we get very excited about these things. 'I’ve lots of different roles within the Rolling Stones, and then I have roles outside of the band that have nothing to do with the Rolling Stones at all. So I don’t want to be pigeonholed that I’m one thing.’ Later, I try one more roundabout question about Jagger’s relationship to Richards. Charlie Watts told me, ‘The two big offenders virtually lived together when they were kids, didn’t they? 'They lived down the road from each other. It comes from all that. They’re like brothers, arguing about the rent, and then if you get between it, forget it.’ Is Keith like a brother?

'People always say things like that. But I have a brother (Chris Jagger)... My relationship with my brother is nothing at all like my relationship with Keith,' said Mick This has been echoed by Richards himself, who said recently that he and Jagger were like ‘two very volatile brothers – when they clash, they really clash, but when it’s over...’ Does Jagger see it that way? ‘People always say things like that,’ Jagger replies. ‘But I have a brother (Chris Jagger), you know? 'My relationship with my brother is nothing at all like my relationship with Keith, which is someone you work with, completely different. With a brother, you have parents in common, families in common. 'We don’t have that, Keith and I. We work together. If you didn’t have a brother you might say that it was like being a brother. But being in a band is another kind of relationship.’ Doesn’t that band relationship make for a strong bond? ‘Well, yeah, if you work with someone that long, it makes a lot of bonds, a lot of memories and things you relate to from your past. You have reference points that you can evoke.

'You have relationships with everyone in the band, and you have relationships with people in the periphery of the band, so it’s a large group. But it isn’t a family.’ Keith Richards ON MICK JAGGER 'I'd say anything to get the band together, you know? I'd lie to my mother,' said Keith I meet Richards in a lounge at the rehearsal complex where the Rolling Stones are practising for the tour. He wears slim jeans, a ragged-looking black T-shirt, and his grey hair puffs up above a grey bandanna. Richards no longer dyes his hair, nor have there been obvious efforts at cosmetic surgery for him or the other Stones. These are no doubt reasonably vain men, but they are at home with the age in their faces. As we talk, Richards keeps a cigarette going. I ask the guitarist about a comment by Prince Rupert Loewenstein, former longtime financial adviser to the Stones.

In his recent book, A Prince Among Stones, he wrote, ‘A relation, who dabbled in psychoanalysis, said, “In a way, Keith is coming out the winner on a human level – Mick on a professional one.’’’ I half-expect a demurral from Richards – nobody in or around the Stones, I’d been told, wants to risk the present armistice – but he responds without hesitation. ‘I would say that’s a pretty fair judgment on it, yeah.’ At the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s 2008 band concert film, Shine a Light, Richards was asked if he could imagine life without the other Rolling Stones. He looked bemused. ‘Easily,’ he said. Which might be true – or not. ‘We know we’re damn good,’ Richards tells me, ‘and we have some weird desire to make it better. 'Everybody’s still here, which is obviously an important ingredient. With any band that has been around, even for a few years, not everybody likes everybody all the time. 'But maybe you have a need for that conversation to continue, and music is the one way you can do that. It’s stronger than the other things that get in the way.

‘It would be a miracle, wouldn’t it, in 50 years for two guys to get on, let alone three or four? 'I don’t want to over-emphasise the differences between Mick and me. You never hear about the 98 per cent of the time we’re in sync and know each other and know what we want to do. But my main means of communication is through music. 'Call it a gentlemen’s agreement or something like that. It’s unspoken, but I notice that once we start working, a lot of the barriers or whatever you want to call them do tend to disappear.’ Richards says he wasn’t surprised by Jagger’s response. Mick with girlfriend L'Wren Scott ‘No, not really. Uh, because I know what he’s like. 'As I told Mick, “You should have seen what I left out!’’ Keith says with a laugh. ‘I said, “I know exactly what you did. You got the book, you went straight to the index – Jagger, M – and that’s what you read. You didn’t take it in context. You didn’t.” So, yeah, we had a bit of a doo-dah, but I expected it.

We resolved it, in our own way, you know.’ Mick requested an apology? ‘He did,’ says Richards, ‘and I said that I regret if I caused you any, you know, inconvenience or pain, or something. It was...’ Richards laughs. ‘I’d say anything to get the band together, you know? I’d lie to my mother.’ Did Richards feel the band was in jeopardy? ‘No, not at all. No. I thought it was a very interesting little prick – a little shot of adrenaline.’ Looking back now, is there anything he wishes he hadn’t said in print? ‘No, no, no, no.’ Richards laughs again. ‘I say what I say and that’s it. I wouldn’t retract a thing, man.’ I have to wonder: Have there been times, perhaps during this recent spat with Jagger, that Richards worried that the band was just broken? ‘Sometimes I’d look at it and say: “This damn band is broken – but not unfixable.” But none of us ever discarded it in the junkyard.

It was like, “Yeah, it’s a bit broken, and it’ll take a bit of work to, you know, to get it into shape again.” 'That’s what we’ve done the last year, is we’ve knocked the thing back into shape and into far better shape than I’d hoped for.’ I remind Richards that he said one of his goals was to see the Stones grow up, or grow older, gracefully. It might be fair to say they’ve also grown up a bit ungracefully, at times. Is there a value to growing up ungracefully, too? ‘Um, yeah. Grace is... is a wonderful thing. Only, though, when you see it done with imperfection. 'Otherwise, if everything’s graceful all the time, you get used to it. It’s the odd ungraceful move that enhances the grace of the rest of it. You get my drift?’ Watts also told me something about grace: ‘If the music we play together is great, that’s why Mick’s forgiven Keith, and vice versa – then that will be why Keith’s forgiven Mick, or himself, for whatever he said about Mick.

'I think that that’s probably the saving grace of it all.’ BRENDAGATE: Keith takes the Mick In his 2011 memoir, Life, Richards described Jagger’s 2001 album, Goddess In The Doorway, as ‘Dogs**t In The Doorway’, and portrayed Jagger as a man who had changed from beguiling and attentive to cold, ambitious and controlling. ‘It was the start of the Eighties,’ Richards wrote, ‘when Mick became unbearable. He became Brenda, or Her Majesty… 'We’d be talking about “that bitch Brenda” with him in the room, and he wouldn’t know.’ The book also alleged that Marianne Faithfull had no fun with Mick’s ‘tiny todger’, and that ‘Mick doesn’t like to trust anybody. I think it’s something to do with the way he’s had to deal with being Mick Jagger. He can’t stop being Mick Jagger all the time.’ Both men had taken jabs at each other in the press over the years, only to smooth things over. This time was different.

Before there could be serious plans for a 50th-anniversary tour Jagger made it plain that there would have to be a reckoning. The details of what passed between the two men remain private, but Wood called it ‘tense and awkward’. There was even a rumour Richards’ position as the Stones’ rhythm guitarist might be in peril. ANSWERS: 1. A, 2. B, 3. C, 4. B, 5. B, 6 .B, 7. B, 8. B, 9. B, 10. C Life by Keith Richards | Book review | Books | The Guardian The Observer Life by Keith Richards Forget the sex and drugs – only rock'n'roll can still get Keith Richards up in the morning, writes Sean O'Hagan Rock and roll was Keith Richards' escape from the drabness of post-war suburbia. Photograph: Getty Photograph: Graham Wiltshire/Redferns Sean O'Hagan Share on Messenger Close The survivor's story is one of the predominant narratives of our time.

It usually traces a familiar arc from excess through despair to redemption, and, as such, allows us to enjoy the vicarious thrill of voyeurism within the framework of a cautionary or salutary tale. Life by Keith Richards , the most famous survivor of them all, breaks with this tradition insofar as it contains excess aplenty but hardly any despair and very little redemption. Keith did it all, had a hell of a good time, and survived to brag about it. Life has the macho swagger that rock'n'roll in general – and the Rolling Stones in particular – once possessed. This is both its strength and its weakness. It often reads like a historical document of another time: a lost world in which women were always "chicks" or "bitches", an inflatable giant penis was a non-ironic stage prop, and a bottle of Jack Daniel's was the de rigueur rock'n'roll accessory. It is a drug memoir of sorts, albeit without the hardcore confessional descriptiveness of the genre.

Instead, it is almost casual in its cataloguing of excess: heroin, cocaine, Tuinal, Nembutal, STP, LSD, speedballs, Moroccan hashish, Jamaican ganja, and, inevitably, methadone, are just some of the substances mentioned – often in passing. Consider, for instance, the following passage from the book, which describes his daily breakfast routine during the 70s: "I would take a barbiturate to wake up … a Tuinal, pin it, put a needle in it so it would come on quicker. And then take a hot cup of tea, and then consider getting up or not. And later maybe a Mandrax or a Quaalude… And when the effect wears off after about two hours, you're feeling mellow, you've had a bit of breakfast and you're ready for work." The word "mellow" here is, of course, relative. This is someone, after all, who took downers to wake up and start the day – albeit slowly. While reading Life, it is worth keeping in mind that mellow for Keith means comatose for the rest of us.

Even John Lennon, no stranger to excess, tried and failed miserably to keep up with Keef, ending up, as the latter puts it, "in my john, hugging the porcelain". Keeping up with Keef became a deadly game in the early 1970s, when heroin – usually mixed with cocaine and injected as a "speedball" – became Richards and his partner, Anita Pallenberg's, drug of choice. Pallenberg, alone, seems to have kept up with Keef by being both more ruthless and more reckless. She was originally the girlfriend of Brian Jones about whose death Richards is cold-blooded. Jones, a desolate individual, temperamentally unsuited to fame, drowned in his swimming pool in July 1969, a few weeks after being fired by Jagger and Richards. He is described here as a "whining son of a bitch" whose death occurred "at that point in his life when there wasn't any". Richards is cavalier about death – his own and others' – seeing it as a kind of occupational hazard best avoided by "pacing yourself". This from a man who scored cocaine and heroin by the pound.

It was, he insists, the very best heroin and the purest cocaine, which undoubtedly helped, as did the array of top-class lawyers who were on call every time he ran foul of the law. The main problem with Life, though, is that too many of these tales have been told before, most evocatively in two classic on-the-road-with-the-Stones chronicles: Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones and Robert Greenfield's Stones Touring Party. For me, the writing comes alive when Richards broaches the subject of the great music he once made and the heroes that inspired him to do so. He is surprisingly illuminating on chord structures and the like, the kind of thing that in most rock memoirs has me skipping pages to get to the next drug bust or wrecked hotel room. He brilliantly summons up the suffocating drabness of postwar English suburbia and the cathartic effect of hearing raw blues and rock'n'roll on imported albums. With Jones and Mick Jagger, he listened to those records over and over, then tried to replicate their sound with the fierce dedication of the true religious devotee. "It was a mania. Benedictines had nothing on us.

You were supposed to spend all your waking hours studying Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Little Walter … Every moment taken away from it was a sin." From time to time, you sense that Richards loved his guitars even more than he loved his "chicks". He sometimes writes about the lure of the Gibson and the Fender with undisguised eroticism. In this, he is the polar opposite of his musical partner, Jagger, with whom he maintains what might in therapy-speak be called a long-term dysfunctional relationship. He has not, he confesses, visited Jagger's dressing room in 20 years. For Richards, one senses, old wounds are slow to heal. One of the most extraordinary passages in Life describes the writing of "Gimme Shelter" in 1969. It is perhaps the Stones' darkest, most apocalyptic song, but it was spawned, not by the spiralling political turbulence of the times, but Richards's intuition – correct as it turned out – that Jagger was bedding Pallenberg on the set of Donald Cammell's film, Performance. Richards's relationship with Jagger, though, has outlasted every other relationship either of them has ever had.

Neither Richards's heroin addiction nor Jagger's dalliance with the dreadful Studio 54 disco crowd could undo it. The Rolling Stones , too, survive and thrive in ways that it would have been impossible for either of them to have imagined. Now pensioners, they peddle an astoundingly successful global brand of sponsored rock nostalgia – their last tour was the highest-grossing ever. The group's career path perfectly traces the trajectory of the rock form from rebellion, to assimilation by the mainstream, to corporatism; from meaning to empty spectacle. Nevertheless, Keith Richards, now a tax exile and a granddad, remains fixed in the public consciousness as a rock'n'roll outlaw. "People love that image," he muses. "They imagined me, they made me … Bless their hearts. And I'll do the best I can to fulfil their needs. They're wishing me to do things that they can't. They've got to do this job, they've got this life, they're an insurance salesman … but, inside them, there's a raging Keith Richards." That Keith has not raged, nor indeed written a great song, in three decades, hardly matters: he's still here to tell the tale.

Keith Richards Apologizes to Mick Jagger - Rolling Stone Keith Richards Apologizes to Mick Jagger Watch Alec Baldwin Imitate Donald Trump During NYC... Keith Richards Apologizes to Mick Jagger 'Some parts of ['Life'] and some of the publicity really offended Mick,' says Keith Richards. 'And I regret that.' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards together onstage in New York City. Credit: Scott Gries/Getty Images In a new interview conducted for an upcoming documentary chronicling the Rolling Stones' 50-year career, Keith Richards addresses the derogatory comments he made about Mick Jagger in his 2010 memoir Life. Here is the exchange: More News All Stories How have you both found surveying a journey that has already lasted 50 years? It must have been difficult at times, bearing in mind the nature of your relationship and especially the stories we have all heard about the tensions that resulted from the publication of Life. Mick: Well, I’m glad you said 50 years as that sounds so much less than half a century (laughs). Looking back at any career you are bound to recall both the highs and the lows. In the 1980s for instance Keith and I were not communicating very well.

I got very involved with the business side of the Stones, mainly because I felt no one else was interested, but it’s plain now from the book that Keith felt excluded, which is a pity. Time I reckon to move on. Keith: Mick’s right. He and I have had conversations over the last year of a kind we have not had for an extremely long time and that has been incredibly important to me. As far as the book goes, it was my story and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick and I regret that. Don’t Miss a Story Sign up for our newsletter to receive breaking news directly in your inbox. We may use your e-mail address to send you the newsletter and offers that may interest you, on behalf of Rolling Stone and its partners. For more information please read our Privacy Policy How we use your email address Trending Ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, the trending score reflects the number of users reading a story in real time. What is this?

Keith Richards Regrets Savaging Mick Jagger in His Memoir Search Keith Richards Regrets Savaging Mick Jagger in His Memoir Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards wrote that bandmate Mick Jagger is “unbearable” and has a “tiny todger” Tim Kenneally | March 16, 2012 @ 12:13 PM Keith Richards is making nice with his longtime bandmate/adversary Mick Jagger , after slicing him to pieces in his 2010 autobiography "Life." The 68-year-old guitarist extended an olive branch to Jagger during a recent interview for an upcoming documentary, saying that his criticism of Jagger in the book gave him "regret." Also read: Rolling Stones Rolls Back 50th Anniversary Tour to 2013 "As far as the book goes, it was my story and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick and I regret that," Richards admitted, according to Rolling Stone .

Among other things, Richards characterized Jagger as "unbearable" and accused him of having a "tiny todger." Also read: U2 Dethrones the Rolling Stones With Biggest-Grossing Tour of All Time Jagger, meanwhile, admitted that his actions likely left Richards feeling alienated. "In the 1980s for instance Keith and I were not communicating very well," the singer said. "I got very involved with the business side of the Stones, mainly because I felt no one else was interested, but it’s plain now from the book that Keith felt excluded, which is a pity." Since the publication of the book, Richards said, the pair of aging rockers have had a number of heart-to-heart talks that have been "incredibly important" to the guitarist. "He and I have had conversations over the last year of a kind we have not had for an extremely long time and that has been incredibly important to me," Richards said.

Alas, Jagger and Richards won't be sharing their blossoming bromance on the road anytime soon; as reported earlier this week, the group has postponed a tour celebrating its 50th anniversary until next year, reportedly because Richards is still suffering the affects of a 2006 injury he suffered after falling out of a tree in Fiji.

Question: The 2010 memoir ‘Life’ is by which member of the Rolling Stones?
Answer: Keith Richards