Keith Richards has just become a great-grandfather. \u201cThis is true! This is true!\u201d he enthuses, video-calling from somewhere in the depths of the Hit Factory, the New York studio first patronised by the Rolling Stones 46 years ago when they were making Emotional Rescue. \u201cIt\u2019s been a couple of weeks. It\u2019s a new thing for me. But I\u2019m a fantastic grandad,\u201d he confides. \u201cGreat-grandadding is \u2026 I try to let them hang with me for as long as humanly possible, then I hand \u2019em back. I\u2019ve been doing a lot of grandfathering in the last year or so. I\u2019ve got three or four new ones, you know. When I say new, I mean \u2026 two or three years old. Or four. Or one, or maybe five.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hang on, that seems a little vague. He shrugs and explodes in a wheezy chuckle. \u201cI lose track, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
It feels almost like a legal requirement to note how improbable all this would have once seemed: there was a time when the general consensus was that Richards probably wouldn\u2019t live to see the end of the year, let alone the birth of his great-granddaughter, such was the chemical and alcoholic havoc he persisted on wreaking on himself. And yet here he is, having doubtless outlived some of the people who predicted his early demise: 82, hale and hearty, welcoming the arrival of the splendidly named Luna Richards-Von Bismarck.<\/p>\n
\u2018You tend to slow down if you want to keep going\u2019 \u2026 Richards outside his Redlands home in West Sussex, which nearly burned down in 1973. Photograph: Mirrorpix\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI tended to listen to my body just before it screamed for help,\u201d he says of his longevity. \u201cI mean, I wasn\u2019t far from the end of the runway before I screamed for help. But you tend to slow down if you want to keep going; you pace yourself.\u201d He quit smoking cigarettes six years ago. \u201cSuddenly, I felt like after all these years of smoking \u2013 because, you know, a man smokes \u2013 I was sat around with this silly thing in my mouth thinking: how childish. It was that that put me off more than anything, although I smoke a lot of weed.\u201d He\u2019s not drinking this week, he says, \u201cbut otherwise, yeah, in moderation\u2019.\u201d Another wheezy chuckle. \u201cSo, yeah, it\u2019s only a ton of heroin a day now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, there\u2019s a new Rolling Stones album to promote, another state of affairs that would once have seemed fairly improbable. The last time I met Richards was in 2015: he\u2019d just released a solo album called Crosseyed Heart but spent a substantial portion of our conversation telling me that he didn\u2019t want to make a solo album and indeed had no desire to be a solo artist. He was \u201conly doing it to keep my hand in\u201d because the Rolling Stones were \u201cin hibernation\u201d. He was so sorely displeased about this that he\u2019d told his bandmates he was going to retire in an attempt to galvanise them \u2013 \u201cpunching them in the back of the head\u201d, as he put it. When I asked what ambitions he might possibly have left to fulfil, he talked, a little wistfully, about perhaps making one more Rolling Stones album.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In fact, they\u2019ve made three more: 2016\u2019s unexpected return-to-first-principles collection of blues covers, Blue & Lonesome, then a 2023 album of originals, Hackney Diamonds, released a couple of years after the death of drummer Charlie Watts. Now, not even three years later, there\u2019s Foreign Tongues, some of which predates Watts\u2019s death, including the surprisingly tender Richards-sung Some of Us, which he says dates back about 20 years but which producer Andrew Watt \u201ccherrypicked from the can\u201d. Other songs were recorded in a more recent month-long flurry of activity in London: a track called Ringing Hollow, which Mick Jagger<\/a> has described as \u201clove letter to America\u201d, gives every impression of actually being a critique of the US under Trump\u2019s second term: \u201cThere\u2019s always a scoundrel trying to whip up the crowd \u2026 there\u2019s always a king trying to pick up the crown \u2026 Lady Liberty don\u2019t look so good when she\u2019s wearing a scowl.\u201d<\/p>\n The surviving Stones \u2026 (from left) Richards, Ronnie Wood and Mick Jagger, 2023. Photograph: Toby Melville\/Reuters<\/p>\n \u201cMick\u2019s been very prolific lately,\u201d Richards says, \u201cwhich is one reason this album has come out so quick, because he won\u2019t bloody stop. And the momentum from Hackney Diamonds was such that this is basically carrying on in the same breath. I was just letting it roll \u2013 we had enough stuff if we wanted to keep pushing, and so Mick and I gave each other the usual wry look and said: \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s keep pushing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He credits Watt \u2013 35 years old and very much the rock aristocracy\u2019s current producer of choice, as his recent work with Paul McCartney, Elton John, Iggy Pop and Michael Stipe attests \u2013 with \u201cbeing a breath of fresh air and a kick up the ass. He knows his stuff musically and technically, and he doesn\u2019t put up with any bullshit \u2013 he just gets on with it. So I found him very easy to work with. He\u2019s a bit impetuous at times, but then so what?\u201d<\/p>\n When you say he doesn\u2019t put up with any bullshit, has he ever had to give you a talking-to? He narrows his eyes: \u201cNo. But he may have given somebody a talking-to.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markAI is killing me. Do I fear for the future of music? I fear for the future of everything<\/p>\n Actually, Richards says, there isn\u2019t much of the aforementioned bullshit to deal with any more. For years, it certainly seemed to be in plentiful supply: Rolling Stones albums were frequently made in a very strained atmosphere indeed, usually as a result of disagreements between Richards and Jagger. \u201cI\u2019ve known Mick, I think, roughly since preschool, so let\u2019s say about four years old,\u201d Richards says, \u201cand when you\u2019ve known a chap that long, you always say: \u2018Listen to me, boy, I\u2019ve known you since you were four \u2026\u2019 And that seems to have an effect.\u201d<\/p>\n But these days, the Jagger\/Richards relationship is apparently less inclined to what Richards calls \u201cjousting\u201d, even accommodating for his famously dismissive attitude towards Jagger\u2019s solo career, including collaborations with the likes of Skepta<\/a> or Tame Impala<\/a>, which Richards recently characterised as \u201cfairying off into the modern world\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, there\u2019s not as much jousting. He\u2019s broken his sword, he\u2019s broken his lance. It\u2019s another thing that Mick and I gave up, probably down to age. Or at least he hasn\u2019t come at me for a while, so I presume we have. But you never know \u2013 I could be off my horse and have my shield up and have him stab me in the eye with \u2026\u201d he says, the end of the sentence consumed by yet another wheezy laugh.<\/p>\n \u2018He hasn\u2019t come at me for a while\u2019 \u2026 on stage with Jagger in 1997. Photograph: Brian Rasic\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In the past, at least part of the problem was Jagger\u2019s desire for modernity clashing with his songwriting partner\u2019s staunch traditionalism. For all that the Stones are digitally de-aged in their latest music video, and that Jagger still \u201cfairies off\u201d to collaborate with contemporary pop stars while cheerily documenting his life on Instagram, Richards has \u201chad it up to here with technology\u201d. And as for celebrity culture, don\u2019t get him started: \u201cEven my grandchildren,\u201d he glowers, \u201care not quite as imbecilic.\u201d He mourns the passing of the cassette tape \u2013 \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for a cassette, there wouldn\u2019t have been a Satisfaction, because I got the riff in my sleep, hit record and then the next day played it back and it was Satisfaction in a very raw form\u201d \u2013 and seems incapable of saying the word \u201csynthesisers\u201d without prefacing it with the adjective \u201cdamn\u201d. Needless to say, our video call has been set up by an assistant on the grounds that Richards\u2019s daily relationship with tech extends to what he calls \u201can electric kettle and that\u2019s about it, pal\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markChuck Berry punched me once, in the 60s. I was just having a peek at his guitar and was about to stroke it<\/p>\n \u201cI stick to the old ways, as my dad would have said. I\u2019ve seen records go from being made on two-track tapes stuck to the wall, to suddenly eight tracks, then 16, 24, then digital and it hasn\u2019t really helped the music at all. But it\u2019s something you live with. I mean, personally, I think the world would be better off without the damn phone. AI is killing me, you know. Do I fear for the future of music? I fear for the future of everything. They don\u2019t know what the hell it does, so now we all dangle and wait.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Foreign Tongues does a pretty great job of melding the two conflicting impulses at the heart of the Rolling Stones. On the one hand, there are tracks that resemble a 21st-century reboot of the disco Stones of Miss You and Emotional Rescue, a cover of Amy Winehouse\u2019s You Know I\u2019m No Good and an unexpected guest appearance from the Cure\u2019s Robert Smith, about which Richards winningly professes total ignorance. \u201cHow did it happen? Don\u2019t know. I wasn\u2019t there. Andrew said: \u2018Do you mind if I put in so-and-so?\u2019 And I said: \u2018No, man, if it\u2019s a piece that\u2019s necessary, do it.\u2019 So that\u2019s how he got slipped in.\u201d<\/p>\n Rock\u2019n\u2019roll outlaw \u2026 Richards in New York, 1980. Photograph: George Rose\/Getty Images<\/p>\n On the other hand, it features a cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s Beautiful Delilah, rendered, as Richards notes, \u201cas more of an old acoustic blues, like it was made 30 or 40 years before Chuck did it\u201d, which concludes the album pretty much where the Stones started in 1963: their debut single was a cover of Berry\u2019s Come On, and Richards has always cited Berry as his formative inspiration.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something about those early records of his,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have an ease about them and a sophistication in a way, particularly in the lyrics, which always made me think that rock\u2019n\u2019roll didn\u2019t always have to be the way that everyone used to think about it\u201d \u2013 ie that it wasn\u2019t just trash for teenagers. \u201cI loved his naturalness when he was playing, the way he moved \u2013 his whole body became part of the guitar. He made me focus on what was possible for me, at the time, which made my mother shell out for an electric guitar. I just felt a natural affinity for him, even though he was a cussed bugger.\u201d He laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cHe punched me once, years ago, in the 60s, I think. We were in his dressing room, I was having a peek at his guitar and I was just about to stroke it, and he went: \u2018Nobody touches it!\u2019 And bam! Quite right, Chuck! I would have done the same. I\u2019ve never had to, but then I\u2019ve never caught someone doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The great-grandkids give you another mirror to look into where you\u2019re from\u2019 \u2026 Richards with his wife, Patti Hansen, in 2015. Photograph: Chris Young\/AP<\/p>\n As with the cover of Muddy Waters\u2019 Rollin\u2019 Stone on Hackney Diamonds, Beautiful Delilah comes at the end of the album \u2013 as if someone, somewhere is working on the principle that this might be the band\u2019s final album and is keen to end things in a neatly circular way. But Richards demurs: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it was intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, come on, you\u2019ve been in the Rolling Stones for 64 years. You must sometimes think \u2026 \u201cThis could be the last time? I wrote it, mate! No, I think it might cross the mind occasionally \u2013 you\u2019d be an idiot not to. But it\u2019s not something you dwell on. By now I\u2019m fully set on my path and I\u2019m just going to see where it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, he says, he\u2019s been thinking more about the past recently. \u201cI mean, you do suddenly turn around and say: Christ, I\u2019m 82. It\u2019s a long thing to look back on. But it\u2019s a fascinating thing, especially now we go into the whole great-grandkids thing. They suddenly give you another mirror to look into where you\u2019re from. I don\u2019t know: is it called maturing or something like that?\u201d Yet again, he erupts in a wheezy chuckle. \u201cGod forbid,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Foreign Tongues is released on 10 July via Polydor\/Capitol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keith Richards has just become a great-grandfather. \u201cThis is true! 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