Keith Richards, the trappings of fame, and the tragic death of Kurt Cobain: “It was inevitable”
The world of rock and roll seemed to come easily to Keith Richards.
He was never going to be one of the biggest heartthrobs in the world whenever he played, but his gig was always about supporting The Rolling Stones from the back and making some of the greatest riffs that the rock and roll world had ever seen. And while that skill has seemed to have given him the power of immortality throughout his years at the top of the world, he felt that life on the road wasn’t something that everyone is really cut out for when they first sign that rock and roll contract.
Because, frankly, touring is a lot harder than it might seem on paper. Everyone might think that it’s pretty cool to live the life of a travelling musician going from one place to another, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. There’s hardly any space to get a good night’s rest, and even if Richards had his fair share of moments where he had a lot of fun on the road, there’s a good chance that many people would have wanted to be home if they were in his position when they found out that a tragedy had happened at his house.
That’s half the reason why a lot of bands take long stints away from the touring life. Kate Bush didn’t enjoy the idea of touring at all, and even if she only went on one tour throughout her entire career, it was worth it knowing that she was putting all of her time and energy into making even bigger and better songs in the studio. But when it comes to rock and roll, you can’t really embrace it unless you hear it live.
The best Stones shows are the stuff of legend in rock and roll circles, but while they had graduated to the likes of stadiums and arenas by the time they reached the 1980s, Kurt Cobain would have been happy playing small clubs the rest of his life. Nirvana were poised to take over the world once ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ became one of the biggest songs in the world, but when you look at Cobain’s behaviour behind the scenes, you could tell that he wasn’t all that comfortable with that level of celebrity.
No one in Seattle really pictured their scene becoming one of the biggest rock and roll spots in the world, and while Cobain did lean into his celebrity a little bit, it didn’t take him long to realise that he didn’t like it. And while his inner demons ended up getting the better of him by 1994, Richards couldn’t help but think that the grunge icon would have been much better off if he hadn’t become famous at all.
Certain people might have been cut out to be rock stars, but Richards was convinced that Cobain certainly wasn’t one of them, saying, “I wasn’t really too aware; I didn’t even know the name of the lead singer of Nirvana until that thing in Rome went down. I was just astonished that two weeks later…no one was keeping an eye on him and just let him buy a shotgun. Mick summed it up well; he said it was inevitable. It would have taken a few years longer to do if he hadn’t been famous. It just wasn’t the right job for someone of that temperament.”
That definitely reads as a little bit callous coming from one of the biggest stars in the world, but given what Richards had gone through, it’s easy to see him having little sympathy. He had gone through shows where he had heard that his child had died and still powered through, but just because he could face his fears and come out on the other side with his guitar strapped around his neck, that didn’t mean that every other rockstar needed to be built as strong as he was whenever they took a stab at the big time.
Cobain’s death was one of the great tragedies of rock and roll, and while many people would have their own thoughts regarding someone taking their own life, it’s not about how you feel about them not being around anymore. Grunge already had the tag of being a genre that was all about people whining about their problems, but if you looked beyond the surface for one second, you would really see that there were a lot of problems that could have been helped if anyone bothered to look for them.
