Keith Richards on the difference between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles: “We were a music band”
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? It’s the ultimate classic rock dilemma. For British fans especially, it feels like being forced to pick between the two forefathers of music or two major pillars of national cultural pride. In a lot of ways, the groups are very similar in terms of their impact, experimentation and enduring appeal. However, for Keith Richards, their differences come down to one major factor.
The split between the Beatles and Stones almost feels like the Oasis vs Blur debate. The Beatles are Liverpool’s favourite sons, all coming from working-class northern backgrounds, singing about the landscape around them and proving that great things can come from humble beginnings. On the flip side, The Stones are southern and, realistically, pretty posh. They cut their teeth in the London scene with plenty of time, money and resources at their disposal. However, their musical sights were set further afield as they borrowed less from the sound of the UK and more from American blues artists. The music fans of the 1960s were fiercely divided into two camps that not only drew a line based on taste but on geography, class and style too.
But to Richards, the line was drawn by only one thing: the music. Even though they were coming up at the same time, he didn’t compare the two groups as he thought that, at their core, they were built of different stuff.
“Everyone in The Beatles could sing,” Richards said to Louder Sound. While it could be argued that Ringo Starr isn’t much of a singer, the fact remains the same. After the split of the band, all four members went solo, taking on the role of the frontman with their own songs and their own artistic identity. To the Stones guitarist, that’s the major difference between them as, for a lot of their band, that wouldn’t be possible.
“We were more of a music band. We only had one frontman,” Richards claimed. It’s true. The Stones have always been led by Mick Jagger, with the group falling around him like a traditional set-up of guitarists, bass players and drummers who do their job and do their job well. The development of the band has always hinged on that as they move in a unit. As the style of the songs changed, the musicians morphed and changed with it, all working away in their own instrumental corner but all in service of the song. It’s saved the band from the arguments that plagued the Beatles over who would sing what, or even who would play what as they weaved between roles depending on who’s song it was.
Richards seems to be arguing that in the Stones, the band was the band, and they all wanted to be the band, interested in doing their part the best they could rather than vying for the microphone and the spotlight.
However, that point falls flat when considering the fact that at one point in time, Jagger, Richards, and Ronnie Wood all had other projects, either with other musicians or solo. It could be argued that there’s clearly a part of Richards that did want to be a frontman as he went off and became one. But that outing only made him long for his position in the band even more. “I learned a lot about being a frontman,” he said. “I appreciated it a lot more — Mick’s angle on things — onstage especially.” He claimed that his time as a solo artist or as part of X-Pensive Winos made him understand the roles in the band better. “It widened my perspective of what everybody has to do in a band,” he said, “It gave me more respect for the frontman.”
As the Beatles all went solo and became the frontman, that was clearly a lesson none of them got to learn. But for Richards, that’s the key difference between the two; one being a band, and the other being a band of singers. But that didn’t stop them all regularly coming together for a supergroup moment.
