“It’s fatal”: the band Keith Richards saw no point in listening to
Under the right light, it’s clear that The Rolling Stones were always about creating space. Space for the things others thought had no place here. Space for exploring new sounds, patterns, cultures. Space for anything outside of what people considered the right or normal thing to do in rock, not just blues but a more complicated attitude which boiled down to a simple shrug and a, “It’s very rock ‘n’ roll, you know.” A big sound underscored by Keith Richards’ nonchalance.
Richards would always be blunt and direct in almost every scenario, but this only made more sense looking at the bigger picture, as you have to have a quality of confidence about you to make something work, and you have to believe in it, too, especially if it’s something others can’t quite wrap their head around. We know what they were trying to do and why, but at various points along the way, others felt they were just trying their hand at basic imitation in the name of “originality”.
Of course, it’s far more complicated than that, not to mention slightly demeaning to suggest that all The Stones were good for was stealing the sounds of others. But, often, these criticisms became overwhelmingly tiresome, especially when considering the reality of it, and how this was never a band that actually set out to steal from others or pretend something was their own just for monetary gain. Really, it bridged a gap between worlds that no one else had the courage to try at the time.
It’s why Richards often leaned into his brashness, somehow becoming his own best advocate whenever an interviewer sharply steered in an unexpected direction and asked something along the lines of, “So, how do you feel about Elton John saying you’re like ‘a pathetic monkey with arthritis?'” This probably didn’t happen often, but knowing how susceptible he was to more criticism than most, Richards needed to be on guard at all times.
It’s also probably why, more often than not, Richards felt the need to throw down the gauntlet to others, shining the light elsewhere and telling others they’re not as great as everybody thinks they are. Of course, save for the bitter feuds, this was usually about whether an artist does things for commercial gain or to pander to whatever other expectations. And, considering the fact that The Stones were often lumped in those sorts of categories, it makes sense why Richards would push the focus elsewhere.
Perhaps this is why he once targeted the Sex Pistols. “I don’t think that Bowie or Johnny Rotten or all the Zeppelins are anywhere in the future, let alone the present,” he said in 1977. “Jagger believes punk is today, is now. To think you’ve got to something new just for the sake of doing it isn’t real. It’s the equivalent to when a lot of Dixieland bands added electric guitars, calling themselves R&B just to stay up with the times.”
On Sex Pistols, he continued: “For a band of The Stones’ position to do that would have been ludicrous. It’s fatal for The Stones to try that. Why the fuck do WE have to try to sound like the Sex Pistols for? What’s the point of listening to that shit? It’s for mass-media consumption anyway.” Which is all just a long way of basically saying: the Sex Pistols are meaningless, so let’s talk some more about that.
Of course, depending on who you ask, that’s completely rubbish, but for Richards to prime such a cutting review with Jaggers’ view on the current state of punk feels like a bigger gripe with the different ways that the industry pulls on the threads of specific terminology, with little regard for whether it’s actually authentic or not. In short, Richards (and The Stones) were always striving for a higher level of ingenuity because they believed they had something, which can’t always be said for others, who became too wrapped up in “success” to find the space for anything else.
