Why Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are not friends: “Too much wear and tear”
The music industry has never been the greatest environment for stable relationships. Even if some people like to play up the idea of the ‘Three Musketeers’ mentality whenever they’re onstage together, there are only so many times that someone can pretend to be friends with their bandmates before they want to start pulling their hair out. And while duos like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards did have a symbiotic relationship in The Rolling Stones, that didn’t mean that they were always cordial towards each other behind the scenes.
Then again, ‘The Glimmer Twins’ seem to be better known today for being two halves of the same whole in The Stones. Despite their start as a blues cover band, both of them seemed to have the perfect way of bouncing off each other, whether that was Jagger’s signature voice bringing some grit into British rock or Richards becoming the human riff machine by the time he started working on tunes like ‘Satisfaction’.
But being in a band for that long would mean that stumbling blocks were bound to happen along the way. As much as Jagger loved the blues when starting out, he was always interested in listening to the next big thing in music, which didn’t exactly work well with the way that Richards constructed riffs. He was more straight-ahead rock and roll, and no amount of flirtation with genres like disco was going to work for him.
Granted, it’s not like Jagger was always wrong about chasing trends. A tune like ‘Respectable’ off of Some Girls is one of their more interesting musical detours into the world of punk, but looking at some of the harsh eras of their discography like Dirty Work, it was clear that Richards’s heart wasn’t into trend-chasing for the hell of it.
That also comes down to major disagreements that the bandmates have about their own material. Aside from Richards not so subtlety referring to some eras of their career as crap, Jagger has been vocal about not enjoying some of their celebrated material, including what many would consider their magnum opus, Exile On Main St. But even amongst their squabbling, Richards admits that what they do is more important than their music.
As much as the friendship has faded over the years, Richards felt that he and Jagger have a bond that few have been able to describe, saying, “Mick and I may not be friends – too much wear and tear for that. We’re the closest of brothers, and that can’t be severed. How can you describe a relationship that goes that far back? Best friends are best friends. But brothers fight.”
And for someone who is as outspoken about his opinions as Richards is, one of the most revealing moments of his career came in one of his songs. Although ‘All About You’ could easily be about his relationship with a girl that never seems to work out as it should, it could easily be about his time in the band, like when he wonders why he still loves him after all of the bad blood that they have creatively.
While Richards and Jagger do have the kind of volatile relationship that most musicians have nightmares about, it’s never at the expense of the song. They may have their disagreements and are more than willing to voice them when the time comes, but even if the friendship doesn’t last, the music still does.
