Post by Gazza on Sep 8th, 2014 at 5:21pm
A couple of new interviews. Keith confirms his album is finished, but he doesnt want to put it out while the Stones are touring
First up, USA Today with Elysa Gardner :
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/09/08/keith-richards/15128343/?4qL0809
NEW YORK Keith Richards has a hearty, throaty chuckle, rather like a cartoon villain who's had his soft spot tickled, and he uses it often when the subject of family comes up.
Take Theodore Augustus Dupree, the Rolling Stone's maternal grandfather and hero of his new children's book, Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar. Also a musician he gave Richards his first guitar, as the story reveals Dupree "was a bit of an all-'rounder. He used to play saxophone, but then in the first World War he got gassed," while serving as a baker in the British army.
Richards, 70, pauses here, a wry smile further crinkling his famously weathered face. "There's two stories about this. One is it was the enemy's gas. But my father's take on this is that he gassed himself."
The laugh comes slowly and deeply, hovering in the downtown studio where Richards who published a best-selling memoir, Life, in 2010 now perches on a sofa, puffing a cigarette. "Anyway, Gus got gassed enough to get a pension from the army to keep him going, but he couldn't play saxophone anymore. So he took up violin instead."
Dupree also played piano and guitar, obviously inspiring his grandson's love of the latter, and of American roots music in general. Now a grandfather of five himself, Richards sustains a schedule and enjoys a lifestyle that Gus himself could hardly have imagined; the Stones will resume their latest world tour in Australia this fall, and Richards has a new solo album his first in more than 20 years pretty much wrapped up.
"We cut the tracks right here," says Richards, who worked with the X-Pensive Winos, his colleagues on two previous albums. "It'll probably be out next year. I'm really just waiting now for the Stones not to be working; I don't want to put it out while we're on the road."
Cover of "Gus & Me" by Keith Richards, art by Theodora Richards.(Photo: Little, Brown and Co.)
Don't expect Richards' new music to be a departure into, say, electronica. Asked for his take on contemporary pop music, he says, "Technology has run away with itself a bit, I think. It's a little manufactured and stuck in a rut, like it was for a while in the '50s. But I think things run in cycles. There are great bands and players out there, and always somebody about to break through."
He quips, "It's just a matter of timing and my timing is always impeccable."
Indeed, after 50 years of recording and touring, Richards insists he's never wearied by the rigmarole. Performing is "exhausting the way a tennis game is exhausting; by the next day you're recovered, so you can get exhausted again. And I love traveling. If I'm in one place for more than a couple of weeks, I think, 'I'm supposed to be somewhere else, surely!' "
He credits his wife of more than 30 years, model Patti Hansen, with providing a sense of stability. "It's quite simple: We happen to love each other, and she can put up with me. It's difficult to find a woman, especially one as beautiful as that, who will put up with the nature of my job, where I'm disappearing for months. You have have to adjust life and keep the family together, and my wife's made that easy for me."
His fellow Stones remain another support system, he admits, without irony. "We wouldn't have been around this long otherwise. Things are left unsaid, because you just need a nod and a wink. You're amazed that you're still here, and still together."
First up, USA Today with Elysa Gardner :
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/09/08/keith-richards/15128343/?4qL0809
NEW YORK Keith Richards has a hearty, throaty chuckle, rather like a cartoon villain who's had his soft spot tickled, and he uses it often when the subject of family comes up.
Take Theodore Augustus Dupree, the Rolling Stone's maternal grandfather and hero of his new children's book, Gus & Me: The Story of My Granddad and My First Guitar. Also a musician he gave Richards his first guitar, as the story reveals Dupree "was a bit of an all-'rounder. He used to play saxophone, but then in the first World War he got gassed," while serving as a baker in the British army.
Richards, 70, pauses here, a wry smile further crinkling his famously weathered face. "There's two stories about this. One is it was the enemy's gas. But my father's take on this is that he gassed himself."
The laugh comes slowly and deeply, hovering in the downtown studio where Richards who published a best-selling memoir, Life, in 2010 now perches on a sofa, puffing a cigarette. "Anyway, Gus got gassed enough to get a pension from the army to keep him going, but he couldn't play saxophone anymore. So he took up violin instead."
Dupree also played piano and guitar, obviously inspiring his grandson's love of the latter, and of American roots music in general. Now a grandfather of five himself, Richards sustains a schedule and enjoys a lifestyle that Gus himself could hardly have imagined; the Stones will resume their latest world tour in Australia this fall, and Richards has a new solo album his first in more than 20 years pretty much wrapped up.
"We cut the tracks right here," says Richards, who worked with the X-Pensive Winos, his colleagues on two previous albums. "It'll probably be out next year. I'm really just waiting now for the Stones not to be working; I don't want to put it out while we're on the road."
Cover of "Gus & Me" by Keith Richards, art by Theodora Richards.(Photo: Little, Brown and Co.)
Don't expect Richards' new music to be a departure into, say, electronica. Asked for his take on contemporary pop music, he says, "Technology has run away with itself a bit, I think. It's a little manufactured and stuck in a rut, like it was for a while in the '50s. But I think things run in cycles. There are great bands and players out there, and always somebody about to break through."
He quips, "It's just a matter of timing and my timing is always impeccable."
Indeed, after 50 years of recording and touring, Richards insists he's never wearied by the rigmarole. Performing is "exhausting the way a tennis game is exhausting; by the next day you're recovered, so you can get exhausted again. And I love traveling. If I'm in one place for more than a couple of weeks, I think, 'I'm supposed to be somewhere else, surely!' "
He credits his wife of more than 30 years, model Patti Hansen, with providing a sense of stability. "It's quite simple: We happen to love each other, and she can put up with me. It's difficult to find a woman, especially one as beautiful as that, who will put up with the nature of my job, where I'm disappearing for months. You have have to adjust life and keep the family together, and my wife's made that easy for me."
His fellow Stones remain another support system, he admits, without irony. "We wouldn't have been around this long otherwise. Things are left unsaid, because you just need a nod and a wink. You're amazed that you're still here, and still together."
