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Mark Seliger

He sits on a sofa, sipping from a plastic cup, answering a few questions about the life—"I've led so many lives....Which life are you talking about?"—that has led him here.

What remains for you to achieve?

"I've never tried to achieve anything. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records. That was the only real goal in my life, ever, but since that happened so quickly, like a laser beam...I think the next goal was not to become one-hit wonders. I mean, after that, no real goal, except to sort of keep on going. I mean, what does an entertainer do, basically? You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good. Turn them on."

Is that the word you prefer? "Entertainer" more than "musician"?

"I wouldn't want to impress them with musicianship. I want them there because they want to be there and because they know that they're going to have a damn good time. I wouldn't take it any higher than that."

And what's the joy or fulfilment in achieving that?

"Well, you'd have to be there, pal. To know what it's like to be on a Stones stage with an audience. The exchange of energy that goes on. It's immeasurable. In fact they don't have meters to do it."

What does physically making music give to you?

"Well, it's better than drugs."

People may listen to that, coming from you.

"And the fact that I've written a lot of music on drugs doesn't negate that statement. I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn't get bored anywhere. I could break out of jail on that stuff and still be in jail. It's a freedom nobody can take from you."

Is there anything you still need to prove?

"To prove? I was innocent! Of everything!"
___
Richards likes to play guitar every single day. Maybe an hour or so. "Afternoons, evenings. Pick around, play some Robert Johnson blues, hopefully make an incredible beautiful mistake which will lead me into another area. I do it for me. You know, I'm a selfish son of a bitch. I do it because it turns me on." (As for the mornings...here's more than you wanted to know about how each bright new twenty-first-century-Keith-Richards day begins: "First we have the bowel movement. Cool, that's that out of the way. Seen a friend off to the coast. And then you see what's on the agenda....")

It's a routine (the guitar playing, not the other one) that was disrupted while he was working on his million-selling autobiography, Life. "I hardly played at all for two years," he says. After our conversation, he is due in the studio with drummer Steve Jordan, his partner in his sometime other band, the X-Pensive Winos. "I'm sort of basically recovering from the book, and this is my therapy at the moment," he explains. "In the process of doing it, my chops are coming back." So far, they've got six songs that may or may not turn into an album. "Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one—I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life." That chuckle. "I work the seamier side of life."

And, I note, it's been good to him.

He nods. A sly grin. "There's a lot of seam," he says.

When I ask Richards what he thinks his talent has been, his initial answer relates to his key role in the Rolling Stones. "The ability to work with a team," he says. "To focus a bunch of musicians...to generate enthusiasm even in the face of adversity." I press him further about his individual gift. "You know, I'm a mere balladeer," he demurs. "A minstrel. I mean, when I consider what my job is, it's maybe an even older profession than what they call the oldest profession. I'm sure somebody sung a song before the first whore walked out there."

In his book, one gets the sense that, in recent decades, he considers all the periods when the Rolling Stones are not in action to be time in some kind of waiting room. He doesn't dispute this. "Yeah," he laughs. "A lot of it's purgatory. Luckily I have a few other distractions: 'Oh, I'm in purgatory—come on, honey, let's go to bed.' " For now, the group is preparing an expanded version of its late-'70s high point, Some Girls. And he holds out hopes of escaping purgatory soon: "Next year is sort of up for grabs," says Richards. "It's almost an overwhelming power—it'll be fifty years. So there's that sort of pressure. If I can pull them together, I'm there."

The extraordinary dynamic between Richards and Mick Jagger—dysfunctional, magical, cruel, loving, dismissive—runs through Life. Richards is so hard on his partner, particularly in the later years, that I think a lot of readers, myself included, were surprised to find themselves feeling sorry for Jagger.

"Oh, now, I can understand that," says Richards. "Life's life. I really don't want to go into it anymore, because what is in the book is in the book, and the fact is that Mick and I still talk and are still working together. So maybe that was another balance that needed to be sorted out. Mick and me, two guys divided by love."

One issue seems to have bubbled on in the press since publication—with, most recently, Pete Townshend speaking out to say that he has observed the scorned anatomy in question and that Richards had his facts wrong about Jagger's genitalia. So I ask: Is it ultimately gentlemanly to deride a friend's penis size?

"Between friends I think anything's allowed," replies Richards. "I mean, I've never seen it. I only heard." I begin to speak again, and then Richards gives me the look. He is jolly, jokey, witty, amiable company until you decline a clear hint to gently withdraw from a subject. Then he gazes right at you, and his voice changes, in a way that clearly seems to convey: I'm being nice and charming to you here, but don't push your luck, sonny boy, because I've spat out people a hundred times smarter than you. "But I ain't going there anymore," he says firmly. I nod, and he adds, "It was a joke. Between friends a joke's a joke, and if you can't take a joke..."
___
What do you know now that you didn't know at 40?

"I didn't know I'd make 68."

Do you get a sense of how people imagine you now?

"It's weird. It changed, because of the book mainly. There's always going to be 'Keef'—you know, the one that closed down the liquor stores because he threatened to dry out. And in a way, I've always felt honored by turning into a sort of cartoon. An icon sort of character. And I'm interested in building him up."

Because it's fun, or flattering, or useful?

"Well, it's fun, and you're not going to get away from it. The image is a ball and chain, and you've got to live with it. And, yeah, that is part of me. Old Keef. You know. The drug one. But since the book came out there's 'Actually he can talk.... He's read a book or two.' I don't particularly care whether people know that or not. But it's a nice counterbalance to 'Keef.' Presidents speak to me now."

How do you want people to remember you?

"I want everybody to have a great laugh. Don't be sorry. About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I ain't. I'm always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that's the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too."

Are there any words you wish wouldn't appear in your obituary?

"No, they can write as long as they want. 'That fucking asshole...' I'd love to hear what they say."
___
Even Keith Richards has made certain concessions to the passage of time. This afternoon the plastic cup in his hand is filled with nothing more than orange soda. "I don't drink till the sun goes down," he says. "I cut back. Extremely. You see, it was other people that were worried about my drinking—not me. Other people, including wifey." He chuckles. "So then I straightened up and they're, 'Well, you're no different....' "

And when the sun goes down?

"A shot of vodka and whatever. A martini. More than anything, wine with dinner. It'd be so uncivilized not to have a glass of wine with dinner."

He starts telling me, almost shyly, about the pleasure he gets from his grandchildren, as though he is surprised to have found himself in a place where this is such an important part of his life. "I'm eternally grateful to be here to enjoy that bit," he says. (Nonetheless, anyone who imagines that he is no longer Keith Richards in the moments when he is Grandpa Keith will be reassured by an intimate detail he shares of the kind of time they spend together: "They're well-trained...empty the ashtray...")

Just before I leave, I mention to him The New Yorker's succinct description of his book: "A slurry romp through the life of a man who knew every pleasure, denied himself nothing, and never paid the price".

"So far," he agrees. "I'm waiting for the check. But I'll gladly pay it. And I'll give you a tip on top. It was worth it."
___
Do you still carry a knife?

"Yeah. Not with me today. It's gone in for sharpening."