The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards will be turning 80 in December, which many didn’t think would happen considering how he’s lived his life over the years.
“I wouldn’t recommend the way I’ve handled everything to anybody else,” he tells The Telegraph. “But I’ve handled myself the way that I felt was necessary. And I think everybody else, if they did the same thing, might benefit from Keith’s advice: don’t worry too much!”
Keith is far from the wild man he once was. It turns out, he’s basically given up most of his vices. “The cigarettes I gave up in 2019. I haven’t touched them since. I gave up heroin in 1978. I gave up cocaine in 2006,” he says, adding, “I still like a drink occasionally – because I’m not going to heaven any time soon – but apart from that, I’m trying to enjoy being straight. It’s a unique experience for me.”
Keith says he has no problem with getting older. “I’m getting along with the idea of being 80, and still walking, still talking,” he says. “I find [ageing] a fascinating process. But then if you didn’t, you might as well commit suicide.”
In the same article, Richards also discusses music, particularly the fact that he isn’t a fan of pop or rap.
He says pop music’s “always been rubbish,” noting, “I mean, that’s the point of it. They make it as cheap and as easy as possible and therefore it always sounds the same; there’s very little feel in it.” As for rap, he notes, “I don’t really like to hear people yelling at me and telling me it’s music, AKA rap. I can get enough of that without leaving my house.”
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