The Stones to roll on, Keef says
More than a half-century after the Rolling Stones began rocking, they’re “still sort of finding themselves” and determined to roll on, guitarist Keith Richards says.
“There’s a lot of excitement in the band,” he told a TIFF press conference Thursday, before the festival’s world premiere of Keith Richards: Under the Influence, a documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville ( Twenty Feet From Stardom).
“You’d think you’d peak somewhere, but as a band musically, and within the band, I think there’s a feeling that . . . there’s more in there yet,” said a smiling Richards, 71, looking every inch the rock legend in a gold snakeskin jacket, dark shades and multicoloured headband.
“There’s more to find out about music and about the Rolling Stones and probably about ourselves. So you’re kind of driven to do it. I mean, who wants to jump off a moving bus?”
This week, Richards confirmed rumours that the Stones are planning to record their first studio album in a decade, something fans had feared might never happen, this year or early in 2016, and there’s a tour of South America also in the works.
The band recently completed its 15date Zip Code tour of North America, with a July stop in Buffalo being the closest it came to Toronto.
Before the Stones roll again, it’s time for two Richards solo projects: the new documentary, which will be released on Netflix Friday after its TIFF premiere, and a new solo album, Crosseyed Heart, the first for Richards since 1992, also out Friday.
Richards said both the film and the record happened almost by accident, the former through fruitful musical discussions with Neville (“I know the man knows his music”) and the latter through jamming with Steve Jordan, a longtime friend, multi-instrumental musician and co-producer of the new album.
“It just grew all by itself,” Richards said of Crosseyed Heart.
“It wasn’t expected, it wasn’t owed to anybody, and I think that’s one of the beauties of the record to me.
“It just organically grew in its own little greenhouse — and I won’t tell you what grows in there!”
The film focuses on the many other musical legends who influenced Richards and the other Stones, bluesmen such as Muddy Waters, pioneer rockers such as Chuck Berry and even such unexpected inspirations as Mozart.
It touches on the Stones tangentially, seen in brief archival clips, allowing other close friends such as Jordan, blues great Buddy Guy and singer-songwriter Tom Waits to hold forth on the man the fans call “Keef.”
Neville, sitting next to Richards at the TIFF Bell Lightbox press conference, moderated by TIFF’s doc programmer, Thom Powers, said he was surprised to learn that “even rock stars have their own rock stars. They’re fans, too.”
Richards, rarely seen without a cigarette, was abiding by the strict nosmoking rules of the festival and of Toronto, a city he has long credited with saving his life. He was busted for heroin possession here in1977, one of many times the future of the Stones looked uncertain, and he’s said the experience forced him to clean up his act.
He joked about the many times he’s had to deal with cops and lawyers in his career, but overall this blues-obsessed son of blue-collar Britons considers it miraculous that he became a rock star at all.
“For me, it’s a miracle. I got lucky, first go. I got Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger! And you can’t go wrong with material like that . . .
“It’s kind of like a weird family life with no babies.”