Keith Richards celebrates 30th anniversary of his Main Offender solo record
In his only Australian interview, Keith Richards reveals how he found valuable lost recordings for his new album. LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
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Keith Richards, rock’n’roll God, reformed hellraiser, gentleman gardener.
The rock titan knows it’s a hilariously incongruous image to conjure, the Rolling Stones guitar-slinger wielding a rake or slashing hedges.
But ask him how an inveterate road warrior occupied his time when the pandemic forced his band to halt their seemingly endless world tour, and Richards says he stopped and watched the garden grow.
He has hunkered down with wife Patti, daughters Theodora and Alexandra and pets at his rural pile in Connecticut, east of New York, for many months over the past two years.
“Me, I sat down and realised I had a garden. I’d never seen it do all of the things, like spring and summer … so that was novel,” he says, punctuating the revelation with his characteristic cackle.
When the swashbuckling rock pirate wasn’t reading epic seafaring tomes like the Master and Commander series by Patrick O’Brian, he was diverted by musical pursuits.
He tinkered with the songs earmarked for the first Rolling Stones studio album since 2016’s Blue & Lonesome, which was a covers collection of their favourite blues tracks.
The record remains a work-in-progress as Richards, Mick Jagger and their team plot the campaign to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Stones this year.
Richards also continued his own waltz down the memory lane of his solo career, one that was ignited with Talk Is Cheap in 1988. He reissued that record in 2019 and marks the 30th anniversary of his second album Main Offender with a special edition release this week.
He had always insisted the Stones would be his only band, but when his and Jagger’s relationship soured in the 80s over the band’s direction and the frontman devoted himself to making and touring his solo work, Richards formed the X-Pensive Winos.
It was a “mutual admiration society” of musicians who were either mates or players he respected and whose band name was coined during recording sessions in Canada.
“I had to go away for the day and I left them in the studio. And I also left at the studio a case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild (worth about $3000 in 2022 prices). It was a gift from a friend, you know, it was the stuff!” Richards says.
“When I came back, that thing has gone. Well, I just looked around the room and went ‘I’ve got your name, darlings, you’re just like expensive winos!”
His chief Wino is drummer Steve Jordan. The pair had crossed paths briefly when Jordan played percussion on the Stones’ Dirty Work record in 1986. He then enlisted the musician for the recording of Jumpin’ Jack Flash by Aretha Franklin for the Whoopi Goldberg film of the same name.
When he was recruiting for the Winos in the mid 80s, he sought the counsel of Charlie Watts who enthusiastically endorsed Jordan.
And 35 years later, and ahead of his death in August last year, Watts also “anointed” Jordan to take his seat with the Stones.
Jordan made his concert debut with the band when they resumed their No Filter tour in the US last September.
“Charlie nominated him and put him in position before he left us, ‘Steve Jordan, that’s the man.’ Whatever you say, Charlie,” Richard says.
“Yeah, Steve and I have known each other years and years and years; Charlie entrusted the stool to him and working with Steve is great, he’s slightly different, different dynamics and stuff, but it’s all for the better.”
The pair reunited last week in New York for a charity concert, along with fellow Winos Charley Drayton (who played and recorded with Cold Chisel after the death of drummer Steve Prestwich) guitarist Waddy Wachtel and keyboardist Ivan Neville.
That gig served as a launch of sorts for the 30th anniversary reissue this week of Main Offender, his second solo record first released in 1992 featuring singles Wicked As It Seems, Eileen and Hate It When You Leave.
Deep dives into his treasure trove of tapes and film and memorabilia unearthed a recording of their Winos Live In London ‘92’ performance at the Town & Country Club, Kentish Town which has been restored to include on the 2022 edition of Main Offender.
“What I was really happy about, and didn’t know existed, was that live record,” she says.
“I sent people out searching every little nook and cranny and it was hiding … it was just mislaid in a tape box probably. I mean, it was 30 years ago and we have moved around a bit.”
Listening back to the tapes as Richards and his team were preparing the new Main Offender box set was a revelation to the songwriter. After a few decades of writing almost exclusively with Jagger for the Stones, collaborating with the X-Pensive Winos was a different beast.
And yet he remains as mystified by the magical process of melding musical notes with words as anyone else, even after 60 years in the service of songwriting.
“They all start bits and pieces, you don’t know quite what to do with them, but somehow before your ears and eyes they sort of meld together; you are not doing anything, you’re just watching this thing happen, and it’s just a matter of whether you keep it going or chop it off for it. It’s a fascinating process,” he says.
“I guess it is the mystery of it all. I’ve just sat around with a lot of songwriters and nobody can put their finger on it. It’s a feeling, you know.”
The Stones kick off their 60th anniversary year with the release of a revamped version of their 1977 Live At The El Mocambo album in April.
As for their other plans, Richards remains relatively tight-lipped.
“We’re going out again in a few months, in Europe, start off our 60th year victory lap,” he says.
“When I think about a bunch of musicians holding that place for so long, I feel really humble about it now. I didn’t used to … but when you think about all the lives that have been lived around us and the people who listen to us, it’s an amazing thing.”
Will Australia be on that victory lap?
“I’d love to come back down; we’ll see what happens in the next year or two.”
Main Offender is out on March 18.
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