What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [21]
When Keith was asked at a press conference if they always give the same answers to everyone, he said: “Hey. We’ve been at this twenty-five years. We dream up fifteen different answers for the same question."
The most important thing is that your stories not hurt anyone, and if you’re going to tell a lie—don’t lie to yourself. You’re not likely to believe yourself anyway, and you’re probably worse off if you do.
XIII. ENDURANCE
Or: The Chuck Berry Dilemma
You’ve just gotten a position with someone who is hugely regarded and admired. It’s a big deal. But now you learn this person is beyond difficult. On the one hand, it’s a great opportunity, yet on the other hand, you don’t know if it’s worth it, or if you will get through it. That seems to be the hardest part—to just get through it. What should you do?
WHAT WOULD KEITH DO?
In Keith lingo, it’s the Chuck Berry Dilemma: “Chuck Berry … He’s the only guy who’s hit me that I’ve never gotten back."
Imagine getting the chance to meet and work with your childhood hero—the person who literally got you into the profession you have chosen, and then you find out that the person is “the biggest cunt I ever met."
When given the chance to work with Berry in the making of the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll! and to perform at Berry’s sixtieth-birthday concert, Keith took the job but made it something bigger than itself. It wasn’t just the chance to play with his artistic idol. He turned it into a chance to prove himself to his band members, and he turned the experience into an exercise in strength and endurance.
It’s just like a tennis match. You don’t necessarily get into the game to win and take home the trophy—you play from beginning to end to see if you can do it, stick it through, and come out the other end alive. It becomes a personal accomplishment, a personal battle star: I played the game, sweated it out, felt tired, took a few hits, but I made it to the end. I survived the hardest tennis match, in the sun. I survived Chuck Berry.
But when getting into a situation like this, how do you prepare?
1) Before you even start, remember: Always know your limits. If your limits prove that it’s something you can’t do or take, don’t. But if you decide you can, onward to number two.
2) Change your job title (if only to yourself). No matter what title they give you, cross it out in your own mind and replace it with what it really is. In this case, for Keith, he made it the S & M Director.
3) Humanize your opponent. “Even Michelangelo probably thought he was third-rate.” This is where another Keith tenet will steel you: “We’re all the same under the skin,” childhood heroes included.
4) Then, give it the full Max Miller touch. In getting ready for the Chuck Berry gig, Keith said: “I ordered the straitjacket, and allowed six to eight weeks for delivery.” He turned it into not only a test of proving he could do something, he made it a Max Miller routine.
5) Put a time limit on the experience.
If you can see it purely as an endurance test—engaging in a game, walking a marathon, or playing a difficult song to the end—what you come out with at the end is: I did it. And not much feels better than that.
As Keith says in Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, “If I can do this, I can do anything."
XIV. WINGING IT, FAKING IT,
AND JUST DOING IT
What happens when you’re getting into a situation that you’re not at all prepared for? It’s one of those “new and unknown” scenarios—a new living situation, a new town, a new school, a new relationship. It’s all new to you, and you’re nervous about how it’s going to go. What do you do?
WHAT WOULD KEITH DO?
Remain optimistic and spontaneous, and “keep breathing.” These are the roads to stay on. Added to this, make use of the brilliant tool known as the blues.
There’s so much in the blues that is about spontaneity and improvisation, working off the moment and the other players. If you listen to those around you and wing it, you’ll create more “beautiful accidents."
“It’s not Bach or Beethoven. It’s