What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [4]
And if the band you’re with isn’t necessarily the best, remember one of Keith’s main credos: “There’s always the future.” Every gig leads forward and, hopefully, to something better.
While we must ultimately know ourselves and be true to ourselves, know that it is through the larger construct of the group that the real magic can happen. It is through the group that the most beautiful things, and art, can come about:
“Rock ’n’ roll is really about interaction … It’s about the interesting tension and communication going on between one guy and another … You can’t find it on any meter in the studio. Songs, to me, come through osmosis. All the best songs are basically beautiful accidents.”
6. ACCEPT (OR AT LEAST TOLERATE) YOUR INNER AND OUTER MICK.
“Mick’s rock. I’m roll.”
Dual nature? Evil twin? We’ve all got one. No use fighting it. If you come at your evil twin with a pillow in the middle of the night, he will rise like a ghost from the mattress. He will haunt your dreams.
Might as well get used to him.
And while you’re getting used to him, put that evil twin to work for you. Or work with him.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are two sides of a set of Siamese twins. Attached, inseparable. But different. Keith is the evil twin to Mick, and Mick is the evil twin to Keith.
But there is an art to keeping that evil twin in check. In Keithism, it’s called Accepting Your Inner and Outer Mick.
Every time Keith Richards sits down and starts talking, the subject of Mick Jagger inevitably comes up, and when it does, Mick becomes a metaphor for the second self. And while that second half can be frustrating and annoying, it is there for a reason. It is a counterbalance to your true self. The one you’ve come to know through the first tenet. It’s a moon for the sun. A dark crayon for a light one.
Sometimes the evil twin lives inside of you, which isn’t so bad, since you can keep an eye on it. But when it is its own creature, wandering about in the form of another person, it can be a little hard. It becomes the Outer Mick versus the Inner Mick. Still, they can both be handled by the same formula.
There are five steps to accepting the Inner or Outer Mick: 1) Identifying him, 2) Understanding the creature, 3) Embracing him as such, 4) Helping to bring out the best that is in him, and 5) Learning from him.
A yin exists for its yang. Rock exists for roll.
Without a Keith there would be no Mick, and vice versa. We have this within ourselves and within the worlds we live in.
7. NURTURE YOUR INNER CHARLIE.
“If only Mozart had had a really good drummer …”
The near-perfect person, in Keith’s eyes, has always been Charlie Watts. Watts is the ultimate individualist, removed from the mainstream, a little shy, eccentric, humble. Has his own specific beat. The backbone to both the group and the individual is the drummer. Solidify a moral, modest, ethical, and pretention-free backbone, and you’re in good shape. From a solid drummer, all else falls into place. Find the Rolling Stones within yourself, but be sure that the drummer is strong and not a poseur.
“… And if only Bach had a really good drummer … If only …”
8. ACCEPT YOUR ADDICTIONS, VIEW THEM WITH HUMOR, AND LEAVE OFF THE GUILT.
“I don’t like to regret heroin because I learned a lot from it. It is something I went through and dealt with. I’d regret it if I hadn’t dealt with it.”
There is an old saying: “An opinion is like an asshole. Everybody’s got one.” Another truth: Addiction is like an asshole. Everyone’s got one of these as well. Or two. Or three. It’s easy to judge the other guy when the addiction he’s got is different from your own, but once you try his on for size, or vice versa, then you begin to understand. As Rousseau wrote: “We pity in others only those evils which we ourselves have experienced."
But in the world of Keith, the key is not to eliminate our addictions but to survive them. And these