At 77, Keith Richards, guitarist for The Rolling Stones, is a true music legend. Just as it is synonymous with rock n roll, it has also starred in crazy and risky anecdotes and stories. He was once punched in the face by Chuck Berry. The reason? They met backstage and Berry warned him not to play his guitar, which Richards ignored.
On another occasion, he nearly burned down the Playboy mansion at a party in 1972 while getting high in the bathroom with saxophonist Bobby Keys. It is also said that he had a great ability to go a long time without sleep and his record was 9 days, in 1978.
The members of The Rolling Stones band have had various histories of drug encounters, but perhaps none of them have been through a drug-driven experience comparable to that of the band’s lead guitarist, Keith Richards. During an interview with Telegraph in 2018
“Drugs are not interesting these days,” he said. “They are very institutionalised and bland. And, anyway, I’ve done ’em all,” he boasted.
“I’m not saying I’m definitely off all of this stuff,” he also explains. “In six months’ time, I might be on it again. But at the moment, for a couple of months, I haven’t touched it,” before revealing that he finds sobriety “novel”.
It’s amazing that it was boredom rather than the insane drug experience during their European tour that put an end to Richards’ drug abuse, “Someone put strychnine (pesticide) in my dope,” he once recalled. “It was in Switzerland. I was totally comatose, but I was totally awake. I could listen to everyone, and they were like, he’s dead, he’s dead, waving their fingers and pushing me about. I was thinking I’m not dead,” the guitarist revealed, also jokingly stating, “I was number one on The Who’s list of people who were likely to die for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.”