Keith Richards Apologizes to Mick Jagger

In a new interview conducted for an upcoming documentary chronicling the Rolling Stones’ 50-year career, Keith Richards addresses the derogatory comments he made about Mick Jagger in his 2010 memoir Life. Here is the exchange:

How have you both found surveying a journey that has already lasted 50 years? It must have been difficult at times, bearing in mind the nature of your relationship and especially the stories we have all heard about the tensions that resulted from the publication of Life.

Mick: Well, I’m glad you said 50 years as that sounds so much less than half a century (laughs).

Looking back at any career you are bound to recall both the highs and the lows.

In the 1980s for instance Keith and I were not communicating very well. I got very involved with the business side of the Stones, mainly because I felt no one else was interested, but it’s plain now from the book that Keith felt excluded, which is a pity. Time I reckon to move on.

Keith: Mick’s right. He and I have had conversations over the last year of a kind we have not had for an extremely long time and that has been incredibly important to me.

As far as the book goes, it was my story and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick and I regret that.

(Story reprinted from Rolling Stone)

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The above interview excerpt felt to me like a breath of fresh air–two old rockers actually putting ego aside to consider the feelings of the other party–almost like grown men. As fans we don’t often get to see the kind of camaraderie we prefer to imagine is there between our musical heroes. Rock history is littered with stories to the contrary: The Beatles, Beach Boys, Kinks, CSNY, Yes, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Van Halen/Hagar, Oasis…petulant infighting is such a common chapter in the story of a band that This is Spinal Tap would have felt incomplete without touching on it. If rock music were an institute of higher learning, it certainly wouldn’t be the place to pursue a major in diplomacy.

It’s too often that when we read about the personal lives of pop music figures, it’s only the negative–just as the sports page is filled with stories of contract disputes, failed drug tests and legal problems among our athlete “heroes”. In a landscape littered with tales of embittered band mates, breakups, lawsuits and the like, I salute Mick and Keith for acting like there’s something to consider other than their egos and the money. I realize the Rollings Stones’ story too has had its dark chapters. In that way it’s simply a mirror, on a stadium-size scale, of the stories of each of us. Since part of fandom is the inclination to look for things we can relate to in the people who create the most relate-able forms of art, somehow it matters to see these legendary figures handling themselves with a very human dignity as their story enters its final chapters (although it does at times seem like these guys will go on forever). I find it as inspiring in its way as one of the many classic pieces of music history these two have created together.