Keith Richards interview: 'Exile on Main St.' revisited
"Exile on Main Street" re-relase.
Keith Richards talks about the forthcoming reissue of the Rolling Stones’ 1972 masterpiece “Exile on Main St.” Much of the original album was tracked in the basement of the 16-room mansion, Nellcote, that he rented in the south of France during the summer of 1971.
Q: How come we didn’t get more unreleased stuff besides the 10 tracks?
A: That would be a whole ‘nother album. It’s amazing how much stuff was left behind. It was a very prolific year that year. We went through everything we could find. It was an enormous backlog. This was the best we had. Some of them were like 40-year bells going off. “Wow, we didn’t finish that one?”
Q: How did “Plundered my Soul” get left off the original?
A: It was difficult. That was why “Exile” became a double album. The record company wanted a single album, but the damn thing had a life of its own. We probably could’ve made it a triple. We tried to make a single, but it became impossible, like cutting babies in half.
Q: Did you feel like the band was in a great place musically?
A: The vibe was very good. It was a long, hot summer. Not recording in a studio was unique for us, as it was for anybody at the time. Once things got going, it had its own rhythm. With every album you make you go in with that feeling. But maybe that we really were exiles put some extra bite into it.
Q: Really? I know you had some tax problems back home, but it wasn’t like you guys were homeless?
A: Yeah, I didn’t mind living in the south of France, actually. But it was more of a collective feeling. “Hey, none of us are going home tonight.” That attitude pervaded the mood, and made us get down to work.
Q: There’s a lot of mythology about your nocturnal habits, Keith. How big of a party animal were you at Nellcote?
A: There were very late nights, for sure. I heard loads of stories too, but that was upstairs, baby, because where I was I didn’t see much debauchery. Yeah, it’s true: There was a continual party going on in the house. But I couldn’t write songs, make a record and debauch at the same time, man.
Q: Band members were coming in and out during the sessions. It sounded very casual, bordering on haphazard.
A: It was. A lot of those tracks came about with only two or three guys around, as we waited for everyone to show. It would be just me and Mick [Jagger], or me and Charlie [Watts]. An idea would start and you worked on it. It was haphazard. The first few weeks especially, no one quite knew their asses from their [expletive]. But once we got into the swing of things, it was like a bunker down there, and a lot of hard work got done.
Q: It was hot, instruments going in and out of tune. That can’t be a good thing for recording.
A: Yeah, all true. There was an overcome and adapt spirit about it. But if it was really terrible we wouldn’t have stayed down there that long.
Q: Then you went to LA to finish the album. How come?
A: We couldn’t do anything more to it in Nellcote. It was a great place for cutting the tracks, but it’s not a place to do vocals or any other overdubs. But the bone and the muscle was done down there in that bunker.
Q: Judging by his comments, Mick wasn’t happy with the album when it came out.
A: All I can say, as far as Mick’s concerns, I haven’t met a lead vocalist yet who thought his voice was loud enough. But then again, Mick and I and [producer] Jimmy Miller mixed it, I don’t quite get [his complaints]. But I watched him working on this [reissue] and he’s really been digging it, hearing more things than he did at the time.
Q: What about the remix of the older material?
A: My approach was basically hand’s off, don’t touch. I don’t want to do any fancy, modern ideas on top of a 40-year-old record. My job was to guard the sanctity and purity of the original tracks. But there was some overdubbing of vocals on some of the extra tracks. There was one track where we heard an acoustic guitar, then about one-third of the way through another acoustic guitar because I string must’ve broken, so I overdubbed that. I wouldn’t touch the original tracks with a barge bull.
Q: Jimmy Miller was criticized for some of his original production, which some listeners thought was a bit murky. How do you feel about it?
A: I very much like what he did with us. I don’t think another guy could’ve pulled it off. He was a great producer, great friend. He had a lot of good ideas, and he was a damn good drummer himself.
Q: Did it help that he was musician himself?
A: Yeah. It definitely made a difference. He wasn’t just a sound artist. He could play it too.
Q: Was Charlie at all threatened by Miller as a drummer?
A: Nah! Drummers love each other. They go into immediate conversation about tom toms and paradiddles (laughs).
Q: “Exile” is generally perceived as the best Stones album. Do you understand why that is?
A: Maybe because it was a double. I couldn’t put my finger on why people like it. It holds up with time. I can still listen to it, and that says something. I enjoyed gong back through it. Going back through the tracks, I could smell that basement and all the dust. It was very evocative.
Q: People view it as the quintessential Keith record in the Stones catalog. Do you agree?
A: I get it that people would think that from the fact that it was done in my house. But I never thought of those sessions as a different balance between me and the rest of the band. You’re in the middle of it, and your perception of things can be a bit blurred, especially with me.
Q: American roots music factored heavily into a lot of the songs. What inspired that?
A: It certainly wasn’t conscious. But after all we’d been touring America for six years pretty much constantly. I think “Exile” gave us a chance to pick out the things we heard in America. We do play American music, rock ‘n’ roll and blues. So a lot of things came out from working in America all those years. Within the Stones there are never meetings or a setting out of goals. The band is all about capturing a certain feel, and first you have to find out what that is. When you do, you go to work.
Q: How was your relationship as a guitarist different with Mick Taylor than with [his predecessor] Brian Jones?
A: Brian and I worked very close together as far as rhythm and leads were concerned. With Mick Taylor, he’s far more of a soloist, and I had to adjust. It was great fun to reinvent the sound of the band, because Mick certainly changed it a lot. He’s a beautiful player and it’s just a matter of finding the new slot. And I enjoyed playing with him. I was really pissed off when he left.
Q: Did you write specifically with his guitar playing in mind?
A: That goes along with songwriting. When you’re down there doing it, you can put the break into it. What’s beautiful about songwriting is just piddling around on the guitar and there it is, and something appears out of nowhere. The rest is trimming, editing and thinking. The best time is when it comes out of nowhere. That’s when I love it.
Q: How did you and Mick write at Nellcote?
A: We were trying to keep up with the band. We’d say, we haven’t got a song for tomorrow yet. We were scrambling writing them on the spot. “Happy” came like that one afternoon and several others. “Tumbling Dice,” that came quick. Started as a song called “Good Time Women.” The only difference was that we still didn’t have the lyrics, but it’s the same riff.
Q: How did you determine you’d sing “Happy”?
A: I did it before Mick arrived that day. He shows up and says, “Wow, great, there’s one I don’t have to do.” Mick joined in on the choruses. That’s what I mean by working quickly. We’d start at 2 and by 5 it’s done.
Q: I can’t imagine the record label was happy when you turned in a double album.
A: The record company wanted to cut it in half. There was quite a fight in a way, lawyers and blah-blah. The damn thing had a life of its own, insisted on being a double, and Mick and felt strongly about it. We got our way.
Q: What’s in the immediate future for the band?
A: I don’t know. I’m seeing the guys in a week or so. We’ll probably kick around some ideas then. There’s no road work this year, but maybe we’ll do some sessions.
Q: Would you like to make a new record?
A: I would, I sure would. When I see the guys, you have to take the temperature of everybody, because everybody’s gotta want to.
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