Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll was just a “good PR phrase” if you ask Keith Richards – he prefers playing dominoes
Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll? Keith Richards would prefer an early night in after playing dominoes with his dad, thanks. Despite the ‘70s painting rockstars as insatiable, hedonistic maniacs, the Rolling Stones frontman admitted back in 1988 that the phrase was just “good PR”.
In an old interview shared by Freeport Traveler, Richards explained that, while he loves the sentiment, the saying couldn’t be further from the truth. “It’s a neat phrase… but I’ve been doing this gig for a long time, and to me that’s just a good PR phrase,” he said [transcribed by Ultimate Guitar]. “[Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll] has very, very little to do with the day-to-day life of making music and making records.”
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While he admitted that the phrase can “encapsulate an image” of a rockstar, it’s not that simple, he said. “If it were that easy, I’d be very happy – but it isn’t that easy!”
Of course, the Stones were hardly angels; the band infamously got raided in 1967 and faced a subsequent trial for drug possession. However, Richards explained that the band were just an easy target, high-profile target for the police and media hungry to fuel a moral panic story.
In fact, in 1988, Richards said that the police were more-or-less tired of hounding him now. Instead he had found himself signing more autographs for cops than getting raided – a welcome change…
However, he explained that he knows the media will associate them with the “PR phrase”, no matter how untrue it is. “I’ve got a public image,” he explained. “So I don’t really think about self-image. I just try to live as normal a life as possible [off-stage]. This is what I want to do. I have a lot of friends. I enjoy sitting around, and I enjoy playing dominoes with my dad.”
“The image of myself – I realise that there’s a certain amount of the ‘Keith Richards rebel lord, junkie freak, rock and roll, sex and drugs,’” he continued. “I understand that that’s there, but it’s only a part, and I find that your image is like a shadow.”
While his ‘shadow’ self will always follow him around, he noted that the public impression will always be on his past actions. It essentially takes a few years of being on the straight-and-narrow for people to catch up. “[The media is] always ten or fifteen years behind what you actually are,” he said. “Images just sort of stick. They have a lot of glue on them, and it’s hard to get them off. Images – they’re like acne.”
Ultimately, Richards explained that trying to live by the lazy rockstar checklist is something that would just end up hurting you. “You’ve got to grow up, or it can kill you if you don’t,” he said.
Thanks to the Stones being good lads and not going too wild in their youth, they’re still going strong. 2023 saw their mega comeback with the Hackney Diamonds, and this year will see yet another record, Foreign Tongues, drop in July. You can hear lead single In The Stars now.
Foreign Tongues is set to drop 10 July 2026.
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