Interviewed June 30 in the Sanford Boardroom at the Washington Duke Inn, Durham, North Carolina. Crosseyed Heart, his first album in more than 20 years, will be released September 18, the same day that Netflix premieres the documentary Keith Richards: Under the Influence.

If you smoke, I can smoke, right?

Be my guest. If you're gonna smoke anything else, we'll bring in the incense.

I brought a miniature joint, but I'm not thrusting it upon you. I just thought it would be wrong to meet you and not bring a little something.

Well, then, let's get into this thing and see. We might want to take a break.

I don't want to put you in any kind of position.

Absolutely not. I've been in every position possible, and I've always gotten out of it.

How are you holding up on the [Stones] tour?

I can handle the show. In the '60s, it was 20 minutes, in and out. Now it's two hours. I don't come off as exhausted as I used to ten years ago, because I've learned more about how to pace a show. I don't think about the physical aspects—I just expect it all to work. I'm blessed physically with stamina. The frame's still holding. I eat the same as I always have. Meat and potatoes, basically, with a nice bit of fish now and again. My wife tries to force more salad down me, but I'd rather take the pill.

You still feel the adrenaline onstage?

Yeah. It's probably the only drug left to us, the one that draws us back as much as anything—although there is something about playing with this bunch of guys. Is it habit? Is it just the length of time we've been doing it? But when we start rehearsing, I always find this incredible enthusiasm among them all—especially this tour. It's been a great feeling from show one.

Do you ever find yourself missing the road?

Once you're at home, there's a sort of dislocation—"Where the hell am I? Why ain't I moving?"—and realizing that you don't have to for a bit. But I've always found with the Stones that it's a sort of collective itch. Everybody'd bust up after a tour and do whatever it is or go wherever. And then there'll be some sort of inner itch after a few months—"Shouldn't we be doing something?" And usually I get the phone call from Mick first, but I'm usually feeling the itch and waiting for the call. You can't force a frontman to do what he don't want to do. We have to stroke him. And keep him happy. You need the spark from Mick really to do it.

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When was it decided that you'd stand where you stand onstage? Was that ever a conscious decision?

You know, I've always been on Mick's left side, from the earliest club gigs I can remember. I have no idea why. Sometimes I wander over to Ronnie's side and try it out, but it always feels a bit weird, you know?

I turned 12 in 1964. The Stones turned me on to a lot of American music I'd never heard before. Muddy Waters. Howlin' Wolf. Robert Johnson.

Funny—I was having a conversation with Buddy Guy just a few days ago where he was very generously saying, "Thank God for you guys, because you really did save the blues in America. You brought it all back to life." It was a great thing, because when we were just starting out in London, the idea was to bring Chicago blues to London. We were a bit idealistic at the time—you know what kids are like—but no matter how bizarre it might sound, as a living or as an aim, that was it. We kind of did that in England, and then suddenly we found within a year or two that it was translating over to America—taking coal to Newcastle.

Not if you're a white kid in the suburbs.

That's what we realized when we got here, that white kids only listened to that end of the dial, and up the other end was all of this incredible stuff.

I've been in every position possible, and I've always gotten out of it.

Watching footage of the band from the mid-'60s reminded me of how primal and sexual the band's appeal was from the beginning. The screaming, the rioting—did you ever wonder where all that came from?

When you're on the receiving end of it, it's quite obvious it's primal and sexual and beyond any reason. They certainly didn't come for the music.

You couldn't hear the music.

No. Especially in those days—there were no PAs. And 3,000 screaming chicks could just wail you out of the whole place. Just looking at the crowd, you could see them dragging the chicks out, sweating, screaming, convulsing. Astonishing, even at that age. At the same time, a whole roomful of chicks yelling at you is not so shabby, either. Because the year before, nobody would look at you. But they talk about us—the Beatles, those chicks wore those guys out. They stopped touring in 1966—they were done already. They were ready to go to India and shit.

I've been thinking about Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and The White Album and listening to Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. Over the past 20 years, I've listened to that Stones stuff far more often.

No, I understand—the Beatles sounded great when they were the Beatles. But there's not a lot of roots in that music. I think they got carried away. Why not? If you're the Beatles in the '60s, you just get carried away—you forget what it is you wanted to do. You're starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it's a genius album, but I think it's a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties—"Oh, if you can make a load of shit, so can we."

You've put some elemental music on the new solo album [Crosseyed Heart]. "Goodnight Irene."

The old Leadbelly song, yeah.

The purity of sound and voice is remarkable. Everything but the blues is stripped away.

Thank you.

You've said that the power of the blues was a mind-blower when you were a kid, and it hasn't changed.

No. I recognize power when I see it. And there's something incredibly powerful about the blues—the raw blues. But then, there isn't a piece of popular music probably that you've heard that hasn't in some weird way been influenced by the blues. Even the most inane jingle or rap song—it's all influenced by the blues. I think it's probably the original musical form in the world, when it comes down to it.

Terry O'Neill Getty Images

I just read about [former Rolling Stones bass player] Bill Wyman getting upset about a plaque at Dartford station honoring you and Mick.

Yeah. I actually don't know exactly what it said, but Mick just the other day came up to me and says, "Do you believe this shit, man? Bill Wyman is complaining about the plaque at Dartford station." I said, "A plaque? I thought we had a statue."

He was pissed off because it said you and Mick "formed" the Rolling Stones.

I know he took umbrage with that, but I can't understand why. Bill wasn't there when the band was formed. Ian Stewart formed the band—we gravitated around him. Bill was a quirky, funny old fucker, but why he should make some kind of public 'do about it. . . . I think Mick sent a note saying— because Bill comes from a town called Penge—"Bill, if a plaque went up in Penge station that said you were the founding member of the Rolling Stones, do you think we'd complain?" But Bill—oh, we love him dearly, and he was a hell of a bass player. We didn't tell him to leave.

Not everyone wants to dwell on Mount Olympus.

It's a bit crowded up there. Lots of people trying to get up. You can go bye-bye really easy in this business and think you're something special or divine or semidivine or something. I've seen some guys who snap out of it, or they just go through a phase. But others actually believe that if you're on TV and magazines are fawning over you, you're actually special. They usually find out the hard way that they ain't.

You've played with everyone from George Jones to Tom Waits. Is there anyone you haven't played with that you'd like to?

There's probably a few guys out there . . . actually, I can't think of any off the top of my head. I mean, all of the cats I've always wanted to play with I've met and eventually worked with. I love Tom dearly—he's a true American eccentric, and we need more of them, you know. Brilliant guy, brilliant musician. I always had that hankering to do "Irene"—I think maybe Tom doing "Shenandoah" a few years ago, the great American folk song, and being involved in that—suddenly I've got a 12-string in my hand and it's time for "Irene." I've had the opportunity with Merle Haggard. All of these guys that I used to listen to—the amazing thing is that even at my age, I'm living in a place where I know all of my heroes, warts and all, and still love 'em. Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis—man, if that is not Mr. Rock 'n' Roll, I don't know who is. Little Richard. I love those cats.

It's strange that after all these years, your legend almost has an entirely separate existence from your music.

I know. It's the bizarre thing about this—I'm probably more well-known because of my image rather than the music. I got used to it—he's like a ball and chain you drag around and it's some guy you maybe were 25 years ago. But he's always there.

Do you know that José Feliciano lives in the same town as you in Connecticut?

I do know that, but I've never met him. We've never crossed paths, even though Weston is a very small town—there's a gas station and a market.

So you're actually the second-best guitarist in Weston, Connecticut.

I'd go for that. He's a far better guitar player than me.

I don't think so.

No—I mean technically, classically. I ain't trained that way. I force the thing to do as it's told.

I don't know much beyond the sounds I hear.

Thank God, nor do I. The technical aspects—my horror is doing interviews with Guitar Magazine or something. I've got my favorite axes that I do know quite a bit about, but when they start to go, "Is that the Gibson S3?"—I don't fucking know. It works all right for me.

Have you had a boss since you got expelled from school?

No. You're talking to somebody, like Mick, who has never, ever said "Yes, sir" to anybody or obeyed instructions that we didn't want to. I've said yes to many people only because I respect them. But no, I've never had a boss. Even my bankers and my lawyers have all gone through the mill. Even royalty go through it—they're told what to do. I've lived a totally free life. They gave me wings.

A scary, scary thing.

It is, because there's no guidelines.

No boundaries whatsoever.

Icarus.

You've often said that you'd willingly pay the toll again. And I believe you.

Yeah, it's been worth the price. To become a musician, that was the dream—just to get into a band. You didn't care if you were stuck in the back strumming away. You know, I would have gladly done that. I wouldn't have minded being a sideman, but things turned out another way. Maybe it was the haircut or something.

Published in the September 2015 issue.

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