After going through all sorts of adventures, I decided it was time to calm down
And in 1991, that's exactly what we did, moving with my wife, Patti, and our two young daughters from Manhattan to leafy Weston, Connecticut. "The woods have a primeval serenity about them that would suit the ancestral spirits," he says in Life, going on to write at length about enjoying his private surroundings and large library.
In 2002, he gave Rolling Stone an account of his gentlemanly country life: "I'd get up at seven in the morning," he said. "I read a lot. I might have a little sail around Long Island Sound if the weather is all right. I do a lot of recording in my basement — writing songs, keeping up to speed.
I have no fixed routine. I wander about the house, wait for the maids to clean the kitchen, then fuck it all up again and do some frying. Patti and I go out once a week, if there's something on in town — take the old lady out for dinner with a bunch of flowers, get the rewards."
On It's Only Rock 'n' Roll: 30 Years Married to a Rolling Stone, book. Ronnie Wood's ex-wife Jo Wood remembers first encountering Richards in a Paris hotel room in 1977.
"Keith reached into his bag and took out a silver spoon, a bottle of pills and a lighter. In a matter of seconds, he'd crushed some of the pills with a bit of water, cooked them up, then filled a syringe and stabbed it straight through his shirt."
Moments later, Richards smiled: "He looked up at me [and said], 'Hello, my dear. I've heard so much about you!'" Jo was unfazed: "I adored Keith from the start — which was lucky, because he and Ronnie came as a pair … One of the first things I loved about him most was his naughtiness."
The Merk Cocaine Tour: The Stones were in top form on their legendary Tour of the Americas, and for a good reason: " It was well fueled by Merck cocaine," Richards wrote in his memoir, referring to the ultrapure pharmaceutically manufactured form of the drug.
"It was when we initiated the building of hideaways behind the speakers on the stage so that we could have lines between songs.
One song, one bump was the rule between Ronnie and me." Richards also had a supply of heroin that was cut into lines and hidden amid the amplifiers, along with heroin-laced cigarettes — or "dirty fags," as they were known.
Things went fairly smoothly until Richards and his cocaine supplier, on a detour to get some good barbecue, were arrested in Arkansas. But they called in some favors, paid a $162 bail and were soon back on the road.
Charlie: “At the end of the show, he’ll leave the stage, and the sirens will be going, limousines waiting, and Charlie will walk back to his drum kit and change the position of his drumsticks by 2 millimeters.
Then he’ll look at it. Then if it looks good, he’ll leave. He has this preoccupation with aesthetics, this vision of how things should be that nobody will ever know about except Charlie. The drums are about to be stripped down and put in the back of a truck, and he cannot leave if he’s got it in his mind that he’s left his sticks in a displeasing way. It’s so Zen.”
