Q&A; WITH KEITH RICHARDS : A Legend of Rock Confronts His ‘Demon’

Disarmingly candid, charmingly cantankerous and yet not at all impolite, Keith Richards--who, with the rest of the Rolling Stones, last year signed a mammoth deal with Virgin Records--is probably the wealthiest man alive with whom even the lowliest commoner would feel completely at home in a smoke-filled beer bar.

Not that commoners or anyone else are likely to spot Richards, 48, hanging out much these days. He’s still dizzy, he says, from spending months holed up in the studio making his second solo studio album, “Main Offender” (due in stores Tuesday), with his makeshift band the X-Pensive Winos. The Englishman, who has made New York his home for years, was in Los Angeles to film a video for the single “Wicked As It Comes.” A tour is expected by the end of the year.

Then in early ‘93, the Rolling Stones begin making another album. Richards is clearly delighted about being busy after the long, frustrating Stones layoffs of the ‘80s. On the evening of a shoot, the guitarist-singer talked about image, his solo album and his future with the Stones.

Question: How does it feel seeing all the young musicians--including Guns N’ Roses--who seem to have a Keith Richards complex?

Answer: I do keep seeing myself everywhere on TV. If it’s just a matter of the look, most of ‘em have got it down, and good luck to ‘em. If it’s a matter of the playing, then those guys--if they’re into it--will find their own thing eventually. Because immediately I recognize myself in there between Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters and Jimmy Rogers.

Every musician, no matter who he is, hears something that clicks in him and (makes him think), “I’d sell my soul to be able to do that.” That’s how you become a musician. It’s basic emulation to start with. You get through that and one day you realize, “Oh, I can do that.” And then you start to live a bit and put your own stuff on it.

Q: You’ve always had a strong persona, but your music never rose or fell on that. Nowadays many of the most provocative people in pop, from Madonna to Sinead O’Connor, are like stunt people who seem to always come up with some new attention-grabber to keep their audience interested.

A: There’s nothing wrong with stunts . . . the Rolling Stones certainly pulled a few. But it’s important that you recognize that they’re stunts. Remember “Would you let your daughter marry one?” (about the Stones)? That guy, bless his heart, we didn’t even pay him a penny. He came up with that and you couldn’t have asked for a better line. It was totally unsolicited.

And we did provoke some--I mean, we deliberately went around and got arrested or thrown out of places. . . . This is show business. You’ve got to do something to get in and just get some attention. But after that, it’s up to you. Then if you really sort of desire to keep on pulling stunt after stunt and think that you’ve gotta keep pulling stunts to stay where you are, then you’re very insecure. Usually it’s just to kick the door open.

Q: There’s a new biography in the stores now about you. Have you read it?

A: No, I haven’t. I haven’t even read (Stones bassist Bill Wyman’s) book. I just figured if there were any bombshells in there, I’d soon hear about it. Reading about yourself is weird. I go into the third person: “Oh, they’ve written about him again.” I find very few connections with him . Keith Richards is all right, and we chat occasionally. I shave him.

Images are always a weird thing because they’re composites of little bits of you, and you can never get rid of ‘em. If you can go through life without having an image, I suggest you do it (laughs).

Q: Most public personalities tend to drift toward one extreme or another: the exhibitionist or the recluse. For you, though, finding a place in between hasn’t been that difficult, I take it?

A: No, I guess I’ve realized that balance is the main thing. If you’re gonna be famous, then you better learn to live with it and still be able to keep your own private thing together too, and don’t be surprised if they overlap now and again. The idea of being a spectacle (for its own sake), I suppose it’s an admirable ambition (laughs). But being a spectacle to me has been something I had to do along the way. It’s just part of the job. It’s not the end of it.

Q: The metaphor in the song “Demon” on your new album could stand in for a lot of things.

A: Yeah, it does. Really everybody’s got one. We all talk to him daily, we shave him. Actually it was plural when I started, but I thought that was going too far (laughs). “There’s demons in me. . . .” I’ve got four or five, and we’re all good friends. So I thought I’d just singularize it. It’s like, hey, yeah, check yourself.

Q: Right or wrong, people have this image of you as someone who was a bad boy but now is very temperate. The song seems to be acknowledging the new you, while saying that the roots of the old self don’t necessarily die off, just some of the manifestations.

A: Well, you grow up, you know what I mean? Yeah, I was rowdy at the rowdy stage in life. And he’s still there in me. I’ve learned how to control him, I guess, and that’s what “Demon” is about, too. You’ve got to come to terms with it and call a truce--uneasy truce, but a truce nevertheless.

Q: Making Keith Richards albums, most people would assume, is a lot easier than making Rolling Stones albums--the single-boss factor and all that. Is that true?

A: I suppose that would be the impression. But I’ve never been happy working from that perspective. If I throw myself into a band, I throw myself in as just another member, and they yell at me. One of the great things about the Winos from the word go was that these guys weren’t scared to kick me up the ass. You can either go, “Ouch, nobody kicks me up the butt” and then get high-handed, so that they go, “Oh, we’ll never do that again” and you break contact, or you go, “God, yeah, I really need that. That felt good!”

Q: How’s that different from working with the Stones, where most people also assume you’re the musical leader?

A: If I’m playing a track with the Stones and I stop in the middle as we’re running it through and say, “Oh, I don’t know what to do with the bridge,” everything stops. The room is now filled with silence. And the thing that really turned me on about working with (Winos member and co-producer) Steve Jordan was, if I stopped, he’d just keep going and look at me: “Hey, come on, Richards, you can do better than that. Push it, find the bridge.” And it’s been a long time since anybody had felt they could do that.

Q: Are you looking forward to getting back into the studio with the Stones? Is there anything left to do there?

A: Oh yeah. The Stones interest me a lot still. No other band’s been around together consistently that long. So you’re out there in a place where nobody’s been before, exploring and finding out where you can take it. And you can’t chicken out, because if you did, you’d be kicking yourself forever . . . wondering where it would’ve gone. So you’ve got to say, “Let’s go all the way.”