It’s a little late for Keith Richards to have a mid-life crisis, he has way passed this age, but he has said many weird things lately, things like… the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ album was ‘rubbish’?, or rap was for ‘tone-deaf people’? or Metallica and Black Sabbath were ‘great jokes’?… what else Keith?
I don’t know what’s going on in his world but he may be under the influence of many different things because he can’t stop saying the strangest things. His latest? He declared to the Mirror that his daughters Theodora, 30, and Alexandra, 28 should snort his ashes: I’ll give them a straw,’ he said.
Of course everyone will remember that Keith admitted smoking his dad’s ashes?? I have always thought it was an urban legend, but he totally said that in a 2007 interview: ‘The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared, he didn’t give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.’
In 2010 he changed his story a bit: ‘I opened dad’s ashes, and some blew over the table. I asked, should I desecrate them with a broom? So I wet me finger and I shoved a bit of me dad up me f****** ‘ooter. I’m sure he’s still blessing me. The rest I put round a tree.’
So why not turn this into a family tradition? Is it a shocking idea or is it because he has a new solo album to promote? Richards is about to release ‘Crosseyed Heart’, his first solo LP in 23 years, on September 18th and of course any publicity is good even when you already are a stoned Stone.