“The time to stop is when you can’t do it anymore. There’s no passing of the goddamn torch…” Keith Richards: The Guitar Player Interview, 1983

The Rolling Stones release their 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues, today, so it seems like the right time to visit this classic interview with Keith Richards from April 1983. It was a good time for the Stones. As GP Editor Tom Wheeler wrote in his original intro (abridged below), “In most respects the Stones have few peers, and in terms of sheer durability they have none, having somehow survived at or near the top of the rockpile for the last two-thirds of rock and roll’s entire history.

“They’ve gone the distance and still pack a heavyweight punch: Their latest albums (Tattoo You and the live concert LP Still Life) are among their most vital works, and their most recent tour was astonishingly successful – four million fans applied for the New York tickets alone.” Who would have thought that 43 years later, they would still be doing it?

Back in 1964 when Lennon and McCartney wanted to hold your hand, Jagger and Richards were walkin’ the dog. Constantly compared to the Beatles and often to The Who, the Rolling Stones staked out their original turf with gritty music and a don’t-mess-with-me stance. The Beatles disintegrated a dozen years ago, and the Who say they’ve unpacked their road cases for the last time. The Stones are in the studio, and they’re not about to bid farewell to anyone.

Keith Richards stands in the eye of the hurricane. Around him swirls a rock and roll empire with 20 years history and mystery, success and excess, acclaim and controversy. He and his mates have been called many things by discerning critics and impassioned fans. One description recurs: The World’s Greatest Rock And Roll Band.

Some reasons for all this are apparent. First, Keith’s confederates could hardly be more impressive: Mick Jagger, rock’s most prominent singer; guitarist Ron Wood, already a star when he joined the group in 1975; plus a drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman, a powerhouse rhythm section revered the world over by fans and fellow musicians alike. Other strengths are equally obvious – the consistently fine Jagger/Richards compositions, the dynamic arrangements, the meticulous recording. Just as important is the way Keith Richards changes chords from G to C.

The band is built around a two-guitar sound, itself an extension of Richards’ own uniqueness. He helped blur forever the line between lead and rhythm guitar, substituting a riffing technique in which melodic embellishments are grafted onto a vigorous rhythmic treatment of chords, partial chords, and low-register lines. He often employs a 5-string open tuning (with or without capo) that facilitates adding the melodic notes to a major chord–particularly the 4th, the 6th, and the 9th. Among many examples, “Brown Sugar” is a classic killer.

Keith’s most obvious influence is Chuck Berry. The original “Carol” is a textbook of Berry’s double-string licks and was covered on The Rolling Stones, the debut album. Keith has had a taste for Berry flavoring ever since. Perhaps his most highly stylized nod to the St. Louis rocker is his long solo in “Bitch,” where Keith repeatedly turns the beat around, turns it inside out – weaving through the horns, sneaking up on the back-beat, making the style his own.

Chuck Berry adapted boogie-woogie piano techniques for the guitar’s lower register, and this distinctive two-string rhythm pattern became another Stones staple. Richards made his mark on its development by sometimes slowing it down, piledriving the downbeat, and stoking up the tone to a grand raunch: a-ronk a-ronk a-ronk.

Richards’ role in the group has been analyzed countless times. The consensus: Without Keith Richards there wouldn’t be a Rolling Stones. Ron Wood explains, “In other bands they follow the drummer; the Stones follow Keith, and they always have.” While some have even asserted that “Keith Richards is the Rolling Stones,” the guitarist himself is the first to stress that any band member’s indispensability is a two-way street: “The musicians are there to serve the band. All that matters is whether something furthers the overall sound.”

Keith’s vision is rooted in a keen awareness of the power of the guitar – acoustic or electric – not only as a rhythm or solo instrument, but as a musical paintbrush capable of immense sonic canvases. He conceives a complex sound and knows how to get it. And yet to him a piece of music, like a real band, is a living, breathing creature existing apart from his conception of it. So while a particular project may be planned, Keith’s sense of the music’s own inherent magic keeps him flexible and spontaneous, adjusting as he goes.

On many contemporary recording sessions, musicians are put in compartments to minimize leakage (one instrument “leaking” into another’s microphone), and the result is a compressed sound that fills every niche. Stones records are virtual opposites, roaring with heavy artillery but airy and spacious as well. While every sound counts, the spaces, the holes, are no less important.