Keith Richards has partaken in more madcap capers than most. Even giving the great Hunter S. Thompson a run for his money, for a long time, The Rolling Stones guitarist was the living embodiment of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
The manifestation of living life on the edge, alongside the many musical successes Richards has experienced, the guitarist’s oscillating life has been a source of much fascination. From his many brushes with death to tearing it up with his bandmates and other peers, such as the Texan hellraiser Bobby Keys, it really is a miracle that Richards has made it as far as he has.
Back when Richards was at his most hedonistic in the late 1960s, one tipple he particularly enjoyed was LSD. In just one year, 1967, the 12 months that the counterculture asserted its dominance, psychedelic rock enjoyed its most fruitful period, and acid-taking was at its peak; Richards had two insane wild rides with the drug.
This is something he recounts in his compelling 2010 memoir, Life. Throughout 1967 and the following year, Richards says he heavily experimented with the burgeoning psychedelics. In the book, though, there is one LSD trip he pinpoints as being particularly dumbfounding. One day in 1967, he met up with one of his generation’s most prominent figures, The Beatles frontman John Lennon, and set out on an “acid-fueled road trip”, which took place over two or three days and saw them get as far as the southwestern coastal towns of Lyme Regis and Torquay.
In the autobiography, Richards relies on the memory of Norwegian model Kari Ann Moller, the wife of Stones frontman Mick Jagger’s younger brother, Chris. Supposedly, Richards and Lennon drove around in circles and, at one point, visited Lennon’s country house, where they dropped in and “said hi to [Lennon’s wife] Cynthia”. However, in a testament to how out of their minds they were, when the pair met up years later in New York, Richards claims that the Liverpudlian asked him, “What happened on that trip?” Like a British equivalent to the story of Raoul Duke and Doctor Gonzo, no one will ever know what actually went down.
The second anecdote centres around the enchanting Redlands estate in Sussex that Richards purchased for £20,000 in 1966. Famously, though, this serene sanctuary would be obliterated only a matter of months later when a large-scale drug bust took place with 20 officers on the scene. It could not have been a worse time for Richards, Jagger, and the frontman’s girlfriend, popstar Marianne Faithfull, who were on the tail end of a day’s acid trip.
“There’s a knock on the door, I look out the window, and there’s this whole lot of dwarves outside,” Richards recalls in his memoir. “I’d never been busted before, and I’m still on acid.” It was later revealed to the trio that the police had been given their information by a tabloid, who had in turn, received their tip from a surprising place: Richards’ driver. However, regarding the traitor, he caveated: “He never walked the same again”.
It was after this raid that the notorious and erroneous rumour emerged that the police had interrupted an orgy. What actually happened was that the confused Richards politely opened the door, with the officers finding what Faithfull described as “a scene of pure domesticity”. Regardless, The Rolling Stones duo eventually received small prison sentences that were later overturned. “How the Mars bar got into the story, I don’t know,” Richards added. “It shows you what’s in people’s minds.”
