Keith Richards Reaction To Sex Pistols’ “Retire” Comment

By the time Black and Blue was published by The Rolling Stones in 1976, the reception was everything but the heralded return the band had hoped for. Instead, skeptics mourned that the band that was beyond its prime.

By then, Classic Rock’s John Ingham met up with Keith Richards in the dressing room after their April 1976 performance in Frankfurt to discuss their newest record. Ingham became involved after fellow writer Charles Shaar Murray was criticized by Richards and Jagger for writing a lackluster review of the new record.

For the past few months, he had been in the company of the music industry’s up-and-coming stars, and, though his judgement may have been impaired by the various drugs being passed around, he felt compelled to share quite a controversial message to Richards.

“Keith, there’s a band in London called the Sex Pistols. They think you’re old and should stop playing and get out the way,” he told Classic Rock. You can bet that the guitarist had some sort of reaction to this; as Ingham says that the musician looked like he had “ultrasheen eyes glaring and just below the surface a volcano was erupting.”

Richards’s response did not sound like that of a man who was ready to retire his plectrums. Let them try, he told Ingham. “We’re the Rolling Stones. No one tells us what to do. We’ll stop when we feel like it.”

Half a century later, the Stones are still going, signifying their greatness as a group.