Keith Richards Quotes

The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.

Well I guess I like variety pretty much, but I do enjoy this work very much. Particularly with Buddy on the gig, we get a chance to knock each other out It'just wonderful.

Without a doubt, even when I play with Black Label, when we have different guys I play with, everyone always brings their own magic, their own flavor to the soup, hands down.

John was great to work with, and a lot of fun. I wish I'd had the chance to make more music with him, of course, and to get to know him better.

We're five people, five individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect circle.

I just think that with music, it's kind of like life, and so the people you work with, you generally develop a relationship. You don't have to try to explain things. You just know. It's like you're in the band together and striving for the same goal.

The wonderful thing about rock music is even if you hate the other person, sometimes you need him more, you know. In other words if he's the guy that made that sound, he's the guy that made that sound, and without that guy making that sound, you don't have a band, you know.

People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.

For the sound we produce, everybody is equally important. Each of us has a very different personality and that is what keeps Bush alive.

Chemistry cannot be manufactured or forced, so Wild Flag was not a sure thing, it was a 'maybe,' a 'possibility.' But after a handful of practice sessions, spread out over a period of months, I think we all realized that we could be greater than the sum of our parts.

I just want to make the best music of all time with my best friends.

With Rihanna, it's always a collaboration, and that's why I love her so much.

The limitations and parameters of a band is something I've always enjoyed: so many creative people coming together and raising the music to places we'd never get on our own.

I had always been aware of George's importance to me, of the bond of friendship and of the sparkle and light, effervescence and electricity that suffused the music we made.

It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.

Being in a band is a really magical thing because you've got a family and you operate as this one entity. It's very democratic; everyone is involved in the output. But within that, there can be a lot of disagreements and strife.

I walk into the studio and we're all so happy to see each other.

The most important thing is to follow your instinct and get involved with some friends who have similar tastes and aspirations and like music as much as you do.

Sometimes one of us will have a riff or a bass line from home but it really gels when we come together. We really have a strong special chemistry that we take advantage of when we get together.

Bands are about these little relationships that make everything tick, and when you create new music you're testing those relationships.

As an improviser I'm now pretty comfortable with trios, so I'm thinking of working up to quartets.

I admire people who can step out on their own and work alone - that takes a lot of guts. But I'd rather have the camaraderie on and off camera of working as a part of a group.

We'd like to think that our music will always be bigger than any one of our individual personalities.

I think there's a natural chemistry between us as friends; and there's really no separation between the rapport that we feel when we're in conversation and when we're playing music, it's one in the same.