Mick Jagger recalls meeting The Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards and the one shared passion they had

A passion shared by both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards helped kindle the start of their friendship and ultimately the band.

The Rolling Stones‘ frontman and guitarist have enjoyed a close relationship for years. While it hasn’t been without its highs and lows, the pair has stuck together for decades and are still collaborating today. The longevity of their friendship is built on a simple, shared passion, according to Jagger. The veteran frontman says it’s all down to a love of music, obvious that may be, but specifically the rhythm and blues. While The Rolling Stones would create plenty in that genre, the rarity of the records Richards and Jagger would share with one another kindled what would become as famous a songwriting partnership as John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Jagger shared as much about his decades-long friendship with Richards in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. He told founder Jann Wenner that the pair were destined to be in a band together as he naturally drifted toward singing, and Richards to the guitar. Jagger said: “Keith always played the guitar, even when he was five. And he was keen on country music, cowboys.

“But obviously at some point, Keith, he had this guitar with this electric guitar pickup. And he played it for me. So I said, ‘Well, I sing, you know? And you play the guitar.’ Very obvious stuff. I used to play Saturday night shows with all these different little groups.

“If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things – you know, I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground – when I was fifteen, sixteen years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren’t educated people.”

But their relationship goes further back than that, way back to stamp collecting and schoolboy encounters for the two. Jagger added: “Keith and I went to different schools when we were 11, but he went to a school which was really near where I used to live. But I always knew where he lived, because my mother would never lose contact with anybody, and she knew where they’d moved.

“I used to see him coming home from his school, which was less than a mile away from where I lived. And then – this is a true story – we met at the train station. And I had these rhythm & blues records, which were very prized possessions because they weren’t available in England then. And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, these are really interesting.’ That kind of did it. That’s how it started, really.”

Music would be the difference maker in their friendship, with Jagger saying it is what attracted other friends into their circle. He added: “We started to go to each other’s house and play these records. And then we started to go to other people’s houses to play other records. You know, it’s the time in your life when you’re almost stamp-collecting this stuff.”