Keith Richards says he ‘had to be held at gunpoint’ to make a third solo album

Keith Richards says he had to be “held at gunpoint” to write and record a third solo album.

While The Rolling Stones‘ long-serving guitarist has had success as a solo artist, both in the 1980s and mid-2010s, he seems to prefer working with the Mick Jagger-fronted band. When asked about what took him so long to make a follow-up to Main Offender, Richards was frank with his response. The 1992 release was received well at the time and even received an updated, anniversary pressing, which featured live album cuttings. Despite the favourable response, it would take Richards more than two decades to get back into the studio without Jagger and Ronnie Wood there with him. In an interview promoting the release of his third album, Crosseyed Heart, Richards said he had not been keen on making a third solo album.

But fans may be glad he did as the album serves as a continuation to his vintage blues-rock sound. The Rolling Stones’ brief split in the 1980s prompted Richards to pursue the style which had been such a staple of the band’s best releases. Talk is Cheap, Richards’ debut solo album, released in 1988 to solid reviews. His two follow-ups received similar praise from critics but it was never the intention from Richards to release any solo works.

His third album proved to be a real effort for the guitarist, who told MOJO Magazine: “No… I realised that it’s been a long time since I’d taken myself outside of the Rolling Stones’ shack. It’s funny because there’s one part of you saying, (piratey voice) ‘You’re being disloyal!’ Then you got the other Stones thinking, ‘You’re crazy, why do you need to go out and do that?’ And I didn’t really need to do it, I just enjoyed doing it.

“It’s an interesting way to work, just me and Steve [Jordan], which makes it fairly cheap. There’s none of the logistics involved in getting a whole band together, and after a while it started to fall into a nice groove. Steve has to take an awful lot of the credit for getting this album together. I almost have to be held at gunpoint to do solo stuff – someone has to persuade me very convincingly to do it.”

Despite needing to be convinced to make music on his own with a weapon brandished in front of him, Richards’ solo efforts remain a highly regarded part of his discography, which rivals much of his work with The Rolling Stones. Richards would go on to contribute a song to a Lou Reed tribute album, The Power of the Heart, in 2021. It is so far his last solo album effort, with the veteran guitarist featuring on three Rolling Stones albums since Crosseyed Heart. Those albums are Blue and Lonesome, Hackney Diamonds, and Foreign Tongues.