Keith Richards spoke frankly about old friend Eric Clapton's strictly anti-vaxxer public stance and his negative takes on how the government's pandemic restrictions affect the gathering of crowds.
During an appearance on Rolling Stone's Music Now podcast, Richards explained, “I just want to get rid of this damn thing, and the only way I can see us doing it is everybody does as the doctor says. I love Eric dearly. I've known him since forever, and we've had ups and downs. This Covid thing, it's split people up and made people sometimes go awry for a while, y'know? Hope you rethink here and let’s do this thing.”
Richards went on to speak about the growing cultural divide in and around the Covid vaccines, admitting, “I don't understand quite why some people are getting so wound up about it. You wouldn't get wound up about the flu or something, y'know what I mean? And that's even worse. And I'm no doctor, but hey, this thing works in various nasty ways on people, and we all have to bear with each other. We all have to have a little sympathy.”
Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones have known each other since 1963 when Clapton's band the Yardbirds and the Stones shared management and the Yardbirds took over the Stones' residency at Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England.
Clapton told us he admires the way Keith Richards followed the lead of their blues idols and grown old making music: “I've read some good interviews where he'd said all he wanted to do was to grow up with this thing, y'know, instead of just leaving it, y'know, as if it was part of his adolescence. Grow up with it, y'know? And I think that's really an important attitude to have, and I think it caught with the rest of them. And I see. . . they're all such great musicians, and I don't think they really counted themselves as that before. And in this day and age, when the, the musician is actually a dying breed, I think they've all come to realize their worth.”
Eric Clapton will next perform on May 7th and 8th at London's Royal Albert Hall.
The Rolling Stones kicks off their European tour on June 1st in Madrid, Spain at Wanda Metropolitano Stadium.
