Keith Richards remembers the period in the early 1970s when the Rolling Stones were working on Exile on Main St as a fairly down time. The parts he remembers at all, that is.
That's partly due to the fact that the recording sessions took place as the Stones guitarist and songwriter's heroin habit took hold in a big way, a habit that took him nearly a decade to shake. But it wasn't strictly the drugs he was referring to when he spoke recently about that fabled phase in his and the group's life.
It's a period he and Mick Jagger have been revisiting in depth while preparing an elaborate new reissue of the landmark Exile double album as well as a new 60-minute documentary of that period, Stones in Exile, to be screened today in Cannes as part of the fest's Directors Fortnight.
Video: Exile On Main Street 2010 - From The Production Line
"The word ‘debauchery' comes up an awful lot," Richards, 66, said with a sly chuckle. "Drugs did too — there was quite a bit of that. But when you're making a record, you're totally focused on that. You don't really consider what else is going on; you don't have time for it. Debauchery is the last thing on your mind ... I'm down in a bunker trying to make a record."
Relocated
There was a siege mentality to the making of Exile, recorded as it was mostly in a foreign environment after the band members relocated to the South of France to avoid paying massive income tax bills back home in England. Richards rented Villa Nellcote, a 19th century mansion in Villefranche-sur-Mer, Nice, that had been used by the Gestapo during the Second World War, which added to the dark undercurrent.
By the time the band decamped for Los Angeles to put finishing touches on the basic tracks recorded in the mansion's basement, the band felt relief. "It was a joy to get to LA after being locked down in that bunker for months," Richards said, adding with an edgy laugh: "Tell it to Hitler. "
In fact, the Main St of the title refers to the downtown Los Angeles thoroughfare.
Most of the Stones' catalogue has been remastered and reissued at various times over the years. But the arrival of an expanded reissue of Exile on Main St, including 10 bonus tracks recorded around the same time, constitutes a big event in any Stones fan's book.
When Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2003, Exile ranked No 7.
Jagger has dissed Exile periodically, grousing at various times about the way his vocals were buried in the sonic mix. "I don't really have a favourite Stones album, to be honest," Jagger, also 66, said in a separate interview. "You have songs you like one day, songs you like on another day... but there's not one [album] I treasure above all others. It depends on what you're in the mood for. But Exile is very good.... It's got a lot to offer, there's a lot of depth in it and it holds up."
When Jagger called three-time Grammy-winning producer Don Was last year looking for assistance in assembling the Exile bonus material, it was the lifelong Stones fan's dream come true.
Was, who's on tap to discuss the reissue on June 3 at the Grammy Museum, first saw the band live at age 12 in Detroit on their first US tour in 1964; decades later the group enlisted him to produce Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon, Stripped, Live Licks and A Bigger Bang.
"Mick called up and asked me to help, almost as if it were a chore," Was, 57, said. "I'm just glad he couldn't see me salivating over the phone. Whatever you think of Exile, it's become so ingrained in the musical vocabulary of all rock 'n' roll musicians who have come subsequently.... That thing is seminal."
Indeed, Jagger said he was happy for the attention. "When Universal got the catalogue, they said, ‘We want to put out the albums with special rereleases —Would you help us?' And when you say OK, you know it's never going to be like two weeks' work .... A lot of the work could be delegated to other people, but when it comes down to it, you've got to put your back into it and pick the best things. But I quite enjoyed the result."
Richards' instructional note to Was was unequivocal about his philosophy on how to handle the previously unreleased material.
"At the very beginning, Keith sent me a fax in calligraphy script with a whole lot of flair," Was said. "It just said, ‘Don't try to make it sound like Exile — it is Exile. The idea was to do as absolutely little as possible, and not try to reinvent the wheel. Keith said, ‘Don't rewrite the Bible.'"
Despite well-chronicled clashes between Jagger and Richards over the years, the creative chemistry that's allowed the team to endure for nearly half a century was undeniable to those who witnessed it in action.
"During the recording of Exile on Main Street, I was given unlimited access by the Stones," photographer Jim Marshall wrote in a recollection of the LA sessions on his website before he died in March.
"Jagger could be in the control room and start to say something to Keith," Marshall noted, "and before the words even came out of his mouth, Keith was doing it on the guitar. I've been to a lot of sessions, but I've never seen two guys work in sync this way before."
Said Was: "I'll go with that, absolutely. Whoever coined that term, ‘the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world,' they really are.
"This is from someone who's followed them closely since the beginning," Was said. "In many ways, they are better than anyone."
