The Day Keith Richards was Interviewed by Hunter S. Thompson

I’m just old enough to remember the last bit of Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo journalism days at Rolling Stone. I was too young to understand the real messages of books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I knew I like the man because he was so…bent. I mean, who writes like this?

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

And then there was his brilliant description of the music industry.

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

(Sadly, the above quote is a fiction, but never mind.)

Imagine, then, what it might have been like the day Hunter met Keef. It actually happened. (Via The Daily Beast)

https://youtu.be/0UKBQgR97R8